Rahne SinclarWolfsbane

Rahne Sinclair is a mutant with the power of lycanthropy, the ability to transform at will into a wolf. Growing up thinking her entire existence is a sin, and raised by a strict and harsh father figure, Rahne finds a more positive role model in Doctor Moira MacTaggert who adopts her. Moira takes Rahne to Professor Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X’s school where she trains and joins his New Mutants team to protect fellow mutants and humankind. While there, she takes the codename Wolfsbane.

Wolf’s Bane

The Reverend Craig is a fire and brimstone Presbyterian preacher, quick to judge others while denying his own sins. He fathers an illegitimate daughter, Rahne Sinclair, with a woman who dies in childbirth; Craig has the child made a ward of the church. Though he never admits he was her father, he raises Rahne, constantly reminding her she was the product of sin, that her every urge was a sin, and that her good behavior was her dead mother’s only chance of escaping eternal damnation. Unsurprisingly, Rahne grows up shy and repressed. 

The only person who shows Rahne any love is Dr. Moira MacTaggert, who finds an anomalous DNA matrix in Rahne’s blood when she delivers her. Moira keeps an eye on her when she can, sometimes taking Rahne into her care with Craig’s reluctant approval. When Rahne is 14, her mutant power to transform into a wolf manifests; unfortunately, her first transformation is witnessed by Craig, who decides Rahne is possessed by the Devil, and pursues her with an armed mob. Luckily, the fleeing Rahne runs into Moira, who sees her become human again and protects her from the mob.

Moira names herself Rahne’s legal guardian and takes her to Professor Charles Xavier’s School in the USA, where Rahne becomes the first of his New Mutants, codenamed Wolfsbane.

Lycanthropy

Rahne can shift between human and wolf at will, or stop the transformation at various points between; in all forms she retains her full human intelligence, but her thought processes become animalistic the more lupine she becomes, feeling fewer doubts and reacting more instinctively; for this reason she now usually avoids becoming a full wolf. In all her forms she possesses accelerated healing and heightened senses, able to hear whispers across a noisy room or sounds out of the normal range of human hearing, to track and identify individuals by scent, and to see into the ultraviolet and infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum; by monitoring someone’s scent and heat patterns varying, Wolfsbane can perceive changes their emotional state. 

In her non-human forms she also has enhanced strength, beyond the norm for either human or wolf but not superhuman, heightened speed, and sharp fangs and claws. Her costume magically disappears when she transforms into a wolf.

Her secondary mutation includes more pronounced claws and the ability to duplicate herself into a pack of wolves.

Big Bad Wolf

Reverend Craig raises Rahne as a ward of the church and teaches her that she is a sin, she is a product of sin and the only way she can escape damnation is to be good. Though it is later revealed that he is her biological parent who fathers her in sin, the very subject he preaches so strongly against. She confronts him later on and protects another mutant victim from his abusive behavior.

Raven Darkholme, AKA Mystique, in an effort to steal a virus from Moira’s lab, plants a bomb that gravely injures Moira. Mystique also shoots Rhane with a Neutralizer gun which strips Rhane of her mutant powers. Moira dies from her injuries and Rhane takes a long time to recover from the loss of her adoptive mother and her powers.

While fighting alongside merry mutants, Rhane goes up against Enchantress, Cameron Hodge, Romulus, Selene, Victor Creed, AKA Sabretooth, and Amahl Farouk, AKA Shadow King. 

Rahne becomes pregnant with her lover the Asgardian God Hrimhari’s baby and because the child is half mutant, half god, Rahne faces the demon underworld who thinks the child is destined to be a key figure in a future war. As they seek to capture the child to raise and control him, Rhane goes up against Stanley Carter, AKA Sin-Eater, and Maria Callasantos, AKA Feral.

Wolfpack

Moria becomes like a mother to Rahne and later, after protecting her from a mob, Moira adopts Rahne and introduces her to Professor X.

