REX SALAZAR: is a sixteen-year-old,[2] amnesiacEVO with the ability to grow weapons and machines out of his body at will. He was employed as a secret weapon to Providence, a global organization dedicated to protecting the world from rampaging EVOs. After the new changes in Providence, he joined theProvidence Defect Group. He later returned to Providence after White Knight became leader of Providence again.
HISTORY
Rex was the second son born to Rafael andVioleta Salazar in Geneva, Switzerland, where he lived with them and his older brotherCaesar.[3] Rafael, Violeta, and Caesar were brilliant scientists who had traveled all over the world before Rex's birth. As a young child, Rex spent every summer in a small South American town, where he played with his best friend, Federico.[4]
Prior to the Nanite Event, and during theNanite Project which his parents and brother worked on, Rex was critically injured in an industrial accident caused by a dispute between the many scientists about how thenanites were to be used. The scientists—among them Violeta, Rafael, Caesar, andGabriel Rylander—injected Rex with the original batch of fully programed nanites, hoping to save Rex's life and to make the other scientists see that their ways were for the greater good. It was a major success as Rex was able to be saved. However, Rex's new abilities, courtesy of the nanites, only reinforced their beliefs. While Rex, Gabriel, and Caesar were able to survive the Nanite Event by blind luck, Rafael and Violeta were killed as a result of the massive nanite explosion.[3]
Later, after losing his memories, assumed to have been caused by the explosion, Rex traveled to Hong Kong and befriended three incurable EVOs named Tuck, Skwydd, andCricket. Unbeknown to them, Rex was also top lieutenant to an EVO crime lord namedQuarry.[5] During their time together, Rex and his gang had an encounter with the shape shifter John Scarecrow and all got voice activated nano-ink tattoos to prevent a repeat of the events.[6] He later secretly traded his friends to Quarry in exchange for his own freedom.[5]
A few years later, Rex transformed into a giant bio-mechanical form and went on a rampage in Mexico. Providence sent a group of soldiers—including Agent Six and White Knight—to contain the menace. After sustaining heavy damage, Rex crashed into a building and reverted to his human form, forgetting everything that happened before he turned full EVO Six discovered the young boy beneath the wreckage and helped him to safety, not knowing that he was the EVO that had just attacked him. Although Six was initially reluctant to look after Rex, he felt sympathy for him when he discovered that Rex was suffering from amnesia.
After Rex saved Six from a dangerous EVO by curing it, Six took Rex to Providence to show his incredible curing capabilities to Dr. Holiday, who had been trying to find a way to revert EVOs' mutations instead of killing them. While hopeful by the discovery, Six did not trust the current head of Research and Development, Doctor Fell, and his then partner, White Knight, and asked that the discovery be kept under wraps. Six's suspicions were confirmed when White kidnapped, interrogated, and later caged Dr. Holiday to discover the reason why Six had brought Rex to Providence.
White, with Dr. Fell, kidnapped Rex while he was sleeping and attempted to dissect him molecule by molecule to reverse-engineer his unique curing capabilities. They failed, however, when Rex's nanites subconsciously reacted to the danger. In the resulting struggle, White was trapped in the chamber during an overload, and Fell was later fired and replaced by Dr. Holiday. With White Knight's body bleached and his nanites destroyed, he was declared head of Providence. Rex was inducted into Providence for his curing powers.[2]
As Rex lived in Providence, he came to see it as his home and developed close bonds with the people there, particularly Agent Six, Dr. Holiday and Bobo, openly acknowledging them as his family. After finding his older brother Caesar, Rex was glad to be reunited with a family member. However, he admitted that the people in Providence were the ones he really had a family-like connection with.[3]
Season OneMain article: History of Rex Salazar (Season One)Season TwoMain article: History of Rex Salazar (Season Two)Season ThreeMain article: History of Rex Salazar (Season Three).
PERSONALITY
ARex is overconfident, impulsive, and rebellious. He is quite headstrong, which according to Van Kleiss, Rex has inherited from his mother, Violeta. He has a quick wit and is constantly making jokes. However, when Rex needs to defend himself, he does not hold back. Aggressive and reckless, Rex prefers to smash anything that gets in his way, much to Providence's annoyance. However, he eventually begins to show more discretion and planning.[7] Rex has also shown a selfless side to his personality, as he has cured many EVOs at his own risk.[8][9]
He has also shown an empathetic side to his personality. For example, he understands that many of the EVOs he fights have loved ones concerned about them, and he tries to cure them whenever he can.[10] Another example would be when Rex was the only one to see things from both Agent Six's and Serge's point of views.[11]
He also has conflicting feelings about his position in Providence. While he is loyal to the organization, sometimes the pressure of being the only person that can cure EVOs is too much for him to handle. Consequently, he sometimes breaks out of the base to go on "road trips", as he calls them, to blow off steam. However, he always returns, perhaps out of a sense of duty, purpose, and caring for his team.
