Steven Lang (character)

Fictional character biography

Dr. Steven Lang is a pioneer in the field of robotics and genetic mutation who hates mutants. An employee of the U.S. government, he is placed in charge of a federal investigation into the origin of genetic mutation. He plans to use his talents to create an army of mutant hunting robots to kill all mutants. To this end, he seeks to get the government to endorse and financially support his operations.

Lang begins by targeting mutant criminals, such as Mesmero. He claims possession of Bolivar Trask's wrecked Sentinel base's resources and is backed by Ned Buckman and the "Council of the Chosen", the secret group in control of the New York Branch of the Hellfire Club prior to Sebastian Shaw's takeover.

Lang desires to defeat his main targets, the X-Men, so he creates the "X-Sentinels", android doubles of Professor X and the original X-Men. However, his androids manage only inferior imitations of the X-Men's powers, and are easily defeated by the real X-Men. Jean Grey telekinetically forces Lang to crash his mini-gunship, leaving him in a coma with severe brain damage.

Lang returns as a member of the Phalanx, a group of humans who had been transformed into techno-organic human-alien hybrids. The transformation process restores Lang's mind, and he becomes the Phalanx's leader. Lang is the only one within the Phalanx to retain his individual human identity. While he is ardent in his desire to see mutants eradicated, he comes to realize the Phalanx are a danger to humans as well. He conspires with the X-Men to destroy the Phalanx citadel on Earth, following which he is dragged to his apparent death by his lieutenant Cameron Hodge.

Lang's corpse is exhumed by the Purifiers and reanimated by Bastion using the Technarchy. He joins a group formed by the foremost anti-mutant leaders under Bastion's control. During the Second Coming storyline, Lang and Graydon Creed are killed by Hope Summers.

Powers and abilities

As a normal human being, Stephen Lang had no superhuman powers. However, he was a genius and pioneer in the field of robotics, with adequate financial resources to fund his operations.

As a member of the Phalanx, he had all of the characteristics of a techno-organic life form: enhanced strength, durability, and agility, ability to re-shape corporeal form at will, and to infect other beings with the techno-organic virus and control infected beings.

Other versions

In the 2009-2010 miniseries X-Men Noir, Lang is a fictional character and lead for Bolivar Trask's pulp sci-fi series, "The Sentinels", who seeks to protect humanity from mutants.

References

References

1. ''[[X-Men (comic book). X-Men]]'' #100 (August 1976)
2. ''[[Uncanny X-Men]]'' #291 (August 1992)
3. ''[[Cable (comic book). Cable]]'' #16 (October 1994)
4. ''[[X-Force (comic book). X-Force]]'' (vol. 3) #3 (June 2008)
5. ''X-Force'' (vol. 3) #28 (September 2010)
6. ''[[X-Men Noir]]'' #3 (April 2009)