Professor X, while under possession, trains Wolfsbane alongside Sam Guthrie, AKA Cannonball, Xi'an Coy Manh, AKA Karma, Psyche, Roberto Da Costa, AKA Sunspot, for his New Mutants team. The team stays together despite its rocky start and adds Warlock, Dani Moonstar,, Illyana Rasputin, AKA Magik, Magma, and Douglas Ramsey, AKA Cypher. Rhane becomes the heart of the team, and together they battle villains Amora the Enchantress, Warlock and the Shadow King.

Rahne develops a close friendship with New Mutants teammate Danielle Moonstar, AKA Moonstar, and their bond turns into a psychic link whenever Rahne transforms into a wolf. Though their friendship becomes strained when Rahne, at the time a teacher’s assistant at the Xavier Institute, has an inappropriate relationship with a student, Josh Foley, AKA Elixir, who heals her after she loses her powers.

Over the years, Rahne has a few more appropriate romantic dalliances and serious relationships including those with New Mutants teammate Julio Richter, AKA Rictor, and Asgardian Hrimhari. She becomes pregnant with Hrimhari’s child but he sacrifices himself to save her and the baby.

A Wolf’s Tale

Learning to comprehend her new lupine senses and dealing with culture shock meant Rahne at first found her new home both terrifying and wonderful. Having been denied friends her own age in Scotland, Rahne quickly bonded with her classmates, thinking of them as the family she never had, especially Dani Moonstar, whose rapport with animals gave her a telepathic link to Rahne in lupine form. Having been taught romantic thoughts were wrong, coping with robotic Sentinels, the parasitic alien Brood Queen or the supposedly dead X-Men’s return was less scary for Rahne than dealing with her attraction to her teammate Cannonball. 

Finding things simpler as a wolf, Rahne considered staying in that form permanently, but worried this only proved that deep in her soul she was evil and already damned. Despite this insecurity, Rahne’s kind nature soon made her the heart of the team. When they encountered both the Technarch alien Warlock and much later the avian Bird-Brain, it was Rahne in each case who forced the rest of the group to extend the hand of friendship. 

With Moira’s encouragement, Rahne gradually began thinking of herself as Moira’s daughter. Shortly after rescuing their lost teammate Karma from the psionic parasite the Shadow King, the New Mutants were kidnapped by the Amora the Enchantress at Loki Laufeyson, AKA Loki’s request, and transported to Asgard. There Rahne met the Wolf Prince and Asgardian God Hrimhari, who could shift like her between wolf and humanoid lupine forms; they fell in love, but when forced to choose between staying in Asgard or returning to Earth, Rahne reluctantly chose the latter. 

Rahne later began to fall for her teammate Cypher, but before anything could develop between them, Doug saved Rahne’s life at the cost of his own, pushing her out of the path of a bullet. Rahne was inconsolable, blaming herself for not saving him and for not telling him her true feelings while she had the chance. When Magik lost control of her demonic side and New York was gripped in the “inferno”, it was Rahne’s appeals to her which finally got through, giving Magik the strength to purge herself of her Darkchilde aspect by seemingly de-aging herself to before the demonic taint had taken root. 

The team returned to Asgard to prevent the death goddess Hela’s using the Valkyrior to conquer the realm and slay Odin while he slept, and Rahne was briefly reunited with Hrimhari; however, when Dani announced she would be staying in Asgard while the rest of the team returned to Earth, the loss of her best friend devastated Rahne. After her teammate Rictor consoled her, a tentative relationship began to develop; though Rahne’s shyness ultimately prevented things going beyond a single kiss. Rictor convinced Moira to let Rahne stay with the team when Moira thought to remove her, and Rahne in return convinced Rictor not to leave, despite his distrust of the team’s new mentor Nathan Summers, AKA Cable.

On the alternate Earth known as Geshem (Earth-1991), prophecy held that Princess Rain, Rahne’s counterpart in that timeline, would die at the hands of a Beast. When the evil Magnus brought a mind-controlled Logan/James Howlett, AKA Wolverine, from Rahne’s reality (Earth-616) to have him fulfill this, the realm’s Mage temporarily swapped the Princess with Rahne, prepared to let her die instead if necessary. Rahne’s own powers allowed her to hold off Wolverine long enough to break Magnus’ control over him, and after Logan slew the villain, the Mage returned them both home.