Rex has also been shown to be clever. For example, Tuck stated that Rex created thevoice activated nano-ink tattoos that Rex, Tuck, Skwydd, and Cricket have, after a problem they had with a shape-shifter EVO.[5]
Coming from a family of scientists, Rex is quite intelligent, as shown when he was able to take high school courses with ease. After taking a trigonometry pop quiz, Rex casually told Noah that it was "just trig" and explained that it was like aiming his cannon.[12]
Rex sometimes uses his sarcastic wit to manipulate his enemies. Rex tricked Van Kleiss and NoFace into fighting each other, since Van Kleiss needed him alive, while NoFace wanted to kill him. He also usedBiowulf's fear of being replaced with NoFace to persuade Biowulf to help.[13]
POWERS AND ABILITIES
Like all living beings on Earth, Rex hasnanites bonded to him on a molecular level. Having activated nanites makes him an EVO; however, unlike most EVOs, Rex has the ability to control his nanites at will, allowing him to generate various machinery from his body. He can also use his nanites to communicate with a variety of machines, as well as cure some EVOs of their mutations.
EVO Powers
Technopathy: Rex is capable of using his nanites to interface with technology, allowing him to communicate with and control it. For example, he first demonstrated this ability to escape the confines of The Keep.[14] Said in his own words, he can "hear them". This can also backfire; hearing too many voices at once will overwhelm Rex and eventually cause him to lose consciousness.[8] After regaining his powers, his technopathic capabilities grew stronger, as shown when he took control of the entire Providence base to disarm hidden bombs.[15] It is shown that Rex's enhanced technopathic capabilities can also allow him to reprogram machines.[16] It has also been proven that Rex can understand the features of a machine once communicating with it. In particular, when Rex used his technopathic abilities onBranden Moses's machine that was claimed to cure EVOs, Rex said he got an understanding that the machine "only lights up and goes ping".[17] His technopathic abilities also enable him to disable Providence's control collars, however, they explode after the process.[18]
EVO CURING Perhaps Rex's most important ability, Rex can extract the active nanites of other EVOs to cure them. Initially, Rex could not cure EVOs unless they willingly allowed him to extract their nanites.[10]Later, his curing ability seemed to have improved somewhat, as he was able to cure some of Quarry's EVO henchmen against their will.[5] However, it is possible they were simply caught off guard, as thefirst did not know he was capable of curing EVOs, and the second was unconscious. By his own admission, Rex also had trouble curing non-human EVOs as quickly as human EVOs.[1] However, his skills gradually developed over time, as demonstrated when he successfully cured a Cat EVO that was hunting him and his friends.[19] Rex eventually began to cure animal EVOs without any hesitation.[20][17]However, some EVOs, known as incurables, have nanites that are completely resistant to curing. When Rex tried to cure a dying incurable EVO namedOne, the strain was too much for Rex to handle.[9] Other risks are also associated with EVO curing. Rex has a limit to how many nanites from cured EVOs he can carry. If he exceeds this limit, he will begin growing metallic tumorous sacks.[8] Also, if he extracts corrupted nanites, such as the highly unstable nanites in Abysus, he runs the risk of destabilizing his own body.[21]After the worldwide curing event, Rex's curing abilities have largely become obsolete.
Machine manifestation: Rex can shape his nanites into a variety of machinery. He uses these for offense, defense, and transportation. The weapons he forms out of his body can be destroyed, but he usually can reform them quickly afterward. Also, if Rex is exhausted, it takes more focus to maintain his weapons; otherwise they instantly disassemble.[23] At one point, Van Kleiss drained away all but one of Rex's nanites, temporarily removing Rex's powers as well. After an MRI, Dr. Holiday discovered the Omega-1 Nanite that Dr. Gabriel Rylander had injected into Rex and identified it as a Control Nanite. Using the supply of inactive nanites he had previously off-loaded in the Purgatorybase, Rex was able to reactivate the Control Nanite, regaining his original powers, as well as gaining the blueprints for more powerful machines.[15] Previously, Rex lacked the ability to program his body into building more than one machine at a time. As of now, Rex can allow his nanites to build and use two machines simultaneously.[24]For more information visit the Rex Salazar's machines page.Nanite-enhanced abilities: Rex appears to have strength and endurance that is beyond human. On numerous occasions he has survived situations well beyond the capacity of normal humans, like being thrown through a concrete wall.[5] For example, Rex was the only person who could survive using the space elevator.White Knight commented that the G-forces from the trip would kill a normal person.[25]Rex was also smashed through three stone pillars without any serious injury.[5] He was also one of the few who could survive the extreme pressure of the deep water trench beneath Aquania.[11] Rex can also casually tank hits from E.V.O's who destroy buildings and even more on a daily basis, his durability reaches the point to where he took a bolt of natural lightning (via a portion of the Meta Nanite's power from a consortium member) without taking serious injury. He seems to have enhanced strength, but only when using his machines. For example, when Rex attended a Providence Basic Trainingcamp, Rex needed the Smack Hands to do pull-ups and-push ups and struggled to do sit ups without his mechanical powers.