More Characters

[Charles Warren]

SHARD
Real Name: Unknown
Affiliation: Weaponized Warpies
Powers: Body composed of glasslike shards

SHARD was one of the Warpies who was experimented on at Castle Dunvegan in an effort to create a super-soldier. He was liberated by the Muir Island New Mutants and taken back to Muir Island with them.

[Charles Warren]

GLACIUS
Real Name: Unknown
Affiliation: Weaponized Warpies
Powers: Ice Armor and weapons

GLACIUS was one of the Warpies who was experimented on at Castle Dunvegan in an effort to create a super-soldier. He was liberated by the Muir Island New Mutants and taken back to Muir Island with them.

[Charles Warren]

VEX
Real Name: Unknown
Affiliation: Weaponized Warpies
Powers: Create hexes and maladies

VEX was one of the Warpies who was experimented on at Castle Dunvegan in an effort to create a super-soldier. He was liberated by the Muir Island New Mutants and taken back to Muir Island with them.

[Charles Warren]

X-FACTOR

X-Factor is a private organization whose publicly stated purpose is to investigate reports of activity by superhuman mutants, to hunt down and to capture those mutants, and to prevent those mutants from presenting any further threat to normal human beings. However, X-Factor's secret true purpose is to locate superhuman mutants who are or might become victims of persecution by normal humans beings, to train these mutant in controlling their superhuman powers effectively, so that they will not prove dangerous to themselves or to others, and so that the mutants can better protect themselves, and then to reintroduce these mutants into human society. Having learned how to control their superhuman abilities, these mutants will theoretically be better able to conceal those powers, and thus to pose as normal human beings.

The five founding members of X-Factor are themselves superhuman mutants: Warren Worthington III, known as the Angel; Henry P. McCoy, the Beast; Scott Summers, Cyclops; Robert Drake, the Iceman; and Jean Grey, known as Marvel Girl. These five individuals were the original members of the team of superhuman mutants called the X-Men. Professor Charles Xavier, the founder of the X-Men, brought the five original members together when the latter were adolescents in order to train them in proper use of their superhuman abilities and to have the five mutants use these powers to combat criminal superhuman mutants and other menaces to humanity. These five X-Men eventually all left the team and are now adults. One of the original X-Men, Jean Grey, was nearly killed by intense radiation aboard a space shuttle. A being of primal energy called the Phoenix adopted Grey's form and persona while placing Grey's original body in a strange cocoon-like construct, within which Grey's original body existed in suspended animation, slowly healing.

After Grey's emergence from the "cocoon" years later, she was reunited with her four fellow members of the original X-Men. Grey was shocked to learn that anti-mutant prejudice had increased during the time she spent in suspended animation, that Xavier had disappeared, and that the original X-Men's greatest enemy, Magneto, had taken over Xavier's School for mutants and was working in close cooperation with the current members of the X-Men. Actually, Xavier had been taken to the Shi'ar Galaxy to be healed of severe injuries, and Magneto had recently reformed, although the original X-Men nevertheless remain suspicious of him. Grey believed that she and the other original X-Men must do something to carry on Xavier's heritage, which she believed that the current X-Men, having allied themselves with Magneto, would not do.

Believing Grey to be right, Warren Worthington III, the multimillionaire head of Worthington Enterprises, founded the X-Factor organization. Worthington was the founder of the organization through Worthington Enterprises, but he concealed the extent of the involvement of himself and his company with X-Factor from public knowledge. X-Factor headquarters was a complex along the Hudson River on Manhattan's West Side; however, the organization will operate anywhere in the world, and has even conducted an operation in the Soviet Union. Worthington hired Cameron Hodge as X-Factor's Director of Public Relations. Hodge is aware of the purpose for which Worthington and his four colleagues intend X-Factor, but his job has been to create its public image as an organization dedicated to eliminating the so-called Mutant menace," an image he created through television commercials and other means.

Drake, Grey, McCoy, Summers, and Worthington became the principal members of X-Factor, with Summers serving as the team leader. Presumably McCoy and Worthington do not use their true names when dealing with the public as members of X-Factor, since it is public knowledge that Warren Worthington III is the Angel and Henry P. McCoy is the Beast.

Repeatedly, since the founding of X-Factor, its five principal members have found themselves going into action in their costumed identities, using their superhuman powers. It is, of course, essential to X-Factor's cover story about its purpose that the general public be unaware that the principal "mutant-hunters" of X-Factor are themselves mutants. X-Factor took the opportunity of an attack on their headquarters by the mutants Bulk and Glow Worm to make it appear that the original X-Men and the five X-Factor agents were appearing together simultaneously. Cyclops, the Beast, and Iceman, in their costumed identities, pretended to aid Bulk and Glow Worm, while Grey, Worthington, Hodge, and their friends Rusty Collins and Vera Gantor, all dressed in X-Factor uniforms, pretended to fight all of them. The public assumed that Hodge, Collins, and Gantor were actually the three other main X-Factor agents. In their costumed identities, Drake, Grey, McCoy, Summers and Worthington are now known as the X-Terminators, and are publicly believed to be opponents of X-Factor's activities.

X-Factors methods have inspired great controversy, with many, including various superhuman mutants, believing the X-Factor's publicity for its operations actually increases the extent of dangerous anti-mutant prejudice in the nation.

[Charles Warren]

CYCLOPS
Real Name: Scott Summers
Affiliation: X-Factor
Powers: Optic Blast

Scott Summers was the older of the two sons of Major Christopher Summers, a test pilot in the U. S. Air Force. When Scott was a child, Major Summers flew himself, his wife Katherine, and his sons Scott and Alex back from a vacation in his vintage private plane. The plane was attacked and set ablaze by a scout ship from the alien Shi'ar Empire. Katherine pushed Scott and Alex out the plane door with the only available parachute. The parachute was unable to slow their fall sufficiently to prevent Scott from suffering a head injury on landing. (The injury damaged the part of Scott's brain that would have enabled him to control his optic blasts.)

The two boys were separated by the authorities: Alex was adopted, but Scott remained comatose in a hospital for a year. Christopher and Katharine were believed dead. (Actually, they were taken prisoner by the Shi'ar; Katharine soon died but Christopher later became Corsair, leader of the Starjammers, a band of interstellar adventurers.)

On recovering, Scott was placed in an orphanage in Omaha, Nebraska that was secretly controlled by his future enemy Mister Sinister. Years later, as a teenager, Scott began to suffer from severe headaches and eyestrain. He was sent to an eye specialist in Washington, D. C., who discovered that lenses made of ruby quartz corrected the problem. While Scott was visiting a large city, his developing mutant power to project optic force beams finally erupted, bursting forth in an uncontrollable blast that demolished a crane, causing it to drop a huge object towards a terrified crowd. Scott saved the crowd by obliterating the object with another blast, but they turned into an angry mob, thinking he had tried to kill them. Scott fled, ultimately escaping on a freight train.

Professor Charles Xavier and F.B.I. agent Fred Duncan joined forces in their mutual attempt to find Scott. Meanwhile, a mutant known as Jack O' Diamonds, and later as the Living Diamond, forced the frightened boy to aid him in his crimes. Xavier rescued Scott from the Living Diamond and enlisted him as the first member of the team of young mutants he would teach in using their powers, the X-Men.

