Rachel Summers
Rachel Summers is a female comic superhero who features in Marvel Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Rachel Anne Summers was the daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey who was native to an alternate future timeline designated as Earth-811 in the Multiverse. Similar to the main reality, her parents were members of the X-Men with Jean being captured by Sentinels and her piloting a spacecraft back to Earth. On the day, the Phoenix Force bonded to her and she returned back home only to become overwhelmed by the rage of the Dark Phoenix. She began to experience the pain of emotions from others due to being a telepath but unlike Earth-616 her father did not cast her out. As a result, Jean Grey did not commit suicide and instead married Scott Summers where the two had the daughter who they named Rachel Summers. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #199)
When she was in her early teens, Rachel’s mother was killed in a nuclear explosion caused by Mastermind in Pittsburgh. Times were also harsh for Mutantkind in general, however, as prominent politicians led the government to decide to outlaw mutants as a whole and restarted the Sentinel program. The Mutant Registration Act came with a wide mandate to override Mutant civil rights, for those were reserved for 'humans'. Later, the Sentinels concluded that the best way to deal with the mutant threat was to take over the whole country, removing all nuance from the Act's implementation. At some point, Xavier’s school was attacked by the military and many present there died. As one of the few survivors, Rachel was brought to the labs of Ahab, the man in charge of the government’s anti-mutant programs. For months Rachel was drugged, hypnotized and brainwashed. Finally, she gave in, becoming the prototype of Ahab’s Hounds, mutants hunting other mutants for humanity. With her inherited telepathy, Rachel had to trace psychic scents of other mutants and point the way for the military. She hunted down dozens of other mutants but, unnoticed by Ahab, she stayed in a mindlock with each target when they were killed and, with each death, she fuelled her shame, grief and anger to the point where she was able to resist and attack Ahab. Even though she was quickly defeated by the Sentinels, she had managed to scar Ahab’s face forever. In the following months, Rachel was able to resist all attempts of a second re-programming into a Hound and eventually she was brought to the same containment camp where the remaining X-Men had been sent. There, Rachel had a bittersweet reunion with friends like Wolverine, Storm, Magneto, Colossus, Kate Pryde, and Franklin Richards. She learned that, in her absence, most other super-beings - mutant or not - had either been killed or imprisoned. (Excalibur v1 #52)
By 2013, she came to find herself transferred to the South Bronx Mutant Containment Facility where she joined the last surviving members of the X-Men. These included Wolverine, Magneto, and Katherine Pryde-Rasputin, Peter Rasputin and Ororo Munroe. During this time, she came to befriend Franklin Richards who was the last survivor of the Fantastic Four with the two becoming lovers. During this time, they came upon a plan to change history to end the reign of the Sentinels that involved projecting Kitty's mind back into the past to her younger self so that she could alter the timeline. Within the camp, the group came to find a way of breaking the power-neutralising collars whilst Rachel meditated in the use of her powers to allow her to project a person's consciousness back through time. (X-Men v1 #141)
Excalibur
Rachel was unaware that she hosted the Phoenix Force’s essence and her memory was suppressed by it. These conditions were part of the deal as Kate had wanted to give Rachel a new life, without the ghosts of her past haunting her. Yet Rachel’s mind was too strong and, occasionally, fragments of her past came to the surface. When Rachel arrived in the present day of the main reality, she remembered wanting to check what went wrong with the original plan of changing the past to save their future. Soon, she discovered the same thing she had already learned before but did not recall anymore - she had wound up in the past of a timeline not her own. While there were many similarities, the details did not match her historical events. An example of this was the existence of a teenage Illyana Rasputin, who, according to the history of Rachel’s reality, should not be older than a pre-school child. (New Mutants v1 #18) Unsure what to do next, Rachel wandered the streets of New York, where she ran into Selene, who sensed a powerful essence she wanted to 'drink'. Rachel managed to run away and was taken in by a night club owner, but Selene followed them and eventually killed the man that Rachel had befriended. The resulting battle was recognized by the X-Men, who rescued Rachel from Selene and took her in. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #184)
Rachel had a lot in common with Magma, a student of the New Mutants team; both were timely displaced outsiders and both hated Selene. They decided to rescue future victims of the energy vampire by killing her and infiltrated the Hellfire Club, disguised as servants. During the following battle, the X-Men interfered and talked Rachel out of performing the crime. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #189)
Upon learning that Cyclops’s wife, Madelyne Pryor, was pregnant, and as such that Scott would soon be the father of a child other than her, Rachel snuck into the house of Jean Grey’s parents. There, she touched the Shi’ar holo-empathic crystal that was imbued with the essence of Jean Grey’s personality. Rachel had read the X-Men’s files on Dark Phoenix, but she didn’t want the world to remember her mother as a killer and chaos-bringer. Wanting to restore her mother’s name, Rachel vowed to take on both her codename, Phoenix, as well as the powers that came along with it. Unaware that she was already hosting the Phoenix Force, this vow apparently allowed Rachel to tap into the Force for the "first time", making her much more powerful than before. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #199)
