The Heroic Age Marvel RPG: Character Application:
Character Name: Alex Summers, better known as “Havok”
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line): Hero
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): Bolded Black Verdana.
Powers and Abilities: Alex has the ability to absorb and project cosmic energy that takes the form of waves of energy that despite being concussive in nature often, though not always, emanate heat that with some degree of concentration Alex can reduce or increase. His body is constantly absorbing energy and he possesses the ability to project the energy all at once, though the exertion of doing so exhausts him, and once done it takes several hours for him to absorb enough energy to expend it all again at once. Alex is immune to his brother's concussive optic blasts and also happens to be, given his rigorous training at the hands at Charles Xavier, an Olympic-level athlete.
Character Origin/Backstory: Alex Summers is the younger brother of Scott Summers, the mutant better known as Cyclops, and has lived in his shadow for decades. The pair were orphaned as children after the apparent death of their parents and, unlike his older brother, Alex was adopted by the recently-bereaved Blandling family who sought to mould him in the image of their deceased son Todd. Shortly afterwards when confronted by the person responsible for the death of Todd his powers surfaced which would lead him to become reunited with his older brother Scott and discover that he too was a mutant and the leader of the group known as The X-Men. Over the years Alex’s involvement with the X-Men has been spotty at best, preferring to spend time with Lorna Dane (Polaris) and briefly leading a group known as X-Force, though recent events in the Marvel Universe have forced Alex to reconsider his role. Moved by Janet Van Dyne’s sacrifice and his growing disillusionment with what he believes to be the distortion of Charles Xavier’s dream by Scott, he joins The Avengers in the hope of fostering trust and wellbeing between mutants and humans.
Why this character?: As I said in the interest check thread, I’ve always been a big fan of the more alternative Avengers line-ups and I thought that Rick Remender made great use of Alex in Uncanny Avengers. Alex Summers is such an underutilised character and to have him play a more prominent role in the universe, to build upon his character, seemed more interesting to me than picking up a marque character and rehashing stories that have been told a thousand times.
What can you bring to the RPG?: An active, enthusiastic contributor that (those of you that are involved in the OU game already know) never struggles to find motivation to post and/or develop their characters.
Provide a short sample post as your desired character, in three paragraphs or more and featuring at least one line of dialogue:
Muir Island, Scotland
For as long as I could remember I had loved Lorna Dane. We had met not long after joining the X-Men and had fallen in love with one another quicker than anyone I’d known to before or since. She had been there for me through thick and thin and I could never imagine a future without her by my side. Yet here I was, bags packed, awaiting the arrival of a Quinjet that was going to take my thousands of miles away from her and the life we had built for one another on Muir Island. When I had told her what I had planned I had hoped that she would be happy for me and though she tried to feign it, something in her eyes gave away the disappointment she felt. After a decade of adventuring and fighting the good fight we had finally settled down, finally began to think about starting a family with one another, and here I was suggesting we put that all on hold again. Any other woman might have left me right there and then. Lorna was the furthest thing from an ordinary woman. She was stronger than I could ever hope to be, braver too, and I’m thankful for every day that I’ve spent in her company over the years. But this was something that I had to do and if doing it meant being away from her for a time then so be it.
“Are you sure about this?”
Lorna’s piercing green eyes scan my face for some hope, some glimmer of indecision, and though I knew that admitting to her that I still had some doubts might give her false hope, I couldn’t bring myself to lie. Lorna was my rock. She would always be my rock. I’d sooner be honest with her and hurt her than lie to protect her feelings and I know that she would do the same in my position.
“Honestly? No,” Alex said with a smile.
“But there’s a voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me that unless I go through with it I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what would have happened if I had.”
The disappointment in her face is palpable. Our lives were meant to be here. It had been several years since I had asked Lorna to marry me and life had thrown our engagement into question on several occasions, but over the past few months things had finally begun to slow down to the point that we had begun to discuss dates.
That is what I should be worried about,
that is what I ought to be obsessing over, not stood in the hallway of the Mutant Research Center about to bid goodbye to the love of my life for what could be the last time. By no means were we breaking up, that much we had agreed upon, but in our line of work
every goodbye could be the last one. Lorna runs her fingers across the edges of her teal jumper nervously as she eyes my feet.
“You know Scott isn’t going to be happy when he hears.”
I nod.
“Of course I do.”
“I hope that’s not why you’re doing it.”
She says it in all earnestness, devoid of malice, but her words wound me somewhat. I’d spent the best part of a decade trying to carve out a legacy of my own, not wanting to live in Scott’s shadow, and to learn from Lorna of all people that this might be motivated by petty one-upmanship hurts my feelings. Scott was my brother but we were by no means close, something people tended to forget, we didn’t even grow up in the same household after our parents died. I’d never make a decision like this, one fraught with consequences for Lorna and I, to publicly blacken one of Scott’s eyes. Even if it what I was about to do would inadvertently do that.
“You more than anyone should know that I stopped vying for my older brother’s approval a long time ago.”