As Cyclops Scott soon became deputy leader of the X-Men. He fell in love with his teammate Jean Grey, although his reserve and his worries about the dangers of his optic beams prevented him for years from expressing his feelings to her. When the other original X-Men left the team, Cyclops stayed on as deputy leader of the "new" X-Men.

Shortly afterwards the cosmic entity called the Phoenix Force secretly placed Jean in suspended animation and impersonated her, adopting a form identical to hers. When this Phoenix committed suicide, Scott believed that the real Jean had died and he left the X-Men. Eventually he returned to the team and met and married Madelyne Pryor, a woman who was Jean's double; he was unaware she was a clone of Jean created by Mister Sinister. Scott and Madelyne had a baby son, named Nathan Christopher, and Scott again left the X-Men.

Subsequently, the real Jean Grey emerged from suspended animation. Scott left his wife and joined with Jean and the other original X-Men in founding a new team, the original X-Factor.

POWERS

Cyclops possesses the mutant ability to project a beam of concussive, ruby-colored force from his eyes. Cyclops's eyes are no longer the complex organic jelly that utilizes the visible spectrum of light to see the world around it. Instead, they are inter-dimensional apertures between this universe and another, non-Einsteinium universe, where physical laws as we know them do not pertain. This non-Einsteinium universe is filled with particles that resemble photons, yet they interact with this universe's particles by transferring kinetic energy in the form of gravitons (the particle of gravitation). These particles generate great, directional concussive force when they interact with the objects of this universe.

Cyclops's mind has a particular psionic field that is attuned to the forces that maintain the apertures that have taken the place of his eyes. Because his mind's psionic field envelops his body, it automatically shunts the other-dimensional particles back into their point of origin when they collide with his body. Thus, his body is protected from the effects of the particles, and even the thin membrane of his eyelids is sufficient to block the emission of energy. The synthetic ruby quartz crystal used to fashion the lenses of Cyclops's eyeglasses and visor is resonant to his minds' psionic field and is similarly protected.

The width of Cyclops's eye-blast seems to be focused by his mind's psionic field with the same autonomic function that regulated his oriinal eyes' ability to focus. As Cyclops focuses, the size of the aperture changes and thus act as a valve to control the flow of particles and beam's relative power. The height of Cyclops's eye-blast is controlled by his visor's adjustable slit. His narrowest beam, about the diameter of a pencil at a distance of 4 feet has a force of about 2 pounds per square inch. His broadest beam, about 90 feet across at a distance of 50 feet, has a force of about 10 pounds per square inch. His most powerful eye-blast is a beam 4 feet across which, at a distance of 50 feet, has a force of 500 pounds per square inch. The maximum angular measurement of Cyclops's eye-blast is equivalent to a wide-angle 35mm camera lens field of view (90 degree measured diagonally, or the angle subtended by holding this magazine's pages spread open, upright at 9.5 inches from your eyes). The minimum angular measurement is equivalent to the angle that the thickness of a pencil would subtend at 4 feet (3.5 degree, about a quarter of an inch viewed at 4 feet). The beam's effective range is about 2,000 feet, at which point a 1-inch beam has spread out to 10 feet square, and then has a pressure of .38 pounds per square inch. Cyclops's maximum force is sufficient to tip over a filled 5,000 gallon tank at a distance of 20 feet, or puncture a 1-inch carbon-steel plate at a distance of 2 feet.

The extra dimensional supply of energy for Cyclops's eye-blast is practically infinite. Thus, so long as Cyclops's psionic field is active (which is constantly), there is the potential to emit energy. The only limit to the eye-blast is the mental fatigue of focusing constantly. After about 15 minute of constant usage, the psionic field subsides and allows only a slight leakage of energy to pass through the aperture. Cyclops's metabolism will recover sufficiently for him to continue in about an additional 15 minutes.

Special limitations: Due to a brain injury, Cyclops is unable to shut off his optic blasts at will and must therefore wear a visor or glasses with ruby quartz lenses that block the beams.

Equipment: The mask Cyclops wears to prevent random discharge is lined with powdered ruby quartz crystal. It incorporates two longitudinally mounted flat lenses which can lever inward providing a constantly variable exit slot of 0 inches to .79 inches in height and a constant width of 5.7 inches. The inverted clamshell mechanism is operated by a twin system of miniature electrical motors. As a safety factor their is a constant positive closing pressure provided by springs. The mask itself is made of high-impact cycolac plastic. There is an overriding finger-operated control mechanism on either side of the mask, and normal operation is through a flat micro-switch installed in the thumb of either glove.

[Charles Warren]

MARVEL GIRL
Real Name: Jean Grey
Affiliation: X-Factor
Powers: Telekinesis and Telepathy

Jean Grey is the younger daughter of Professor John Grey of the History Department of Bard College in Annandale-on Hudson, New York, and his wife Elaine. When Jean was ten years old, she was playing with her best friend Annie Richardson when Annie was hit by an automobile. The emotion that Jean felt as she held her dying friend awakened her own latent telepathic powers, and she thus experienced Annie's own emotions as she died. This traumatic occurrence left Jean in a withdrawn and deeply depressed state. Moreover, Jean discovered that she could not control her newly awakened telepathic abilities, and had to isolate herself from other people to keep hold of her sanity.

Finally, when Jean was eleven, a psychiatrist recommended to her parents that they consult a colleague of his, Professor Charles Xavier, who was secretly a mutant with telepathic abilities . Xavier explained to Jean, but not to her parents, that she was a mutant, and he treated her for several years. During this time he erected psychic shields in Jean's mind so that she would not be able to use her telepathic abilities until she had achieved the maturity necessary for dealing with them. Simultaneously, he taught her how to levitate and manipulate objects through psionic force. When Xavier judged that Jean had reached a certain level of mastery of her telekinetic power, he recommended to her parents that they enroll her in his newly established School for Gifted Youngsters. Unknown to Professor and Mrs. Grey, this school served as a cover for the X-Men, a team of young superhuman mutants being trained by Xavier to combat the threats posed by other mutants who used their powers against humanity. On entering the school, Jean Grey became the fifth member to join the X-Men and took the code name of Marvel Girl.

The original five X-Men remained together for several years. Shortly after she joined the team, Grey and Scott Summers, the X-Man known as Cyclops, fell in love with each other. Although neither told the other his or her true feelings for him or her for quite some time, they finally openly admitted their love for each other.
When Xavier realized that he had to remain in isolation for an extended period of time in order to make preparations to thwart an attempted invasion of Earth by the alien Z'nox, he released the psychic barriers preventing Grey from using her telepathic abilities. Grey's added maturity and her years of practice in using her telepathic powers enabled her to use her telepathic abilities from that point onwards. Hence, with Xavier otherwise occupied, she could use her own telepathic powers to aid the X-Men.
Sometime later, after Xavier had recruited several new members for the X-Men, Grey and some of the other X-Men decided to leave the group in order to lead their own lives. Scott Summers, however, remained in the X-Men and he and Grey continued their romantic relationship. Shortly after she left the team, Grey and the then current members of the X-Men were kidnapped by Steven Lang's Sentinels and taken aboard Lang's space station. After defeating Lang the X-Men had to escape back to Earth aboard a space shuttle during a solar radiation storm. The craft's pilot had to sit in an area without enough shielding to protect him or her from the lethal radiation. Grey volunteered to be pilot, but while guiding the shuttle to Earth, the solar radiation finally proved to be too great for Grey to hold back any longer with her powers. She began to succumb to the radiation's lethal effects.

