Elixir (character)

Elixir (Joshua "Josh" Foley) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is usually depicted as a student at the Xavier Institute.

Publication history
He first appeared in New Mutants vol. 2 #5 and was created by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, and Keron Grant.

Powers and abilities
Elixir is an Omega-level mutant, capable of controlling the biological structure of any organic matter including his own body. He must be in proximity to whomever he uses his power on. Besides healing, he is capable of boosting and restoring mutant abilities, causing painful boils and welts to appear, manipulating the life-forces of others, creating tumors, curing the Legacy Virus, causing death, and cleansing the body of drugs. Later, after his powers were expanded radically, he could even cure the M-Pox. The Stepford Cuckoos telepathically copied and transferred the Beast's knowledge of anatomy, biology, and genetics into Josh's mind, allowing him the knowledge to heal virtually any malady.

Because of his control over his own biology, Elixir has proven to be very difficult to treat medically. He usually passes out after pushing his powers too far and remains in a coma for some time. Elixir is also virtually immortal as although he can be killed, his powers grant him the ability to resurrect himself, as well as the ability to be reborn into a new body. He can even regenerate on a cellular level.

Since his rebirth, Elixir's powers evolved to the point of bring people back from the dead as seen as when he was able to affect the 16 million deceased mutants on Genosha at once, and although it quickly drained him out of energy and he passed out, Monet and Magneto speculated, that Elixir was fully capable of resurrecting them all but at the cost of his sanity.

He is also able to detect abnormalities in living beings: he detected techo-organic cells in Angel's body, detected Emplate in Monet's body and even sensed the effect of magical inversion on Sabretooth. When Josh started to cure the M-Pox he felt that the disease was afraid of him.

New X-Men: Too Much Information
When David learns of a mental block within his head that prevents him from keeping the information he absorbs permanently, he asks for Emma Frost's aid in removing it. Working with Dani Moonstar, they show David a possible future outcome because of the mental blocks' removal. After leaving the Xavier Institute, David promises to help Josh find the full potential of his powers. Months later after establishing his own business, Josh is used to create a cure to both cancer and AIDS. Although successful, it comes at the cost of his life.

House of M
In the House of M reality, Josh was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., serving alongside Agent Kevin Ford (Wither) as interrogator. Foley and Ford were in charge of "persuading" Cameron Hodge, a member of the Human Liberation Front, to reveal the location of his terrorist cell. Josh uses his power to "speed up the body's biological functions," and combined with Agent Ford's power, they are able to create a net effect that causes a part of the terrorist to die and then regenerate, which Foley describes as "quite painful". Before Ford and Foley begin torturing Hodge, Agent Noriko Ashida (Surge) interrupts them, prompting Ford and Foley to attack her. She incapacitates them both but Foley manages to use his power to rupture her blood vessels and cause her lungs to fill with blood.

In popular culture

 * Elixir is referenced in the MC chris song, "Nrrrd Grrrl": "She's more like a wallflower, Like the one that Stryker sniped, I'm like Elixir when I'm with her, 'Cause I think I like her type."