Characters / X-Men: '60s Members

aka: Marvel Comics Polaris

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X-Men '60s Members

Mimic

Calvin Montgomery Rankin / Mimic

Nationality: American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Men #19 (April, 1966)

You know what I am? I'm the Mimic! I'm as powerful as all of you put together!

A young man who accidentally gained the ability to copy the knowledge, physical attributes, skills, and superpowers of anyone near him for a short amount of time. He grew more and more conceited as he grew up and desired the ability to absorb power and knowledge personally. He sought out the X-Men to copy their powers so he could use them to activate a machine his father told him would make his powers permanent, when actually it was supposed to cure him of them. He returned to antagonize the X-Men, either fighting against them or temporarily joining them to show off. Because he was exposed to them for so long, he retains the powers of the original five X-Men permanently. Mimic is of note for being the X-Men's first new member as well as its first non-mutant (Depending on the Writer, they go back and forth on this). Unfortunately, he wasn't with the team for long due to his brash nature.

He appears as a main character in Exiles in a somewhat reimagined form, being from a universe where he is without question a mutant and joins the X-Men with good intentions (eventually becoming their leader). This version has the ability to permanently absorb the powers of up to five people at a time, but has to "delete" old ones from his body to add new ones, and is usually used as The Leader within the team's dynamic.

See Exiles for tropes specifically relating to Mimic in his Exiles incarnation.