It was long believed that Grey had indeed died aboard the space shuttle but became linked with a primal energy force known as the "phoenix-force" which recreated and reentered her body, The vastly more powerful being took the code name Phoenix. Phoenix joined the X-Men, but Grey had not had the proper training for coping with such immense power. At first Grey's strong moral sense kept the phoenix force under control, and usually subconsciously prevented her from using her powers beyond a certain limit. But then Phoenix fell victim to psychic manipulation by Mastermind, who was attempting to prove his worthiness to become a member of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club by mesmerizing Phoenix into becoming its new Black Queen. He psychically induced dark, repressed desires from within Grey's consciousness to come to the surface of Phoenix's mind, submerging Grey's true normal personality. Phoenix finally freed herself of Mastermind's control, but was unable to prevent the dark side of Grey's personality with the full power of the phoenix-force behind it, from overwhelming her, not having had the training necessary to repress it. Grey's true personality was submerged more fully than before, and Phoenix became the malevolent Dark Phoenix. After Dark Phoenix wreaked incredible devastation, Grey's true personality reasserted control of Phoenix once more, and, before Cyclops' horrified eyes, Phoenix committed suicide rather than revert to Dark Phoenix. Summers mourned Grey, and eventually married Madelyne Pryor, who greatly resembled her.

It was later revealed that Grey did not die, nor had she ever become Phoenix. The phoenix-force responded to Grey's anguish and telepathic calls for help as she was dying aboard the space shuttle, and appeared before her, shaping its form and consciousness after Grey's own. The phoenix-force told Grey that she was dying, but that by taking the phoenix-force's hands, Grey would gain her "heart's desire." What Grey most wanted was to save the lives of the X-Men and herself. She held onto the phoenix-force's arm and fell into a coma-like state. Simultaneously, the phoenix-force fully took on both the form and the memories and personality of Jean Grey. The phoenix-force used its powers to ensure the survival of the X-Men in their return to Earth and crash landing in Jamaica Bay off New York City. It was also responsible for casting Grey into a coma-like state and placing her within a pod like construction, which rested for years at the bottom of Jamaica Bay while Grey's injuries healed completely. Thus the phoenix-force fulfilled its pledge to Grey. The phoenix-force creature compelled itself to believe it was indeed Grey, whose personality it had assumed. Indeed, it had imitated Grey's consciousness so perfectly that not even Xavier realized the imposture. It has been theorized that it was the phoenix-entity's own power rebelling against the duplicate of Grey's personality it had given itself that caused it to become Dark Phoenix. When Phoenix committed suicide, it was acting exactly as Grey herself would have done under the circumstances, since it had endowed itself with an exact copy of Grey's personality.

Many months after Phoenix's death, the Avengers found Grey's pod beneath Jamaica Bay and brought it to the Fantastic Four for study. Grey released herself from the pod, at first unable to remember her encounter with the phoenix-force, but with the help of the Avengers and Fantastic Four, she recalled what had happened and learned what happened to Phoenix. As a result of her harrowing experiences, Grey had somehow lost her telepathic powers, but the strength of her telekinetic powers had greatly increased.

Grey was reunited with her fellow founding X-Men members, the Angel, Beast, Cyclops, and Iceman. She was greatly disturbed to learn of the current wave of anti-mutant sentiment in the country, Xavier's recent disappearance, and the fact that the then current X-Men were now working alongside Magneto, the original X-Men's greatest foe. Because the others agreed with Grey that they should do something about the current situation of mutants, the five friends founded a new organization to help other superhuman mutants, X-Factor.

POWERS

Jean Grey is a mutant who possesses telekinetic abilities enabling her to levitate and manipulate living beings and inanimate objects psionically. The current extent of her powers is not yet known, but it is far greater than it was before her near-death in the space shuttle.

Jean Grey also possessed telepathic powers enabling her to read minds, project her thoughts into the minds of others, and stun the minds of opponents with telepathic "mental bolts."

[Charles Warren]

BEAST
Real Name: Henry "Hank" Peter McCoy Affiliation: X-Factor
Affiliation: X-Factor
Powers: superhuman strength, Agility, Endurance, Speed and Dexterity

Henry McCoy's father, Norton, worked at a nuclear power plant where he was exposed to massive amounts of radiation during an accident. Norton was unharmed, but the radiation affected his genes, and as a result his son Henry was born a mutant. Unlike most superhuman mutants, Henry showed signs of mutation from birth: unusually large hands and feet.

Thanks to his superhuman agility, strength, and speed, Henry became a star football player as a teenager. His remarkable athletic abilities attracted the notice of both Professor Charles Xavier, who was forming the original X-Men, and a costumed criminal named El Conquistador. The Conquistador captured McCoy's parents in order to force McCoy to aid him in his criminal schemes. However, with the help of Xavier and the X-Men, Henry defeated the Conquistador, and he then joined the X-Men, taking the code name "Beast."

A brilliant student, McCoy completed his doctoral studies under Xavier's tutelage, and finally left the X-Men and Xavier's school to take a position as a genetic researcher with the Brand Corporation. There he developed a serum that acted as a catalyst for activating latent mutations. On drinking the serum McCoy underwent radical physical changes. He grew fur over his entire body, his ears became larger and pointed, and his canine teeth became larger, resembling fangs. The serum also further increased his superhuman agility, endurance, speed, and strength.

Eventually, McCoy left Brand, joined the Avengers, and publicly revealed his dual identity. After years of service with the Avengers (during which he also aided the X-Men against Dark Phoenix), the Beast took it upon himself to reorganize another super-hero group, the Defenders, into a more formal combat organization. His X-Men cohorts Angel and Iceman served in the Defenders along with him, but the team collapsed after a climactic battle in which several other members seemingly perished.

Subsequently, the Beast and his fellow members of the original X-Men formed a new organization, the original X-Factor, which publicly appeared to hunt down allegedly dangerous mutants but secretly taught them how to use their superhuman abilities.

KNOWN SUPER HUMAN POWERS: The Beast has the superhuman strength, agility, endurance, speed and dexterity. He is strong enough to lift (press) 2,000 pounds. His legs are powerful enough to enable him to leap 14 feet high in a standing high jump, and 22 feet in a standing broad jump. He is able to crawl up brick walls by wedging his fingers and toes into the smallest cracks and applying a vise-like grip on them. He has enough power to smash through a four-inch thick oaken door with a single blow or tie a three-inch solid steel bar into a knot.

He has the agility of a great ape and the acrobatic prowess of the most accomplished circus aerialist and acrobat. Ha can walk a tightrope or a slack rope as easily as most people can walk on a sidewalk. He can walk on his hands for many hours, or perform a complicated sequence of gymnastic stunts such as flips, rolls, and springs. He can easily match or top any Olympic record at gymnastics apparatus (such as flying rings, climbing ropes, horizontal bars, trampolines). Further, his manual and pedal dexterity is so great that he can write using both hands at once or tie knots in rope with his toes.

The Beast is quite fast, able to run on all four at approximately 40 miles per hour for short sprints. His stamina is approximately triple that of a well-trained athlete in his prime. His physiology is durable enough to permit him to take a three-story fall without a broken bone or stain (providing he lands on his feet).

