Created by writer John Byrne and artist Whilce Portacio, the character first appeared in The Uncanny X-Men #282 (November 1991).

Bishop debuted as a member of a mutant police force from a dystopian future of the Marvel Universe Xavier's Security Enforcers (XSE).

They lived on the streets, stealing to survive until coming under the care of a family friend, a war veteran named Hancock.

One day, Bishop encountered an anti-human group of mutants called the Exhumes, who took Shard hostage just before the XSE arrived.

While on a mission to wipe out a nest of Emplates, mutant vampires that feed on bone marrow, Shard was critically injured.

Witness, then imprisoned at the New York Stark Fujikawa building, agreed to transfer Shard's essence into a holographic matrix if Bishop would work for him for one year.

[20] When Professor Xavier's insane son, the mutant Legion, went back in time to assassinate Magneto, Bishop was one of the X-Men sent to stop him.

[21] When they failed and Legion accidentally killed Professor Xavier, Bishop was the only time-traveler to remain when history was altered and became the Age of Apocalypse.

[22] He eventually convinced the Magneto of that era that the existence of this reality was wrong, and with a great amount of sacrifice, managed to correct the error and stop Legion.

[26] Bishop was a founding member of Storm's splinter team of X-Men, whose mission was to search for the Books of Truth, the diaries of the precognitive mutant Destiny.

When Captain America's team breaks in, a fight ensues, putting Bishop at odds with his former teammates Storm and Cable.

[30] In Messiah Complex, an event revitalized Bishop's timeline as a viable future: the birth of the first mutant child since M-Day.

As Multiple Man's duplicate and Layla Miller find out in their mission to one of the planet's possible futures (80 years in the future) that the birth of the child created, the child apparently kills a million people in an event dubbed the Six-Minute War, and the U.S. government incarcerates all the mutants into concentration camps, where Bishop is born, grows up, and sees his parents killed.

As Multiple Man's dupe and Layla find out, Bishop wishes at a young age to have had the opportunity to kill the baby, so that while he would not be born, he would also not have to see his parents die, and to endure the horrors of life in the concentration camps.

Bishop cauterizes his torn shoulder on an unconscious Sunfire and in an attempt to shoot down a teleporting Cable, he misses and hits Professor X instead.

[33] Bishop managed to escape the X-Men after he seemingly killed their mentor, and stole a nuclear powered bionic arm from Forge equipped with a timeslide device, which he uses to track down Cable and the newborn mutant.

With Cable severely weakened by blood loss, he makes a risky attack before the gang can find heavier weapons.

[37] Stryfe builds an empire using Celestial technology and Bishop becomes his right-hand man, waiting for Cable and Hope to re-emerge.

"[43] He battles the members of the new X-Force before it is revealed that his mind is apparently being possessed by the Demon Bear that once terrorized Danielle Moonstar.

[47] Bishop is shown carrying out research in a library in London, preparing himself for the next 'scheduled' threat he recalls from his future history, when he becomes caught up in the latest attack by the Shadow King,[48] which results in Charles Xavier being reborn in Fantomex's body.

[50] Bishop later receives a warning (apparently by Kid Cable) about an unspecified, imminent event that would have catastrophic consequences on the X-Men's timeline.

This not only made him recover his powers, but also increased them to the point of overriding the black X-shaped tattoo which was protecting him, and in the process twisted his mind.

[52] Under the illusionary world, every type of human intimate interaction is forbidden, although this does not stop Bishop and Jean Grey from starting a relationship.

[56] During King in Black, Beast was able to convince Bishop to ignore his orders from Pryde and shoot to kill the symbiote-infected Cyclops and Storm, hinting that he's okay being used by different organizations against one another.

[57] He's also suggested the idea of fusing mutant DNA into new forms—inadvertently arguing for chimeras, which became a major part of Moira MacTaggert's previous failed timelines.

A nuclear-powered battle-ready arm, it incorporates in its design a time-travel device, the ability to channel his energy blasts through, and enhanced strength and resilience.

[77] He is using the new team to stop a new wave of Sentinel attacks on mutants, caused by an unknown enemy, revealed in that issue to be the Fenris twins and Bolivar Trask.

Bishop was unconscious during the fight with the Fenris twins and the Sentinels, but when Psylocke's life was at risk, he woke up to defend her and revealed that she was his future wife.

[82] In X-Men Noir, Bishop is depicted as the muscle for Remy LeBeau, the owner of a nightclub and casino called The Creole Club.

[83] In X-Men: The End, the non-canon trilogy of miniseries by Chris Claremont, Bishop learns he has a teenage daughter, Aliyah, by Deathbird.