LOCUS

 

LOCUS

Real Name: Rayna Piper

First Appearance: X-Force (Vol. 1) #27, October 1993

Powers: Locus’ mutant ability is phase-shifting. She was capable of instantaneously transporting herself and additional matter from one location to another. She could only transport herself to places that she has physically visited in the past, effectively retracing her steps backwards through her lifetime. When in close physical proximity to other people, Locus could expand her teleportation field to accommodate them, and could also probe their minds in order to access their previous locations as well.

By phase-shifting with another person, she could therefore teleport to any location that person has been to before in addition to her own inventory. It is unknown whether Locus could scan past locations from inanimate objects for phase-shifting purposes. It was once suggested that Locus's power would allow her to travel into other time periods because her passenger, Sunspot, had done so, but this was never completely confirmed. She could narrowly isolate the phase-shifting effect, enabling her to teleport a man's head off his shoulders instead of transporting his entire body with her. The spatial energy she manifested for her phase-shifting also generated an anti-gravity effect so that she could float in mid-air, but not truly fly.

REIGNFIRE

 

REIGNFIRE

Real Name: Unknown

First Appearance: X-Force (Vol. 1) #26, September 1993

Powers: Reignfire (aka "Project Nineteen") was a mutant born under unspecified horrific circumstances whose power reduced him to a sentient, amorphous, asexual, ebony protoplasm when it manifested at birth. After spending a decade under laboratory experimentation, the protoplasm (possessing a rudimentary consciousness) began suffering physical deteriorations and was placed in an oxygenated nutrient bath to slow its decline. This changed dramatically when he was exposed to a single cell sample from another mutant test subject, Roberto Da Costa (aka Sunspot). Project Nineteen ended up replicating the cellular material based on that cell, creating an entire humanoid body for himself. This body, a physical duplicate of Sunspot’s, was complete with an enhanced replication of Sunspot's solar-absorption powers. Escaping the labortatory with his newfound powers, Project Nineteen resurfaced months later as Reignfire.

Reignfire was able to naturally absorb solar energy through ambient sunlight and, with concentration, feed off of other nearby sources of heat and light in his environment as well. He could bolster his physical strength (up to Class 50), stamina, and resilience with this energy, use it for downward thrusts to fly or cast it off as solar plasma discharges from his hands. He demonstrated the ability to "seed" clouds with energy, causing plasma to rain down from the clouds. He could also siphon energy by draining body heat from others, inducing hypothermia. He also maintained a telepathic link with his template, granting him all of Sunspot’s memories and skills, as well as allowing him to monitor Sunspot's thoughts, influence his mind, and temporarily possess his body.

KAMIKAZE

 

KAMIKAZE

Real Name: Haruo Tsuburaya

First Appearance: The New Mutants (Vol. 1) #93, September 1990

Powers: Kamikaze’s mutant ability was the power to produce an explosive release of energy on impact. He accomplished this by accelerating atomic friction on contact, creating violent explosions within anything he touched. He also possessed the power of flight and would use it to propel himself into an opponent at high speeds. He seemingly had some defense against his own power, suggesting some level of enhanced strength and durability.

STROBE

 

STROBE

Real Name: Juliana Worthing

First Appearance: The New Mutants (Vol. 1) #86, February 1990

Powers: Strobe’s mutant power is the ability to increase the kinetic motion of molecules around her body, creating a thermal field that liquefies or incinerates matter on contact. This field is only a few inches thick, yet produces enough concentrated heat to instantly melt away speeding bullets before they can impact her skin. She can burn her way through all forms of plastics and metals, even cybernetic parts.

She can also focus her energies outwards as heat beams to melt objects from a distance, and the beams are intensely bright enough to blind opponents too resilient to burn or melt under her heat. She also demonstrated the power to fly using her abilities, through thermal updrafts and propulsion.

DRAGONESS

 

DRAGONESS

Real Name: Tamara Kurtz

First Appearance: The New Mutants (Vol. 1) #93, September 1990

Powers: Dragoness has energy projection powers. Primarily, her mutant power utilizes her inner storages of bio-electricity to focus stinger blasts that disrupt organisms or mechanical activity, or excite particle matter in the atmosphere to ignite pyrotechnic flares.

She also wears a flight pack with mechanized dragon wings that enabled her to fly.

FOREARM

 

FOREARM

Real Name: Michael McCain

First Appearance: The New Mutants (Vol. 1) #86, February 1990

Powers: Forearm’s mutant powers were superhuman strength and resistance to injury due to his two additional appendages and related enhanced musculature. He could lift up to 10 tons.