[Charles Warren]

ICEMAN
Real Name: Robert "Bobby" Drake
Affiliation: X-Factor
Powers: Ice Control

Robert Drake was born with the latent mutant ability to freeze moisture in the air. He slowly became aware of this power as it emerged in his adolescence, but kept it secret from everyone but his parents, who believed people would turn against young Robert if they learned of his power.

The elder Drakes were correct, Bobby was walking with his date, Judy Harmon, one night after they saw a movie together, when they were attacked by a bully named Rocky Beasely and his friends. One of Beasely's allies held onto Drake while Beasely himself started to force Harmon to go with him. To save Harmon, Drake used his mutant power to temporarily encase Beasely in ice. Beasely was soon released unharmed, but Harmon was shocked, and the news of the incident swept through Drake's Long Island community, enraging local townspeople enough for them to form a lynch mob.

The mob broke into Drake's home, and he began using his powers to fight them off. But there were too many opponents for the young Drake, and the town's sheriff took him into custody for the youth's own protection.

Learning of the incident, Professor Charles Xavier, mentor of the X-Men, dispatched Cyclops, the first and at that time only member of the team, to contact Drake. Cyclops broke into Drake's cell, but Drake refused to leave. The two began fighting using their powers, and their fight spilled out into the streets of the town. Eventually the two exhausted young mutants were captured by the lynch mob, which nearly hanged them. Cyclops and Drake broke free, and were saved when Xavier used his great psychic powers against the mob.

Drake's parents consented to Xavier's proposal to let Bobby enroll in his special school for superhuman mutants, and allowed Xavier to use his powers to erase their knowledge of their son's powers. (They regained this knowledge years later.) Xavier also permanently erased all knowledge of Drake's abilities from the minds of the townspeople. Thus, given the code name Iceman, Bobby Drake became the second member of the X-Men.

Years later, Drake left the X-Men and joined the Champions of Los Angeles, a short-lived team of adventurers. After the Champions disbanded, Drake became a full-time college student, although he briefly rejoined the X-Men to battle Arcade. Later he joined his fellow former X-Men the Angel and the Beast as members of the Defenders.

With the apparent demise of some of the Defenders, the team was disbanded, and Drake took a job as an accountant. However, he soon left that job to join the other four members of the original X-Men as a member of their new organization, X-Factor.

Known Superhuman Powers: The Iceman is a mutant with the superhuman ability to lower his external and internal body temperature, projecting intense coldness from his body. Like any normal human being's, the nerve centers for regulating the Iceman's body temperature are found in the part of the brain called the hypothalamus. However, the Iceman can mentally override his hypothalamus to allow his body temperature to be lowered by an unknown internal mechanism. This ability converts the latent thermal energies in and around his body into an unknown form of energy that is efficiently dissipated. A related mutation has rendered his body tissues unaffected by sub-zero temperatures. The Iceman can consciously, immediately lower his body temperature from its normal 98.6 Fahrenheit to that of -105.7 F within the span of a few tenths of a second.

As his body temperature falls, the surrounding moisture in the air that is in contact with him is similarly lowered. Just as condensed moisture forms frost, this moisture forms an icy covering which encompasses his entire body. It also obscures his facial features. When the Iceman first began to completely lower his body temperature, this covering took on a more snow-like appearance. But as he learned to increase the severity of his coldness, the covering assumed the consistency of crystalline ice that it has today. This ice constantly cracks with any movement of his body, and immediately reforms. (Hence, there is a cracking sound when the Iceman, covered with ice, moves.) Through practice, the Iceman has learned to control the intensity of his coldness, and he can selectively lower the temperature of isolated parts of his body.

The Iceman can use his mutant ability to freeze any local air moisture into super-hard ice. This ice can be formed into any object of his choosing: the only limitations are his own imagination, his skill as a sculptor, the amount of available moisture, and the ambient air temperature which determines how long his ice sculpture will stay icy. He does not have to hold the ice physically with his hands in order lo shape it. Apparently he can simply direct the waves of coldness he projects in certain ways so as to create ice in the shape he desires. In the past, the Iceman has formed ice-ladders, ice-slides, ice-shields, and ice-bats.

The Iceman is able to form a rising column of ice beneath his feet, capable of lifting him off the ground. The tensile strength of the column is determined by its thickness, and its steadiness by how well it has been braced. A well-braced and regular column, 6 feet in diameter at its base, is able to support his weight without toppling for about 85 feet in a 20-mile per hour wind. By forming long ice-ramps connected either to his ice-column or to an existing structure like a building or a bridge, the Iceman is able to travel above the ground by sliding down the ramp he is creating. Unless he creates supports periodically, the ramp will crack beneath him, unable to support their combined weight.

Theoretically, the Iceman has an almost unlimited supply of moisture at all times since it is always present in the surrounding air or environment. Even desert air has sufficient moisture content for him to make practical use of, although the process takes somewhat longer. However, the mental effort needed to employ his mutant power can eventually fatigue him and render his freezing ability temporarily disfunctional.

[Charles Warren]

ARCHANGEL
Real Name: Warren Kenneth Worthington III
Affiliation: X-Factor
Powers: Techno-Organic Wings

Warren Worthington III was attending a private school in his adolescence when wings began to grow from his shoulder blade. The wings reached their full adult size within months, but Worthington kept them a secret by strapping them tightly to his back and concealing them under his clothes. At first he thought himself a freak. However, Worthington learned that he could use his wing to fly, and came to enjoy his new ability. Then, one night there was a fire in his dormitory, and he resolved to use his flying power to rescue the people inside. To conceal his identity, Worthington wore a long blond wig and a long nightshirt, so that he looked like an angel. The rescue was successful, and his identity remained a secret. Shortly thereafter Worthington became a costumed crime fighter in New York City under the name of the Avenging Angel. He was then contacted by the X-Men and agreed to join them.

Shortly after Professor Charles Xavier, the founder of the X-Men, recruited several new members for the group, the Angel decided to leave the X-Men. After his parents' deaths, Worthington inherited their vast fortune, and he used part of it to found a Los Angeles-based organization of super-human adventures the Champions. Worthington also publicly revealed that he was the Angel, although he and Xavier managed to keep secret Worthington's connection with Xavier's school, the cover and home base for the X-Men. When the Champions failed as an organization, Worthington decided to devote his time from then on to his business duties and to his renewed romance with longtime girlfriend Candace "Candy" Southern. Worthington also briefly returned to the X-Men.

Recently the Angel joined the Defenders and remained with the team after the Beast reorganized the group. The Defenders used the mansion and estate that Worthington and associate Candace Southern jointly owned in the New Mexico Rocky Mountains as their base of operations. When the Defenders disbanded, the Angel helped found X-Factor.

The Angel later joined another team of superhuman adventurers, the Defenders, and remained with them after the Beast, another of the original X-Men, reorganized the group. The Defenders used the mansion and estate that Worthington and Southern jointly owned in the Colorado Rocky Mountains as their base of operations.

After several of the Defenders seemingly perished in a battle against Moondragon and the Dragon of the Moon, the Angel joined four other original members of the X-Men in founding X-Factor, an organization that would seek out and aid superhuman mutants under the pretense of hunting down "mutant menaces." Worthington brought in a friend from school, Cameron Hodge, to act as X-Factor's public relations director. Unknown to Worthington, Hodge was the leader of an organization called The Right and intended to use X-Factor to exacerbate anti-mutant sentiments in the general public.


