RANSOME SOLE
Real Name: Unrevealed, presumably Ransome Sole
Identity/Class: Human mutant (Neo)
Occupation: Criminal
Group Membership: Ransome Sole's organization (Big Casino, Bludgeon, Cudgel, Manacle, Revenant)
Affiliations: Crimson Pirates (Bloody Bess, Broadside, Killian, Sea Dogs), Shockwave Riders (Farahd, Galadriel), Techheads, Tullamore Voge, Warclan (Domina, Elysia, Jaeger, Junction, Rax, Salvo, Tartarus);
formerly Sketch
Enemies: Colonel Alexi Vazhin, Evolutionaries, Simyon Kurasov, Major Debra Levin, Sketch, X-Men (Beast/Henry McCoy, Cable/Nathan Summers, Gambit/Remy LeBeau, Phoenix/Jean Grey, Storm/Ororo Munroe)
Known Relatives: Domina (sister, deceased), unidentified niece (deceased), unidentified parents (deceased), Jaeger (brother-in-law, deceased)
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
formerly Domina's stronghold, abandoned warehouse and Church of St. Michael the Archangel, Brooklyn, New York;
formerly the Slash, Moscow, Russia;
formerly unrevealed hidden city of the Neo, possibly South America or Alaska
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men I#383 (August, 2000)
Powers/Abilities: It's been unrevealed what Ransome Sole's powers entail. Sole, however, did have an excellent business mind; building a slave trading empire from scratch. Sole has several red tattoos on the right side of his neck, overlapping his jaw. While keeping Sketch as his personal slave he wore a large golden chain across his lef wrist.
Height: 6'3" (by approximation)
Weight: 195 lbs. (by approximation)
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blond
History:
(X-Men - Earth's Mutant Heroes - BTS / Uncanny X-Men I#383 - BTS) - When Domina's brother, Ransom Sole went rogue he took several of the Neo with him to Moscow, amongst them were Big Casino, Bludgeon, Cudgel, Manacle and Revenant. In Moscow, Sole ran the Slash, a high end Moscow night club. Sole lured many Russians to his club and allowed them to be kidnapped and taken as slaves.
(Uncanny X-Men I#383 - BTS) - Colonel Alexi Vazhin had sent Major Debra Levin to infiltrate the Slash. When Levin was captured, a team of X-Men (Beast, Cable, Gambit, Phoenix, Storm) offered Vazhin to try and rescue her. Phoenix used her psychic powers to fundamentally change Cable, Gambit and herself to disguise themselves while the Beast went in as himself, a famous Avenger. Storm stayed outside to stay watch.
(Uncanny X-Men I#383) - The X-Men's arrival at the Slash hadn't gone unnoticed as Sole's security systems immediately registered the Beast's presence and struggled to identify Phoenix, Cable and Gambit. Sole's right-hand man Big Casino immediately saw through their act, reasoning the Beast would never go solo. As such Bludgeon, Cudgel, Manacle and Revenant were sent to find and apprehend the X-Men, only Storm managed to escape.
(Uncanny X-Men I#383 - BTS) - The following day Sole received a rather big surprise when well-known Russian mobster Simyon Kurasov delivered none other than Storm. Sole, however, was unaware that Storm was actually a LMD as Kurasov was secretly aiding the X-Men. Hungry for profit, Sole invited both Tullamore Voge and the Shockwave Riders to sell the X-Men in an auction.
(Uncanny X-Men I#383) - Sole was present when Tullamore Voge and the Shockwave Riders took the opportunity to inspect the X-Men before the auction. The mutants had all been turned to living statues by Sole's mutant slave Sketch, still unaware Storm was an LMD. With the LMD taking Storm's place, the real one was free to infiltrate the club and free Debra Levin. She was attacked by Sole's henchmen Bludgeon and Cudgel who she smashed through a wall with her winds, alarming Sole and the others to her presence. In response, Sketch used her powers to turn the Storm LMD's arms into machine guns and attacked Voge and Sole, but the Shockwave Riders quickly defeated the artificial lifeform. Before she was taken out of the fight, Sketch released the X-Men from their captivity allowing them to attack. Realizing he'd been betrayed by Kurasov, Sole grabbed the mobster by his throat ready to kill him when the Beast jumped Sole and pushed his nerve junctions at the right place causing Sole to drop Kurasov. While this was going down, Sketch successfully trapped Voge and his hounds in one of her creations. After Phoenix dealt with Revenant the Shockwave Riders didn't see any point in continuing the fight and openend a teleportation portal taking Sole and the others with them, leaving Voge behind as the X-Men's captive.
(X-Men II#106 - BTS) - Sole and Big Casino joined Domina and her Warclan in an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn.
(X-Men II#106) - Sole and Big Casino watched as Domina fought a group of simulacrums of the X-Men, training for the inevitable battle to come, Sole noted the simulacrums fought as hard as the real X-Men. Once Domina had killed all of them save for Cecilia Reyes, Junction, one of her Warclan, arrived to inform her about a murder scene in the stronghold. Junction teleported Domina to where one of the Techheads had been brutally killed. Curious to see what had happened Sole and young Rax (son of Jaeger) joined the group as well. Reasoning the killer had to be either Cecilia Reyes or Detective Charlotte Jones (who'd been trapped inside the warehouse) Domina sent Rax to find and kill them. The Neo, however, were unaware Rax had enlisted the aid of Rufus Delgado in taking Domina down (Delgado, in turn had been merged with Charlotte Jones due to an accident by Elysia and Tartarus).
(X-Men: Giant-Size#1 - BTS) - Because most Neo lost their powers after M-Day, no live Neo was born for over a year. When new mutants began surfacing, the Guardian Clan invaded Utopia to learn how mutants restarted their race, but the enigmatic Evolutionaries apparently disintegrated them and all other Neo worldwide to protect mutantkind.
Comments: Created by Chris Claremont (writer), Adam Kubert (pencils), Tim Townsend, Dan Panosian (inkers).
The Neo were a society of Homo sapiens superior, an evolutionary offshoot of humanity born with the mutant X-gene, which gave them superhuman abilities. The Neo lived in seclusion for many generations and believed they were superior to humans and other mutants.
In X-Men II#106 (2000) it was revealed that Domina and Sole's parents bloodline reached back to the founding of the Neo.
I've also listed Jaeger under affiliation, although not shown in the issues themselves, as Domina's brother Sole would have known his brother-in-law.
Profile by MarvellousLuke
CLARIFICATIONS:
Ransome Sole has no known connections to
images: (without ads)
Uncanny X-Men I#383, p14, pan2 (mainimage)
Uncanny X-Men I#383, p28, pan3 (closeup)
Uncanny X-Men I#383, p37, pan3 (escaping)
Appearances:
Uncanny X-Men I#383 (August, 2000) - Chris Claremont (writer), Adam Kubert (pencils), Tim Townsend, Dan Panosian (inks), Mark Powers (editor)
X-Men II#106 (November, 2000) - Chris Claremont (writer), Leinil Francis Yu, Thomas Derenick, Anthony Williams (pencilers), Mark Morales, Rick Ketcham, Norm Rapmund (inkers), Mark Powers (editor)
First Posted: 03/18/2019
Last Updated: 03/18/2019
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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