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• The Ace: In the school, Calvin soon became the best at any sport, mimicking abilities of the best players and without anyone knowing.
• All Your Powers Combined: He can copy anyone's powers as long as they're within a certain radius, but maintains the powers of the five founding X-Men (the ones he faced at the time) as a default.
  • The Mimic from Exiles had slightly different abilities, able to duplicate indefinitely the powers of any superhuman he encountered, but could only hold 5 power sets at a time, and only at half-strength. When he was turned into a Brood queen, his powers increased to the extent that he could duplicate the powers of all nearby superhumans.
  • Another reality's version of Mimic, with the same ability as the Exiles' version, had copied the abilities of Magneto, Professor X, Blink, and Cannonball- the guy had definitely won the superpower lottery.^note For those not familiar with Marvel Comics: this Mimic had Magneto's vast magnetic power, Professor X's telepathic abilities, Blink's teleportation powers, and Cannonball's Flying Brick forcefield.
• Ambition Is Evil: Portrayed this way in early appearances.
• Attention Whore: Pre-Character Development.
• Badass in Distress: In the lead-up to Extermination he was captured while shopping for groceries by a time-traveling younger version of Cable.
• Character Development: Originally Mimic was a stock Jerk Jock who was only in the superhero game for his own self-interest and self-aggrandizement. As time went on, his self-aggrandizing was subjected to Flanderization and he became a pathetic Attention Whore kind of figure, with his incredible powers completely overshadowed by his need for adulation. Then he got hit with a Humiliation Conga that ended with him a prisoner of the Thunderbolts, and after a brief relapse in Dark X-Men he finally matured for real, and his tragic friendship with the tortured Michael Pointer a.k.a. Omega. His Story-Breaker Power and lack of popularity kept him a second-string character, though, and while he managed to narrowly dodge being Killed Off for Real, he's since been Put on a Bus.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: During the Operation: Zero Tolerance event he and Risque were captured and tortured by soldiers of OZT Big Bad Bastion.
• Continuity Snarl: Is Mimic a mutant or isn't he? It all depends on who you ask and when you ask it.^note As of 2019 he's a mutant according to House of X.
• Death Is Cheap: Back in the '70s he was Killed Off for Real in a Heroic Sacrifice while fighting the Hulk. A decade later it was revealed that he had simply fallen into a coma, and when Wolverine came near him he subconsciously absorbed Wolvie's Healing Factor and revived. As of 2019, he's dead again, but considering his previous method of revival bringing him back should be easy when the writer comes along who wants to. And indeed, as of X-Men (2019) (not even a year later!) Mimic is alive again.
• De-power: During the '90s Mimic was depowered along with all of Earth's mutants by a device built by the High Evolutionary, a strong piece of evidence for those fans in the "Mimic is a mutant" camp.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: It took the intervention of Norman Osborn of all people, but after a decade of rocking the hobo look Mimic finally cleaned himself up in Dark X-Men, and wouldn't you know, he pulled off squeaky-clean all-American just as well as his Exiles counterpart.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Over his long history he has battled the X-Men, the Hulk, Super-Adaptoid, Puppet Master and Factor Three, as well as serving Onslaught and briefly joining Excalibur. He was held prisoner by the Thunderbolts for his past crimes until being offered a place on Norman Osborn's Dark X-Men, in the genuine belief that he was becoming a Face. After receiving help from the Jean Grey's School X-Men, Calvin was offered a spot on their team which he accepted. He remained Face after, and ultimately sacrificed himself to protect Teen Cyclops.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Once in the 70's and again in 2018's Extermination story.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He continued working for Norman Osborn as a member of the Dark X-Men even after most of the other members of the team defected. Being a former villain himself, he desperately wanted to believe the best of Norman.
• Humiliation Conga: These happen to him fairly regularly:
  • After his first defeat at the hands of the X-Men, Professor X wiped his memories and sent him off to live what Chuck deemed to be an ordinary life.
  • His capture and torture at the hands of Operation: Zero Tolerance agents also falls under this.
  • As previously mentioned, he was captured and imprisoned for a time by the Thunderbolts.
  • After being captured by a deranged young incarnation of Cable he was chained up and his wings amputated so that they could be grafted onto the young incarnation of Angel (who acquired Celestial armor wings from the Black Vortex that Young Cable also amputated, being on a Frankenstein kick). And then he gets a bridge dropped on him.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Ignobly killed with a harpoon to the heart by D-list 90's villain Ahab in the Extermination story.
• Jerk Jock: Particularly in his origin story and early on. Over time he gradually grew out of this attitude.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He wasn't a very nice person early on and Professor X even denounced him as unworthy of being an X-Man due to his arrogance and recklessness, but as he matured Cal grew past his character flaws, becoming a devoted friend to Michael Pointer a.k.a. Omega, and after Professor X was deposed as leader of the X-Men he was even welcomed back to the team by Wolverine's X-Men faction. Ultimately he sacrificed himself to protect Professor X's first pupil, proving that Chuck couldn't have been more wrong about him.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: As part of his rampant Superdickery through the Silver Age, Professor X wiped Cal's memory of being with the X-Men after he decided that Mimic wasn't working out. Unlike some of the Professor's other mental victims (hi Vanisher!), Mimic was able to eventually recover his memories thanks to an, uh, convenient explosion.
• Mad Oracle: While around Nate Grey the X-Man he absorbed the power to see into the future. Specifically, he saw a Bad Future where he was married with a wife and child only to murder that child in a fit of Power Incontinence.
• Mood-Swinger: Justified, since he has bipolar disorder.
• Odd Friendship: With Michael Pointer, which doubles as Heterosexual Life-Partners. Also, more recently with Rogue.
  • In the House of M reality he has one with Bucky Barnes; the two work together on a black-ops squad and are on first name terms with each other, with Mimic even referring to Barnes by his "Buck" nickname.
• Phlebotinum Overload: He can absorb the powers of multiple mutants, but there is a limit to the number of powers he can absorb. During his stint as a Dark X-Man, the X-Men were able to beat him by having a large number of students Zerg Rush him. He was also unable to fully mimic the power of the god-tier mutant Nate Grey, and much like Rogue's attempt to steal the power of Exodus, had to content himself with just one dollar from the Superpower Lottery winner's account instead.
• Power Copying: Mimic can take on the powers of any mutant he's around with his body altering itself to match (such as gaining Beast's physique and Angel's wings). Thanks to his time spent with the O5 X-Men, he's permanently copied their powers and, in the case of Angel and Beast, physical attributes.
• Progressively Prettier: His attractiveness seems proportionately scaled to how villainous he is in any particular storyline, going from a bearded hobo-lookalike while with the Brotherhood to looking like Warren's long-lost twin brother in X-Men: Legacy. And then there's the heroic Exiles Mimic who has a very clean-cut all-American look to him.
• Put on a Bus: One of Marvel's many mutant bus passengers who have to hop aboard because their powers are too great to have around all the time. He's been in comas, prisons, you name it, and as of 2019 is MIA yet again after appearing to have made a Heroic Sacrifice... until House of X resurrects him, along with more or less every other mutant.
• Sixth Ranger: In another attempt to gain the X-Men's abilities, Mimic set his sights on joining their ranks, becoming deputy leader in the process when he blackmailed his way into joining the X-Men.
• Smarter Than You Look: He doesn't act like a very educated person and dresses like he's blind, but he's a college graduate and the son of a scientist.
• Story-Breaker Power: He's basically what Rogue would be if she didn't have to touch anyone to absorb their powers.
• The Atoner: Often the result of his arrogant behavior and his feelings of remorse in the aftermath.
• Those Two Guys: From Dark X-Men through X-Men Legacy he and Michael Pointer were inseparable. XML finally broke them up by way of putting the Power Incontinence-suffering Pointer on ice.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Often portrayed this way, as he missed out on the bulk of Charles Xavier's education but has an extraordinarily powerful and versatile mutation. In more recent years this has tapered off as he's acquired competence simply by virtue of being around as long as he has.
• Unwitting Pawn: Of both Onslaught and Norman Osborn.

Changeling

Kevin Sydney / Changeling

First Appearance

Notable Aliases: #2, Kevin MacTaggert, John Askegren, Jack Bolton, Martina Johanssen, Werner Reiman, Charles Sage, Francisco Zerilli, Professor Charles Xavier

Nationality: American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Men #35 (August, 1967)

The second-in-command of Factor 3, a replacement for the Brotherhood of Mutants that wanted to start World War III. The leader of Factor 3 was revealed to be an alien and his organization turned on him and was disbanded. He secretly joined the X-Men and was killed shortly after his covert membership was revealed. Morph from the animated series was based on him.