Soon afterwards Rahne, Warlock, Rictor and Ororo Munroe, AKA Storm, were abducted by Magistrates working for Cameron Hodge and transported to the mutant-enslaving nation Genosha; Warlock was slain, and Rahne was genetically modified to become a mindless mutate slave and temporarily achieve monstrous proportions in her alternate forms (up to 8’ in transitional form and approximately 12’ in length as a wolf). However, the nation’s Genegineer, who opposed Hodge, secretly amended the process so it was partly reversible. After an alliance of mutant teams freed the captives, Storm partially restored Rahne’s personality; Rahne helped overthrow the Genoshan regime, but found not all the damage had been undone; if she became fully human she returned to being a mindless drone, while her wolf form was more powerful but less controllable. Conditioned to have an emotional link to her Magistrate “master,” Alex Summers, AKA Havok, Wolfsbane chose to remain in Genosha when her fellow New Mutants returned home, breaking up with a heart-broken Rictor. 

Weeks later, Valerie Cooper asked Havok to lead a new, government-run incarnation of X-Factor. Still tied to him, Wolfsbane also joined up, working alongside Havok’s girlfriend Lorna Dane, AKA Polaris, Jamie Madrox, AKA Multiple Man, Guido Carosella, AKA Strong Guy, and Peitro Maximoff, AKA Quicksilver. The damage caused by her conditioning remained; she treated Polaris with jealous hostility to begin with, and on a mission to Trans-Sabal lost control at one point, killing a man who stabbed a woman helping her. Increasingly concerned about the effects of her conditioning, Rahne asked Moira to try and reverse it, even though the odds were 50/50 the therapy would make her mental state worse, but she found it impossible to stay away from Havok long enough to undergo treatment on Muir Island. Soon after, however, the new age mutant preacher Radha Dastoor, AKA Haven, used her healing powers to restore Rahne completely.

Rahne remained with X-Factor for a while longer, but following the Phalanx invasion, which saw the apparent resurrection of Doug Ramsey as the techno-organic being Douglock (actually a revived Warlock overlaid with some of Doug’s memories), Rahne quit to return to Muir Island. Moira had become the first normal human to catch the lethal Legacy virus, and Rahne wanted to stay near her beloved foster mother while Moira sought a cure. 

While on Muir, she joined the island’s resident hero team, Excalibur, counting Douglock amongst her new teammates. After moving back to Muir, she was again taken to Geshem, this time by the Shaman (Professor X’s counterpart), who asked her to impersonate the now-Queen Rain while the country’s defenders tried to quell the Beast terrorizing the country; Rain agreed, though eventually it was Wolverine and her who stopped the monster. 

Learning Reverend Craig was victimizing another young mutant girl, Bridget Shane, Rahne overcame her fears and confronted him, revealing that she had discovered he was her father, and threatening to publicize his indiscretions if he did not leave Bridget alone. 

Alongside Excalibur, Rahne went on to battle Black Air, the sorceress Rita Wayword, AKA Spiral, the Crimson Dawn, the body-stealing Ogun, and the London Hellfire Club, thwarting their plans to take over the UK.

Worries about Moira’s deteriorating health continued to prey on Rahne’s mind, even as she grew romantically interested in Douglock, whom she had come to realize was not Doug reborn. When Moira decided to place herself in quarantine, with computerized locks set to re-open only if she found a cure, Rahne impulsively jumped in with her just before the doors shut; worried for her safety, Douglock eventually breached the locks in time for Rahne to attend the wedding of her Excalibur teammates Brian Braddock, AKA Captain Britain, and Meggan. The team disbanded afterwards, and Rahne stayed on Muir Island with Moira, leaving only occasionally, such as when she helped Hank McCoy, AKA Beast, and her old X-Factor friends Multiple Man and Strong Guy stop Melvin J. Weals’ plan to open an underworld portal using the Hell Toupee and sacrifice a former romantic interest to demons.

