sized super-computer capable of detecting mutants over vast areas. Cerebro's range is broader when operated in conjunction with the telepathic ability of Xavier or another mutant.
History: Charles Xavier's crippled body serves as a constant reminder of his troubled past -- fraught with pain, loss and the bitter sting of oppression. The son of nuclear researcher Brian Xavier and his wife, Sharon, Charles experienced the emergence of his telepathic powers while still a boy. Following her husband's accidental death, Sharon married Brian's colleague, Dr. Kurt Marko. Cain, Kurt's son by a previous marriage, came to live at the Xaviers' Westchester mansion shortly thereafter. A cruel and spiteful boy, he bullied his new stepbrother. As punishment, his father secretly beat him -- and the untrained Charles felt his sibling's pain firsthand, because he could not yet control his fledgling abilities or terminate his contact with Cain's mind. As he grew older, Charles learned to control his burgeoning powers.
A brilliant student, he enrolled in the graduate-studies program at England's prestigious Oxford University, where he met and fell in love with a young Scotswoman named Moira Kinross. Of all their classmates, Charles and Moira were the only ones who understood the ultimate implications of genetic mutation. Their passionate discussions on the subject gave way to an equally passionate romantic relationship, and the two planned to be married. Standing in their way was Moira's former boyfriend, Joe MacTaggert, a lance corporal in the Royal Marines -- and a bully and thug, just like Cain. In Joe's eyes, Charles was an effete, good-for-nothing intellectual. To prove him wrong, to validate himself in terms his rival would understand, Charles enlisted in the military after completing his studies at Oxford.
His first day in combat, he thought he would go mad. Nothing could have prepared him for the mental horrors he would experience as his fellow soldiers were maimed and killed around him. Somehow, he found a way to cope -- becoming something of a legend in the area of search and rescue. Attached to the same unit as his stepbrother, Charles was present when Cain discovered the ages-old ruby that transformed him into the mystically empowered Juggernaut. Crushed when Moira broke off their engagement without explanation, Charles traveled abroad after leaving the Army. While in Cairo, Egypt, he clashed with Amahl Farouk -- a.k.a. the Shadow King, a mutant capable of summoning forth the darkness in the souls of others. This confrontation led to Charles' decision to devote his life to protecting humanity from evil mutants bent on world domination and safeguarding innocent mutants from human oppression. |