Mystique, leader of Freedom Force, discovered that Worthington, a known mutant, was secretly the financial backer of X-Factor, which was publicly believed to be a mutant-hunting organization, and leaked this information to the news media, generating great controversy.

Subsequently, in a battle with the Marauders during their massacre of the mutant Morlocks, the Angel was caught by Blockbuster. Another Marauder, Harpoon, then impaled the Angel's wings with his weapons. The thunder god Thor rescued the Angel, but the bones of the Angel's wings had been permanently crippled, and his wounds became infected. As a result, surgeons amputated Worthington's wings. Worthington changed his will, leaving his fortune to X-Factor, thereby unwittingly playing into Hodge's plans. Shortly afterwards, in despair over the loss of his wings, his breakup with Southern, and the controversy plaguing X-Factor, Worthington apparently committed suicide in a small aircraft that exploded.

In fact, however, Worthington was teleported to safety by the mutant Apocalypse who, through genetic manipulation, caused the Angel's wings to grow back in a new form. His views towards the world radically altered by his recent traumatic experiences, Worthington became one of Apocalypse's warriors, the so-called Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and took the name Death. As Death, he battled the other four founding members of X-Factor, but he was shocked into ending his attack when one of the X-Factor members, Iceman, faked his own demise. Abandoning both Apocalypse and X-Factor, Worthington flew off to live a solitary life. He then rejoined X-Factor and adopted the new name of Archangel.

Techno-Organic Wings: Angel was given techno-organic wings by Apocalypse as part of his conversion to the Horseman Death. Their feathers could be launched as flechettes which hit like bullets and able to pierce steel, due in part to their incredible endurance and composition. Archangel could use them to torpedo himself through most anything blasting through and rending it apart. Eventually, those wings molted revealing feathered wings underneath, although, it was later told that those simply appeared organic. Later, after his apparent organic wings were lost for a second time, the techno-organic wings regrew and his blue skin color returned. After killing those who took his organic wings, he reverted to his original Angel form. It's since been revealed that under stress his Archangel abilities can return, though he lacks complete control over this more aggressive form. During his time in the X-Force, he has demonstrated the ability to become Archangel but still lacking control. He later lost control entirely. Merging back with his archangel persona has returned his wingspan to him.
◾ Flight: The wings enabled him to fly approximately at Mach 1, possibly even faster considering he had little trouble out-flying a fighter jet which can travel a speed of Mach 2.35 (2,903 kph) and later still showed out flying the Blackbird while above sea level at Mach 4.2 (roughly 5,189 kph).
◾ Wing Blades: His T.O. wings have razor sharp edges running along them, most likely mono-molecular in sharpness, making them very deadly bladed weapons for him to use. It's suggested they can cleave semblances with the toughness of diamond being sharp enough cleave stone, tear through tempered steel slice and can easily cleave grown men clean in two.
◾ Wing Shielding: Due to their metallic transorganic nature they made decent shields to protect his body by covering up in them. Able to resist an arrow barrage, bullet fire, flash flames, a missile strike and lastly can tank a bio-nuclear microwave blast from the mutant Holocaust.
◾ Poisonous Plumage: Warrens new wings came with dischargable flechettes which carried a potent neurotoxin paralyzing their mark on contact.

Regenerative Healing Factor: Even before the lion-share of his powers were purged from him, Warren still had the ability to regrow damaged and destroyed tissue due in part to both his mutations and the T.O. factor of his wings. Every time they had been extracted new ones would regrow in their place.

Hypersonic Scream: Both the Archangel entity and his cloned Death-Flight legion could emit an intense acoustic shrieking which could cause disorientation and internal bleeding.

Energy Halo: A possible extension of his original power-set Archangel is accommodated by a surrounding wreath of bright energy.

[Charles Warren]

THE HELLFIRE CLUB

The Hellfire Club originated in England in the 1760s as a social organization for the elite of British society. The Club not only provided its members with pleasures, often of sorts that violated moral standards at the time, but also sewed as a means for the members to consolidate their Influence over British economic and political matters.

A number of the Club's most important members, led by the wealthy trading company owner and former Member of Parliament Sir Patrick Clemens, and his mistress, the renowned actress Diana Knight, emigrated to the colony of New York in the 17708, where they founded the new American Hellfire Club. Clemens and Knight served as its first leaders under their Club titles of Black King and Black Queen. The Club's headquarters was an abandoned church that stood on the site of the present day Hellfire Club mansion, located at what is now Fifth Avenue on Manhattan's East Side, only a few block8 away from the Avengers Mansion.

Today's Hellfire Club counts among its members the wealthy, the powerful, and the celebrated from virtually all over the world. Membership la by Invitation only, but such Invitations are rarely turned down, for membership in the Hellfire Club Is universally regarded as the ultimate status symbol.

As far as the general public and, indeed, moat or the Club's members are concerned, the Hellfire Club is a thoroughly respectable upper class social organization principally devoted to giving spectacular parties. It is also generally known that these parties serve as a means for members of the social, economic, and political elite to meet unofficially to discuss matters of mutual interest, and to strike political or business deals.

The Club's highest ranking members belong to its Inner Circle, who dress in late Eighteenth Century costumes for Circle meetings and other formal occasions Involving the Club. Inner Circle members hold positions named after chess places: the leaders are King end Queens, followed by Bishops, Knights, Rooks, and Pawns. It is possible for there to be two Kings (a Black King and a White King) or two Queens (Black and White) in office simultaneously. However, such situations almost Invariably lead to power struggles, and so there Is usually only one King and one Queen at a time, If a member of one faction of the Inner Circle displaces a member of another faction as King or Queen, he or she usually names his rank after the opposite color to his predecessor's; Hence, when Sebastian Shaw deposed the most recent former leader, a White King, he became a Black King.

Unknown to most of the Club members, the Inner Circle members are engaged in a conspiracy to dominate the world through the accumulation of economic power and political influence. The Inner Circle commands great financial resources, highly advanced technology, and a large body or mercenaries (many of whom wear red and blue uniforms with masks), all of which they use in their subversive activities.

The previous leader of the Inner Circle, then known as the Council of the Chosen, was a White King who threw the Council's financial and technological support behind Dr. Stephen Lang's attempts to capture superhuman mutants with Sentinel robots. Lang's endeavor ended in disaster, and Black Bishop Sebastian Shaw and White Queen Emma Frost seized the opportunity to turn the White King out of office. Shaw became the new Black King, leader of the Council, which he renamed the Inner Circle, and master of the entire Hellfire Club. A leader Shaw works closely with his ally Frost, the White Queen.

Shaw and Frost are both not only heads of major corporations but are also superhuman mutants. They have given other superhuman mutants positions of power within the Inner Circle. Moreover, Frost was also headmistress of the Massachusetts Academy, a private school in New England for which she recruits adolescent superhuman mutants as well as the sons and daughters of the elite so that she might bring them under the Inner Circle's Influence. It is at the Academy that Frost trained a team of adolescent superhuman mutants known as the Hellions.

