Hero Profile: Havok

“Cry Havoc, and let slip the hounds of war,” from William Shakespeare’s famous play Julius Caesar. Not exactly sure how this relates to Alexander Summers and his codename, but there you go. And, once again, the misspelling annoys me. Is there some other Havoc that Marvel was worried Alex would be confused with? That’s all I can think of why they thought changing a C to a K was necessary. Anyway, let’s get to it.

I wonder if he could cook
a roast with his powers.

Alex was the younger son of US Air Force Major Christopher Summers and his wife Katherine. The Summers family were living happily in Anchorage Alaska when it hit the fan. The family went out on a flight in Chris Summers’ privately owned plane, when they came under fire from a Shi’ar Warship. The Shi’ar are an alien race that occasionally tries to invade Earth, for those who don’t recognize the name. While Chris did his best to keep the plane in the air, Katherine strapped their boys into the only parachute and pushed them out of the plane. Once again, I feel the need to ask why the heck the US AIR FORCE MAJOR didn’t have enough parachutes on his plane. The stupidity of fictional characters astounds me. Anyway, the boys survive, but Scott hit his head in the crash and fell into a coma for a few months.

While Scott recovered, Alex was adopted by a nice family, the Blandings. You know those creepy families you occasionally see in TV shows and movies, the ones where they lose a child, and then adopt a “replacement” and do their best to make the new kid a copy of the old? Yeah, the Blandings fall into that category. Their son had been kidnapped and murdered a few years back, and they tried to make Alex into a duplicate of the boy they lost. Alex did his best to fit in, but that’s a lot of stress to put on a kid. A few weeks into his new life, Alex and his foster sister were kidnapped by the local sociopath. The same evil little turd that had killed the Blandings son and gotten away with it. The emotional stress of the situation caused Alex’s powers to manifest, and he released a bust of plasma that turned the boy into ash. This roused the attention of Nathaniel Essex, aka Mr. Sinister. He’s an evil Mutant Geneticist, literally a Mutant who specializes in Mutant Genetics, that is rather obsessed with the Summers family and their genetic potential. He was also the sick weirdo that orchestrated Alex’s adoption, while keeping Scott at the orphanage so he could experiment on the older Summers. He was kind of kicking himself for letting the other Summers’ slip through his fingers. Sinister used his telepathic powers on Alex and his foster sister to make them forget the night’s events.

Alex remained blissfully ignorant of his and Scott’s Mutant status until he graduated college and was kidnapped an archeologist named Ahmet Abdol aka the Living Pharaoh. Abdol had similar energy absorbing powers to Alex, but learned that Alex absorbed cosmic power more efficiently. He nabbed Alex and used him as a battery. The power he absorbs from Alex let Abdol transform into a monstrous being known as the Living Monolith. The X-Men, led by Alex’s big brother, fought a valiant but losing battle against the Monolith. They were saved when Alex freed himself and cut Monolith off from Alex’s energies. Alex’s powers were sporadic to begin with, they only seemed to trigger when his life was in danger. He was then kidnapped again, dude’s worse than a Robin, by a group of Sentinels. The big scary Mutant eradicating robots, for those who don’t recognize the name. They were working under Larry Trask, son of their creator Bolivar Trask. Larry wanted to turn Alex into a force he could control. He fashioned Alex’s costume and even gave him the codename Havok. Larry was later killed by his Sentinels, and Alex was saved by the X-Men. After a run in with the energy absorbing Sauron, Alex gained better control of his powers and joined the X-Men.

He's gotten better at the whole
radiation powers thing.

Alex was part of the team for a few years before they were all captured by the living island Krakoa. After being saved by the second generation of X-Men, Havok and his teammate/girlfriend Polaris retired for a bit, but rejoined the team when the need arose. Over the years, Alex has become a regular member of the X-Men again, and has served as team leader on a number of occasions. And he’s not getting kidnapped as often. Hooray! But it still happens on occasion, particularly when Living Monolith is involved.