She then came to meet her newborn baby brother Nathan Christopher Summers where she established a psi-link with him and promised to always protected him. During this time, Scott Summers decided to retire from the X-Men in order to spend time with his wife Madelyne Pryor and their son Nathan in Anchorage, Alaska. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #201)
Gaunt, a cyborg prisoner from over two billion years in the future who was imprisoned two billion years further into the future at the end of time on the Borderline reality, located the other Rachel in the timestream and guided her to his domain, depowering her. After he enslaved Phoenix, Gaunt forced her to telepathically summon Cable, the adult version of her alternate reality half-brother Nathan Christopher, for his freedom. The Dark Sisterhood of the modern era did not want Cable to aid their enemy, the Mother Askani version of Rachel, and offered Gaunt his freedom to defeat Cable. To obey the Sisterhood and eager to face a worthy adversary, Gaunt battled Cable for Rachel's freedom. Gaunt easily outfought Cable, who only managed to land a single blow, but this blow ultimately won the fight, however, as Gaunt inadvertently absorbed Cable's more virulent form of the Techno-Organic Virus. After Phoenix distracted him, the virus completely incapacitated Gaunt with it's aggressive spread, with his systems unable to restore him for a millennium or more. Cable returned Rachel to the modern era with him. With her own timeline erased and having been abandoned by the Phoenix Force, Rachel decided to retire from the costumed adventuring life and began attending college. (Cable v1 #86)
X-Men
Rachel later decided to spend time with her maternal grandparents where she stayed with them. This saw the entire Grey family being invited where she came to see her extended relatives. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #466)
House of X
After the establishment of the nation of Krakoa, she was one of many Mutants that came to reside on the living island that was the home of their people. As a Krakoan citizen, she came to call the Summers House on the Blue Area of the Moon to be her home. (X-Men v5 #1)
Overview
Personality and attributes
As a new Phoenix avatar, some came to refer to her as the Young Phoenix. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #208) After her parents separated, she decided to take her mothers surname instead and went by Rachel Grey. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #444) Whilst joining Emma Frost, she briefly took the title of Warrior White Princess of the Hellfire Club. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #452) She once took the name Prestige as a codename. (X-Men: Gold v2 #1) Later on, she decided to take the name of Askani for herself. (Knights of X v1 #4)
She came to admit that she came to inherit her mothers temper and sometimes struggled with her rage. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #452)
Outside of her parents, the other people she loved were her grandparents and the X-Men. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #199)
She came to gain a brother from the main reality with this being Nathan Christopher Summers. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #201)
Powers and abilities
As a Mutant, she was noted for being telepathic and a telekinetic. (X-Men v1 #141) According to Jat Vor-Thrul, Rachel measures a 9-Tau-9 on the Kiatna Psi-Scale. (X-Men: Legacy v1 #254)
As a telepath, she was able to read the thoughts of others in an instant. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #199) Storm once stated that Rachel's telepathy had grown to such an extent to the point in which her psionic powers radiated off of her, to the extent in which others could feel her powerful presence within their minds. (X-Men: Gold v2 #31)
It was said that whilst powerful that she lacked control and finesse with Emma Frost offering to help mentor her in her abilities. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #452) She came to blacki out whilst fighting the Sentinel Alpha resulting in Rachel tapping into her full potential. (X-Men: Gold v2 #6) In her own words, she felt the dial had been cranked on all of her senses. (X-Men: Gold v2 #21)
Rachel can use her telepathy to read the past from objects, people, and environments. (X-Force v5 #10)
Through her chrono-skimming, she could psionically relive some of the events within a room. As her chronokinesis was vast, she struggled to focus it and had to rely on psychometry to pick up a psychic temporal trail. Objects were used as a kind of telepathic runaway for Rachel to witness some events of the person in a vicinity. (X-Factor v4 #1)
Her chronokinetic abilities also allows Rachel to directly observe and travel to alternate realities. (Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain v1 #2)
Rachel had no alternate versions in other timelines. Other offspring of Scott Summers and Jean Grey named 'Rachel Summers' in the multiverse were not variants of this Rachel. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #462) Her unique nature made Rachel an unusually stable time traveler. (Knights of X v1 #4)
Through practice and meditation, she could use her powers to project the consciousness of a person through time where they could inhabit the body of themselves somewhere else in the timeline. (X-Men v1 #141)
Emma Frost came to telepathically share a skill with Rachel Summers whereby she automatically altered the visual perceptions of everyone around her. This effectively made her invisible in a crowd who mentally simply ignored her presence. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #452)
Rachel had also been able to create a micro black hole. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #447)
Rachel Summers had trained with Nightcrawler in hand-to-hand combat and furtherly trained by replicating Shadowcat's fighting moves. (Excalibur v1 #17)
She had displayed great skill with swords, being able to wield two at a time and throw them with great precision. (Excalibur v1 #17)
Notes
- Rachel Summers was created by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and John Romita, Jr. where she made her first appearance in Uncanny X-Men v1 #141 (January, 1981).
