Marvel Boy

Player Name/ Personal Journal: Amit! / amit
Email: mockingnerd@gmail.com
AIM (if you have one): Snark Knight
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Character Name: Christopher "Topher" Philip Summers
Character Journal: powerhousepainkiller
Physical description (face, build, weight): Topher is blonde-haired and blue eyed. He stands at a good five feet eleven inches - just shy of six feet, though perhaps he is not yet finished with his growth sport. Facially, he resembles his father, Alex, a great deal, though it's said that he has his grandfather Christopher's eyes.
Age: 16
DOB: April 10, 1996
PB: Dylan Sprayberry

Character location/Home: Westchester County/X-Mansion
Alignment (villain, hero etc): Hero!
Relatives (living/dead?): Alexander Summers/Havok (father, alive); Lorna Dane-Summers/Polaris (mother, alive); Christopher Summers (paternal grandfather, alive); Scott Summers/Cyclops (uncle, alive); Jean Grey-Summers (aunt, alive); Rachel Grey-Ramsey (cousin, alive); Doug Ramsey (cousin by marriage, alive) Sara Summers (cousin, alive), Gabriel Summers (uncle, non-existant), Max Eisenhardt (maternal grandfather, alive) Pietro Maximoff (uncle, alive), Wanda Maximoff (aunt, alive), Luna Maximoff (cousin, alive).

Abilities: Christopher has a variation of his mother’s negative absorption powers. He absorbs negative emotional energy and uses that power to turn into a virtual powerhouse, where he has superhuman strength, superhuman stamina, superhuman speed, a degree of invulnerability, and the power of flight. . His negative emotional energy leeching, though, helps those who he takes the negativity from feel calm and peace. Christopher is an adept hand-to-hand combatant, and a solid A student.

Weaknesses and flaws: Downsides of this power are that if he does not use his power enough, his powers manifest in a separate, psionic entity called Animus, who wreaks, well, havoc. Because of this, Topher can be on edge sometimes, and he requires counseling to help him keep a sane head. He also fears Malice coming for him, even though she's only traditionally gone after females.

Personality: Topher is generally a really nice, warm, down to earth kind of guy. He's always very careful about staying upbeat, because he's afraid of the negativity getting the best of him, and unleashing Animus - or perhaps even something worse than that. He's very interested in sports and music, and uses music as a way to give people joy, and also to leech away their pain. He can be snarky at times, but he doesn't allow people around him to get too negative - mostly because his powers leech that negativity away, but also because he likes to see people happy, and so he comforts them as much as he can, regardless. He has a deep interest in psychology and wishes to be a psychologist some day. Because of that, he takes time to listen to people's problems, and help them in any way he can.

Backstory: Topher was born to Lorna Dane-Summers and Alex Summers two years into their marriage. He had a happy childhood, one filled with warmth, mirth, and lots of family get togethers. Strangeness is nothing new to Topher, given his family background. Around the time Topher hit twelve, he started acting moody, having blackouts, and saying/doing things that his normally happy-go-lucky self would never do. One day, about a month before his thirteenth birthday, Malice came and possessed Lorna again. Malice swiftly took Alex down when he was least expecting it and turned her wrath onto Topher. This is when the first part of Topher's powers manifested, and he fought back Malice, using his superstrength and (unknowingly) his negative energy absorption powers. While he defeated Malice, he still wouldn't know about Animus until two weeks later, when he blacked out. In his place was a psionic being - Animus - the sum totality of all the negative energy that Topher had collected over the years and hadn't freed, despite his drawn out battle with Malice. Animus started causing some, er, havoc, but was quickly and efficiently subdued by some of his family members. Since then, Topher has been undergoing training to use his powers, though it's not been the easiest, what with his fears and all that. Since his powers manifested, and since Animus was first defeated, Topher has been living at the X-Mansion as a student and junior X-Man.

