Real name: Mortimer Toynbee
Occupation: Terrorist, former adventurer
Group affiliation: Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, formerly the Misfits
Base of operations: Mobile
First appearance: X-Men (Vol. 1) #4 (1964)

Height: 5'8"
Weight: 260 lbs.
Eye color: Brown
Hair color: Reddish-brown

Powers: Mortimer Toynbee is a mutant with superhuman leaping ability. He has been observed reaching an altitude of 24 feet and covering a distance on the ground of 36 feet in a single leap. The Toad's adaptive metabolism allows him to excrete slime from his pores that paralyzes his victims. Also, he is able to manipulate his tongue as would a real toad, most often using it like a whip. Mortimer's unusually flexible spine enables him to crouch continually without damage, but he can stand erect if he wishes.

Weapons: None

Tormented as a child, Mortimer Toynbee was a greedy, pathetic little toady when the genetic terrorist known as Magneto took him in as a member of his original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. But years of abuse toughened the Toad's hide, and the once-sniveling creature grew a spine. Now, a leaner, meaner Mortimer stands poised to exact revenge on all those who mistreated him!

History: Abandoned by his parents as a baby, Mortimer Toynbee grew up in an orphanage. There, the other children tormented him constantly. They regarded him as a freak due to his abnormal appearance, unusual physique and mutant leaping ability. The never-ending abuse and perpetual isolation affected Mortimer's education, causing orphanage administrators to believe he was learning impaired.

So desperate for affection that he developed a pathetically subservient personality, Mortimer would unquestioningly obey anyone he thought sincerely cared about him. Case in point: Magneto, mutant Master of Magnetism. The genetic terrorist recruited Mortimer for his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, a subversive organization dedicated to the cause of human subjugation. Magneto conferred upon Mortimer a new alias -- the Toad -- because of his powers, appearance and personality. As a member of the Brotherhood, Mortimer came into conflict with the X-Men -- masked, mutant adventurers standing in defense of a world that had learned to hate and fear their kind.

Magneto did not believe the Toad would be of any great service. Rather, he viewed him as an expendable pawn who would follow his orders unquestioningly. The Toad was pathetically and blindly devoted to Magneto, whom he saw as a surrogate father. Mortimer thought he would merit a place of honor in the new society Magneto sought to create, but the Master of Magnetism betrayed the Toad's trust when the two were captured and imprisoned for observation by the enigmatic alien entity known as the Stranger. Magneto left the Toad behind when he first fled, only to be recaptured. He took Mortimer with him the second time he escaped, but his continued bullying bloated the Toad's resentment until it flared into murderous hatred. Pushed too far, Mortimer abandoned Magneto to die in an explosion that followed an encounter with the X-Men and the Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

The Toad became a recluse, but was captured along with two of his former teammates: the hex-casting Scarlet Witch and the fleet-footed Quicksilver, brother and sister Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. When the Avengers rescued the trio from the extra-dimensional warrior called Arkon, the Toad declined to accompany them back to Earth. Instead, he employed the scientific resources of Arkon's world to construct a spacecraft to return to the Stranger's planet. There, the Toad studied and stole the alien's advanced technology. He hoped to make himself more appealing to the Scarlet Witch, with whom he had became infatuated as a member of the Brotherhood. As he prepared to return to Earth, Mortimer learned of Wanda's marriage to the synthetic humanoid known as the Vision. Enraged, he attacked the Avengers to learn her whereabouts. The Toad was defeated and served a short prison sentence.

Having acquired a measure of self-confidence and the ability to exude a sticky secretion from his hands, the Toad subsequently formed and led a failed incarnation of the Brotherhood. He later attempted to transform Emma Frost and her young mutant charges, Generation X, into his servants. Mortimer abandoned the effort when the White Queen made him see that he was doing to the Gen Xers what Magneto had done to him years earlier.

Following another short stint with the Brotherhood, the Toad was called upon to play the part of hero. The sentient spaceship Prosh escaped the confines of a Celestial prison, returned to Earth and dispatched a group of disparate beings on a journey through time to uncover the keys to preserving human evolution. Besides the Toad, Prosh's task force included Phoenix and Iceman, members of the X-Men; Mystique, a shapeshifting mutant terrorist; and the Juggernaut, a mystically empowered human. Their mission: Save the human race from a threat that might not manifest itself for millions of years. Forced to revisit his past, the Toad discovered that he and thousands of other mutant infants had been held for study in a secret, non-governmental facility known as the Black Womb. He learned that individuals had begun tracking the evolution of mutation in humans long before Magneto rose up to terrorize the world. When Prosh reassembled the members of his team in the present, they fought and defeated the Stranger, who sought to control the natural evolution of humans and mutants. The alien mortally wounded the Toad, who was healed by the systems aboard Prosh's ship; the experience significantly altered his appearance and abilities. The result: a leaner, meaner Mortimer.