Alternate Versions
- In Uncanny X-Men v1 #463 (2005), Rachel Summers appeared in the House of M reality designated as Earth-58163 in the Multiverse. Rachel Summers was the lady-in-waiting/bodyguard and traveling companion to Lady Elizabeth Braddock, alias Psylocke, British royalty after her brother Brian became ruler of all England. Having recently returned from adventuring abroad, Rachel and Betsy became involved in Captain Britain's mission to seal the rift in causality created by the Scarlet Witch's manipulation that created this twisted reality in the first place, to prevent its chaos from spreading to other universes.
- In Age of X: Alpha v1 #1 (2011), a mental manifestation of Rachel Summers appeared in the Age of X reality designated as Earth-11326 in the MUltiverse. Taking the form of fiery plasma, she was a mysterious individual on this world where she was referred to as Revenant. Some believed her to be Jean Grey because of her red hair, Phoenix shaped energy halo, and her telekinetic and pyrokinetic powers. However, it was assumed that Jean Grey died after the Albany explosion and/or during the subsequent USAF bombing strikes.
In other media
Television
- In X-Men: The Animated Series, Rachel Summers as Hound made a non-speaking cameo appearance in the setting of the 1990s animated television series in the episode "Beyond Good and Evil, Part 4". Rachel was one of a number of psychics and telepaths abducted by Apocalypse. She and the other abductees were freed by the X-Men.
- In X-Men '97, Rachel Summers made a non-speaking cameo appearance in the animated television series revival starting from the episode "Tolerance Is Extinction - Part 1". In the future where Bastion succeeded in converting the entire human race into the Prime Sentinels, Rachel was one of the few surviving mutants, made to use her powers to build the new post-human utopia.
Video games
- In X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants, Rachel Summers as Phoenix appeared as a playable character in the setting of the 1990 video game. Rachel Summers, under the name Phoenix, was a member of the X-Men. When Storm and Forge were held captive by the Adversary, five members of the X-Men searched for them through time warps, venturing to Dallas, Texas, the Ice Age, Stone Age, the Galleria mall, a forest, plains, a jungle, Vietnam and Forge's Eagle Tower. The X-Men battled various time-displaced foes and fought and defeated the Freedom Force. Learning the path to Adversary from the Freedom Force, the X-Men travel to Starlight Citadel, where Storm and Forge were freed and Forge banished the Adversary.
- In Marvel Future Fight, Rachel Summers as Marvel Girl appeared as a playable character in the setting of the mobile video game. Her biography listed her as the daughter of Jean Grey and Scott Summers from another dimension, was an elite mutant who possesses powerful telepathic and psychokinetic abilities. She was a potential host for the Phoenix Force, having inherited her mother's powers. After being rescued from a dark timeline, she actively supported her fellow X-Men across time and space as the new Marvel Girl.
Appearances
- Uncanny X-Men v1: (1981)
- Excalibur v1:
- X-Men:
- X-Men: Emperor Vulcan v1:
- X-Men:
- X-Men: Gold v1:
- X-Force v5:
- Excalibur:
- X-Men v5:
- X-Factor v4:
- Knights of X v1:
External Links
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