CANDRA

 

CANDRA

Real Name: Candra

First Appearance: Gambit (Vol. 1) #1, December 1993

Powers: Candra possesses the mutant power of telekinesis, able to levitate herself, lift and manipulate matter from a distance, project psychokinetic blasts of tremendous force, cast protective or restraining force fields, and so on. She can also apparently use her abilities to trigger or suppress superhuman abilities in others. By probing the genetic structure of a person, she can find and activate any latent potential they might have for special abilities. This was the gift she provided the Assassins Guild as part of the Pact. It was uncertain whether Candra's power only unlocked latent mutants or if it could find other forms of superhuman potential as well, and what were the chances that someone might have zero potential. Candra could also temporarily remove the powers she activated in people (such as Belladonna) or the powers of others (like Rogue). Candra indicated she could not permanently remove powers from people.

Additionally, Candra seemed to possess a substantial number of other abilities, possibly from the study of magic such as the Scrolls of the Old Kingdom she once discovered. Although it is possible that these were all aspects of her mutation and she simply had a highly diverse portfolio of mutant powers, it seems more likely that, similar to Selene, Candra was both a mutant and a sorceress to a degree that the two power sets intermingle in ways that make it difficult to differentiate the two. Among the additional powers she demonstrated (often only once) were teleportation, possession of other bodies, coercive mind control, healing of other people, cloaking spells to hide her presence, and so on.

Finally, she later began demonstrating the ability to feed off of life force released at the moment of death. When she kills someone, or if they are killed in her presence or in her name, Candra can absorb their living energy and use it to restore herself. She was initially reduced to a ghost, a psionic entity with no physical body, and was able to use this life energy to recreate a corporeal body for herself from virtually nothing. In her last appearance, however, Candra was still in a tenuous state between life and death, her body only partially regenerated and dependent on the excess life force she called upon to remain mobile and active. Excessive use of her powers or physical injury would tax her life force storages, forcing her to absorb more life force or return to a state of death. Conceivably, if she managed to absorb enough life force to fully restore her body to life, she would no longer be reliant on outside life force to maintain herself physically.

Candra has an extremely long lifespan due to her status as an External. Externals are mutants who, in addition to having powers from their active “x-factor” gene, are also gifted with near-immortality. An External’s immortality manifests at the point of their first mortal death. They would age normally until their first death, after which they would self-resurrect and remain frozen at that age indefinitely from then on. An External is supposed to be capable of recovering from just about any injury given time, except for the severing of all four limbs and the head. They proved just as susceptible to the Legacy Virus as other mutants, and could also be killed by the absorption or destruction of their astral forms.