Cerebra
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- For the upgraded version of Cerebro, see the Cerebro article
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Cerebra (Shakti Haddad) is a mutant comic book character in the fictional Marvel Universe. She is a founding member of the X-Men 2099 of 2099 and founder of X-Nation 2099. Her creators were John Francis Moore and Ron Lim.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
Shakti Haddad was the daughter of Zail Haddad, a powerful and ruthless businessman, whose company did many twisted genetic experiments on innocents for their own profit. Shakti was a brilliant young woman and became an expert in genetics, but her compassionate nature made her oppose her father's company. She fled her native land of India and Zail sent various bounty hunters after his daughter. One of these bounty hunters fell in love with Shakti, and together the two escaped, but he was suffering a lethal disease and left her before the disease would kill him. Years later, she would meet him again, when he called himself the Architect.
Cerebra became a founding member of the futuristic version of the X-Men gathered together by Xi'an Chi Xan and a mainstay throughout the series. However, most of her support was not in combat but was behind the scenes. When she is first introduced, she recruited a mutant named Timothy Fitzgerald aka Skullfire into the fold.
Later Cerebra showed up during the battle with Master Zhao and his group of Chosen X-Men. Zhao had used unstable technology to further mutate his chosen group in order for them to more closely resemble the group of original X-Men (Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Iceman, Angel, and Beast) but this process had left the unwilling guinea pigs in a condition where their cellular structure was deteriorating. After the battle when this fact was discovered, Cerebra went about trying to find a way to cure their condition by placing them in cryogenic suspension. It became a pet project for her and almost cost her her life. When Xi'an finally turned on the team, the Theatre of Pain came to collect the three surviving mutants, just after Shakti had discovered a way to save the three. Shakti tried to stop them, but was knocked out by Xi'an. He set explosives in Master Zhao's old base, but Shakti woke up in time to wake the other X-Men and escape the base before it exploded.
Soon afterwards the X-Men attacked the Theatre of Pain and Xi'an was restored to his old self and the X-Men were made the protectors of Halo City. Shakti's father, Zail, sought refuge in Halo City from the Graverobber, a former employee who had been turned into a corpse-like zombie due to Zail's negligence. The Graverobber and his Undead took Halo City hostage and the Halo City administrator, Morphine Somers, used Zail as bait to capture the Graverobber. Due to Morphine's plan, Zail was seriously wounded, but survived and Shakti and Zail made peace.
President Doom came to Shakti with a rumor of a soon-to-come mutant Messiah. He or she was supposed to come in the body of a young child, so Doom wanted to assure that the young savior would be in his hands. He gave Shakti the task of collecting and training these children in Halo City and thus X-Nation was born. Shakti actually had little to no involvement in the team except for a session of anger management counseling before the team was disbanded by a combination of the revived Exodus, the invading Atlantean army, and other malevolent forces.
In the follow-up limited series 2099: World of Tomorrow, Shakti lost her mutant powers and the use of her legs by Franklin, a robot who also destroyed her nervous system. Shakti's father was able to repair the damage done to her nervous system, but could not restore her mutant powers or the use of her legs. She became one of the members of the new colony in the Savage Land which finally seemed to bring humans and mutants together peacefully.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Shakti possesses a specific form of telepathy that allows her to 'sense' mutants in a similar manner to Charles Xavier's Cerebro. She also has the ability to manipulate a person's nervous system and paralyze them as well as stun and render them unconscious or access any autonomic functions, like Skullfire's powers before he learned to control them. Shakti has a small implant below her left ear that allows her to directly connect to computers and the Cybernet, the 2099 version of the internet. Shakti also is brilliant scientist and a skilled martial artist.
[edit] Notes
- Towards the end of the series, it was revealed Shakti was pregnant but this was never explained as the series was cancelled soon after.
- Shakti's codename, Cerebra, was coined by Meanstreak as a joke, referring to her ability to locate mutants being similar to the original X-Men's Cerebro.