[26]Furthermore, using just his human strength, Rex was unable to pull Circe to safety when Abysus was destabilizing.(Although he was incredibly tired prior to this)[21] Rex's human strength is comfortably at a human's peak and he had highly advanced conditioning to support this, Similar to Agent Six, Rex's Nanites even without his weapons grant him strength, durability, speed and agility above that of the average human, though Rex's is to a higher degree. however, Rex's machines are very heavy, as shown when Rex's Smack Hand caused him to sink in the ocean.[27] This implies that it is the internal mechanisms of the machines that allow him to lift them. However, Rex has also shown extreme physical prowess with his Smack Hands and Punk Busters, such as drop kicking a three-headed monster EVO who was much taller and larger than most of the buildings in New York, or lifting a building with his Smack Hands and batting multiple EVOs away with them.Nanite-enhanced healing: When Rex was mortally wounded in an industrial accident, the nanites he was injected with completely healed him.[28] Later, the Omega-1 Nanite he was injected with restarted his heart.[29] Rex's nanites cured him of poison from a sea urchin.[11] Rex also revealed that his nanites can counteract knock-out gas; however, the same gas was used earlier by Dr. Holiday for the nanite-removal treatment, suggesting that the nanites may have some way to distinguish between the use of such gas as a medical anesthetic or as a weapon, and respond properly.[8] In extreme situations, the nanites inside his body can take control and act to save Rex's life. When Rex tried to cure Weaver, Rex's nanites took control of his body to make him stop and ordered Agent Six to "take the shot".[8] His nanites also subconsciously react to smaller threats. For instance, every time Providence tries to put a tracer on him, his nanites automatically dismantle it.[27]Unlimited nanite creation: The Omega-1 Nanite inside of Rex has a self-replicating program, meaning that Rex can create more and more active nanites if needed.[20]This function was seen to be operational when the Molecular Destabilizer was obliterating his active nanites.[30]Godhood (temporarily): When Rex had complete control over all five Meta-Nanites he became the most powerful being in the universe and could do anything he could think of. However, after he used his god-like powers to spread the world-wide cure to all EVOs, he later ordered the Meta-Nanites to deactivate ensuring no one could ever use their power again.Other skillsAdvanced intellect: Although not often portrayed, Rex is quite intelligent. Rex scored a 98% on what was considered a very difficult trigonometry test, while one student came out saying "my brain hurts". Rex said it was easy, as it was "like aiming [his] Slam Cannon". When the trigonometry teacher threw out a long string of mathematical trajectories (easily taking ten seconds to say at full speed), Rex worked it out in a few seconds, (shown as a physical diagram in his point of view) and used the trajectory mentioned to send his opponent flying.[12]Acrobat: Rex is shown to be very good at acrobatics. During one of Rex's flashbacks, Rex, Tuck, Skwydd, and Cricket are shown doing acrobatics during one of their midnight-rooftop runs.[5] Rex also cured anEVO in mid-flip and landed without any problems.[20] He was also capable of outrunning and avoiding Providence's "Black Pawns" by using his quicker reflexes and tumbles to evade their quick hits. Rex can also dodge Gatelock's laser beam mid air using his incredible reflexes. There have also been several cases where Rex's Omega Nanite increased his reaction time dramatically, such as dodging Hunter Cain's missile while groggy or even dodging Black Knight's Black Pawns' bullets from point blank range. Rex is the second character behind Agent Six to pull this off. Rex has even dodged lightning from the consortium on two different occasions, which is a tremendous testament to his improved speed. [31]
Hand to hand combat: Rex knows basic hand-to-hand combat, most likely from training with Providence for so many years. He took on various Black Pawnswho were highly skilled in combat. He also managed to beat several well-trainedProvidence agents (some of whom were using Providence clubs) without using hismachines and while having his arms restrained. Rex has also been capable of cracking concrete with his normal human strength out of anger. He can synchronize his fighting skills with the use of his machines, making his blows much more effective as shown when he defeated Breach, Biowulf, and Skalamander in rapid succession with ease.Breach sensing: Rex is able to sense whenever Breach is near, which he describes as a "creeped-out feeling".[30] It is clear this ability works due to his nanites, as he states that his nanites are "onto the whole 'ripping-the-very-fabric-of-space' thing."[30] However, it is unknown whether he gained this ability from being inside Breach's pocket dimension as he is also able to know Breach took Circe there (though he could have just been guessing) or due to the abilities the Omega-1 Nanitegrants him.
Equipment
Enhanced goggles: Originally a normal set of goggles to protect his eyes when flying, but later on Rex got an upgrade to hisgoggles which gave him a variety of visions including thermal, microscopic, and nano vision.[32]