Rachel "Ray" Anne SummersMarvel Girl

Hailing from dystopian future reality Earth-811 where Sentinels reign and mutants are hunted, Rachel Summers, a brainwashed mutant telepath, is the hunter. Breaking free of her programming, she teams up with surviving X-Men and rebels against the Sentinels by changing history. Doing so lands her in reality Earth-616, a divergent timeline, where the Phoenix Force, once bound to this reality’s Jean Grey, bonds to her. With access to the cosmic entity, Rachel then joins the X-Men and takes the codename Marvel Girl.

Days of Future Past

In the alternate future of Earth-811, Senator Robert Kelly’s assassination by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants inflames anti-mutant paranoia, bringing an anti-mutant president to office, who sponsors giant mutant-hunting robot Sentinels as a means to counter the mutant threat. The daughter of mutant heroes Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, and Jean Grey, AKA Phoenix, Rachel Summers grew up at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, befriending fellow mutant Franklin Richards, the son of the Fantastic Four’s Reed and Susan Richards. 

When Rachel’s psychic powers manifest at puberty, she joins the New Mutants training team. Eventually, the Sentinels’ open-ended programming concludes that the best way to deal with the mutant menace is to take over America, and kill or imprison virtually all known North American mutants, and then the non-mutant superhumans. During this period, Rachel’s mother dies in a nuclear explosion caused by Jason Wyngarde, AKA Mastermind. In response, the government outlaws mutants, and the military attacks Xavier’s school, leaving Rachel as one of the few survivors. Captured and drugged to neutralize her powers, Rachel suffers through torture and brainwashing for months by the sadistic cyborg Rory Campbell, AKA Ahab, the leader of the government’s anti-mutant forces. By her late teens, Rachel is forced to use her telepathy to hunt down other mutants, her face tattooed to mark her as a “Hound.”

Rachel is deeply disturbed by the deaths of her parents and all she knows as well as horrified by her own actions as a Hound. Her mental state becomes additionally strained through being mentally connected to her mutant prey as they are killed by Ahab’s forces. During one sadistic torture session imposed on her by Ahab, the pain helps Rachel break her brainwashing, letting her rebel and attack Ahab, permanently scarring his face. 

No longer of use as a Hound, Rachel is ultimately placed in the South Bronx Mutant Containment Facility, where she and the surviving X-Men plot to end the Sentinels’ reign by changing history. There, she is reunited with Franklin Richards, and the two fall in love. Using her powers, Rachel exchanges the psyche of adult X-Man Katherine “Kate” Pryde with that of Pryde’s teenage self, Kitty Pryde, at a time just before the attempt on Kelly’s life. However, unknown to all, Rachel and Kate access a divergent timeline (Reality-616), so although Kate saves Kelly in the past, her own reality remains unchanged. During Kate’s journey into the past, the other X-Men die fighting the Sentinels, including Franklin, who was linked to Rachel’s mind when he dies.

Investigating why Rachel and Kate’s efforts did not succeed in changing their reality, Rachel sends her astral self into that past as well, also arriving in Reality-616. While floating above New York City, Rachel’s meditative astral form is found by the Phoenix Force, a powerful cosmic force that had been linked to Jean Grey of Earth-616. Fascinated by Rachel, the alternate reality child of Grey, the Force reads her mind and, impressed by Rachel’s resilience, sends a portion of itself into the future of Reality-811 with Rachel. The Force meets Kate Pryde after Rachel passes out from the strain of time travel. Kate bargains with the Force to save Rachel from the Sentinel’s rule; it agrees to boost Rachel’s powers so she could physically travel back in time. The next day, unaware of this deal, Rachel accompanies Kate in breaking into the Project Nimrod laboratory to sabotage an advanced Sentinel’s construction. After planting a nuclear device, Kate prompts the Phoenix Force to send Rachel back in time. The Nimrod Sentinel blasts Kate, and, leaving her for dead as the bomb detonates, travels back in time to find Rachel.

Meanwhile, Rachel arrives in Reality-616’s modern age, and encounters a young man, Nicholas Damiano, who offers her shelter. When the psychic vampire Selene Gallio, AKA Selene, of the Hellfire Club discovers Rachel, she desires to enslave her. In tracking her down, she comes upon Nicholas and kills him. When Rachel finds out, she swears vengeance.

While Rachel’s memories of her own time’s horrific events are suppressed by the Phoenix Force lying dormant within her, Rachel soon overcomes this suppression and is invited to attend Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X’s school.