A parallel universe version of him is a constant member of the Exiles, where he's more of a wacky, Looney-Tuneish character who uses his ability to entertain.

The main universe version of Changeling had shapeshifting, and minor psychic powers. The Exiles version has more powerful shapeshifting powers.

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• All There in the Manual: His real name went unrevealed for over three decades before finally being revealed in the 2004 Official Marvel handbook, 36 years after the original Changeling died in X-Men #68.
• Back from the Dead: After being dead for decades, he was one of the many mutants resurrected by the Five, a group of mutants that lived on the mutant island of Krakoa and that specialized in bring fallen mutants from the dead. He reappeared in issue #2 of X-Force as part of the Dawn of X era.
• Bequeathed Power: Subverted — he got his Psychic Powers from Professor X in order to successfully impersonate him in his last days, but as it turned out Xavier was only pretending to be dying of cancer. See Retcon below.
• Came Back Wrong: He was briefly resurrected by the voodoo villain Black Talon, but turned out to be a Minion With An Fin Evil for him and was quickly returned to the grave.
• Flat Character: The original Changeling was just a groveling suckup villain ala Toad who was chosen to help Charles fake his death because it would be such an unexpected twist. Averted with the animated series Morph, whose characterization is explored after his return from death and in the third season which devoted a whole episode to him, and the Sequel Series X-Men '97 sees the character as a regular part of the team^note and undergoing Adaptational Gender Identity, being depicted as non-binary, though in keeping with the series still being set in the '90s, where views on gender identity weren't what they are in the 2020s, and the creators admitting to wanting to avoid Anachronism Stew, the character is still depicted as still using "he/him" pronouns instead of "they/them"
• Heel–Face Turn: Turned on the Mutant Master after discovering it was actually an alien bent on worldwide genocide.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: In keeping with the spirit of golden age X-Men villains (see Magneto, Juggernaut, Avalanche, etc.) Changeling wore a truly wince-inducing helmet, seemingly molded in the image of his favorite seashell.
• Heroic Sacrifice: While disguised as Professor
• Psychic Powers: One of the main differences between Changeling and his counterparts (aside from atrocious fashion sense): Changeling has minor psychic powers, something no version of Morph has.
• Retcon: His Heroic Sacrifice was implemented to facilitate one of these, bringing back Professor X after an earlier "reveal" that he was dying of cancer.
• Redemption Equals Death: He was already dying anyway, but he died thwarting a subterranean king from destroying the world pretending to be Professor X.
• Sycophantic Servant: He sucked up pretty hard to the Mutant Master before The Reveal that the Master was actually an alien. For a while there Changeling and Toad were in a kind of dead heat run for the most Renfield-like mutant in the Marvel U.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: A mainstay of all versions of this character. Interestingly, its efficacy has a clear progression: the original Changeling has the most basic form of this power, being only able to assume different human forms, while the animated Morph has a more functional version, being able to use it for Animorphism as well as some limited Ditto Fighter shenanigans via shapeshifting into mutants with physical mutations. Finally, the Exiles Morph has by far the most powerful version of this ability, being a Rubber Man who can shape himself into inanimate objects and regenerate his own muscle mass at will.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He was Killed Off for Real before his character could properly be explored at all. His adaptational counterpart got to come back, but he didn't and, shockingly in a medium that has completely embraced Death Is Cheap, he remained dead until the mutant nation Krakoa made death a non-issue for mutants.

Polaris

Lorna Sally Dane / Polaris

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: The X-Men #49 (October, 1968)

I often find a terrifying comfort in the possibility of evanescing. I never asked to exist. Or to be like this. This clumsy and fumbling congregation of flaws. I think there's something wrong with me. I can still feel an itch in my head, like Saturnyne's not quite done with me yet... Sometimes I'm able to convince myself that there's no such thing as kindness in this world. No such thing as courage. I tell myself there's only redemption and penitence. There is only reticence and pain. I am — thankfully — often wrong on such things.

— Lorna Dane, X-Factor #4

One of the first new additions to the X-Men after their founding lineup was established, Polaris has a long-rooted history with the team — most prominently, that she's the only biological child ^note since the 2014 retcon involving siblings Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch of Magneto. Initially contesting his claim to her parentage, it was eventually confirmed to be true. Not surprising, since they both share the exact same skillset.

She's also known for her romantic relationships with various X-Men. After a brief flirtation with Iceman (before he came out), she began a relationship with Alex Summers / Havok, the younger brother of stalwart X-Man Cyclops. They've spent the majority of their shared publication history in a state of "Will They or Won't They?" limbo, and almost got married at one point. Let's just say getting left at the altar didn't do wonders for her psyche.

Speaking of which, Lorna's struggles with mental health are another prominent aspect of her characterization. While it's never been spelled out as being anything specific, many have interpreted her Yandere-ish tendencies and depressive states as Bipolar Disorder. She was even manipulated into becoming the supervillain Malice for a few years, and once served as Pestilence in Apocalypse's Horsemen. What can we say — it seems to run in the family.