Rahne’s world came crashing down when the mutant terrorist Mystique came to Muir Island intending to steal Moira’s Legacy virus research to develop a similar disease that would target non-mutant humans. Mystique shot Rahne with a Neutralizer gun that stripped her of her mutant powers, seemingly permanently, and planted a bomb that destroyed the lab and severely injured Moira. The X-Men rushed Moira to their mansion for medical treatment, but she died en route from her injuries. 

For months Rahne traveled alone, trying to come to terms with her loss, before eventually returning to the Mansion—which had gone public and opened its doors to many more mutant students as the Xavier Institute—with a wilder, more aggressive demeanor. Dani and several of the former New Mutants had become teachers, but when Rahne expressed an interest in joining them, the school’s new headmaster Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, informed her that at 19 she was too young, barely older than the students. He offered to try to reverse the power neutralizing, but Rahne initially claimed she was happier without the wolf. However, she later admitted that this was not true to 16-year-old student Elixir, who used his healing powers to restore her power by kissing her. 

Rahne stayed on at the Institute as a teaching assistant, having a brief relationship with Josh against her better judgment, and mentoring the Paragon Squad. Though she ended her fling with Josh before it became serious, their relationship was exposed to the entire school by another student and, feeling she had ruined her friendship with Josh’s mentor and foster parent Dani, Rahne quit the school. 

She went to work for Jamie Madrox’s new XXX Investigations, working alongside old friend Strong Guy. In the wake of widescale mutant depowering after “M-Day,” Rahne retained her powers, and X-Factor, now including the depowered Rictor, appointed themselves guardians of what was formerly New York’s Mutant Town, while seeking to discover what had caused M-Day. They clashed with Singularity Investigations, run by temporal anomaly Damian Tryp, who had experienced a timeline (Reality-6124) where X-Factor’s hunt for M-Day’s truth lead to mutants being repowered and slaughtering humanity; though X-Factor ultimately destroyed Tryp’s organization, he tormented Rahne with an apparently precognitive vision of her murdering Madrox and his wife Layla Miller on their wedding day. Keeping this revelation from her teammates, Rahne was beset with nightmares, her old doubts as to whether she was a human or a beast returning full force, and she even contemplated killing herself to derail Tryp’s prediction, despite considering suicide a mortal sin.

Soon afterwards the manipulative Romulus, who believed all feral mutants were descended from humanoid lupines, Lupus sapiens, had his agent Wild Child bring together Wolfsbane, Feral, Lucia Callasantos, AKA Thornn, Walter Langkowski, AKA Sasquatch, and Wolverine, then set them against Wild Child and Sabretooth; however, after Sabretooth slaughtered Feral, Wolverine sent Rahne and the others home, unwilling to risk their lives fighting what he considered his private battles. Back with X-Factor, Rictor noticed Rahne’s ongoing discomfort, but Rahne initially rebuffed his attempts to discuss her problems; however, when he became depressed after temporarily regaining his powers only to lose them again, she in turn tried to comfort him, and the two became lovers, albeit tentative ones. 

Following a battle with Tryp’s former ally, Josef Huber, AKA Isolationist, Cyclops called on X-Factor’s aid as various groups raced one another to find the first mutant child born since M-Day. To help Rictor infiltrate the anti-mutant Purifiers, Rahne attacked one of their meetings, then faked Rictor shooting her to drive her off. Learning Cable had the infant but that the Purifiers and cyborg Reavers were closing in on him, Cyclops recruited Rahne to join X-Force, a covert assemblage of his best trackers and most lethal fighters, hoping they could reach Cable first. Instead they caught up with their quarry near Alberta, Canada at the same time as the Reavers; during the ensuing battle one of the cyborgs taunted Rahne by revealing Reverend Craig was now working with the Purifiers. Cable escaped, but the Marauders soon snatched the baby and fled to Muir Island’s abandoned facility; Rahne joined a mass assault on them, and Cable retrieved the child, then escaped into the future.

