Havok (Alexander "Alex" Summers) is a comic book superhero in the Marvel Comics universe, and a member of the X-Men. Created by Roy Thomas and Neal Adams, he first appeared in X-Men #54 (1969).
Havok is a mutant possessing the power to absorb ambient cosmic energy, process it, and shoot or emanate it from his body as energy, radiation, plasma or heat. At times he is not entirely able to control this ability, which sometimes makes him a danger to those around him unless he wears a special costume to assist him.
When Alex was a boy growing up in Alaska, his father, Christopher, took the family for a flight in their airplane. It came under attack by an alien Shi'ar spaceship. As the plane caught fire and was crashing, his parents fastened Alex and his older brother, Scott into a parachute and pushed them off the plane, in hopes that they would survive.
The Summers boys were put in an orphanage and Alex was soon adopted, though his brother Scott remained there for much of his childhood. Alex went on to earn a degree in geophysics.
As a young man, Scott - now the hero Cyclops and the leader of the X-Men - located Alex and they discovered that Alex was also a mutant. Unable to fully control his powers, Alex was captured by the villain The Living Pharaoh, who shared the same energy-absorption abilities. Locking Alex in a shielded cell, the Pharaoh was able to absorb additional energy to become The Living Monolith. After the Monolith was defeated by the X-Men and Alex as freed, the Monolith returned to normal.
Alex was then captured by Larry Trask and his Sentinels, who were bent on controlling or eradicating all mutants. Trask fashioned a costume for Alex to control his powers, and Alex took the name Havok. Trask - who turned out to be a mutant himself - and the Sentinels were defeated by the X-Men, and Havok joined the team for a time. During this time he fell in love with his teammate Polaris.
Havok and Polaris were occasional members and allies of the X-Men for years. During one of their adventures, Polaris was mentally controlled by an evil mutant , ending their relationship for a time.
During this period, Havok became involved with Madeline Pryor, the Goblyn Queen, a clone of Jean Grey. The Queen attempted to use Havok to help take over the Earth and convert it into a demonic realm full of demons and goblins. Havok eventually came to his senses, and the Queen was defeated and killed in battle with the X-Men.
Havok befriended Wolverine in the late 1980s and they shared some adventures together in the Havok and Wolverine graphic novel.
Havok and Polaris eventually reunited and became the leaders of X-Factor for a time.
When this version of X-Factor fell apart, the explosion of an experimental device cast Havok into an parallel world where he was the leader of a drastically altered version of the X-Men, was married to Madeline Pryor, where they had a son named Scotty. In the comic book Mutant X, Havok's adventures in this other reality were chronicled, leading to a disastrous adventure which left most superhumans on that world dead, but Havok was able to save the world itself before being cast back into his home reality.
Havok then rejoined the X-Men.
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