As a long-running character in the Marvel Universe, Polaris has appeared in various other media since being introduced. She showed up in a few episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series, as well as Wolverine and the X-Men. In live-action, Polaris features as a regular on FOX's The Gifted, portrayed there by Emma Dumont. This version of the character emphasized Lorna's issues with mental illness, as well as make reference to her familiar parentage.

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• Acquired Poison Immunity: One of the side-effects of her brief run as Pestilence is she gained an immunity to being drugged. While a prisoner of Vulcan, his people kept trying to keep her unconscious, only for her immune system to fight off the drugs with increasing speed, at which point Lorna would get loose and start breaking things.
• Action Girl: One of the most powerful and dangerous mutants on the planet, which is not surprising given that she inherited not only her father's mutant gene but also his powers.
• Angst Coma: Went into one when she learned the real reason behind her mother's death. It took a literal act of god(dess) to wake her up.
• Apocalypse Maiden: She was a key part of the Shadow King's plan in the "Muir Island Saga", and a problem the X-Men faced was how to stop that plan without killing her.
• Atrocious Alias: She very, very briefly toyed with the name Magneta.
• Battle Couple: With Havok, most of the time.
• Beta Couple: She and Alex are often seen as a sort of second-tier version of Alex's brother Scott and Jean Grey.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Lorna has a serious temper (not surprising, given the various horrible things that've happened to her). As Jamie Madrox once notes, every now and then she reminds people she is Magneto's daughter. Like, for example, making an evil alternate version of Captain America blow his own head off.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: According to X-Factor, she gets inexplicably angry around her birthday. It's because of her repressed memories of how her mother died.
• Brainwashed and Crazy:
  • By Erik the Red in the mid-'70s, to kill the X-Men. On the plus side, it's when she got the moniker "Polaris".
  • Her brief time as Pestilence. Fortunately, it wore off a lot easier for her than it did Gambit.
• Broken Bird: Repeatedly, especially since horrible things just keep happening to her.
• Brother–Sister Team: Seems to get along quite well with Quicksilver during their days in Serval Industries' X-Factor. At least, until the Scarlet Witch accidentally lets slip that he was meant to be spying on her for Havok.
• Brought Down to Normal: She lost her powers during Decimation, but soon got them back through Apocalypse repowered her using Celestial technology. It's not really known whether her X-Gene has been reactivated or it's simply the technology.
• Cain and Abel: With Zaladane, who might be her sister. "Might", because we've only got Zaladane's word for it, and nothing else has ever backed it up (Zaladane's protracted case of dead doesn't help), though after it happened Moira said they would've had to be related or what Zaladane did couldn't have worked.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Due in part to the "severe trauma" thing, she got very protective of Havok during Chuck Austen's X-Men run. Finding Annie standing over him, Lorna threatened her with several scalpels.
• Cool Aunt: For Quicksilver's daughter Luna. She even allows the little girl to sit on her lap.◊
• Curtains Match the Window: Green eyes, green hair. Not to mention she usually wears green lipstick and often wears a green costume.
• Daddy's Girl: Depending on the Writer, but of Magneto's kids, she's the one closest to him (though given the current retcon, she's currently the only one of his kids still alive).
• Dark Is Evil: It's probably not a coincidence that Lorna at her lowest, during the Chuck Austen run, has her discard pretty much all the green from her outfit for a dark purple number.
• Deadpan Snarker: Especially when written by Peter David (in fairness, everyone written by Peter David is a snarker).
• Demonic Possession: Gets possessed by psychic entities a lot, and often for prolonged periods (years of publication, in one case).
• Depending on the Writer: It's not surprising some writers have raised the possibility or just had her mentally ill, because some aspects of Lorna's personality can waver a lot.
  • Whether she was related to Magneto at all. Chris Claremont for his part was quite firmly in the "not" category, as at no point in all the time he was writing either character was any connection hinted at.
  • Peter David makes her a Deadpan Snarker (but see above), along with some body issues, and later on severe temper issues.
  • Leah Williams claims she's a Daddy's Girl out to please Magneto.
  • Gerry Duggan tends to write her as a vicious caffeine addict.
• De-power: Zaladane once stole her powers. Lorna got them back after Magneto killed her.
• Discard and Draw: For a time, Lorna's magnetic powers were replaced by the ability to absorb negative emotions to increase her strength, endurance, height and mass. She regained her magnetism powers and then lost them again during M-Day. They were eventually restored.
• The Dreaded: One of the few people Vulcan was scared of, and understandably so, since her magnetic powers meant she could bypass his powers and hurt him. And she had no problem doing so, either.
• Drowning My Sorrows: After the end of the "Hell on Earth" war and X-Factor being split up, Polaris is shown in a bar getting drunk. When the bartender tries to cut her off, she threatens to destroy the bar. This results in the police and Quicksilver getting involved and a brief fight where she actually pulls a gun on Quicksilver before she is subdued. She is horrified when she sobers up the next morning and realizes the magnitude of what she almost did.
• Emotion Eater: For a time she could feed on negative emotions to increase her physical abilities.
• Evil Is Hammy: When Brainwashed and Crazy in the 70s, she's as hammy as any villain.
• Extra-ore-dinary: Her most common method of using her powers is to manipulate metal.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: During the time they were siblings (2002 to 2015), she and Wanda didn't exactly interact much (though in fairness, Wanda spent 2005 to 2012 being on a bus, and Lorna was in space between 2007 and 2011), something Lorna even notes when Wanda suddenly shows up to hang out with her in All-New X-Factor.
• Full-Frontal Assault: During Grant Morrison's New X-Men, she was found by the X-Men at ground zero following the total annihilation of Genosha completely naked and insanely raving about final electromagnetic messages sent by Magneto before violently lashing out at the team.