Sample post:

I wonder what it’s like for some of them, Christopher Summers mused as he lounged outside the Xavier Mansion, watching his classmates go by as they went on with their daily lives, being so different. A frown threatened to tug down the corner of his lips, but he forced himself to keep a straight face. I mean, okay, I know what it’s like for some of them. I can feel it, and absorb it. At least I was lucky in that the only crazy physical mutation my mom had was to have green hair – and while my natural hair color is a crazy neon blue because of it, at least I can bleach it out to blonde. That means that I can have a normal life outside of this place one day. But what about some of these guys? The frown finally tugged the corners of his mouth down as he watched one of his classmates – a sixteen year old named Jenessa who looked like she was a moving skeleton constantly surrounded by an aura of swirling, acid green water – walk by. She was making moon-eyes at another girl – a pretty, effervescent cheerleader-type with honey-and-buttery blonde high-lights. And you know that Mitzie Meade isn’t going to want anything to do with Jenessa Jacobs.

Topher sighed and shook his head before looking back down at the laptop in front of him. Staring back at him from the computer screen was a large chart – his family tree. It mapped as much information as he could possibly get from his parents about his family history – and man, was it twisted. It was such a crazy plethora of mutant powers and social issues and soap operatic histories that sometimes, Topher’s head just hurt from looking at it. And, if I’m being honest, some of it scares me. Especially Mom’s side of the family, he thought, looking over on the far right side of the chart. There was his mother’s name, and a click on that would give him all of the information he could manage to find about his mother – basic history, powers, changes in her powers, worst enemies, things like that. (And man, had Lorna Dane had a few power permutations – and mental issues, too.) Connected to his mother were the names of two siblings and one potential sibling. (No one had really ever confirmed whether or not this Zaladane lady was his aunt by genetics or not, but he figured that information on her was useful to have, regardless. Just in case she ever reared her ugly head again.)

What worried him, more than anything, though, was the name of his grandfather on his mother’s side. Max Eisenhardt. Erik Lehnsherr. Magnus. Magneto. Possibly the one guy who did more damage to mutant PR than anyone ever in existence. What worried Topher – what kept him up at night, some nights, was his fear that he would end up like Magneto somehow. Granted, he was nothing like the man but he’d had the misfortune of inheriting his mother’s secondary mutation – one which had been taken away by the aforementioned Zaladane lady, but had reared its ugly head when Topher had been old enough for his powers to manifest. And what powers those are, he grimaced, thinking of his ability to absorb negative emotional energy and turn it into superstrength, superspeed, and flight. The downside being that if I don’t expend enough energy – if I don’t do enough good, then I blackout and release a psionic goblin called Animus, who takes it on himself to wreak havoc. Which, in Topher’s book, was plenty evil enough.

 

This was why Topher tried so hard to be the quintessential nice guy – warm, friendly, accepting of everything and everyone. He spent his mornings working out and meditating (to keep both body and mind healthy), he frequently wrote on his blogs – one private, one public – and he was a social person. Sure, the one not-so-great thing that he did was to frequently sneak out of the Mansion at night, so that he and his band could play local gigs at nearby parties and under-18 clubs, but beyond that, he was fairly well-rounded. Which, when you have my family history, you kind of have to make sure that you are. Thankfully, at least I don’t have to worry about fiery avian cosmic forces trying to take over my body, unlike Rachel and that side of the family. It was a small consolation. There was always the chance that he would go crazy, evil, or both. And, who knows, maybe Malice will take a liking for possessing guys. With Animus around, that wouldn’t end well at all.

Topher frowned again and snapped his laptop shut. Jenessa, as predicted, had been rejected by Mitzie, and Topher had unwittingly sucked in Jenessa’s negative vibes – and man, were there a lot of them. He hastily shoved his laptop into his messenger bag and started walking back towards the Mansion. It was nearly two in the afternoon, which meant that his free period was over and that he was about to start training in the Danger Room alongside the rest of his classmates. Which is good, because I have energy that I need to release.