THUMBELINA & SLAB

 

THUMBELINA & SLAB

Real Names: Kristina Anderson (Thumbelina); Christopher Anderson (Slab)

First Appearances: The New Mutants (Vol. 1) #86, February 1990 (Thumbelina); X-Factor (Vol. 1) #74, January 1992 (Slab)

Powers: Thumbelina and Slab are mutant siblings born with size-changing abilities.

Thumbelina has the mutant power to compress her molecules into a smaller physical frame, enabling her to decrease her size and mass while proportionately increasing her strength and density. She can shrink to as small as a half-inch tall and back to her regular form at will.

Slab is a mutant who possesses enhanced strength and durability. He is capable of expanding his body to at least 2-3 times his normal size, increasing his strength and durability further in the process. He reaches at least Class 50 strength when at his growth limit.

SUMO

 

SUMO

Real Name: Jun Tenta

First Appearance: The New Mutants (Vol. 1) #93, September 1990

Powers: Sumo's mutant power granted him a considerable amount of mutagenically-enhanced fat in layers over his body. This gave him considerable strength and resistance to all manner of physical harm, resistance which varied in direct proportion to the amount of fat covering a given portion of his frame. He could resist temperature extremes and puncture wounds as well.

He also had the ability to alter his weight, either through mass-shifting or gravity manipulation, allowing him to leap much higher into the air than physically possible for a man of his size, and then pull himself back down onto an opponent with greater force that normal.

ZERO

 

ZERO

Real Name: Inapplicable

First Appearance: The New Mutants (Vol. 1) #86, February 1990

Powers: Zero is an ADAM (Algorhythmic wavelength Dampening / Ambient-energy absorbing Modular) unit, originally from the 40th century future of Earth-4935.

He primarily demonstrated the ability to open teleportation portals from one location to another, allowing him and others to travel instantaneously. These portals remained open as long as Zero willed them to, allowing passage back and forth between the two connected points. One occasion claimed he had to have been to a location first before opening a portal there, but that was widely disproven across his various appearances. Zero possessed a wide range of additional capabilities which he was apparently restricted from accessing while under Stryfe's programming.

As an android, his strength, endurance, reflexes, and intelligence and processing abilities all exceeded human prowess. As a peacekeeping mechanism, he was designed with scanners capable of detecting potential sources of conflict, which included the ability to detect and categorize various forms of technology and weaponry, the presence and abilities of superhumans, and even the psychological profiles of sentient beings, to determine if they were peaceful or warlike in nature. Once his scanners had categorized everything in his environment, Zero was then capable of eliminating all threats to the peace, draining energy from electronic systems or outright obliterating weapons of war or warlike individuals.

REAPER

 

REAPER

Real Name: Pantu Hurageb

First Appearance: The New Mutants (Vol. 1) #86, February 1990

Powers: Reaper's mutant power is to psionically project neuro-synaptic inhibitor waves to affect anyone within his immediate vicinity. These waves inhibit reaction time and slow the conscious thought processes of his victims, giving him an advantage over them. He used a scythe capable of mechanically amplifying his power, channeling it so that anyone struck by the scythe's blade would be totally paralyzed for a period of time afterwards.

As a member of the Mutant Liberation Front, Reaper suffered multiple injuries: Losing both hands in battle with Shatterstar and his lower leg to a rapidly closing teleportation portal courtesy of his teammate, Zero. All these amputated parts were replaced by cybernetic appendages. He briefly had one bionic hand replaced by a miniaturized scythe blade, but quickly discontinued use of this cybernetic part. While a member of Malibu's Exiles, Reaper made a deal with the Tradesmen on the Godwheel, who augmented his scythe so that his power was actually augmented when in the Ultraverse (Earth-93060), unlike most mutants and superhumans who lost half their power in that universe. Reaper's scythe was also able to absorb certain forms of energy and process them as a dimensional conduit to allow travel between the 616 Universe and the Ultraverse. He only had a finite power supply for this feature, however, and little knowledge on how to employ it.

After returning to 616 and being forced into service with Weapon X, Reaper was given new cybernetic hands that could morph into scythe blades to act as a conduit for his mutant power. His mutation also left him with pale white skin and black patches over his eyes.

