Havok
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- For information about the software program, see Havok (software) For information about Havok the software company, see Havok (Company).
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Havok (Alexander "Alex" Summers) is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero, a member of the X-Men. Created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Neal Adams, he first appeared in X-Men #54 (March 1969).
A mutant, Havok generates powerful “plasma blasts,” an ability he has had difficulty controlling. He is the younger brother of the X-Men’s Cyclops and older brother of Vulcan. He often resents Cyclops’ authoritative attitude and reputation as a model X-Man.
In contrast, Havok and his longtime love interest Polaris have had a love/hate relationship with the team, often finding themselves roped into it. Both were also members of the 1990s-era Pentagon-sponsored mutant team X-Factor. After X-Factor disbanded, Havok starred in Mutant X, a series in which he explored a strange alternate reality. He has since returned to the X-Men.
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[edit] Character history
Alexander Summers is the second of the three sons of Christopher Summers, a United States Air Force Major and test pilot and his wife Katherine Anne. When Alex was a boy growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, United States, his father took the family for a flight in their airplane. It came under attack by a Shi'ar spaceship. As the plane caught fire and was crashing, his parents fastened Alex and his older brother, Scott, into a parachute and pushed them off the plane in hopes that they would survive.
The Summers boys were put in an orphanage and Alex was soon adopted though his brother Scott remained there for much of his childhood. Alex was raised by the Blandings; a family whose son, Todd, died in a car accident. They tried to make Alex fit into the image of their son and he tried to do as best he could. When the boy responsible for Todd's death kidnapped Alex and his foster sister, Haley, Alex manifested his powers for the first time incinerating the boy. Mister Sinister, an evil mutant genetecist who was obsessed with the Summers bloodline, appeared eager yet surprised that Alex’s potential exceeded that of Scott's- despite the fact that he seemed to lack control over his gift. Sinister placed psi-blocks on both Alex and Haley's minds, causing them to forget what had happened that night.
Alex went on to study and earn a degree in geophysics at college. As a young man, Scott, now the hero Cyclops and the leader of the X-Men, located Alex and they discovered that Alex was also a mutant. Unable to fully control his powers, Alex was captured by the villain the Living Pharaoh, who shared the same energy-absorption abilities. Locking Alex in a shielded cell, the Pharaoh was able to absorb additional energy to become the Living Monolith. After the Monolith was defeated by the X-Men and Alex was freed, the Monolith returned to normal.
Alex was then captured by Larry Trask and his Sentinels, who were bent on controlling or eradicating all mutants. Trask fashioned a costume for Alex that would help him control his powers and Alex took the code name Havok. Trask turned out to be a mutant himself and the Sentinels were defeated by the X-Men. Havok actively joined the X-Men and began a relationship with Lorna Dane, Polaris, much to the anger of Iceman who was romantically interested in her. While the senior X-Men were in the Savage Land, Havok and Polaris were approached by Professor X about the imminent invasion of the alien Z’Nox. During this time, the couple fell in love.
Havok and Polaris were occasional members and allies of the X-Men for years. During one of their adventures, Polaris was possessed by the mutant Marauder Malice, ending the romantic relationship for a time.
Havok befriended Wolverine in the late 1980s and they shared some adventures together in the miniseries Meltdown. While they were vacationing in Mexico, they were targeted by a terrorist cell. They managed to deal with their hunters, but were fooled by a damsel in distress who was actually a member of the terrorist group. Havok woke up in a hospital, in the care of nurse Scarlett McKenzie, the assassin without disguise. She manipulated Havok and made him fall in love with her. Scarlett was working for the Russian scientist, Dr. Neutron, aka Meltdown, who wanted to use Havok as a means to absorb the entire energy of an atom reactor breaking down and transmute it into himself. Scarlett fed Alex with false information that terrorists were trying to sabotage the plant. When he ventured into the heart of the reactor, he found it shortly before reaching critical limit. According to plan, Havok tried to absorb the dangerous radiation; however, when he witnessed Meltdown killing Scarlett, he blasted him, making himself stronger. The arrival of Wolverine prevented a full disaster after Logan killed Meltdown, and Havok redirected the nuclear radiation into space.
During this period, Havok became involved with Madelyne Pryor. Both of them had been rejected by their previous lovers, her then-husband Cyclops had left her for Jean Grey. Madelyne was manipulated by N'astirh and became the Goblin Queen. She attempted to use Havok to help take over the world and transform it into a demonic realm. Havok eventually came to his senses and Madelyne killed herself after discovering she was a clone of Jean Grey.