• Fun with Acronyms: Her middle name is "Sally", which means that her initials spell out LSD, this has not gone unnoticed.
  Gambit: Your initials are LSD?
  Polaris: Explains a lot, doesn't it?
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Not often, but they have been known to glow when she's pissed.
• High Collar of Doom: Her first outfit as Polaris, when she was brainwashed, includes a large collar that goes up past her head.
• I Believe I Can Fly: With electromagnetism.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: On occasion in her earlier days, including once telling Professor X to buzz off when he was looking for new recruits. After a few more X-Men related incidents Lorna got the hint - normal was never gonna stick.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: She blames herself for Rockslide’s death as he died saving her, especially since his death in Otherworld forever corrupted his resurrection.
• Immune to Bullets: One of the benefits of her Shadow King twisted powers was this. A good thing, given it was also causing a Hate Plague wherever she went.
• Leotard of Power: Most of her outfits include some form of leotard with a cape, as well as a tiara.
• Locked into Strangeness: Her green hair isn't dye, it turned that way when her powers first activated.
• Love Triangle: In the 60s, there was one between her, Iceman and Havok. It returned in the 00s, with the temporary inclusion of Nurse Annie.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Whether Magneto actually was her father was a long-running plot point for decades after her introduction. The early 00s eventually confirmed that he was.
• Magnetism Manipulation: Like her father, Lorna can sense and control magnetism, create magnetic energy pulses and magnetic force fields, and manipulate the Earth's magnetic field in order to fly. On good days, she's strong enough to contend with him for raw power, which is no small thing.
• Most Common Super Power: It's very easy to see how she could be the Scarlet Witch's sister.
• Must Have Caffeine: Particularly during the Krakoa era, she's frequently either drinking coffee or desperately in need of one.
• Ms. Fanservice: A good looking person anyway, during the X-Factor days she tried putting on some revealing outfits, explained as a result of body confidence issues brought on by several years of possession. They were shot down as not being appropriate for government work.
• No-Sell: An alternate Malice tried possessing her during Blue. Lorna was soon able to fight her off, but not before Malice killed several people.
• Poisonous Person: During her period of time as Pestilence in Apocalypse's Four Horsemen.
• Power Loss Depression: Polaris was among the Mutants who lost their powers during M-Day. Issue #177 of X-Men Volume 2 opens with her lamenting how empty and lifeless she feels without her powers. For a time, she tries to keep her depowerment a secret before revealing what happened to her and leaving the team.
• Purple Is Powerful: Some of her outfits over the years have included purple, and she's every bit as dangerous as her father.
• Selective Magnetism: As with her father, writers can never decide if her powers are derived from her physically or psionically.
• Self-Made Orphan: Accidentally killed her mother and the man she considered her father at the age of 3, when her powers manifested whilst they were all flying a plane when she got upset due to a loud fight they were having over her mother's adultery.
• Shock and Awe: Some writers actually have her using electricity, which is indeed part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
• Signature Headgear: While she has doesn't wear it in every outfit, Lorna stands out for having a headdress similar to that of Wanda and her father Magneto.
• Sixth Ranger: She’s the first permanent addition to the team that wasn’t part of the original five.
• Story-Breaker Power: Same as Magneto. While she's not quite as powerful as he is, a lot of stories do have to get her out of the way to stop her steam-rolling everything, one way or another.
• Taking Up the Mantle: After Magneto dies after defeating Uranos, Polaris is last seen in deep mourning over his death before the 2023 Hellfire Gala. The next time we see her she is drumming up the Brood to go to war and she is wearing a helmet and outfit clearly inspired by her father.
• Took a Level in Badass: After being repowered by Apocalypse, she got a significant power boost. She even managed to severely hurt Vulcan, who until that point had been an Invincible Villain.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: During Chuck Austen's run, though she did have the justification of being at ground zero for the total annihilation of Genosha, which drove her insane. And again during All-New X-Factor, after finding out the truth about her mother's death, mixed with experiencing hell on Earth.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Common for most X-Men, but Lorna had a very nasty one. When she was three years old, her powers activated when she saw her mother and her mother's husband arguing about Lorna's real father and her mother's adultery. Her powers activated and took down the plane they were on. Magneto then showed up to rescue her, and had Mastermind use his Psychic Powers to block the memories of what really happened, which has been suggested as the root cause of her...less than solid mental health.
• Unstable Powered Woman: She was on Genosha the day that Cassandra Nova launched a genocidal attack that killed nearly every mutant in the nation. This was the original start of her personality becoming unhinged. Later, when her long-time Love Interest Havok decided to leave her at the wedding altar to be with a woman whom he just met, she went completely off the deep end, adopted a costume similar to her father Magneto and attempted to murder everyone there.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: The 2019 X-Factor claims as such, despite it not being a tremendous part of Lorna's personality beforehand.
• Will They or Won't They?: With Alex, of course. She had a mental breakdown after Alex left her at the altar. After 2012, they broke up in part because of Lorna's sudden spike in bad-temperedness.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Like dear old dad, excessive use of her powers has made her a little nuts in the past.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds
• Yandere: When she found out that her boyfriend was dating with Nurse Annie, she was not very happy (In fairness to Lorna, she was suffering from horrific trauma, and Alex dumped her right at the altar).