WILDSIDE

 

WILDSIDE

Real Name: Richard Gill

First Appearance: The New Mutants (Vol. 1) #86, February 1990

Powers: Wildside’s mutant power is to generate a psionic distortion wave which can alter people's perceptions of reality. The earliest use of his power was to make himself and his teammates undetectable by human senses. Though it can be used passively, his power can also offensively scramble the senses of others, creating mind-warping hallucinations that make his opponents incapable of properly receiving information from their senses, driving them to the brink of madness or rendering them insensate, virtually comatose and unable to respond to the real world.

Wildside's mutation also granted him enhanced agility, reflexes, senses, untamed hair, pointed ears and canine teeth, and natural claws on each finger. Upon joining the Weapon X Program, Wildside's hands were replaced with morphing cybernetic components, which shifted between normal fingers and razor sharp claws on command.

FIREFIST

 

FIREFIST

Real Name: Russell Collins

First Appearance: X-Factor (Vol. 1) #1, February 1986

Powers: Russell "Rusty" Collins is a mutant pyrokinetic, able to mentally create and manipulate heat and flame. Initially, Rusty's power would ignite flames over the surface of his body, and then spurts or tongues of fire would fly off from him. After some practice, Rusty learned how to start fires anywhere within his line-of-sight. He could control the size, shape, and intensity of his fires with great precision, and manipulate their movements.

He could not only cause specific objects to catch fire from a distance, he could even create a bridge of flame through open air, connecting two different objects by fire. He was also able to manipulate flame created from other sources and could magnify their intensity or diminsh them. With concentration, he could generate heat fields without open flames, such as a wall of sufficient heat around himself to melt oncoming projectiles, or focus enough heat through his hands to cook food (often making popcorn this way). He could heat most metals enough to reshape them by hand.

Later on, he also learned to use his power like an energy blast, projecting a concentrated stream of flame that rushed out from his hands. While using his powers, he instinctively generated a super-thin, invisible psionic energy field around him that protected him from heat and flame, both his own and external sources.

SKIDS

 

SKIDS

Real Name: Sally Blevins

First Appearance: X-Factor (Vol. 1) #7, August 1986

Powers: Skids’ mutant ability is that her body generates a transparent force field around itself which protects her from various forms of attack and can be deactivated via mental concentration.

It deflects solid projectiles and disperses energy on contact: Directed kinetic force, thermal energy, electromagnetism, etc. The field also inhibits friction between surfaces, making it incredibly slippery. Skids can slide on the field under her feet to travel, and is quite difficult to keep a hold of. The lack of friction allows her to “skate” across most surfaces at high speeds (well over 100 miles per hour with sufficient momentum).

Initially, the field was constantly active and only operated as a form-fitting force of one or two-inch thickness around her. She eventually gained full control over her power and could expand the field large enough to protect about half-dozen other people as well. These larger dome-fields could be made selectively permeable at her will, so that Skids could allow her allies to enter the field on contact without weakening the protection from the rest of the field's area. Her force field can function in air, underwater, or in a vacuum.

An agile and capable unarmed combatant, Skids can also drive subway trains and is a trained operative of S.H.I.E.L.D.

MIRAGE

 

MIRAGE

Real Name: Danielle Moonstar

First Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel (Vol. 1) #4, September 1982

Powers: Danielle "Dani" Moonstar developed two mutant powers during puberty: Animal telepathy and image projection. Her animal telepathy allows her to establish a quasi-telepathic rapport with animals and insects, allowing her to read their minds, project images from their minds, and see through their eyes. She can communicate with animals and insects, exchanging thoughts and empathic impressions with each other, as well as psionically asking creatures for their assistance. She can use this power to maintain a psychic link with Wolfsbane she is in her wolf form.

Her image projecting power can manifest three-dimensional images of visual concepts from her own or other people’s minds. This power operates by summoning psionic energy into our environment and allowing the subconscious minds of other people to guide the form it takes. Initially, Dani used her power solely to summon up someone's greatest fear and project it for them to experience, creating illusions based on a person, animal, or situation they fear most of all. These fear images lock on to the mind of her victim and trigger anxiety and panic reactions, compelling them to accept the image as if it were real. Because the image is keyed only to a specific victim, Mirage and anyone else in the area can easily see the fear-image is an illusion, even if someone observing shares the same fear, like arachnophobia. As time passed, Mirage learned to create a wider variety of images by tapping into different areas of the mind, hers and others. She began creating images of someone's greatest desire, the perfect man, the things they think of in terms of "home" or "friends", etc. By causing people to see what they expected to see in a situation, Mirage could even disguise her appearance and that of others behind her illusions.