After going through Siege Perilous with several other X-Men fleeing the cyborg hunters The Reavers, Havok ended up amnesic in Genosha; a country that used mutants and genetically-engineered slaves called Mutates. He became a high-ranking Magistrate in the Genoshan army. His fellow X-Men had no idea of what had happened to him until, during the X-Tinction Agenda, the Genoshan government kidnapped members of the mutant teams X-Men, X-Factor and the New Mutants. During a pitched battle with his brother, Cyclops, Havok's memory returned, but he kept it a secret hoping to catch the Genoshan leader, Cameron Hodge, off guard. He succeeded and was the one to deliver the killing blow to Hodge.
Havok and Polaris eventually reunited and he became the leader of the government-sponsored X-Factor for a time. However, Havok eventually had a nervous breakdown, thanks to the Dark Beast and he left X-Factor to lead a short-lived Brotherhood of Mutants.
Havok was operating independently when an airplane explosion, caused by an experimental device, cast him into a parallel world where he was the leader of a drastically altered version of the X-Men, known as The Six. He found he was married to Madelyne Pryor, with whom he had a son named Scotty. In the comic book Mutant X, a series featuring Havok as the lead character, his adventures in this other reality were chronicled leading to a disastrous adventure which left most superhumans on that world dead. Havok was able to save the world itself before being cast back into his home reality.
Havok's body was found back in the original reality in a comatose state. The X-Men were able to restore his psyche with the help of the son of Havok's nurse, Annie Ghazikhanian. When he was reunited with Polaris, she asked him to marry her, which he agreed to. However, unknown to Havok and Polaris, Annie's telepathic son Carter used his powers to cause Annie and Havok to fall in love in their dreams. Annie was lonely and Carter felt that a reciprocated love from Alex is what she needed. During Lorna and Alex's wedding, Alex called off the marriage and Lorna, affected by the disasters at Genosha, tried to kill them, only to be stopped by Juggernaut and Havok.
Havok and Annie maintained their relationship even after Carter's involvement in the situation was revealed. When Iceman helped protect Carter and Annie, Annie expressed her thanks by kissing Iceman who was at the time with Polaris. Havok still cared for Annie as well as Carter. A sound relationship between the two is suggested in the alternate future X-Men: The End, where Carter creates an illusion that he is still a child and Havok and Annie are together. However, the destruction of the X-Mansion at the hands of a new Brotherhood of Mutants led by Exodus caused Annie to dump Havok and take her son away from the X-Men on the basis that it was no longer safe for the two to live at the mansion if it was going to be constantly under attack.
With Annie and Carter now gone, Havok now seems to want to resume his relationship with Polaris, who moved on after being rejected and is now dating her former boyfriend Iceman much to Havok's jealousy. During the "House of M" storyline, many mutants lost their powers. When Polaris revealed that she had lost her powers, she left the X-Men, and Havok decided to leave with her. However, after Polaris' and his encounter with the creature called "Daap," in which Lorna was abducted, Havok returned to the X-Mansion to see a Sphinx bearing the face of Apocalypse.
He later returned to active duty to assist the remainder of his squad, Rogue and Iceman, along with new member Mystique, in bringing down Apocalypse. Havok single-handedly destroyed the antidote to Apocalypse's meta-plague and a key element in his plan to decimate the human population. Gambit was turned into a horseman and he clashed with Havok and the other X-Men. During the last battle, Iceman struck down Pestilence, who was revealed to be Polaris. As her esophagus closed down, Havok administered CPR to save her life. Unfortunately, he became infected with the meta-plague. Luckily, Emma Frost saved some of the antidote Havok destroyed earlier and cured him with it. Havok was recruited by Professor X (Uncanny X-Men #475), along with Rachel Summers, Nightcrawler, Warpath, Darwin and Polaris to participate in a space mission to stop Vulcan from unleashing his powers on the Shi'ar empire.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Havok is a mutant possessing the power to absorb ambient cosmic energy, process it and emanate it from his body as waves of plasma in the form of a blast or discharge, 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. This results in control over an extremely powerful sort of destructive force. He is immune to the adverse effects of most forms of radiation and heat. At times, he is not entirely able to control this ability, which sometimes makes him a danger to those around him unless he wears a special containment suit to assist him. Havok is immune to his own powers and to those of his brother Scott.
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 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. He can absorb cosmic energies from his environment (such as starlight, x-rays, and gamma radiation) and store them within his body cells, metabolizing the energy in order to generate plasma wave discharges that super-heat and disintegrate objects or create concussion bursts by violently displacing air molecules in his path.
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 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.
Havok possesses the normal human strength of a man his age, height and build who engages in intensive regular exercise. Havok is also well-educated in the field of geophysical science and has been trained in martial arts by Wolverine.
