Agency X

Agent X
Cover art for Agent X #3. Art by Alvin Lee.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	(as Nijo) Deadpool #65 (May, 2002) (as Alex Hayden/Agent X) Agent X #1 (September, 2002)
Created by	Gail Simone (writer) Alvin Lee (artist)
In-story information
Alter ego	Nijo Minamiyori
Team affiliations	Agency X
Notable aliases	Alex Hayden
Abilities	Regenerative healing factor, Superhuman ambidexterity, agility, speed, reflexes&reactions, coordination, endurance Expert marksman, Subconscious telepathic blocking

Agent X (Nijo Minamiyori, alias Alex Hayden) is a fictional mercenary appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He first appeared in Agent X #1 (Sept 2002), by Gail Simone and UDON.

The series, a pseudo-spin-off of Deadpool, continued the cynical, slapstick, and highly polished action which had characterized its parent series. Indeed, a central feature of Agent X was the question of the title character's identity, sometimes implied to be Deadpool himself. Deadpool refers to Agent X as his "Earth-2 Counterpart", a comedic reference to DC Comics' designation of different Earths for different iterations of identical and similar characters.

Agent X was born out of Marvel Comics' long-running Deadpool series, whose sales had slumped to cancellation point, with experiments including the "miniseries within a series", (Deadpool: Agent of Weapon X and Deadpool: Funeral for a Freak, where the main series' numbering was demoted to secondary status below the "miniseries" numbering), having failed to stymie the leak. The decision was then taken to run a "final arc" to close the series, then restart it from #1 with an X in the title in an attempt to more closely identify it with their popular X-Men franchise (as part of the same effort, Cable was changed to Soldier X and X-Force was changed to X-Statix). Rumors circulated amongst fans that the title relaunches at this time (including Deadpool to Agent X) were due in part to a royalty dispute with Rob Liefeld; the rumors were dispelled by Liefeld himself. Online humorist Gail Simone was chosen to write both Deadpool's final arc and the new series, with the UDON studio, who had recently revamped the Taskmaster in a well-received miniseries, to supply the art.