Havok

Alexander "Alex" Summers / Havok

Nationality: American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Men #54 (March, 1969)

Havok is a Marvel character created by Arnold Drake and Don Heck.

Scott Summers' younger and more rebellious brother. When Scott and he were orphaned during an alien-caused plane crash, Alex was adopted, Scott was stuck in the orphanage. Alex likes the X-Men, but resents Scott's position, so is usually a reserve member. Alex has the mutant power to project energy blasts from his hands, but Scott and Alex are immune to each other's powers, leading to fist-fights between them during conflicts. Occasionally sports an out-of-control temper and the power of a small sun. Is the long-time boyfriend of Lorna Dane a.k.a. Polaris, although the two eventually settled on being friends. Had his own series for several years, Mutant X, which involved him being trapped in a parallel world.

Alex was selected by Captain America to lead the Unity Squad, a team of Avengers which included mutants, in the aftermath of Avengers vs. X-Men in a bid to improve relations between humanity and mutants. He eventually resigned after having his personality temporarily inverted during AXIS. Alex rejoined his brother when most of the X-Men were thought dead and sacrificed his life buying Scott time to escape an army of O.N.E. Sentinels.

With the founding of the mutant nation of Krakoa, Alex was resurrected by the Five and joined his brother Scott in living at the Summer House in the Blue Area of the moon alongside the rest of the Summer's family, including his revived brother Vulcan. However, the traumas of the past several years have left Alex mentally unstable and a danger to others, resulting in him being placed on Mr. Sinister's Hellions, a team of mutants whose destructive or anti-social tendencies are being channeled for the good of Krakoa.