Shaw's corporation, Shaw Industries, has a secret contact to build Sentinels for the United States government's covert Project Wideawake, whose goal was to hunt down, capture, and study superhuman mutants. Shaw hoped to use his position with the project for the Inner Circle's own end. (None of the Inner Circle members are known to be mutants either by the United States government or by the general public.)

Some yearn ego, the mutant Jason Wyngarde, otherwise known as Mastermind, sought admission into the Inner Circle. To prove his value, Wyngarde mesmerized the first member of the X-Man to be known as Phoenix into willingly becoming the Clubs Black Queen. Although Wyngarde believed that Phoenix was Jean Grey, also known as Marvel Girl, it now appears that Phoenix was actually an immensely powerful energy being who had taken on a human guise and persona patterned after Grey's. Wyngarde's tampering with Phoenix's mind backfired by triggering her transformation into the satanic Dark Phoenix, who temporarily rendered him catatonic. The Inner Circle therefore withdrew its Invitation to him to become a member.

Still more recently Friedrich von Roehm, a member of the Inner Circle, sponsored the superhuman mutant and sorceress known as Selene for membership in the Circle. Selene has since become the Circle's Black Queen. Hence there are now two women holding the rank of Queen within the Inner Circle.

In recent years the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle has clashed several times with the mutant X-Men, and the enmity between the two groups persists to this day.

[Charles Warren]

THE X-TERMINATORS

The five original members of the X-Men originally used the name “X-Terminators”: the Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, and Marvel Girl. These five X-Men were the founding members of X-Factor, which initially purported to be an organization of mutant hunters. Seeking to conceal the fact that the founders of X-Factor were themselves superhuman mutant, when the five former X-Men went into action in costume in public, they referred to themselves as members of the X-Terminators. Eventually, the founders realized that by posing as mutant hunters they were only exacerbating human prejudice against mutants. Hence, the X-Terminators publicly revealed themselves to be members of X-Factor, and abandoned the “X-Terminators” name.

X-Factor had gathered together a number of superhuman mutants who were children or adolescents, and trained them in the use of their paranormal abilities. These trainees went into action as a team during the events known as the “Inferno” to oppose the demon, N’astirh, and his minions. The trainees adopted the name “X-Terminators” for their own team.

When the Muir Island New Mutants met X-Factor, they learned that several young mutants of this group had been sent to Genosha by Cameron Hodge. Those mutants were:

Whiz Kid
Skids
Firefist
Boom Boom
Rictor
Artie
Leech

[Charles Warren]

CAMERON HODGE
Real Name: Cameron Hodge
Affiliation: Genosha, Formerly X-Factor
Powers: None

Cameron Hodge was the roommate of Warren Worthington III in college. Worthington was under the impression that they were good friends at first, but actually, Hodge was insanely jealous of Worthington's good looks, prestige, and wealth. When Worthington was later publicly revealed as the mutant hero and member of the Defenders as the Angel, it only fueled his hatred. All those feelings attributed to Worthington were transferred to include all mutants, whom Hodge came to believe were a threat to the freedom of normal humans and therefore should be destroyed.[1][2]

The Right
Hodge became a lawyer, but then turned to advertising and public relations and became a highly successful member of a leading New York advertising agency.[3] Meanwhile, he secretly created an organization devoted to the destruction of all mutants, the Right. Hodge was the leader of the group and was known as the Commander.[4]

X-Factor
Worthington, still believing that Hodge was his friend, turned to him to help with come up with a way to combat the growing prejudice against mutants. They came up with idea for the original X-Factor. The original members of the X-Men, the Beast, Cyclops, Marvel Girl, and Iceman agreed to join the group. X-Factor's concept-- a group of supposed mutant hunters who would in fact make contact with mutants and train them in the use of their powers-- quickly backfired on the group. It actually intensified people's hatred of mutants, just as Hodge had planned.[5]

Unknown to the rest of X-Factor, Hodge arranged for the Right to kidnap the young mutant known as Rictor in hopes of creating an earthquake that could be blamed on mutants, but X-Factor foiled their scheme and rescued Rictor.[4] He also contacted a genetic engineer, Dr. Frederick Animus, who later became known as the Ani-Mator, and commissioned him to find a way to prevent mutations from occurring. Instead, Animus defied his employer's orders and created the "Ani-Mates." The Right had arrived on the scene to discipline the defiant Animus, and ended up battling the Ani-Mates and their allies, the New Mutants. Ultimately, the New Mutant, Magik, transported all of the Right to the dimension of Limbo, but Hodge narrowly escaped that fate.[6]

When the Angel's wings were damaged in a fight with the Marauders, Hodge secretly arranged to have the damaged wings amputated.[7][8] Then, he convinced Warren Worthington to change his will, to give most of his fortune to X-Factor if he were to die, with Hodge as the executor of the estate. Soon after, Worthington seemingly committed suicide in an airplane that exploded, and Hodge controlled the Worthington fortune. By now, the other members of X-Factor had realized that Hodge was their enemy. They engaged the Right in a battle and learned that Hodge was actually the leader of the group. Although he escaped, the Right were dealt a crippling blow and have yet to recover.

[Charles Warren]

SHIP
Real Name: Uknown
Affiliation: X-Factor; formerly Apocalypse; formerly the Celestials
Powers: Highly Advanced Sentient Starship

The Ship A.I. was created untold millennia ago by the Celestials, as the operating system for a data collection device. The Celestials had genetically manipulated humanity and they left the Ship in the area that would come to be known as Ho-Lo Shan Mountains of Northern Mongolia, China, to monitor humanity's progress.[2]

Around Circa 1100 A.D., a Mongolian immortal, known as Garbha-Hsien (later known as Saul), discovered the Ship and lived next to it while he researched its mysteries. Garbha-Hsien never attempted to enter the Ship.[2]

Fifty years later, the Egyptian immortal, En Sabah Nur, learned of Garbha-Hsien and sought him out as another immortal. In a confrontation, En Sabah Nur slew all of Garbha-Hsien's guards. Garbha-Hsien then sought to humble his fellow 'forever-walker' by revealing the secret titanic vessel. Having had previous experience with futuristic technology, Nur attacked Garbha-Hsien and left the other immortal for dead. Garbha-Hsien survived, but fled.[2]

Nur entered the Ship and emerged later as a vastly changed being. Nur lived on the Ship for many years not fully understanding how to communicate with it or control it. Nur was introduced with a solution from a young man, calling himself the Traveler. In a battle between Nur and Traveler, Nur severed Traveler's left cybernetic arm and, during the confusion, the Traveler pulled a gun and shot him in the head. Ozymandias, Nur's servant, had Nur's body returned to Ship. With the Traveler's blood mixed with the Techno-Organic Virus and his own, Nur was healed in a chamber of Ship and, infected with the virus, could then understood Ship. After understanding what he had done, Traveler sent both Ship and its passengers far into space.[3]

Over the next few centuries, Ship's sentience slowly evolved. Apocalypse noticed the evolving A.I. and enslaved it, telling Ship that he had created it.[4]

X-Factor
The Ship next appeared as Nur's, who now called himself Apocalypse, cloaked mobile headquarters, as he attacked New York with his Four Horsemen. After their defeat of Apocalypse, Ship crash landed on X-Factor's Complex. During the battle, the Ship's cloaking and navigation systems were damaged. Conveniently, the Ship also projected a force field that prevented non-mutants from entering. Given these reasons, X-Factor decided to adopt the Ship as their new home base.

