The Morlocks
The Morlocks were a community of mutants who
considered themselves outcasts from society and
rebelled against it. Their leader, Callisto named them
after the subterranean race depicted by H. G. Wells in
his novel The Time Machine.
The Morlocks lived in a network of tunnels beneath
New York City and beneath much of the surrounding
area in New York State, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
The tunnels were constructed in the 1950s by the United
States government for its and the military's use in case of
nuclear war, but were later abandoned by both. The
Morlocks called the main tunnel, which runs the length of
Manhattan, "the Alley."
The Alley was discovered by Callisto, who made her
home there and then found another mutant, Caliban,
who had the psionic ability to locate other superhumanly
powerful mutants. Using Caliban's power,
Callisto gathered together a large community of mutants
who considered themselves to be social outcasts, and
they became known as the Morlocks. As signs of
rebellion, many recruits to the Morlock community had
their physical appearance distorted by the powers of the
Morlock called Masque.
Members of the Morlocks included Callisto, Caliban,
Sunder, Annalee, Ape, Beautiful Dreamer, Blow-Hard,
Cybelle, Erg, Healer, Leech, Masque, Piper, Plague,
Scaleface, Skids, Tar Baby, and Tommy, among many
others.
The genetic engineer Mister Sinister decided to
exterminate the Morlocks. He hired the mutant outlaw
Gambit to assemble a team of superhuman mutants who
worked as assassins, who became known as the
Marauders. Despite
opposition from the X-Men, the original X-Factor, the
New Mutants, and Power Pack, the Marauders
slaughtered the majority of the Morlock population.
The members of the X-Men and the original X-Men
got some of the Morlocks to safety, and a considerable
number of other Morlocks managed to escape the
Marauders.
Years later, the insane mutant Mikhail Rasputin,
decided to try to redeem himself for the people he had
killed in the past by committing suicide, and relieve the
suffering of the Morlocks by killing them as well. He seemingly killed himself and the
other Morlocks by telekinetically flooding the Morlock
tunnels.
However, Rasputin had used his mutant powers to
teleport himself and certain members of the Morlocks to
another dimension, which he called "the Hill." There time
passed more swiftly, and decades passed while mere
months elapsed back on Earth. During that time a new,
younger generation of Morlocks grew up, whom
Rasputin trained to become a terrorist army called Gene
Nation. He intended that Gene Nation would take
vengeance on humanity for their oppression of mutants.
Callisto returned to warn the X-Men about Gene
Nation's plans to avenge the massacre of the Morlocks.
Arriving on Earth, Gene Nationalists led by Marrow
hijacked a subway car with the intent of killing a human
being for every Morlock who had died in the tunnels. Storm seemingly killed Marrow in
combat, and the other members of Gene Nation
vanished.
Subsequently, Mikhail Rasputin transported Storm to
the Hill. She forced him to teleport her and all of Gene
Nation to Earth, and she sent Gene Nation to live in a
small village in Africa. As for Marrow, she had survived
and she is currently a member of the X-Men.