It was also revealed, in the Mutant X and Exiles books that his body and mind were a nexus for all other Alex Summers in every other reality, and therefore his very existence was a sort of 'back door' to the others. This revelation caused the problem in the Uncanny X-Men and Exiles crossover. Not much more is known about his multidimensional status and has yet to be explored further.
[edit] Alternate Versions
[edit] Age of Apocalypse
In this continuity, Alex and his brother Scott are not separated after the plane crash, but adopted together - by Sinister. Raised together as the cream of the new mutant aristocracy in Apocalypse's America, the brothers - under the rank Prelate - work to oversee their foster father's interests. Alex, being the more emotional - and thus unstable - of the two, loses ground in Sinister's eyes and watches with envy as his brother gains favor.
The two brothers reunite briefly with their real father, Christopher Summers, who has been kept in Sinister's medical labs. They discover that Christopher been infected by the Brood and was transforming into the new Brood Queen, forcing Scott to kill him. Alex refuses to believe that there were no other options and blames his brother for their father's death.
Alex meets Lorna once, but they have no relationship other than that of jail warden and prisoner.
The power-hungry Alex is arrogant of his powers both as a mutant and as a Prelate. He frequents the club which Angel owns, Heaven, and has an affair with the club's diva, a flatscan (or human) woman named Scarlett. Because of the antagonism between humans and mutants, they both must keep this affair a secret. Scarlett, it turns out, is a spy working for the Human High Council. Scarlett is arrested right after she discovers that she is pregnant with Alex's child.
At almost that moment, Alex has just recaptured Jean Grey to use against his brother, Scott. Indeed, when Jean was originally a prisoner, she had captivated Scott and inspired him to release other prisoners. Alex exposes his brother as a traitor by asking Scott to execute Jean Grey, which of course Scott refuses to do. Following this, Alex has Scott arrested and gives him over to the Dark Beast for experiments, however, Jean Grey and Scott escape. Alex tracks them down and kills them both, but this decision proves fatal for Alex when Weapon X takes vengeance on Jean's behalf.
[edit] Ultimate Havok
In the Ultimate Marvel continuity of Ultimate X-Men, Alex Summers, aka Havok, is the headstrong, brash field leader of the Academy of Tomorrow, the mutant peacekeeping squad of Emma Frost. Also in this incarnation, Polaris is his girlfriend and teammate.
In this incarnation, he also is the brother of Cyclops. As in the mainstream comics, their powers are useless on each other. However, there are several key differences: first, Alex is the older brother; second, in this world, Alex and Scott are frequently at odds with each other, both ideologically and physically; and third, neither seems interested in mending this rift. Ideologically, their rift was evidenced by Alex's affiliation with Emma Frost's Academy of Tomorrow. There is also more than one reference to their physical competition over Polaris. In one case, Alex even knocked out Scott with a wrench, though he states that this was because Scott let him. The two have shown to help each other in great danger, but in general, they have a lot of sibling issues separating them.
[edit] Appearances in other media
- Havok guest starred in the X-Men animated series episode "Cold Comfort" as a member of X-Factor and revealed to be romantically involved with Iceman's ex-girlfriend Lorna Dane (not called Polaris). In the episode, X-Factor fights against the X-Men for a "friendly skirmish," as Forge puts it. It is never clearly stated in the animated series that Cyclops and Havok are indeed long-lost brothers, though it is hinted at since they develop an instant rivalry and neither brother's powers affect the other; a fact which is also seen in the comics. Also, images to Bishop's future show Cyclops and Havok fighting side by side against Sentinels. Interestingly Havok's voice actor also remains uncredited and some fans have speculated that Norm Spencer, the voice actor for Cyclops, also played Havok.
- Havok also appeared in the X-Men Evolution animated series, voiced by Matt Hill. In the series, he was portrayed as a surfer who was separated from his brother after the plane in which they were in when they were youngsters was going to crash. Unlike the other X-Men animated series, in X-Men Evolution, Scott and Alex actually do develop a bond between each other, although Alex declined full-time membership in the X-Men.
- Havok appeared as a main playable character in X-Men: Mutant Academy 2 for the Sony PlayStation, X-Men: Next Dimension for the Sony PlayStation 2, and X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants for the PC. He appeared as a supporting non-playable character in Wolverine (video game) for the NES, X-Men Legends and X-Men Legends II.
[edit] External links
- MDP: Havok - Marvel Database Project
- UncannyX-Men.net Spotlight on Havok
- Havok on the Marvel Universe Character Bio Wiki