[Charles Warren]

SPIDER-MAN
Real Name: Peter Parker
Affiliation: Independent hero
Powers: Proportionate strength of a Spider

Peter Parker was orphaned at the age of 6 when his parents were killed in an airplane crash overseas. He went to live with his uncle and aunt, Ben and May Parker, in Forest Hills, New York. Parker was extremely bright and became a high honors student at Midtown High School. Parker's shyness and scholastic interest often made him a social outcast. One evening Parker attended a public exhibition demonstrating the safe handling of nuclear laboratory waste materials sponcored by the General Techtronics Corporation. During the demonstration, a small Common House Spider happened to be in the path of a particle accelerator's beam and was massively irradiated. The stricken spider fell on to Parker's hand, broke his skin with its fangs, and died. His hand burning from the bite, Parker left the exhibition. Parker made his way home and passed through an unfamiliar section of the city where he was accosted by a gang of hoodlums. Tossing the gang members aside, Parker was shocked by his own display of strength. As he fled from them, he ran into the path of a speeding car, and leaped to safety about 30 feet up onto a nearby wall. To his growing surprise, he discovered that he was able to stick to the wall with his fingertips. As he easily walked down a guy wire to the street below, he realized that henow possessed a superb sense of balance. Parker quickly associated these spider-like abilities with the bitefrom the irradiated spider.

Parker went home, where his Aunt May sent him on an errand to deliver clothing to a charity driver located in a nearby National Guard Armory. There he saw a wrestling match witch offered a prize for anyone who could remain in the ring at least 3 minutes with a professional wrestler. Interested in testing his new-found powers, Parker decided to accept the wrestler's challenge. Wearing a mask to conceal his features to avoid embarassment in cast he lost, he easily defeated his opponent. A television producer's talent agent spotted him and promised him a segment on a network variety show. Parker, calling himself the Amazing Spider-Man, accepted the offer and decided to use it as a springboard to a show business career as a spectacular stunt performer. Over the next several evenings, Parker used equipment borrowed from his high school to fabricate a fluid that imitated a spider's silk web, and spinneret devices to project that fluid from his wrists in the form of a web strand. He also silkscreened his original design for a costume onto a body stocking and full-head mask. Thus prepared, Peter Parker appeared as Spider-Man on national television and was an immediate media sensation.

Just after the conclusion of the television show, a buglar, being pursued by a security guard, ran by Parker who impetuously allowed him to pass although he could have easily stopped him. When reprimanded by the guard, Parker arrogantly replied he was a professional performer and that chasing criminals was the guard's job. Parker promptly forgot the incident. A few days later, Parker returned home to find that his Uncle Ben had been murdered by a burglar. A police officer informed him that the burglar had been trailed to a nearby abandoned warehouse where the police had him trapped. Grief-stricken, Parker rushed to the warehouse to seek vengeance. At the warehouse Parker, as Spider-Man, easily captured the burglar and realized that he was the same person that he had allowed to run past him earlier that day in the TV studio. He realized that if he had acted responsibly earlier, he might have prevented the death of his uncle. Filled with remorse, he realized that with power comes responsibility, and he vowed to never shirk that responsibility again.

Peter began to use his powers to fight crime. He also tried to join the hero team Fantastic Four in their formative stages but was dismissed. As a solo hero, Parker took pictures of his fights as Spider-Man using an automatic camera, and then sold the pictures to the Daily Bugle. Spider-Man rapidly became one of the most well-known citizens in New York City, although, unfortunately, many people think of him as a menace due to the editorials of Bugle's editor J. Jonah Jameson. Parker's main concern about Aunt May was that, if she ever found out his secret identity as Spider-Man, it would aggravate her weak heart condition.

During this time, Parker dated Betty Brant of the Daily Bugle, although Liz Allen had a crush on him. At the same time, both Aunt May and her neighbor, Aunt Anna, were encouraging Parker to date Anna's niece, Mary Jane Watson, whom he would not meet until months later.

After high school, Parker enrolled in Empire State University, and divided his time as a hero, a student, and photographer. Eventually, Parker moved into his own apartment. During this time, he developed a relationship with Gwen Stacey. Unfortunately, during Spider-Man's conflict with the original Green Goblin, Stacey was killed. Some time later, Parker developed a steady relationship with Mary Jane. Parker proposed marriage, although Mary Jane declined, and soon left Parker's life for many months.

Eventually, Parker graduated from ESU, and pursued his career as a hero and photographer. As he continued to live on his own, as his Aunt May decided to transform her house into a senior citizens' boarding house. At one point Parker began a romantic relationship and heroic partnership with the Black Cat, although Parker later broke it off due to the Black Cat's disdain for Parker's life apart from being Spider-Man.

Prior to this, Spider-Man was among the heroes kidnapped by the powerful Beyonder to fight in his so-called "Secret Wars." When his costume was damaged, Parker tried using the futuristic technology on the Beyonder's planet to repair it, and instead, replaced it with an alien "symbiote" which transformed into a black version of Spider-Man's costume, perhaps based on the newly appeared Spider-Woman. Parker used the symbiote for his costume, which was capable of transforming into street clothing as well as generate webs. When the costume behaves strangely, Parker sought help from the Fantastic Four's Mister Fantastic, who first discovered the costume was a living organism. He helped remove the costume by force, and kept it in the Fantastic Four headquarters for captivity. The symbiote would later escape, plaguing the life of Parker again and ultimately merging with Parker's enemy Eddie Brock, creating the villain Venom.

As Spider-Man, Parker has met and fought alongside nearly every hero in Manhattan, if not the world. Although he had fought with the hero team Avengers many previous times, he tried to join their number when he learned of the financial stipend their members received. Parker helped them stop an invasion and subsequent breakout of the energy research and villain interment facility, Project Pegasus. Spider-Man was deemed, however, to disrupt the team's cohesiveness, and was denied membership.

Know Superhuman Powers: Spider-Man possesses superhuman strength, reflexes, and equilibrium; the ability to cause parts of his body to stick with great tenacity to most surfaces; and a subconscious premonitional "danger" sence. The irradiated Common House Spider (Achaearanea tepidariorum) which bit Peter Parker was apparently already mutated from prior exposure to certain frequencies of radiation and received a final, lethal dose during Parker's attendance of the exhibition. The radioactive, complex mutagenic enzymes in the spider's blood that were transferred at the time of the bite triggered numberous body-wide mutagenic changes within Parker.

Spider-Man's overall metabolic efficiency has been greatly increased, and the composition of his skeleton, inter-connected tissues, and nervous system have all been enhanced. Spider-Man's musculature has been augmentedso that he can lift (press) about 10 tons. His reflexes are faster than an average human by about a factor of 15 (he is often able to dodge bullets, if he is far enough away). Spider-Man is extraordinarily limber and his tendons and connective tissues are twice as elastic as the average human being's, despite their enhanced strength. He has developed a unique fighting style that makes full use of his agility, strength, and equilibrium.