Telepathic and Telekinetic Powers

Rachel has vast telepathic and telekinetic powers. She can read minds, project her thoughts into other minds, cast telepathic mental bolts to stun others, cast psionic illusions (such as masking her facial tattoos), track others via sensing their thoughts, rearrange others’ thoughts and project her astral form out of her body. She can mentally levitate matter (including herself, thus allowing her to “fly”) and generate telekinetic shields. She can also project psyches (including her own) into the timestream. 

When linked with the Phoenix Force, her abilities are enhanced to their ultimate levels, limited only by her force of will and breadth of imagination. As Phoenix, she has manipulated matter on an atomic and universal scale, generated and controlled any form of energy in virtually any conceivable amount, absorbed energy from sources as great as a supernova, manipulated time and space, created space warps for instantaneous travel, and enhanced her strength to immeasurable levels. 

Rachel has some experience in sword fighting, lock picking, vehicular repair and the use of advanced weaponry and technology.

Ruthless Foes

In Rachel’s home reality, Earth-811, the cyborg Ahab is the leader of the government's anti-mutant forces. He tortures and brainwashes her into hunting down other mutants, and has her face tattooed to mark her as one of his “hounds”. Though she eventually breaks free from her programming and scars him.

The sorceress Rita Wayword, AKA Spiral, tricks Rachel and takes her to the Mojoworld dimension. While there, she is enslaved by the ruler of that realm, Mojo. Through the Omniversal Guardian Roma helps connect Rachel to her former teammates, Kurt Wagner, AKA Nightcrawler and Earth-616’s Kate “Kitty” Pryde, and she escapes.

The psychic vampire Selene Gallio of the Hellfire Club desires to enslave Rachel. Selene kills one of Rachel’s early allies on Earth-616, and Rachel swears vengeance. She tries to execute her but is stopped and later defeats Selene when saving fellow X-Man, Tessa, AKA Sage.

Close Ties and Super-Team Allies

In Rachel’s home reality, she shares a romantic relationship with Franklin Richards, but when she tries to change history and succeeds, her future goes unchanged and Franklin dies. Rachel encounters him again when his astral self tries to drain life from her and Earth-616’s young Franklin Richards. Though he stops, eventually accepting his death. 

In reality Earth-616 while Rachel investigates why her timeline went unchanged, the Phoenix Force discovers her. The Phoenix Force is a powerful cosmic force that becomes fascinated by Rachel, and in bonding with her, Rachel can access the force, enhancing her abilities. 

She also meets her parents on Earth-616, Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, and Jean Grey, the former Phoenix, but they aren’t truly her kin as hers were from an alternate future reality. They become the closest thing she has to parents despite the time it takes for Jean to accept her. Rachel sees Cyclops’ son Nathan Summers, AKA Cable, as her brother and they often help one another.

In Rachel’s home reality of Earth-811, she is a part of the New Mutants to train and hone her abilities. Later, against her will, she is forced to join Ahab’s Hounds, mutants that hunt other mutants. Though she escapes Ahab’s torturous brainwashing and when she is transported to Earth-616, she joins the X-Men, and later the X-Treme Sanctions Executive (XSE). She later joins super teams Excalibur and Starjammers. While teaming up with Excalibur, she and Kitty Pryde become roommates and close friends.

A Marvelous Timeline

While at Xavier’s school, Rachel was shocked to learn of the supposed “death” of Earth-616’s Jean Grey, unaware the Grey that died was actually a Phoenix-empowered duplicate that hid the true Grey in suspended animation, then became corrupted by its power, killing billions of sentient beings after consuming their galaxy’s star before ending its threat by committing suicide.

After joining Earth-616’s X-Men, Rachel met their Cyclops, but was distraught to learn his then-wife, Madelyne Pryor (secretly a clone of Jean Grey), was pregnant with a son, as it meant she was not to be born in this reality. Rachel chose to keep her parental lineage a secret from Cyclops. After officially joining the X-Men, Rachel later visited the home of Grey’s parents, finding a holo-empathic crystal imprinted with Grey’s personality. Refusing to believe Grey had become corrupted and evil, Rachel claimed the name and power of Phoenix as her birthright, hoping to redeem the Phoenix name and to atone for her Hound past by helping fellow mutants. Sensing this, the Force awoke within Rachel, allowing access to its power. 

Although startled by her new power levels and name, the X-Men still accepted Rachel, who soon met Cyclops’ son, Nathan, whom Rachel considered her brother, and established a psychic bond with him in order to protect him. 