A conflicted Rahne approached Cyclops, learning he intended to secretly reform X-Force to hunt down and eliminate mutantkind’s enemies. Rahne asked to join, hoping that leaving X-Factor would avert Tryp’s vision, but Wolverine, put in charge of X-Force, refused to let her join, feeling she didn’t belong on a team of hardened killers. Wanting to find and rescue her father, who she realized she still loved despite everything, Wolfsbane went hunting the Purifiers without them, only to be captured and drugged; the Purifiers coveted Warren Worthington III, AKA Angel’s wings to fulfill a prophecy, and Reverend Craig brainwashed Rahne to kill angelic figures on sight and take their wings. Unaware of this conditioning, X-Force soon rescued Rahne, taking her back to Angel’s Colorado Aerie, where Elixir healed her physical wounds; waking, Rahne attacked Angel, ripped off his wings and fled back to Reverend Craig with them. With Rahne of no further use to the Purifiers, Craig tried to kill her, but having regaining her reasoning on completing her mission, Rahne fled; Craig pursued, but when he finally cornered her, he unwittingly stood in front of Angel’s wings, which were suspended from the ceiling, triggering Rahne’s conditioning again. Possessed by murderous rage, she apparently consumed him. Meanwhile, X-Force had devastated the Purifiers, and took Rahne, who was deeply in shock, back to the Aerie, where she convalesced. The telepathic Stepford Cuckoos’ deprogrammed her, although visions of consuming her father began haunting her.

While the others were away, Hrimhari, who had been reborn on Earth following a recent Ragnarok, tracked Rahne down, hoping to rekindle their relationship. When she told him she had done terrible things, he tried to convince her to forgive herself, and they slept together. Rahne became pregnant, but her body swiftly tried to reject the non-human baby, threatening to kill both her and the fetus. Returning, X-Force raced her and Hrimhari to the X-Men’s Utopia island, but found it under attack by the mutant witch Selene’s techno-organic zombies; evading them, Hrimhari followed Elixir’s scent to the island’s med-bay, but found the healer comatose. With Rahne near death, Hrimhari invoked Hela, asking for her to save both Rahne and the unborn child; Hela instead offered to save one soul in exchange for Hrimhari’s own. However, exploiting a loophole in the offer, Hrimhari had Hela heal Elixir, and as Hela took him away, Hrimhari requested Elixir tell Rahne of his love for her, and that he would find a way to return to her. After Elixir healed her and passed on the message, Wolfsbane joined the rest of X-Force in assaulting Selene’s Genoshan base. Afterward Wolverine removed her from X-Force, his reasoning that she never should have been there in the first place. 

During her pregnancy, Rhane faced Sin-Eater who offered to kill the child because it was opening up the walls between dimensions, as well as Bastet, the ghost of Feral and other gods and demons who sought to kill her child. After Rahne birthed a son, Hela found the boy babe but the child was able to hide, and later found and raised by Jack Russell, AKA Werewolf by Night. 

Rhane felt great shame for abandoning her son. She isolated herself afterward and prayed to God for mercy but her teammates Polaris and Banshee didn’t settle for Rahne retreating and got her help from Reverend John Maddox who helped her find peace with her repressed memories. As she let go of her self-pity, she decided to search for her son. Rahne joined with Rictor and Shatterstar and they found her son, now called Tier, and she chose to live with him and Russell who had been raising him.

Though Rahne was pulled back into the X-Factor with Tier who was competing for the control of Hell with six Hell Lords, including Mephisto. Destined to become a god killer, Tier embraced that idea and tried to kill Mephisto but Guido, who had been brought back from the dead by Layla Miller without a soul, killed Tier and became the King of Hell. Shortly thereafter, Rahne began to train as a Deaconess in John Madrox’s church.

Rahne later experienced a secondary mutation which enabled her to duplicate herself into a pack of five wolves, smaller than herself. She then rejoined the X-Men for a time and quit the team only to be beaten to death by a group of bigots.