Character biography
Born Evan Daniels, Spyke is an African American, a high-school freshman, and has the mutant ability to project spikes out of his body. Born in New York, New York to an unknown father and Vivian Daniels, he is the nephew of Ororo Munroe (Storm) of the X-Men. His mutant powers are first noticed by Storm during one of his high school basketball games. The next night Storm, along with Cyclops and Jean Grey, approached Evan's parents about his mutant powers and offered him attendance to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Evan angrily declines on his own behalf and leaves.
Only when Charles Xavier uses his pull to help Evan get out of prison (where he is serving time wrongly convicted of a crime)does he join the X-Men and the school under the codename Spyke. Spyke settles the score with Quicksilver (whom is actual perpetrator of the crime Spyke was jailed for) when he, Cyclops, and Jean defeat the speedy mutant. Spyke is cleared of all charges when he catches Quicksilver's arrogant confession on tape. During his tenure with the X-Men, Spyke did not want any special treatment from anyone at the school because he was Storm's nephew. Though he liked being an X-Man and thought of them as his family, Spyke at times acted selfishly and inconsiderate of others.
Spyke would goof around in class and on at least one occasion ditched school mid-class to go skateboarding with his human friends. He also was late for several training exercises in the Danger Room resulting in him getting reprimanded by Storm.
Powers and abilities
Spyke can extend or retract bone spikes that grow from inside his body. He may shoot them out or bring them out to use as melee weapons. Spyke nas been shown to need to drink milk to replace the calcium that he loses when using his powers. [2] Spyke is an excellent skateboarder, and has been known to integrate his skateboarding prowess into battles.
As the series progressed,Spyke's abilities grew also. He gained the ability to light the ends of the spikes on fire, form protective "armor" plates around his body, and extend small spikes from the soles of his feet which allowed him to scale and stick to walls (ala Spiderman). However, he is now unable to fully retract his projections. In this form, Spyke no longer uses his skateboard.
in other media
Comics
- A student at the Xavier Institute named Spike appeared in New X-Men #126 near-simultaneously following the debut of Spyke on X-Men: Evolution.
A member of X-Force (later X-Statix) named The Spike was introduced in X-Force #121 near-simultaneously following the debut of Spyke on X-Men: Evolution.
- Only appeared in the X-Men: Evolution tv series and was one of the X-men. He was voiced by Neil Denis.
Notes
A character similar to Spyke was seen in the film X-Men: the Last Stand. Called "Quills", this Brotherhood member was able to extend and retract porcupine-like quills from any point on his body.
Trivia
- Spyke had a considerably negative fan reaction from older X-Men fans due to similarities he has to the comic book character Marrow, a pre-existing character with similar powers, though the show's producer Boyd Kirkland says this wasn't intentional.
- The character was originally created as a way to diversify the show's X-Men roster. It was important to the show's creators, the WB network (who ran the show) and Marvel Comics to have an African American in the show