Later, facing the menacing, near-omnipotent Beyonder, Rachel stole the X-Men’s life forces against their will, using them to tap into the reality-changing M’kraan Crystal as part of her plan to restart reality to eliminate the Beyonder. Though, Rachel realized that ultimate power came with ultimate responsibility and stopped; she returned X-Men’s life forces, and the Beyonder was later defeated by Earth’s heroes gathered by Rachel. Alienated from the X-Men for her theft, Rachel tried to execute Selene, forcing her teammate Logan/James Howlett, AKA Wolverine, to use deadly force to stop Rachel. Mortally wounded and on the run, Rachel was tricked into trusting the sorceress Spiral, who took Rachel to the Mojoworld dimension, where she was healed, then enslaved by the world’s despotic ruler and grotesque media mogul, Mojo.

Soon after, the Omniversal Guardian Roma, wanting to assemble specific heroes to fight the approaching threat of the sorcerer Necrom, covertly gave a shared dream of Rachel to her former teammates Nightcrawler and Earth-616’s Kitty Prdye, that re-awoke a psychic link between them and her, allowing her to throw off Mojo’s control and escape. Drawn to Kurt and Kitty’s vicinity, Rachel arrived in London pursued by Mojo’s lupine hunters, the Warwolves, as well as being hunted by Gatecrasher’s Technet, sent by Roma’s agent Saturnyne to bring British heroes Meggan and Brian Braddock, AKA Captain Britain, into the fray. Drawn together, Rachel, Kurt, Kitty, Brian, and Meggan defeated both forces. After this, the group remained together as the super-team Excalibur. 

Hearing cries from her “brother” Nathan, Rachel flew to New York City, to find him at risk of being sacrificed in a demonic plot to permanently bond limbo (Otherworld) with Earth. Excalibur followed, and with the simultaneous efforts of other mutant teams and heroes, the invasion was prevented, and Nathan’s life was saved. During these events, Rachel learned that Jean Grey was alive, having been found and rescued from the Phoenix’ suspended animation sometime earlier.

Later, Rachel’s powers interacted with the enigmatic Widget (actually the spirit of Earth-811’s Kate Pryde merged into a robot form) to send Excalibur on an extended and grueling “cross-time caper” through various realities. Finally returning to Earth, Rachel faced the cosmic entity Galactus, who deemed the Phoenix a threat to reality; however, when Galactus tried to drain the surrendered Rachel’s energy, the universe apparently began dying due to the Phoenix Force’s connection to all life; Galactus was forced to let Rachel go. 

Rachel soon encountered the astral self of Reality-811’s Franklin Richards, who was stealing energy from Rachel and the pre-adolescent Franklin Richards of Reality-616 to maintain his form. After the pursuing Ahab was defeated by a number of mutant teams and the Fantastic Four, to prevent the draining of Rachel and young Franklin’s life forces, Franklin-811’s spirit finally accepted his death and dissipated. During this encounter, Rachel revealed her true identity to Earth-616’s Cyclops and Jean, though Grey initially had difficulty accepting Rachel’s existence. 

Rachel soon learned the Phoenix Force was responsible for her scrambled memory and willed it dormant so her mind could heal, but before her memories fully returned, the sorcerer Necrom sought to steal the Phoenix Force from Rachel. Necrom ultimately absorbed power beyond his limits and exploded, critically injuring Rachel. Taking control of Rachel’s body, the Force left Earth, giving her time to heal. 

When restored, Rachel returned to Earth and, accompanied by Excalibur, journeyed to Reality-811 to stop Ahab permanently; there she changed the directives of that timeline’s Sentinels to preserve all life, including mutants, ending the Sentinels’ genocidal reign. After this, Captain Britain somehow became lost in the timestream, but repeatedly tried to switch bodies with Rachel (who was a temporal anomaly), efforts that Rachel resisted and kept secret from her teammates. 

Rachel soon served as a bridesmaid at Jean Grey’s wedding to Scott Summers (who had come to accept Rachel as a daughter of sorts), an event that brought Rachel great joy. However, upon returning to England, Rachel’s guilt led her to sacrifice herself by trading places with Captain Britain in the timestream. In doing so, she diverged into two Rachels, one emerging in the 37th century, where she became a wandering mystic and gained followers who called themselves Askani, meaning “outsider.” The Clan Askani swore to defend Mutantkind in their present, but create a new timeline where Mutants could thrive. There, Rachel grew old as Mother Askani in Reality-4935 as the Askani worked toward their goal via time and space travel known as chronoskimming. The other Rachel landed in Reality-805110, the Borderline, and became a prisoner of the exiled criminal Gaunt. She was found by Cable (a fully grown Nathan Summers) who journeyed there in response to Rachel’s calls for help. He rescued her after battling Gaunt and they returned to Reality-616.