After being chosen by the winged horse Brightwind, Dani became one of the Asgardian Valkyries. This gave her a presence of death, detectable and feared by Asgardian races and others sensitive to such things. Her powers as a Valkyrie interacted with her mutant power, allowing Mirage to forecast someone imminent death by perceiving their own personal, private image of death looming over them (an angel, a priest reading last writes, etc). If she chose to act, she could sometimes prevent these deaths from coming to pass, or even fight the personification of Death itself to preserve the life of someone it had come to take. When she was affected by one of the High Evolutionary's machines, the psionic energy she generated now acted as a tangible psychoplasm, forming into a physically solid shape by the subconscious mind directing it. Thus, she could now literally create someone's greatest fear or wish out of thin air. Her powers seemed to be modified so that she would only create fears or wishes anymore, and then only ones that were objects or constructs, instead of situational illusions. Her power constantly sustained one and only one construct at a time -- the only way she could get rid of a psychoplasm construct was to create another one, causing the previous one to de-materialize just as the new one appeared. In order to work with this change in her powers, she trained her mind so that she could focus on intensely wanting something at will. Normally, she tended to maintain an arrow's head necklace when she wanted to hide her power, and would reform the necklace into a full-sized spirit lance for combat.

After spending an extended period of time in Asgard, Mirage returned with her power having taken on a secondary mutation, apparently having adapted itself to her time with the Valkyries. She now generated psychoplasmic energy as a charge from her hands, which she could then reform at will into different shapes, like an energy dagger or, most commonly, a bow and arrows formed out of mental energy. Striking a target with these psi-plasma arrows would cause them to be overwhelmed by their own greatest fears, painful memories, or psychological trauma, triggering a neurosynaptic shock that temporarily incapacitated her opponents. Unlike previous versions of her power, only Dani and her victim were aware of the specific fear being produced. When the Psi-War unleashed a wave of energy that diminished every psychic on the planet, Dani received a power boost from an unexpected source. After coming into contact with the reality-warping girl named Arcadia DeVille, Mirage accidentally became linked to the quantum energy Arcadia commanded, giving her new powers that developed over time. Dani's power signature now caused her skin to glow with a blue light, with flickering stars visible on her flesh. She developed sensory powers allowing her to detect distortions in the elements or the planet's electromagnetic field. She could expel a rush of concussive energy that would blast through most barriers. Danielle could also affect matter on a sub-molecular level, which she did to disintegrate or liquefy solid objects, and heal the wounds of other people. Ultimately, Arcadia evolved into the Queen of the Star Swords, was defeated, and Dani lost her quantum powers. Danielle's powers regressed after this, in part due to the death of Brightwind, who was her link to the Valkyries. Without him, she had been slowly losing the psi-arrow and death sight aspects of her powers, a weakness accelerated by the Psi-War. Reverting back to her fear and wish image-casting, Mirage did maintain her death sight powers for a time. She was even capable of incorporating it into her image power, allowing her to recreate someone's death by tapping into residual death energy at the murder scene and using her powers to replay the events leading up to the death itself.

Upon her return to the Xavier Institute and teaching assistant job, though, Mirage was totally limited to her original image-projection power and animal telepathy until being depowered on M-Day. She later merged with her teammate Warlock as part of the "Moonlock" techno-organic collective, infecting her with the Transmode Virus. The cure provided by the Dark Beast had the unanticipated side-effect of restoring her mutant powers.

Dani Moonstar is an excellent archer, tracker, swimmer, and equestrienne. Her training in S.H.I.E.L.D. has made her an experienced unarmed combatant and marksman. She is also Cheyenne and well-versed in her tribe’s history, language, customs, etc.

TEMPO

 

TEMPO

Real Name: Heather Tucker

First Appearance: The New Mutants (Vol. 1) #86, February 1990

Powers: Tempo was born with the mutant power of temporal distortion. Through psionic means, she can propel herself off the ground at high speeds by manipulating tachyon or chronoton particles that disrupt temporal mechanics. This creates a temporal distortion effect in her wake, which she can concentrate on targets by flying past or in tight circles around them.

Her mutant power causes whatever she effects to shift into a different timeframe: People or objects would either accelerate or slow down relative to normal space-time. She can reduce people to moving at extremely low speeds, immobilize projectiles in mid-flight, or greatly accelerate people so that they move at superhuman speeds relative to their surroundings. She can also direct her time-distortion power from a distance mentally, without having to use her flight as a focus for it.