(Cable II#10 (fb)) - Katu Kath was born in an Inuit community on the Siberian tundras. He built a life for himself as a fisherman, raising a family in quiet contentment unaware he was actually a mutant.
(Cable II#10 (fb) - BTS) - Without realizing it,
Katu used his mutant powers to absorb and refract all ambient
wavelengths through his fingers. This disrupted the Russian military's
satellite transmission system to such a degree the military sent super
agent Arkady Rossovich to locate and terminate the problem.(Cable II#10) - Katu was teaching his son how to fish one day when several Russian army helicopters descended on the village. Soldiers immediately slaughtered the Inuit population, including Katu's wife and all his children. Rossovich dredged the shaken up fisherman from the waters to present him to the general who had ordered the strike. Rossovich explained to Katu the trouble he'd been causing and how he planned to solve it. Moments later, Katu had both his arms ripped off.
(Cable II#10 (fb) - BTS) - The Russian army took the mutilated mutant away. They built cybernetic arms for him to replace his missing limbs. While in the employ of the army, he mastered his powers though his hate and resentment towards Rossovich only increased.
(Uncanny X-Men I#300 (fb) - BTS) - Following his ordeal at the hands of the Russian military, Katu became a follower of the teachings of the supposedly deceased mutant savior Magneto. He eventually joined the Acolytes at their headquarters in France's Mont St. Francis monastery off the coast of Normandy. Deemed so loyal and trustworthy a subject, Katu was appointed to serve as part of their leader Fabian Cortez's private guard along with Senyaka and Spoor.
(Uncanny X-Men I#300 - BTS) - The Acolytes abducted Moira MacTaggert from her lab on Muir Island to make her pay for her blasphemous sins against their lord (when he was a baby under her care, Moira had tampered with Magneto's genetic makeup in an attempt to prevent him from becoming the mass murderer they'd known). Fabian Cortez ordered the electropathic Acolyte Milan to use his powers to scan and record Moira's entire memory so they had a complete overview of all her crimes. However, Moira proved extremely stubborn and strong-willed, making accessing and processing even the smallest of memories an arduous task.
(Uncanny X-Men I#300) - When Cortez realized Moira knew he had killed Magneto, a fact she'd shared with the latest Acolytes recruit Neophyte, he sent Katu and his private guard to kill the boy while Milan was ordered to drain Moira's entire memory to silence her. Katu and the others caught up with the distraught Neophyte on the Normandy beach where he had befriended a local girl. Katu fired some of the electromagnetic energy he had stored at her, immediately vaporizing her. The Acolytes believed the fact he was talking to a flatscan proved his disloyalty and attacked. Neophyte was saved by the arrival of the X-Men who had come to Mont St. Francis to rescue Moira. Before he could run off and warn the others, Katu was taken out by one of Cyclops' optic blasts.
(Uncanny X-Men I#300 - BTS) - After the X-Men successfully invaded St. Francis and defeated most of the Acolytes, Amelia Voght used her powers to teleport all the Acolytes to safety.
(X-Factor I#92) - Katu joined the other
Acolytes on a mission to the military base Camp Hayden. Their leader
Fabian Cortez wanted them to both destroy the Sentinel processing plant
there, as well as kill Senator Robert Kelly who happened to be visiting
the site. They found themselves opposed by the government licensed
mutant heroes of X-Factor and their ally Random. Katu and the others
were stunned to find Quicksilver, son of their fallen savior, among
them. That didn't stop the zealots from attacking though, with Katu and
Seamus Mellencamp teaming up to take on Multiple Man who quickly
outnumbered them. The battle ended when Fabian Cortez failed to convince
X-Factor member Quicksilver to join them as his father's successor.
Amelia Voght once again used her mist teleportation to take her
teammates away.(Uncanny X-Men I#304) - At their temporary headquarters on board the sunken submarine Leningrad, Katu and his fellow Acolytes learned from the mysterious Exodus that their leader Fabian Cortez had been responsible for the supposed demise of their lord and savior Magneto. Katu watched as Cargill, Unuscione and the Kleinstocks furiously jumped Cortez and started pounding on him. Exodus then established himself as the new leader of the Acolytes, taking them away from Cortez to Salem Center, New York. They arrived in time to see how Magneto had come to disrupt the funeral of Illyana Rasputin to announce his return. Milan and the others were thrilled to see Magneto had survived and were all lifted back to Avalon, except for Senyaka who Magneto pulped on the spot for perceived transgressions. Some time later, Katu and the Acolytes were joined by their latest member Colossus who following his sister's death had lost faith in Charles Xavier's dream.
(X-Men II#25) - Katu and the other Acolytes were present when Magneto decided to strike back after Earth's governments agreed to initiate the Magneto Protocols (theoretically barring them from returning to Earth). He watched as the master of magnetism went out into space to make short work of the satellite system used to enact the protocols. He unleashed a planetary wide electromagnetic pulse wave that wreaked havoc with electrical systems, injuring and killing thousands of people. Later, when a team of X-Men led by Charles Xavier infiltrated Avalon, Katu and the other Acolytes were taken out of the fight when Xavier used Avalon's own teleportation systems to transport Magneto's followers to a number of pre-launched escape pods in orbit of the space station.
