Alex Summers is the powerfully destructive mutant known as Havok, one of the first new members of the X-Men and a former leader of X-Factor. However, he has experienced some rough roads over the years that have resulted in his placement with the Hellions, Krakoa's new team of troubled mutants, while he attempts to regain control of his mind and abilities.
As a mutant, Havok's physiology is already inherently different than most other heroes, and the nature of his powers has been a core part of his stories since he debuted in Arnold Drake and Don Heck's X-Men #54 in 1969. However, Havok's unique physiology has a few extraordinary components that set him apart even from the rest of mutantkind, both due to his own uncontrollable levels of power and thanks to the manipulation of other powerful characters. Now, we're taking a closer look at what about Alex Summers' unique anatomy that sets him apart from the rest of the X-Men.
1) Can Havok Absorb Cosmic Energy
Like the other Summers brothers, Alex can absorb and re-channel energy with devastating effects; however, Havok's particular power set allows him to absorb and redirect cosmic energy as superheated waves of plasma. Havok's body acts like a solar battery and is constantly absorbing the cosmic radiation of the universe, which has resulted in his use of containment suits that help him monitor his energy input so he can regulate the energy stored within his body.
This effect is only increased when Havok is removed from Earth's protective electromagnetic shield, as fans discovered when Havok led a team of X-Men deep into Shi'ar space in order to stop his mad younger brother Gabriel Summers. Vulcan was able to take over the Shi'ar Empire, and Havok was forced to remain in space as the new leader of the Starjammers, where he repeatedly displayed the upper limits of his body's ability to absorb energy from the heart of a star itself, allowing him to take on his usually more powerful brother.
2) What Is Havok's Relationship to The Living Monolith
When he debuted alongside Havok, Ahmet Abdol was an Egyptian professor who believed that the ancient kings and pharaohs of Egypt were the world's first mutants, which brought him to the attention of the eternal Egyptian mutant known as Apocalypse. After the tragic loss of his family, Abdol became the Living Pharaoh and his similar cosmic-based absorption abilities were further enhanced by Apocalypse, who used Mister Sinister to graft samples of Alex Summers' DNA to the mutant that inextricably linked their abilities for years.
This meant that anytime Alex lost his abilities or was cut off from the cosmic energy that reached the Earth, the excess cosmic energy Havok normally drained would funnel into Abdol, triggering his transformation into the dangerous Living Monolith. As Alex grew older and gained more control over their shared power, Abdol lost most of his abilities, which drove him to search out other means to become as powerful as the Living Monolith, which included the Crimson Gem of Cytorrak as his avatar Juggernaut.
3) What Is Havok Immune To?
Havok's mutant abilities to absorb cosmic energy, which is something of a generic term, provides him with unique immunities to certain types of energy that his body is able to naturally absorb, which includes star and solar energy that exists in multiple forms and wavelengths, including heat and radiation. Havok is uniquely suited to dealing with various types of radioactive energy without damage or lasting harm to his body, as he exhibited when he acted as a human control rod in a near-critical nuclear reactor during the events of Walter Simonson, Louise Simonson, Jon J. Muth and Kent Williams' Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown.
Alex also discovered early that his body actually cancels out the energy produced by his brother Cyclops' optic blasts, just as Cyclops' body cancels out Havok's plasma blasts, which making them immune to each other's mutant abilities. Unfortunately, this same immunity doesn't fully extend to their younger brother Vulcan, whose mutant ability to control and manipulate any form of energy allows him to circumvent the specific biological immunities of the siblings.
4) Did Havok Swap Bodies?
After Alex spent years fighting for control of his mind after he had been manipulated by multiple enemies, he attempted to reform his unit of X-Factor and start a new chapter of his life, though he appeared to have died saving the world before the new team's first mission. However, Alex's psyche had actually been lost to another reality, where he inhabited the body of another recently deceased Havok in the Howard Mackie-penned Mutant X series. This Havok led his corrupted version of the X-Men known as the Six, and he lived in a twisted reality in the assumed life of his alternate counterpart.
While most of Alex's abilities were the same, his new body was married to Madelyne Pryor, and he had a child named Scotty, who was named after the Mutant X reality's missing Cyclops, which just highlighted a few of the changes Alex was forced to adapt to. Unfortunately, he soon found himself fighting his former wife, who had transformed into the Goblin Queen, for the survival of his new reality, which cost him his new body and resulted in his psyche being lost in a void until he was returned to his original body by a powerful young mutant named Carter Ghazikhanian.
5) How Does Havok Relate to the Nexus of All Realities?
There are a few beings, like Man-Thing, who are connected to the Nexus of All Realities, which serves as a back-door entrance that connects to the various alternate universes in Marvel's huge multiverse, And at one point, that nexus existed within Havok. Alex Summers had become substantially connected to every other version of Havok across the Multiverse, which created instabilities that both Alex and the multiverse began to experience. This led a race of beings known as the Timebrokers to gather a team of dimension-hopping Exiles to correct the problems in these realities while the Timebrokers quietly began to erase the alternate versions of Havok.
When the 616 Havok returned to his home reality after the Mutant X series, he was followed by the evil specter of the deceased Havok he had replaced, who then attempted to take over control of their shared body. The Exiles were able to intervene alongside the X-Men to help the good Alex regain control of his body while the Timebrokers removed the evil ghost of Havok from existence, severing Havok's connection to the Nexus of All Realities in Chuck Austen and Clayton Henry's Exiles #30.