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• Aborted Arc: His romance with Janet van Dyne and his kidnapping of her after his inversion is never brought up after AXIS.
• Ambiguous Situation: Since returning in Austen’s run Alex has not mentioned his time on Earth-1298 which begs the question of whether he even remembers his time there. His body was inhabited by his evil counter part from that world but it was resolved quickly and Alex didn’t provide any info about said counterpart. As time goes on it become increasingly unlikely that he will ever mention it.
• Always Someone Better: Mentions that he feels this way about his elder brother, Scott. Considering that he has a tendency to subconsciously emulate Scott (including constantly chasing Scott's ex-wife) it's very easy to believe him.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: His temper occasionally makes him come across as whiny and irrational (especially when he's fighting against his brother), something both Beast and Iceman have called him out on.
• Arch-Enemy: The Living Monolith and Sauron are his classic archenemies, though he hasn't fought either villain in many a moon.
• Back from the Dead: After being killed by Robert Callahan in order to save his brother he was resurrected by the Five on Krakoa.
  • He was killed again by Mister Sinister after a Hellions mission to Otherworld went awry and was just as quickly resurrected again.
• Badass Family: He's a Summers and more than lives up to the family reputation for butt-kicking mutants.
• Bash Brothers: Does this with his actual older brother, Scott, a few times after the pair are reunited.
• Battle Couple: Originally with Polaris, and then with Janet van Dyne during his tenure on the Avengers.
• Betty and Veronica: Veronica for Polaris.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: During his inverted personality phase in X-Men: Blue he was one of the conspirators plotting to unleash Mothervine on Earth to make millions of new mutants and use them to take over the world.
• Big Good: In Mutant X, Alex is the hero of the story and eventually becomes this, saving the entire universe in issue #32.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: He falls victim to this trope. A lot. The most severe case was when his personality was inverted during AXIS and he was one of the few individuals who was not cured by the end of the event, leaving his evil side in charge.
• Butt-Monkey: Even by Summers family standards, he never seems to catch a break.
• Cain and Abel:
  • Depends on the circumstances, though. Usually he and Cyclops get on well enough, but they have off days.
  • Also with Vulcan. Vulcan is normally immune to Havok and Cyclops's energy blasts, but neither of them are immune to Vulcan's energy blasts.
    • Unless he gets thrown into a sun. Then he can smack Vulcan around like there's no tomorrow, indicating it's a power thing.
• The Captain: For a while in the 2000s, he served as the captain of the Starjammer, leading the crew in a rebellion against his brother Vulcan after he became Shi'ar Emperor. He was exceptionally good at it, with Major-General Ka'ardum, Lilandra's chosen general, being genuinely impressed on his tactical acumen and surprised that Earth can spare someone with his talents. Alex just dismisses it as him being there to take down Vulcan and says that his father and older brother are the leaders, not him.
• The Chosen One: For Captain America, who prefers him to Scott and recruited him to lead the Avengers Unity Squad.
• Containment Clothing: His classic outfit is a suit specially designed to regulate his mutant power.
• Depending on the Artist: Havok's blasts are either yellow or blue.
• Depending on the Writer: Havok's another one of those annoying Marvel characters whose basic personality traits are more or less a weathervane shifting to the needs of whoever the writer is that day. Sometimes he's honestly a better and more human leader than his brother (Chuck Austen's run and the Starjammers era), sometimes he's a weak-willed lackey content to serve as deputy leader (as a Genoshan, with Madelyne in Inferno, X-Factor Alex at points) and sometimes he's a barely-controlled psycho with a serious mad-on about his brother (Brotherhood Alex, also X-Factor Alex at points). The most consistent characterisation is that he's a very good leader, but he's got a lot of self-doubt relating to issues with/being overshadowed by his brother, so he tends to retreat from leadership unless circumstances force it upon him.
• Distressed Dude: Early in his history he was prone to enduring this at the hands of his personal stalker villain, the Living Monolith.
• Does Not Like Spam: He's really not a fan of cauliflower.
• Enemy Within: Actually two different occasions.
  • When he returned from the Mutant X universe his counterpart from that world came with him and hijacked his body. He was eventually taken care of by The Time Broker.
  • While Emma Frost managed to restore his original personality as the dominant one over his inverted evil side, that personality still exists within Alex and can resurface in moments of extreme anger or danger.
• Energy Absorption: Alex can absorb ambient cosmic energy from the atmosphere and redirect it. For many years, he had to wear a special suit to help him contain this energy, but he has since learned how to control it.
• Energy Ring Attack: Havok can absorb ambient cosmic radiation and release it in the form of plasma beams with a tell-tale concentric circle pattern. These waves will emanate from his body in all directions unless he purposefully tries to channel them in a single direction, usually along the length of his arms.
• Evil Costume Switch: During the Inferno storyline when he became the Goblin Prince to Madelyne Pryor (although the switch in question is really just his old suit reduced to tatters to match Madelyne's skimpy outfit). He also did this during his time in Genosha, trading his standard black suit for a magistrate's uniform.
• Fatal Attractor: Alex has a long list of exes, and most of them were either evil or mentally unwell in some way. The infamous anti-mutant Nurse Annie is the most well known example of this, but there's also Scarlett McKenzie (an agent of Sugar Man who seduced Havok to capture him for her boss) and Madelyne Pryor (who was currently in the throes of her breakdown into the Goblyn Queen and only got with Alex as a rebound). Even his most longtime love interest Polaris has had long periods of mental instability.
• Fatal Flaw: He has horrific self-esteem. A large part of his history consists of him feeling inferior to Cyclops, who only wants what's best for him and is not interested in being his rival. He is hopelessly in love with the woman who was dumped by his brother. He is constantly insecure in regards to the relationships he has, which is why they rarely last long and while he does have leadership capabilities, they wax and wane depending on how he feels about himself.
• Flight: Using the energy he fires as energy bolts, he can flight at around the speed of sound. This is a very infrequently used power of his, however, and wasn't even introduced at all until the 2010s.
• Hand Blast: Havok can produce blasts of superheated plasma from his hands that are devastatingly powerful.
• Happily Married: Averted. Though it is implied that alternate!Havok and Maddie Summers are this, Alex does not find himself attracted to her at all, despite them technically being married and him having feelings for the Maddy of his Earth.
• Hidden Depths: At least on paper; in practice, most of them are now a case of Informed Attribute.
  • He's a graduate-level geologist, which has more or less been completely forgotten about.
