Forge is one of my spirit characters. I'm a huge Forge fan because I love technology, machinery, cybernetics and geoengineering, and the idea of somebody whose mutant ability le…

Forge is one of my spirit characters. I'm a huge Forge fan because I love technology, machinery, cybernetics and geoengineering, and the idea of somebody whose mutant ability lets him figure out how to build almost anything is something that immediately appeals to me. His main power is an intuitive ability to invent. He can work out how to create technology in a way that goes beyond being somebody who's studied engineering and happens to be very good at it. His mutation helps him find the way to make an idea work. That's a broad ability, and where I'm at in the story, it makes him feel like a wild card because there are so many different problems he can approach with it. But he still has to build the thing. He needs materials, and the work takes time. The fight with the Reavers on Muir Island makes that especially clear. He has a weapon that can take one of them down, but getting it ready isn't instantaneous. Knowing what needs to be made and having it finished when everyone needs it are two different problems. That gives his power a limitation you can actually see affecting the story. His own body is one of the clearest examples of what he can accomplish. He built the replacements for his missing hand and leg, and those aren't just something mentioned in his background and forgotten. That technology becomes useful in other situations too. When he and Storm are trapped in another world, he uses components from his artificial leg as part of the work that eventually restores her abilities. Then you have his detection equipment, holographic systems, weapons and security work. Even his home introduces him through technology that can make people question what they're actually looking at. There isn't one single kind of machine that defines him. You see the same talent being used for his living space, his own mobility, a battlefield problem or helping someone else. And he has magical abilities as well. Naze trained him when he was younger, and even though Forge spent years avoiding that side of himself, we've already seen it become necessary. He can perceive things that ordinary senses miss, and his spellcasting is central to the fight against the Adversary. That's separate from his mutant invention ability, which is something worth keeping straight when talking about everything he can do. The neutralizer is probably the biggest example so far of one of his inventions changing somebody else's life. It was used against Rogue, but Storm was the one who took the blast and lost her powers. That affected Ororo for a very long time. She had to deal with losing her connection to the weather and figure out who she was without something that had always been there. What stood out to me was how much development came out of that. It wasn't finished after one issue. Her insecurities, her recovery and the different ways she rebuilt herself continued across a long stretch of stories. She even defeated Cyclops in their contest for leadership while she was still powerless. Forge eventually helped restore what she'd lost, but there was a lot of life and change between those two points. He has affected the X-family in plenty of other ways too. He's fought beside them, helped protect Muir Island and gone searching for the missing team with Banshee. His inventions can help keep people alive, and his mistakes and the misuse of his work can have consequences that follow everyone for years. There's a lot more to discuss with him than a list of gadgets. I do know that later stories go further into his abilities and develop the explanations around them. I'm looking forward to reading that for myself, rather than jumping ahead and treating things I haven't read as part of my current experience. Right now, I love how much possibility there is in what he can build. I've loved everything I've read of him so far, and he's one of the characters who's stuck with me the most.