Upon their return, Rachel was unable to access the Phoenix Force, so she retired from adventuring and quietly attended college. Soon after, Rachel helped Cable defeat the subversive Dark Sisterhood and their leader Finality. Later, mutant predator Elias Bogan captured Rachel and used her as his pet telepath to enslave other mutants, until the X-Men defeated Bogan and freed her. 

Rejoining the X-Men, Rachel took the codename Marvel Girl and the surname Grey, both to honor the memory of Jean Grey, who had died in battle, and to show her displeasure over Cyclops’ new romance with former X-Men enemy Emma Frost. As part of Ororo Munroe, AKA Storm’s X-Treme Sanction Executive (XSE) squad, Rachel battled a replica of the cybiote Fury created by Captain Britain’s brother, Jamie Braddock. During the battle, Rachel found she could tap into the Phoenix Force once more, using it to defeat the Fury. 

Subsequently, during a mission working with Frost to infiltrate the Hellfire Club in search of their teammate Sage, Rachel finally defeated Selene in battle. Frost later introduced Rachel to her grandparents’ Earth-616 counterparts, John and Elaine Grey, who quickly accepted Rachel as a granddaughter. However, long fearful of the Phoenix, the alien Shi’ar Empire decided to exterminate the entire Grey lineage to prevent any further manifestations of its power in their genetic line. At a Grey family reunion, Rachel and the X-Men were unable to prevent Shi’ar Death Commandos from slaughtering every member of Grey’s family, which left Rachel guilt-ridden and enraged at the Shi’ar. During the battle, the Shi’ar permanently branded Rachel’s back with the mark of the Phoenix, a genetic tag tattoo that would allow the Shi’ar to track her every move. When the Death Commandos attacked Rachel again, she chose to honor the Grey family name by not killing the Commandos in revenge. Rachel also began counseling to cope with the tragedies of her life.

Rachel was later selected by X-Men founder Charles Xavier to accompany a small group of X-Men into space to pursue insane rogue X-Man and Cyclops’ brother Gabriel Summers, AKA Vulcan, who sought to destroy the Shi’ar. En route to the Shi’ar Empire, the X-Men encountered Korvus Rook’shir, AKA Korvus, a Shi’ar agent being forced to slay Rachel, lest a bomb in his brain kill him. A descendant of a previous Phoenix Force host, Korvus wielded the Blade of the Phoenix, a massive sword empowered by a portion of the Phoenix Force. During his attack on Rachel, the Force psionically linked the two, a mutually intimate insight into each others’ souls, a bond that ended the battle.

Allying with the freedom-fighting pirates the Starjammers, the X-Men helped free the deposed and imprisoned Empress Lilandra Neramani. However, Vulcan married Lilandra’s sister, the rogue Cal’syee Neramani, AKA Deathbird, then killed her brother, the Shi’ar Emperor D’ken Neramani, claiming the throne for himself. During a subsequent battle, Vulcan murdered his father and the Starjammers’ leader Christopher Summers, AKA Corsair, and gravely wounded Xavier, who was returned to Earth with a number of X-Men. Rachel, Cyclops’ brother Alex Summers, AKA Havok, and Lorna Dane, AKA Polaris, quit the X-Men, and with Korvus, joined the Starjammers, swearing to continue the revolt against Vulcan’s rule. 

Rachel and Korvus’s relationship turned romantic though Rachel broke it off realizing the true nature of their relationship was due to the Phoenix Force. Later, Rachel and the Starjammers were forced to ally with Vulcan against the even greater threat of the Scy’ar Tal, a race that sought the Shi’ar Empire’s destruction for ancient crimes against their people. After the Shi’ar defeated the Scy’ar Tal, Vulcan rejected the alliance with the Starjammers, imprisoning all but Rachel, Korvus, and Lilandra, who began planning their teammates’ rescue from the planet Kr’kn. During this time, Rachel became close with Starjammer Cr’reee, and did battle against the Shi’ar Praetorians, who destroyed an entire planet and killed billions in an effort to destroy the Starjammers. While breaking into Kr’kn’s underwater prison, the Phoenix Force inexplicably removed itself completely from Rachel and Korvus’ sword, streaking away into space, leaving Rachel confused and dismayed. 

