Michael Nowlan

The Source (Michael Nowlan) is a fictional mutant character in the Marvel Comics Universe. His first appearance was in X-Factor vol. 1 #5.

Fictional character biography
Michael Nowlan and his wife Susan were both heroin addicts before he was drafted into the Viet Nam Conflict in his late teens. His mutant ability manifested itself during the war, but it was not until his detoxification in a military drug rehabilitation center that they became apparent. Upon meeting another former soldier, the man who would become Timeshadow, his power caused the man's temporal duplicate power to surface. Following this event, word spread about his ability to enhance mutant energies, and other mutants began to seek him out. Mutants became hooked on the power and used whatever means they could to force him to enhance their powers. Nowlan found that the only way to stop this was to stay narcotized on heroin, which retarded the energy transfer. However, staying drugged caused him to lose his job, his health, and his wife, who had cleaned up her act after the war and gotten a decent job.

At some point, Nowlan was discovered and became a pawn of the mutant known as Apocalypse. Apocalypse designed a machine to feed Nowlan's addiction, as well as to reverse it as needed to utilize his power. He used his power to enhance the abilities of his field agents at the time, the Alliance of Evil.

Nowlan eventually escaped from Apocalypse and was pursued by the Alliance. He sought the aid of his ex-wife, Susan, who refused to get involved with his drug addiction or his mutant antagonists. Susan contacted the group X-Factor, who were at the time posing as mutant-hunters to allow themselves to locate and help mutants. Susan attempted to flee town, but was captured by the Alliance, who sought to use her to locate Michael and force him to help them.

X-Factor located Nowlan and helped him recover from a near overdose. They made plans to help him, but the Alliance arrived and threatened Susan if he refused to enhance them. He complied, allowing them to easily overpower X-Factor and escape with both Michael and Susan back to Apocalypse's base.

Apocalypse returned Nowlan to his machine, where he enhanced the Alliance's powers, allowing them to again overpower X-Factor when they arrived. Susan attempted to flee the chaos, but she was killed by a blast from Stinger. Enraged, Michael drew all of the energy back into himself, allowing X-Factor to triumph at the cost of his own life. His body was unable to contain all of the additional energy and he died, feeling the world was better off without him.

Powers and abilities
Radiates pulses of energy that supercharge superhuman abilities or drives them out of their owner's control. This energy is highly addictive.

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