Like his brother Scott, Alex has the ability to absorb cosmic radiation. Alex can the process and release the energy, which heats the air into plasma. He can force the blasts into a single direction, but this requires a lot of mental focus. Alex is immune to most forms of radiation and heat, as he just absorbs it. This includes Scott’s Optic Blast. But, Scott is also immune to Alex’s plasma as he also absorbs the energy. So basically Nature insures that the Summers boys can't have a fight that ends in energy blasts. He’s a fairly competent team leader and hand to hand combatant as well. 

Havok’s appearances have been a little sporadic. Until 2011’s X-Men: First Class, he was only ever really a minor guest character on X-Men TV shows.

He appeared in X-Men: The Animated Series in the episode “Cold Comfort.” In it, he leads X-Factor, a government funded version of the X-Men. In the episode, the two teams engage in a “Friendly Skirmish.” And by that, I mean they had a bareknuckle brawl. When he and brother Cyclops are face-to-face, they don’t recognize each other, and are pretty shocked that their powers seem to cancel each other out. He appears in a couple of flashbacks in later episodes.

Sweet brotherly love.

He has a minor role in several episodes of X-Men: Evolution. In it, he’s portrayed as your standard surfer bum, down to the hair and accent. Like in the comics, he and Scott were separated after the plane crash that killed their parents. They had just been reunited in the season one two-part finale The Cauldron. In it, the Brotherhood Mutants attack the X-Men, each one vying to get a spot on Magneto’s floating castle, Asteroid M. Alex and Scott get a free pass, for some reason. On Asteroid M, the brothers are put into a machine powered by the Gems of Cyttorak, which “evolves” their powers. It also ages them into adults and turns their hair white. The transformation seems to cancel out the negative effects of their powers, Scott’s need to wear protective eye coverings and the arthritis like pain that Alex has in this series and nowhere else. Awesome. It also brainwashes them and turns them into Magneto’s puppets. Less awesome. They eventually break free of Magneto’s control, and use their combined blasting power to destroy the falling Asteroid M. This seems to drain them of their enhancements, and causes them to revert to normal. Alex is a background or side character a few episodes after this, but only really does something useful in “Ascention,” where he helps the X-Men and their allies fight Apocalypse and his Horsemen.

Alex is promoted to an “Original” X-Man in X-Men: First Class. He’s portrayed by actor Lucas Till, and while he’s related to Scott, this version isn’t his brother. At least according to director Bryan Singer. In this movie’s universe, he was in solitary confinement in a government prison when Magneto and Charles recruit him. Overall, he’s less of the confident and cocky potential leader of this X-Men team, and is more of the…dick. Yeah, every line I remember him saying is either sarcastic, pessimistic, or just plain mean. Don’t be a dick to Hank, Alex, he’s got more X-Men street cred then you.

Despite what the promos of X-Men: Days of Future Past would have you believe, Till didn’t so much reprise his role but got a cameo part way through the movie. Apparently in the ten-year gap between X-Men: FI and DoFP he was drafted into the Army and served in a special forces team with Toad and some other Mutants. Mystique saves him and the other Mutants from being picked up by Trask…and that’s the last we’ll see of him. Would have been real nice to see him race to the capital to take part in the finale, but nope, no more Alex.

He’ll return in X-Men: Apocalypse, but I assume he’ll be put on the backburner in favor of Scott. It’s just a feeling.

Havok is a decent character. I like to think of him as Cyclops, if Cyclops ever got that stick out of his bum. While still having the confidence and leadership abilities of his brother, Alex is usually a more laidback character in comparison. And while it’s pretty crazy just how often he was kidnapped in his earliest appearances, he does get a lot better as his stories go on. Also, the fact that he’s pretty hesitant to use his powers, given how much destruction that he can cause, makes him a more interesting character. Or maybe that’s just me. He’s the energy blasting, often kidnapped but never stopped, hellraising Havok. Next time, the rising sun of Japan, Sunfire. He is more interesting than his name suggests.

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