Despite this loss, Rachel later assisted in freeing a now-captive Lilandra and reinstating her to the Shi’ar throne. However, almost immediately, Lilandra and her supporters were attacked by the Shi’ar Death Commandos, and during the chaos, Lilandra was assassinated by the evil Fraternity of Raptors member Razor. Rachel assisted Kallark, AKA Gladiator, in apparently killing the Death Commandos as well as Blackcloak, who slaughtered her family, but Rachel did not feel any peace or relief afterward. After attending Lilandra’s funeral and seeing Gladiator reluctantly take the Shi’ar throne, Rachel, Korvus, Havok, and Polaris took leave from the Starjammers.

Rachel left with Wolverine when Cyclops started the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning but helped out against the Avengers. She fed them false information regarding Hope Summer’s whereabouts who had been manifesting the Phoenix Bird. After the battle between the Avengers and the X-Men, Rachel remained at the school during which a romance formed between her and John Sublime, AKA Sublime. When the sentient virus Arkea desired to wipe out all life and was assisted by Amora the Enchantress, Mary Alice Walker, AKA Typhoid Mary, Selene Gallio, and Yuriko Oyama, AKA Lady Deathstrike, Rachel joined X-Men Storm, Betsy Braddock, AKA Psylocke, Jubilation Lee, AKA Jubilee, Karima Shapandar and Monet St. Croix, AKA M, to defeat Arkea and the villains. Rachel then encountered Madelyn Pryor who defeated her in battle.

In tracking down Deathbird, Rachel encountered D’Keth who was personally responsible for the death of the Grey family. She overcame her need for vengeance and instead showed him the memories of her family’s massacre.

Rachel left the X-Men again after Cyclops’ apparent death from Terrigen Mists to mourn. During this time, she encountered Magneto who convinced her to join him in protecting mutants, but she left his team as well as he proved untrustworthy. Rachel helped Sabretooth find Inhuman civilians to protect them during the X-Men/Inhuman war but the murderer was a possessed M, whose brother Maris St. Croix, AKA Emplate, had taken over. She rejoined the X-Men as Prestige. During a battle with a Sentinel called Alpha, she is knocked out and during that time realized she was afraid of tapping into her abilities and also felt Nightcrawler’s feelings for her. She embraced her full potential and defeated Alpha, and confronted Nightcrawler and they became a couple shortly thereafter.

With her powers amplified, she experienced memories from her time as a Hound. During a battle with Negative Zone aliens, she suffered injuries that landed her in a coma. Her Hound marks resurfaced and when she eventually woke up, she discovered that Mesmero caused these changes. Mesmero forced Rachel to hunt down mutants like her former self as a Hound but the time-displaced Cyclops broke Mesmero’s hold over her.

She was soon reunited with the Phoenix Force-resurrected Jean but Rachel ended up psychically controlled by Xavier’s polar opposite, Cassandra Nova. Rachel ended up battling Jean until she resisted the mind control and Jean cut a deal to free her completely.

When Ahab returned to the present, he converted the X-Men into Hounds, and Rachel was brainwashed as well. Cable and the X-Men traveled to the past to prevent their present and during this time, Rachel was freed from Ahab’s control, though she stayed a Hound and left the team. While she was being used by Stryfe, her alternate self, Mother Askani, saved her. Now truly free, she battled a younger Stryfe and in almost killing him, Cable talked her down with the fact that Stryfe’s mind would be wiped to protect the timeline, and she returned with Cable.

When the sovereign island nation-state of Krakoa was established, Rachel joined her fellow mutants as a citizen. She moved in with the Summers on the Blue Area of the Moon, joined the X-Men as well as X-Factor Investigations.

She later started helping Betsy Braddock—who took up her brother’s mantle as Captain Britain—and the Knights of X with the recovery of the Holy Grail of Mutantkind, the Siege Perilous. During their quest, Rachel also helped Betsy fight mutant-hating despot Merlyn and his right-hand man King Arthur, who were bent on wiping out the “witchbreed” and even sent Furies to hunt them across Otherworld. While Rachel was psychically tapping into their ally Shogo’s location, she had a vision of Geraldine—an Otherworld informant in the Crooked Market—who was a kind form and not necessarily the actual person. Geraldine called her Askani, reminding her of her role as the guardian of the timestream, noting that the timelines needed her and that “she” needed her too. Rachel assumed it was Betsy that needed her and rushed to her and her team’s side who were all trapped in an illusion. When Rachel freed Betsy, the pair shared a passionate kiss. As Askani, Rachel helped Betsy to restore her reputation with the people of Britain, and against Morgan le Fay. Not knowing where Morgan would strike next, Rachel got impatient and tapped into her chronoskimming power, an ability that allowed her to see the recent past and identify those from other realities and see into their timelines.