Real name: Alexander ("Alex") Summers
Other aliases: None
Identity: Secret
Occupation: : (current) Adventurer, (former) Graduate student in geophysics
Legal status: Citizen of the United States with no criminal record
Place of birth: Honolulu, Hawaii
Marital status: Single
Known relatives: Scott (Cyclops, brother), Christopher (Corsair, father), Katherine Anne (mother, deceased), Philip (grandfather), Deborah (grandmother), Madelyne Pryor-Summers (sister-in-law, deceased)
Base of operations: (current) Alexandria, VA, (former) Diablo mountain range in Arizona, and the University of California, Berkeley, California
Group affiliation: (former) X-Men, X-Factor, Brotherhood
First appearance: X-MEN (first series) #58

History: Alexander Summers is the younger of the two sons of Christopher Summers, a United States Air Force Major and test pilot, and his wife Katherine Anne. Alex and his mother and older brother Scott were flying back from a vacation in Christopher's vintage airplane when the plane crashed into a scout ship of the Shi'ar Empire, setting the wooden plane ablaze. Katherine Anne Summers pushed Scott and Alex out of the burning plane with the only available parachute. Thus the two boys escaped the Shi'ar while their parents did not. Scott and Alex both believed their parents had been killed until as adults they were reunited with their father, who had since become Corsair, leader of the Starjammers, a starfaring band of adventurers. The two boys were hospitalized for injuries they sustained during their landing, since their overburdened parachute had been unable to slow their decent safely enough. Scott and Alex both suffered traumatic amnesia regarding the plane incident. Alex left the hospital after two weeks and was placed in an orphanage in Omaha, Nebraska. Soon adopted, Alex had little or no contact with Scott until years later.

Alex was unaware of Scott's developing mutant power or his identity as Cyclops of the X-Men until after the younger Summers had graduated from college. It was at that time that Alex first became aware of his own mutant abilities. A professor of archeology named Ahmet Abdol, also a mutant, had discovered a psychic link between himself and Summers. While both of them had the latent mutant power to absorb and transform cosmic radiation, Abdol's ability to exercise the power was jammed in an unknown manner by Summers' body. The Living Pharoah, as this mutant was calling himself, captured the youth and took him to his laboratory in Egypt. Abdol found a way to screen Summers' body from ambient cosmic radiation, permitting his own body to attain its latent potential. Abdol was transformed into the Living Monolith, a gigantic mutant with vast cosmic power. The Monolith was defeated while in combat with the X-Men when Summers' latent mutant powers surfaced under the stress of entombment within the mechanism designed to screen him from cosmic radiation.

Incapable of controlling the shock waves his body emanated, Summers chose to remain in the Egyptian desert rather than accompany the X-Men back to America.

Summers was soon captured by one of the mutant-hunting robotic Sentinels and brought to the headquarters of Larry Trask, the son of the Sentinels' inventor. Trask gave Summers the codename Havok and a costume whose chest display monitored the build-up of cosmic energy within him. When the X-Men finally freed Trask's captive mutants, Summers accompanied his brother and his teammates back to civilization where he began training to help him keep his energy in check. Eventually Havok gained enough mastery over his power that he would release it only when he wished to do so, and could wield his power skillfully enough to become a formidable opponent in battle.


Havok fell in love with Lorna Dane, the mutant now known as Polaris. They both served for a time in the X-Men helping to repel the invasion by the alien Z'nox. Neither Havok nor Polaris wished to lead a life as an adventurer, but they discovered that they had a mutual interest in geophysics. Hence, they began doing doctoral research in that subject in the Diablo mountain range in Arizona.

The plan to stay out of the affairs of the outside world did not last long. Havok and Polaris found themselves hunted by the Marauders. Polaris was now under the mental control of Malice. Polaris was forced to attack the X-Men as the leader of the Marauders. Havok, now a member of the X-Men, had to fight his lover. Polaris was eventually freed from Malice's control, but was captured by the mutant named Zaladane, who claimed to be her sister and stole her powers. For a short while, Polaris gained new superhuman powers.

Later, Polaris regained her original powers and, with Havok, joined the second version of X-Factor, a newly-formed, governmentally-funded, mutant agency.

Havok continued to serve with X-Factor until he felt that there were too many people in his life that had been controlling him. He was also deeply affected by the apparent death of his teammate Jamie Madrox. Disillusioned with both the X-Men and X-Factor, Havok teamed up with the Black Beast, the Beast's evil counterpart from another timeline. Together they founded a team of mutant terrorists called the Brotherhood. However, Havok did not truly become a terrorist; he joined the Brotherhood only in order to stop the Black Beast's sinister plans.

Havok was operating independently when an airplane explosion ripped him from his reality and deposited him on a dark, twisted Earth. His soul was transferred to an alternate-universe version of his body, and he found himself living a lie, allied with a team of mutants who were sinister, parallel incarnations of his friends and family. In this strange, new world, Havok stood as a man alone ... a mutant alone. Mutant X. After plunging the planet into chaos during a catastrophic confrontation with a mutated Captain America, star-spangled Sentinel of Liberty, Alex sacrificed himself to preserve the fabric of all reality. In a cataclysmic battle with the dark force of nature known as the Goblin Queen, who had merged with the immensely powerful entity called the Beyonder, Havok tapped into a well of raw power never again to be unleashed in all the dimensions and destroyed his adversary. But the price of victory appeared to be death, as Alex's soul was cast adrift in the void. Whether he will be drawn back to his original plane of existence remains to be seen.

Height: 6 ft.
Weight: 175 lbs.
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Blonde

Strength level: Havok possesses the normal human strength of a man his age, height and build who engages in intensive regular exercise.

Known superhuman powers: Havok is a mutant with the superhuman ability to absorb ambient cosmic energy into the cells of his body, transform it in an unknown manner, and release it as waves of energy that heat the air in their path enough to turn it into plasma. (Plasma is a super-heated state of matter consisting of charged subatomic particles.) These waves will emanate from his body in all directions unless he purposefully tries to channel them in a single directions, usually along the length of his arms. Havok is himself immune to the intense heat he creates. Whether he is immune to intense heat from other sources is not yet known.

Despite past accounts, the energy that Havok releases is not truly a concussive force. When Havok strikes an object with the waves of intensity of hot plasma, the sudden vast jump in temperature will often cause objects to shatter, explode, or seemingly disintegrate, and an observer might therefore wrongly think that the object had been struck by a concussive force. Should Havok direct his energy at the lowest level, he can project it towards a human being and his target will suffer a severe headache but will not burn up.

Havok's body is constantly in the process of absorbing cosmic radiation. When each of his body's power-storage cell enclaves reaches its capacity, excess cosmic energy is thereafter absorbed and immediately re-emitted in negligible quantities. Upon the total expenditure of all his available energy, it takes Havok's body about 16.5 hours to recharge to its peak level. The act of concentration involved in releasing his energy in anything other than an omnidirectional wave is physically exhausting for Havok if he continues it over an extended period of time.