Doug Ramsey actually ended up becoming one of the most interesting characters in the New Mutants, but not by virtue of anything the young superhero codenamed Cypher brought to the table. When he was "resurrected" in a merged form with fellow deceased alien friend Warlock - making the imaginatively-named Douglock - that was pretty cool, and his recent, more legit reanimation has come with a secondary mutation which makes Cypher a powerful telepath with super-synathesia which lets him interpret the world purely as language. All of this is really just overcompensating for the fact that Doug was originally saddled with a pretty useless superpower, especially amongst his New Mutant kin. To begin with, Cypher's mutant ability was that he could understand any language. He was the living embodiment of Google Translate, the C-3PO of the X-Men, and when it came to battling the world's more malevolent mutant menaces, that was about as useful as it sounds. And to make matters worse, even Doug knew it.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
