MANIKIN
Real Name: Whitman Knapp
Group Affiliation: Former member of Beta Flight
First Appearance: Alpha Flight #43
Creator: Bill Mantlo, David Ross & June Brigman

        Whitman Knapp first became known to Alpha Flight while he was working as an intern with Dr. Lionel Jeffries, a.k.a Scramble, the Mixed-Up Man. Knapp stated at the time that he had decided to work with Dr. Jeffries because of admiration for his capabilities, despite Jeffries having lost his medical license years before.

        When Jeffries' sanity finally snapped for good, he turned on Knapp, transforming Whit with his abilities. Jeffries revealed that the only reason he had allowed Knapp to be around was because Knapp had potential super-human abilities. Expressing disappointment that those abilities had never manifested, Jeffries gave up on the young man and left him to die.

        The stress of these events caused Knapp's abilities to manifest themselves. Whitman split into four beings: a blob of protoplasm, a Cro-Magnon man, Knapp himself, and a highly-evolved humanoid. "Splitting" removed the harmful effects of Scramble's transformation.

        Knapp went on to aid Alpha in their final battle with Scramble, who had changed into the composite creature known as Omega. After the battle he joined the Kara Kilgrave, the Purple Girl in the newly reformed (at that time) Beta Flight. Despite the difference in their ages Whit & Kara began a romance.

        When Alpha rejected funding from the Canadian government and disbanded for the second time, Knapp went back to medicine, severing his relationship with Kara at that time. He had one more encounter with Alpha before the conclusion of the Sorcerer affair led to the reformation of Department H. At that time Knapp joined H as a resident physician.

        Whitman continued to stay away from superhuman activity until the return of Kilgrave, Laura Dean, Witchfire and Goblyn from a distant dimension. While out for a night on the town with the above-mentioned ladies, the group encountered the Master and his new Omega Flight. After the battle Knapp and his companions (including the injured Alphan Talisman) formed the new Beta Flight, which acted as a "secondary" team of adventurers.

        While on Beta's first mission, Knapp was injured by the poisoned claws of the second Jackal. [Compiler's note: I'll bet the creative teams over in Spidey's corner of the MU are trying REAL hard to ignore this Jackal... and hoping most people never heard of him.] As a result, his body spontaneously developed a protective cocoon.

        While in the cocoon Knapp entered telepathic communication with his "evolutionary counterparts" for the first time. When the cocoon was damaged by people invading Department H, the counterparts sacrificed themselves to heal Knapp (reasoning that if he died, they all died anyways.)

        Knapp believed his super-human abilities to be completely gone until a battle with his team-mate, Witchfire, caused his new abilities to manifest themselves. Knapp served with Beta until the team's dissolution following AF v1 #130; his current whereabouts and activities are unknown.

        Whitman Knapp was originally able to "split" into four separate beings: three "evolutionary counterparts" and Knapp himself. The act of "splitting" would not give Knapp any super-human abilities, but "splitting" would heal any injuries than Knapp had sustained prior to the act.

        The three counterparts were a blob of protoplasm, nicknamed "Proto", a Cro-Magnon man called "Ape-Man", and a highly-evolved "future man" who used the name "Highbrow". Each counterpart had its own personality, although all would follow Knapp's spoken orders.

        Proto could "eat" through most substances. Ape-Man was quite a bit stronger and more agile than a normal human. Highbrow possessed numerous mental abilities, including telepathy and teleportation. It's possible that the full range of Highbrow's abilities haven't been seen yet.

        Knapp is now able to transform himself into any of his counterparts. He has lost the ability to have them manifest separate from himself. It should be noted that Knapp does not retain his normal intelligence when he transforms into Proto or Ape-Man, although he seems to maintain a general idea of what he intended to do prior to transforming. Once the task is accomplished Knapp then spontaneously transforms back to his "base" form. Whit is presumably capable of accomplishing more than one task at a time when transformed into Highbrow, as Highbrow has a higher than normal intelligence.

        The source of Knapp's abilities appears to be natural (aka a mutant), since Scramble noticed the potential for such abilities before they manifested themselves.