Spider-Man's exposure to the mutated spider venom induced a mutagenic, cerebellum-wide alteration of his engrams resulting in the ability to mentally control the flux of inter-atomic attraction (electrostatic force) between molecular boundary layers. This overcomes the outer electron shell's normal behavior of mutual repulsion with other outer electron shells and permits the tremendous potential for electron attraction to prevail. The mentally controlled sub-atomic particle responsible for this has yet to be identified. This ability to affect the attraction between surfaces is so far limited to Spider-Man's body (especially conetrated in his hands and feet) and another object, with an upper limit of several tons per finger. Limits to this ability seem to be psychosomatic, and the full nature of this ability has yet to be established.

Spider-Man possesses an extrasensory "danger" or "spider" sensewhich warns him of potential immediate danger by tingling sensation in the back of his skull. The precise nature of this sense is unknown. It appears to be a simultaneous clairvoyant responce to a wide variety of phenomena (everything from falling safes to speeding bullets to thrown punches), which has given several hundredths of a second's warning, which is sufficient time for his reflexes to allow him to avoid injury. The sense also can create a general resonse on the order of several minutes: he cannot discern the nature of the threat by the sensation. He can, however, discern the severity of the danger by the strength of his response to it. Spider-Man's fighting style incorporates the advantage that his "spidey-sense" provides him.

Weapons: Spider-Man uses web-shooters which are twin devices worn on his wrists which can shoot thin strands of a special “web fluid” at high pressure. The web fluid is a shear-thinning liquid (virtually solid until a shearing force is applied to it, rendering it fluid) whose exact formula is as yet unknown, but is related to nylon. On contact with air, the long-chain polymer knits and forms an extremely tough, flexible fiber with extraordinary adhesive properties. The web fluid’s adhesive quality diminishes rapidly with exposure to air. (Where it does not make contact with air, such as the attachment disk of the web-shooter, it remains very adhesive.) After about 2 hour, certain imbibed ether cause the solid form of the web fluid to dissolve into a powder. Because the fluid almost instantly sublimates from solid to liquid when under shear pressure, and is not adhesive in its anaerobic liquid/solid phase transition point, there is no clogging of the web-shooter’s parts.

The spinneret mechanism in the web-shooter is machined from stainless steel, except for the turbine component, which is machined out of a block of Teflon and the two turbine bearings, which are made of amber and artificial sapphire. The wristlet and web fluid cartridges are mainly nickel-plated annealed brass. Spider-Man’s web cartridge belt is made out of brass and light leather and holds up to 30 cartridges. The cartridges are pressurized to 300 pounds per square inch and sealed with a bronze cap which is silver soldered closed. The wristlets have sharp steel nipples, which pierce the bronze cap when the cartridges are tightly wedged into their positions. A palm switch that is protected by a band of spring steel, which requires a 65 pounds pressure to trigger, actuates the hand-wound solenoid needle valve. The switch is situated high on the palm to avoid most unwanted firings. A rubber seal protects the small battery compartment. The effect of the very small turbine pump vanes is to compress (share) the web fluid and then force it, under pressure, through the spinneret holes which cold-draws it (stretches it: the process wherein nylon gains a four-fold increase in tensile strength), then extrudes it through the air where it solidifies. As the web fluid exits the spinneret holes, it is attracted to itself electro statically and thus can form complex shapes. The spinneret holes have three sets of adjustable, staggered openings around the turbine, which permit a single line, a more complex, spun web line, and a thick stream. The web line’s tensile strength is estimated to be 120 pounds per square millimeter of cross section. The 300 pounds per square inch of pressure in each cartridge is sufficient to force a stream of the complex web pattern an estimated 60 feet (significantly farther if shot in a ballistic parabolic arc).

[Charles Warren]

THE FANTASTIC FOUR

Current Members: Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, She-Thing

Known internationally as Earth's first family of super heroes, the members of the Fantastic Four owe their amazing abilities to their elastic leader: scientific stalwart Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic. As a starry-eyed student at State University, Reed already had set his sights on interstellar travel. His roommate and best friend, Ben Grimm, jokingly promised to pilot the craft. Working years later as an aeronautical engineer, Reed finally realized his lifelong dream. Exhausting the majority of his vast inheritance, he funded the construction and launch of a starship. Reed recruited Ben, who had become a successful test pilot and astronaut, to fly the vessel. Reed's longtime sweetheart and fiance, Sue Storm, joined him at the launch site.

When the government threatened to cut off its partial funding of the project, Reed elected to embark on an immediate test flight. Ben opposed the idea, warning that the ship's shielding might prove inadequate against intense forms of cosmic radiation. Nevertheless, Reed persuaded his old friend to serve as pilot. Sue and her adolescent brother, Johnny, insisted on accompanying the would-be history-makers. The four stole into the launch facility, boarded the starship and blasted off in pursuit of scientific glory. They intended to travel to another star system and back, but a solar flare temporarily boosted the intensity of the ionizing radiation in Earth's Van Allen belt. Cosmic rays bombarded the ship's cabin, irradiating the four passengers and slagging the controls. Ben was forced to abort the flight and return to Earth.

Back on terra firma, the four discovered that the radiation had triggered mutagenic changes in their bodies. Reed could become malleable, Sue could turn invisible, and Johnny could generate fiery plasma. Ben stood transformed into an orange-colored, thick-skinned, heavily muscled, superhumanly strong "thing." It was Reed who convinced his friends that they should use their newfound powers for humanity's benefit.

Mr. Fantastic, the Thing, the Human Torch and Invisible Girl established their base atop the Baxter Building in midtown Manhattan. Financed by profits from the patents on Reed's inventions, the Fantastic Four set out to safeguard the world from any and all threats beyond the purview of conventional peacekeeping forces. Some time after the freak accident that granted the foursome its powers, Sue married Reed. Like all couples, the super-powered duo has experienced its share of problems -- thanks, in large part, to Reed's devotion to his work. However, they always return to one another. The two have one son, Franklin, who possesses latent mutant abilities.

The team first put its abilities on public display when the subterranean Mole Man attempted to take revenge on the surface world by destroying Earth's power plants and unleashing an army of gigantic monsters to annihilate the human race. The Fantastic Four turned back the Mole Man's threat, unaware that greater menaces awaited. As fate would have it, Reed again encountered his college rival, Victor Von Doom, whose face had been hideously scarred during an experiment gone awry. The newly christened Dr. Doom now ruled his homeland of Latveria with an iron fist -- his ghastly countenance cloaked beneath a metal faceplate, his body sheathed in nigh-impenetrable armor. Doom kidnapped Sue to draw her teammates to his castle. The would-be conqueror had created a time machine, and he demanded that Reed, Ben and Johnny travel into the past to retrieve a magical stone. Upon their return, the team defeated Doom.

The greatest squad of superhuman adventurers ever assembled, the Fantastic Four continued to push the bounds of human exploration. Challenging the unknown, the intrepid heroes discovered the parallel dimension known as the Negative Zone; initiated human contact with alien races such as the Skrulls and Kree; unearthed the hidden civilization of the Inhumans, a genetic offshoot of mankind; and located the secret African nation of Wakanda, ruled by the noble Black Panther. Perhaps the finest of the Fantastic Four's early victories came in the face of the fundamental force of nature known as Galactus. Only able to satiate his awesome hunger by depleting a planet's life-sustaining energies, Galactus had come to consume Earth. The FF repelled the ravager of worlds under the threat of an extraterrestrial device called the Ultimate Nullifier, powerful enough to eradicate even Galactus. In the process, the heroes liberated the alien's herald, the Silver Surfer.