(Excalibur I#71 - BTS) - Professor
Xavier had become convinced Colossus' decision to join the Acolytes was
partly due to a recent brain injury that also forced him to stay in his
organic steel form all day. After coming up with a surgical procedure to
correct the issue, Xavier, Cyclops and Jean Grey went to Muir Island
where they convinced Excalibur's Kitty Pryde to lure Colossus to Muir by
claiming she was thinking of joining the Acolytes and wanted to talk to
him. Exodus allowed Piotr to briefly return to Earth to see if her
intents were genuine. As soon as he materialized on Muir, his old
teammates incapacitated him and brought him to the lab for the
operation.(Excalibur I#71) - When Colossus failed to report in, Exodus sent Amelia Voght down with Katu and Unuscione to collect their teammate. They first ran into Nightcrawler whose acrobatics allowed him to keep the three Acolytes occupied until the other X-Men arrived. It didn't take Cyclops much of an effort to take Katu down from a distance using his optic blasts, mocking the cybernetic Inuit by claiming he'd one day like to actually see him use his mutant powers. But even though the procedure was a success and Piotr was now able to shift back to his human form again, he still preferred to return to Avalon with Katu and the others.
(Cable II#10 (fb) - BTS) - Even though Cable thought he had disabled Avalon's teleport systems by rerouting the bodysliding program it was based on, the electropathic Milan managed to undo his handiwork. As a result, the Acolytes could freely move to and from Earth again. However, they still weren't able to access other parts of Cable's old orbiting base, which led them to consider recruiting his aid (see comments).
(Cable II#11 (fb) - BTS) - The Acolytes decided to secure Cable's services through an elaborate plan that involved using the deadly Omega Red to get him to cooperate with them.
(Cable II#9) - Katu and his fellow Acolytes tracked down Omega Red to the sewers of London where he'd been living off the life energy of random civilians he'd kidnapped. Milan was able to access his victims' memories to lead them to a confrontation with Red himself. Faced with the murderer of his wife and children, Katu couldn't help himself and attacked the "butcher" Rossovich who only mocked the old Inuit with his losses even as he grabbed him with his deadly coils. Amelia Voght saved her teammate and got Omega Red calmed down as well. Instead of fighting him, she offered Red a way to control the death spore plague inside his body that was slowly killing him. Intrigued, Omega agreed to work with the Acolytes and went off to collect a number of artifacts needed to help him contain the infection. His first stop was Muir Island where Cable happened to be staying.
(Cable II#9 - BTS) - Cable proved unable to stop Omega Red from taking off with a biocellular subcutaneous matrix stabilizer.
(Cable II#9) - Just before Cable could go after Omega on his own, Katu and the other Acolytes showed up on Muir Island to offer their aid.
(Cable II#10 (fb) - BTS) - The Acolytes, led by Amelia Voght, only told Cable half of their story: they claimed that they'd offered to help Omega Red in hopes of having him join their cause, only for him to betray them. Cable took Voght at her word, but packed extra ammo just in case he was wrong.
(Cable II#10 - BTS) - Cable, Katu and the Acolytes followed Omega Red's trail of death and destruction to Russia's Tyuratam Space Center where he killed the research director of Project Epsilon, but not before extracting the data from him he required.
(Cable II#10) - Several hours later, Cable and the Acolytes arrived at Tyuratam in his I.P.A.C. They first had to fight the Russian soldiers who wanted to arrest them, but Katu easily absorbed the plasma energy from their weapons and shot it back at them with explosive results. Though Cable prevented Katu and the others from actually killing the troops. Inside, they found the recently deceased director. Using his portable monitor-feed, Milan electropathically replayed the man's final memories and confirmed Omega Red had indeed been there. Because the cure the Acolytes had proposed could only be safely administered in space (if something went wrong, the death spore virus would become airborne and wipe out mankind). Therefore, Amelia Voght reasoned Omega Red wanted to reach Avalon and the only way to get there was by using the teleportation systems in Magneto's arctic base. Cable agreed to accompany the Acolytes there.
(Cable II#10 - BTS) - The
other Acolytes, led by Colossus, were already at the Arctic base where
they laid a trap for Omega Red and successfully captured him.(Cable II#10) - On their way to the South Pole, Cable and Katu bonded over some coffee. Curious to know what caused the seemingly kindhearted Kath to join with the bloodthirsty Acolytes, the Inuit shared the gruesome personal history he had with Omega Red, explaining that it left him with a thirst for revenge. Upon reaching the base, Katu was essential in bypassing its advanced tachyon detection grid by acting as one if its transmitter buoys. Thanks to Katu's handiwork, Cable and the others entered the base. Inside, Cable ran into the defeated Omega Red and realized he'd been played for a fool. Voght explained the true purpose of their mission, even as Colossus and the other Acolytes came in to surround Cable.
(Cable II#11 - BTS) - Cable managed to evade the Acolytes, using his innate control of the exotic, reactive base systems to his benefit. The Acolytes split up to search for him in the cavernous base. Cable used his skills as a battle hardened tactician to take out the Acolytes one at a time until he realized Omega Red was a bigger threat. Some of the Acolytes had planned to allow Omega Red to start the risky procedure that would cure him right there in the Arctic. They knew that the death spore virus would be released either way, wiping out mankind in the process. Teaming up with Voght, Colossus and a handful of Acolytes not willing to kill billions, Cable tried to stop Omega Red. In the end, Katu came out of nowhere to resolve the situation. He grabbed Red and tried to activate the base's teleport systems so he could teleport Red and himself to a little outside of Earth's atmosphere. When Cable overrode his commands, Katu was forced to turn his own powers against himself, causing a destructive implosion that seemingly evaporated him and Rossovich. Thankful for Cable's help, Voght and Colossus took Milan and the other Acolytes back to Avalon.
(Uncanny X-Men I#366 - BTS) - Somehow surviving the implosion, Katu rejoined the Acolytes in time to help Magneto in his latest world conquering scheme. The Acolytes were sent out to keep the X-Men busy and distracted until his preparations for shifting the Earth's magnetic poles were completed (see comments).
