Real
name: Alexander ("Alex") Summers
Other aliases: None
Identity: Secret
Occupation: : (current) Adventurer, (former) Graduate
student in geophysics
Legal status: Citizen of the United States with
no criminal record
Place of birth: Honolulu, Hawaii
Marital status: Single
Known relatives: Scott (Cyclops,
brother), Christopher (Corsair, father), Katherine Anne
(mother, deceased), Philip (grandfather), Deborah (grandmother),
Madelyne Pryor-Summers
(sister-in-law, deceased)
Base of operations: (current) Alexandria, VA, (former)
Diablo mountain range in Arizona, and the University of
California, Berkeley, California
Group affiliation: (former) X-Men,
X-Factor, Brotherhood
First appearance: X-MEN (first series) #58
History: Alexander Summers is the younger of the
two sons of Christopher Summers, a United States Air Force
Major and test pilot, and his wife Katherine Anne. Alex
and his mother and older brother Scott were flying back
from a vacation in Christopher's vintage airplane when
the plane crashed into a scout ship of the Shi'ar Empire,
setting the wooden plane ablaze. Katherine Anne Summers
pushed Scott and Alex out of the burning plane with the
only available parachute. Thus the two boys escaped the
Shi'ar while their parents did not. Scott and Alex both
believed their parents had been killed until as adults
they were reunited with their father, who had since become
Corsair, leader of the Starjammers, a starfaring band
of adventurers. The two boys were hospitalized for injuries
they sustained during their landing, since their overburdened
parachute had been unable to slow their decent safely
enough. Scott and Alex both suffered traumatic amnesia
regarding the plane incident. Alex left the hospital after
two weeks and was placed in an orphanage in Omaha, Nebraska.
Soon adopted, Alex had little or no contact with Scott
until years later.
Alex was unaware of Scott's developing mutant power
or his identity as Cyclops of the X-Men until after the
younger Summers had graduated from college. It was at
that time that Alex first became aware of his own mutant
abilities. A professor of archeology named Ahmet Abdol,
also a mutant, had discovered a psychic link between himself
and Summers. While both of them had the latent mutant
power to absorb and transform cosmic radiation, Abdol's
ability to exercise the power was jammed in an unknown
manner by Summers' body. The Living Pharoah, as this mutant
was calling himself, captured the youth and took him to
his laboratory in Egypt. Abdol found a way to screen Summers'
body from ambient cosmic radiation, permitting his own
body to attain its latent potential. Abdol was transformed
into the Living Monolith, a gigantic mutant with vast
cosmic power. The Monolith was defeated while in combat
with the X-Men when Summers' latent mutant powers surfaced
under the stress of entombment within the mechanism designed
to screen him from cosmic radiation.
Incapable of controlling the shock waves his body emanated,
Summers chose to remain in the Egyptian desert rather
than accompany the X-Men back to America.
Summers was soon captured by one of the mutant-hunting
robotic Sentinels and brought to the headquarters of Larry
Trask, the son of the Sentinels' inventor. Trask gave
Summers the codename Havok and a costume whose chest display
monitored the build-up of cosmic energy within him. When
the X-Men finally freed Trask's captive mutants, Summers
accompanied his brother and his teammates back to civilization
where he began training to help him keep his energy in
check. Eventually Havok gained enough mastery over his
power that he would release it only when he wished to
do so, and could wield his power skillfully enough to
become a formidable opponent in battle.
Havok fell in love with Lorna Dane, the mutant now known
as Polaris. They both served
for a time in the X-Men helping to repel the invasion
by the alien Z'nox. Neither Havok nor Polaris wished to
lead a life as an adventurer, but they discovered that
they had a mutual interest in geophysics. Hence, they
began doing doctoral research in that subject in the Diablo
mountain range in Arizona.
The plan to stay out of the affairs of the outside world
did not last long. Havok and Polaris found themselves
hunted by the Marauders.
Polaris was now under the mental control of Malice. Polaris
was forced to attack the X-Men as the leader of the Marauders.
Havok, now a member of the X-Men, had to fight his lover.
Polaris was eventually freed from Malice's control, but
was captured by the mutant named Zaladane,
who claimed to be her sister and stole her powers. For
a short while, Polaris gained new superhuman powers.
Later, Polaris regained her original powers and, with
Havok, joined the second version of X-Factor, a newly-formed,
governmentally-funded, mutant agency.
Havok continued to serve with X-Factor until he felt
that there were too many people in his life that had been
controlling him. He was also deeply affected by the apparent
death of his teammate Jamie
Madrox. Disillusioned with both the X-Men and X-Factor,
Havok teamed up with the Black
Beast, the Beast's evil counterpart from another timeline.
Together they founded a team of mutant terrorists called
the Brotherhood. However, Havok did not truly become a
terrorist; he joined the Brotherhood only in order to
stop the Black Beast's sinister plans.
Havok was operating independently when an airplane explosion
ripped him from his reality and deposited him on a dark,
twisted Earth. His soul was transferred to an alternate-universe
version of his body, and he found himself living a lie,
allied with a team of mutants who were sinister, parallel
incarnations of his friends and family. In this strange,
new world, Havok stood as a man alone ... a mutant alone.
Mutant X. After plunging the planet into chaos during
a catastrophic confrontation with a mutated Captain America,
star-spangled Sentinel of Liberty, Alex sacrificed himself
to preserve the fabric of all reality. In a cataclysmic
battle with the dark force of nature known as the Goblin
Queen, who had merged with the immensely powerful entity
called the Beyonder, Havok tapped into a well of raw power
never again to be unleashed in all the dimensions and
destroyed his adversary. But the price of victory appeared
to be death, as Alex's soul was cast adrift in the void.
Whether he will be drawn back to his original plane of
existence remains to be seen.
Height: 6 ft.
Weight: 175 lbs.
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Blonde
Strength level: Havok possesses the normal human
strength of a man his age, height and build who engages
in intensive regular exercise.
Known superhuman powers: Havok is a mutant with
the superhuman ability to absorb ambient cosmic energy
into the cells of his body, transform it in an unknown
manner, and release it as waves of energy that heat the
air in their path enough to turn it into plasma. (Plasma
is a super-heated state of matter consisting of charged
subatomic particles.) These waves will emanate from his
body in all directions unless he purposefully tries to
channel them in a single directions, usually along the
length of his arms. Havok is himself immune to the intense
heat he creates. Whether he is immune to intense heat
from other sources is not yet known.
Despite past accounts, the energy that Havok releases
is not truly a concussive force. When Havok strikes an
object with the waves of intensity of hot plasma, the
sudden vast jump in temperature will often cause objects
to shatter, explode, or seemingly disintegrate, and an
observer might therefore wrongly think that the object
had been struck by a concussive force. Should Havok direct
his energy at the lowest level, he can project it towards
a human being and his target will suffer a severe headache
but will not burn up.
Havok's body is constantly in the process of absorbing
cosmic radiation. When each of his body's power-storage
cell enclaves reaches its capacity, excess cosmic energy
is thereafter absorbed and immediately re-emitted in negligible
quantities. Upon the total expenditure of all his available
energy, it takes Havok's body about 16.5 hours to recharge
to its peak level. The act of concentration involved in
releasing his energy in anything other than an omnidirectional
wave is physically exhausting for Havok if he continues
it over an extended period of time.