A pang of regret flashes across her face but before long it is replaced with a look of sheer confusion. I hate to see her this way, I hate knowing my decision has plunged her into this anguish, but my mind has been made up. Janet Van Dyne died for us, gave her life for our world, and where were we? Watch it from our couch. We should have been there, we should have been fighting alongside them, not cowering in our homes rationalizing our decision not to get involved away to ourselves.
“If not that then what? Charles and Scott have invited us back to the X-Men more times than I could count over the past decade and each time we’ve turned them down. When Jamie came calling asking for our help with X-Factor we sent him away empty-handed. Yet all of a sudden you decide you want to be part of a team again? You want to be one of them? What’s brought this on? Talk to me, Alex.”
Her hands touch mine and in their tenderness and warmth I can feel her love radiate through me. Perhaps I underestimated in her willingness to accept my decision that I didn’t take the time to explain it to her as thoroughly as I ought to have. I clear my throat and take her by the hands as I stare into her emerald green eyes. If I have to leave her behind at Muir Island, the least I could do would make sure she understand why it was that I was leaving. Lorna deserved that much. In truth, she deserved more than that but this was the best that I could give her at short notice. Hopefully it was enough.
“Somewhere down the line we lost touch with why we started this whole thing in the first place. We put these uniforms on because we believed in Xavier’s dream of a future where mutants and humans lived alongside one another in peace. At the heart of that dream was inclusion, co-operation, and an obligation to use our powers to help others where we could. It wasn’t about cutting ourselves off from the rest of the world and placing the things we considered “our” problems above the problems of the rest of the world. There was no place for blissful isolationism then and there should still be no place for it. We’ve allowed ourselves to become convinced that because of the tragedies that have befallen the mutant community it's for the best that we withdraw from public life and lick our wounds until we’re ready to poke our heads above the parapet again. Well that’s not good enough for me anymore, Lorna, and that shouldn’t be good enough for any of us.”
She listens in silence, her face unmoving, until slowly she slips her hands away from me and steps back, her porcelain skin becoming blushed red with a mixture of disbelief and frustration.
“So that’s it then? You think becoming an Avenger is going to overturn decades of anti-mutant prejudice? That people that want to see mutants burnt at the stake are going to have a change of heart all because you’ve decided to fight alongside Clint Barton?”
For the first time there’s an air of derision in her words but I gloss over it. I knew what it was like to be abandoned, I knew what it was like to feel left behind, and I could never begrudge her feeling frustrated at what she felt was my doing the same to her and what we had built here in Scotland. She had every right to feel angry at me and to be skeptical of my leaving but this was bigger than the pair of us. This was about the world, about our people’s place in the world, and I’d never forgive myself if I stood by and doomed another generation to perpetuate the mutant/human conflict because I placed my own self-interest above them.
“I’m not sure,” Alex muttered.
“But I do know that burying our heads in the sand isn’t going to change anyone’s minds. The whole world watched Janet Van Dyne give her life to save the world, human and mutant alike, and I’m not about to waste the second chance she gave us all by sticking to a tired, old playbook we know doesn’t work.”
Lorna nods. I walk towards her and reach for her and this time, instead of slipping away, she comes towards me and we embrace in silence for what feels like a lifetime. I press my lips softly against her thick green hair and feel the faintest trace of a tear beginning to seep through my shirt and onto my chest. She wipes her eyes clean with the sleeve of her jumper before we let go of another another, insistent I not see her crying, and we walk outside of the Mutant Research Center with another in a resigned silence.
I wish she could come with me, I had asked her to when I had first told her that Captain America had reached out to me, but she had shot the idea down before it had even left my mouth. As Polaris, Lorna was more powerful than I could ever hope to be, in fact she was more powerful than
most could ever hope to be and that was all without ever truly letting loose. Yet she was still Magneto’s daughter and despite my insistence otherwise she was certain that the public wouldn’t be so quick to forgive her for her father’s atrocities as they might be me for Scott’s indiscretions. Despite my own differences with him and what people were saying, Scott hadn’t deviated so far from the path of angels that he was beyond redemption. She would stay here, keep up with the research, and we would visit one another as often as we could. That was all she could promise me.
As the Quinjet touched down on one of Muir Island’s many mossy hills she gave me one last embrace. In it I could feel the weight of a decade of love and tenderness and my mind became filled with all the times we had spent with one another, our first meeting, the day I had asked her to marry me, and the expression on her face when she had said yes. The months ahead would be tough, tougher even without Lorna there to be my rock. I trudged across the grass and climbed aboard the quinjet without so much as a word of welcome, taking a seat beside a window, and watching Lorna, her flash of green hair and her teal jumper blowing in the wind, become smaller and smaller as the quinjet began to elevate. Four words flash across Lorna’s lips and though I cannot hear them it isn’t hard to decipher them.
“Come back to me.”
I nod knowingly, a solemn promise between lovers, one I have absolutely no right to make given Janet Van Dyne’s passing but one I intended to keep.
Whatever happened I would make Lorna proud of me, I would lead by example where my brother had failed to, and most importantly of all I would make sure that Janet hadn’t died for nothing. In six hours from now the quinjet would touch down in New York and my life would never be the same again.
I would be an Avenger.
