In Bishop’s original timeline, one of the X-Men turned into a traitor who took down the world, and it was the last person the time-traveler expected.
Almost all of the potential futures for heroes like the X-Men give superheroes dark fates. including the future that Bishop originally hails from, where the X-Men were betrayed and wiped out by one of their numbers. After Bishop debuted in Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio and John Byrne’s Uncanny X-Men #282, this was one of the overarching mysteries within X-Men for years.
Now, we’re taking a look back to see which X-Man ultimately betrayed the mutant team in Bishop’s timeline,and how Bishop stopped it.
Bishop’s home timeline, Earth-1191, was a world similar to the timeline known as the Days of Future Past, and the original home to the mutant hero Bishop. Inspired by the history of the X-Men — long-dead in this reality — the Summers Rebellion resulted in the liberation of humanity and mutantkind alike from the command of the Sentinels. The Xavier Security Enforcers (otherwise known as the X.S.E.) was established in the aftermath as a peace-keeping force that could fight on for what the X-Men believed in. Bishop and his sister Shard both joined the XSE and became dedicated heroes.
During one mission, Bishop stumbled upon the remains of the X-Men’s war room, containing evidence of their final fall. Discovering a garbled message, Bishop watched footage of Jean Grey — seemingly the last of the X-Men — trying to escape from a powerful traitor to the team. The video seemed to indicate that Professor Xavier had been the first to die to these machinations, before showing Jean — supposedly the last of the X-Men — being murdered.
When Bishop found himself trapped in the modern era, he partly dedicated himself to preventing this turn of fate from befalling the core X-Men. Quickly, Bishop had suspicions about one specific X-Man: Gambit. Given his own mysterious past and connections to the underworld of the Marvel Universe, it made sense for Bishop to suspect Gambit might have been the traitor. It’s a theory that’s seemingly even supported by another denizen of Bishop’s time known as the Witness.
The Witness was an ancient and powerful mutant by the future time-period. Although there were many theories about his true history and identity, it’s well-known that the Witness was one of the last people to see the X-Men alive. Some even suggested he may have even been a member of the X-Men himself. Bishop was forced to work for the Witness for a year in exchange for saving an element of Shard within a holographic replica after her death. Bishop also learned the Witness was actually named LeBeau — further suggesting the Witness was in fact the Gambit of this reality. However, unbeknownst to Bishop, Gambit himself has had encounters with this seemingly future-incarnation of himself, with many stories suggesting a more complex and mysterious truth behind the Witness than just being a future Gambit.