  • He was trained in martial arts by Wolverine, which is a more justified case of never coming up since he prefers to blast most of his enemies from range.
  • Apparently he's a big fan of Stephen King, which makes his taking up with a nurse named Annie a particularly eyebrow-worthy moment.
  • His leadership skills qualify as this, since they tend to drop in and out. This is partly justified due to Alex's chronic lack of self-confidence, which itself comes from being in the shadow of his older brother, one of the finest generals in the Marvel Universe.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: He had little to no interest in X-Men or mutant duties, preferring to just live a normal life. Jay and Miles describe him joining mutant teams as Alex ''giving up''.
• The Leader: Of S-Factor then Six and, later, of the heroes of Mutant X in general. He later becomes temporary leader of the Starjammers, and the leader of the Avengers Unity Division. Despite all these times, Kitty Pryde surmises that Alex is not fit for this position in Astonishing X-Men (2017).
• Like Father, Like Son: Inherited command of the spacefaring vessel the Starjammer from his father Corsair, and led his father's old crew in a long-running battle against the forces of the corrupt Shi'ar Emperor Vulcan, just as his father had battled Emperor D'Ken before him.
• The Load: His penchant for getting kidnapped, brainwashed, and needing to be rescued has resulted in him feeling like Cyclops' load.
• Man of Kryptonite: To the Living Monolith, as due to the experiments of Mr. Sinister on both their powers have a strange link and Alex absorbs the bulk of the Monolith's power whenever he's in close enough proximity.
• Long Lost Sibling: Though it's been so long now that you'd never know Cyclops didn't know about him all along.
• Love Martyr: Refused to give up on Madelyne Pryor long after everyone else did. He went to Hell and back trying to get her resurrected on by The Five, even though his last interaction with her involved her torturing him and trying to feed him to demons that she intended to unleash on Krakoa.
• Missed the Call: In regards to not being the leader of the X-Men.
  • After Avengers vs. X-Men, he's taken over as chief representative of the mutant race, although many of his fellow mutants and X-Men feel he isn't worthy of the position and disagree with him on a lot of issues. After his personality was inverted he resigned from the Avengers and joined Cyclops' mutant faction.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: Like his brother, he was originally weedy but got very jacked during the nineties as a way of showing his maturity and Character Development. Unfortunately the writing didn't often live up to this visual cue, and in hindsight it's become just another example of the Liefeldian nineties meme.
• Naïve Newcomer: As a newcomer to Earth-1298, Havok starts the series confused about the various differences between that universe and his own, though he quickly catches on.
• Nice Guy: Alex isn’t the brightest X-man but he is a lot sweeter and more empathetic than his brother.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: He actually liked his life as a Genoshan magistrate and probably would have stayed loyal to the regime if it hadn't been co-opted by the murderously insane Cameron Hodge.
• Odd Friendship: Due to his strange ability to pull the Cooperation Gambit with villains much more successfully than Cyclops, he's made friends with a few villains, including the Juggernaut and the Reavers.
• Papa Wolf: Though at first he is weirded out by the idea of having a son in Mutant X, Alex later becomes extremely protective of Scotty Summers and even allows the boy to call him "dad".
• Power Incontinence: The most obvious point of similarity with his brother.
• The Power of the Sun: What fuels his plasma blasts.
• Power of Trust: During the Chuck Austen era he trusted the Juggernaut when no one else would. This trust was rewarded, and even after his return to villainy Juggs has gone noticeably easier on the X-Men than he ever did prior to joining them.
• Pragmatic Hero: Is far more likely to kill than most of his teammates, particularly after he suffers a Despair Event Horizon.
• The Quisling: An uncharitable but not altogether inaccurate summation of Havok, as he is much more prone to trusting in the government and government regimes than Cyclops and has worked with several (X-Factor under Valerie Cooper, the Avengers Unity Squad under Captain America, etc). Some of these groups were more sympathetic to mutants than others, but as a member of the Genoshan Magistrates Havok willingly kidnapped mutants and forced them into slavery.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: His energy blasts are blue while Scott's are red. Ironically, with his hot-headed and unstable personality he's a much better red oni to Scott's cold and calculating blue.
• Replacement Goldfish: For his adoptive parents' recently-dead son.
• Required Secondary Powers: He's immune to most forms of radiation, a good trait to have when one's power is being a cosmic energy battery.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: During the 90s he was the vessel for the Nexus of Reality, a job traditionally reserved for the Man-Thing.
• Sympathetic Slave Owner: During his time with the Genoshans, one of their slave mutants was bonded to his will as per Genoshan tradition — after he left them and took up with X-Factor, he found out that mutant was actually his X-Factor teammate Wolfsbane. Both characters were exceedingly uncomfortable with the situation, and Wolfsbane was eventually separated from this enslavement by the nominal villainess Haven.
• Tangled Family Tree: His introduction as a character is arguably the snowball that started the Summers family off into becoming the ur-example of this trope.
• The Unfavorite: In contrast to Captain America above who prefers Alex to Scott, perennial Summers stalker Mr. Sinister much prefers Cyke and always treats Havok with barely-concealed disdain. Even during the Hickman era when he recruited Havok to his mutant team, it mostly just seemed to be an excuse for Sinny to have him on hand as a personal Butt-Monkey.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: When we first met Alex, he was graduating college with a degree in geophysics and he had a good head on his shoulders. His judgement and decision making skills has declined heavily since then with his geophysics knowledge rarely if ever getting mentioned, maybe all that brainwashing took a toll on him.
• Two-Faced: While stopping Kang the Conqueror from absorbing the power of a Celestial, the left side of Alex's face was badly burned and left scarred. It remained that way for several years until Elixir healed him after his inversion to an evil personality was undone in hopes of a fresh start.
• Uniqueness Value: In Exiles it was asserted that Alex was the only Havok remaining in the Multiverse, the others all having been killed by the Timebroker. Naturally other versions of Alex have emerged since this, though interestingly most of them are dead now anyway.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • A major factor in his Cain and Abel dynamic with his brother is due to how Scott acts some times.
  • He betrayed Scott for Madelyne Pryor because he was disgusted at how he treated her.
• Weak-Willed: Has the dubious distinction of being one of the most frequently and successfully brainwashed members of the X-Men. And given the X-Men as a whole get brainwashed quite a lot anyway, that's saying something.

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