Cerebra's Files



Bedlam


Real Name: Jesse Aaronson
Affiliation: X-Force
Previous Affiliation: M.U.S.E. (Mutant Underground Support Engine)
Relatives: Kyle (father, deceased), Nina (mother, deceased), Christopher (King Bedlam, brother)
Status: Presumed deceased
Alternate-X Versions: Jesse Bedlam (AOA)
Codename Etymology: Last name pronounced bĕd'ləm [ From Middle English Bedlem, corruption of Bethlehem, used as the popular name for the Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem, London, an insane asylum.]; A state of confusion and chaos (obsolete: madman, lunatic).
Powers: Jesse can generate a bio-electric field that wreaks havoc with electrical systems. Orphaned at age five, he was separated from his brother Chris by the fostering system, and was later exploited by a doctor when his powers manifested. Finally, he was rescued by Xavier's Mutant Underground, which cared for him and trained him as a field agent. Unfortunately, Jesse desperately wanted to find his brother, so he tracked down Domino and left M.U.S.E. He cut a deal with Dom: if she would help find his brother, he would give her the location of Ekatarina Gryaznova, the Sentinel who had hurt her in the past. They ran into trouble, but Jesse escaped and brought in X-Force to help. Domino agreed to take his case, but because of his original misdirections in securing the team's aid, and his somewhat nosy personality, he found it hard to fit in with the team.

With the rediscovery of Christopher, now in charge of the New Hellions, Jesse had to choose between his freinds and his family. He sided with his brother at first, but is then betrayed him when he saw the amount of destruction Chris was going to cause, and when he found out that it was Chris, using his mutant ability to control minds, who killed their parents. He was re-accepted into X-Force afterwards. Jesse has to take pills to keep his bio-electric field from interfering with his brain chemistry and diving him insane. So far, only Domino seems to know of his condition, and she is not so sure it's not going to be a problem later. On a recent mission to Genosha, Jesse was given the memories of a karate master's entire training, which allows him to fight like a full black belt. As a result, his physical capabilites are much more formidable, although he still can't believe he can fight so well, and is still a little scared.

However, over the next six months Jesse also increased the range of his powers under the guidance of Pete Wisdom, to the point where he could generate an EM-disrupting pulse from a distance, without having to be in physical contact with the target machinery. He is also able to manipulate the electro-chemical responses of the human (and not-so-human) brain to make people feel pain or fall asleep. Jesse remained with X-Force through Wisdom's tenure and through one faking of the team's death. However, when X-Force came upon a top-secret plot to use alien technology to recreate a planet-moving engine, they apparently could not stop the bio-engineered defenders of the facility. Jesse and his teammates (except Domino) were presumed dead following the explosion they set off, leveling the alien tech base. All of Jesse's teammates later appeared an a press conference for the new team calling itself X-Force, and got into a fight with the other mutants over naming rights. As Jesse was not with them it was unknown at that point whether he too survived.

Recently, a number of mutants were found on the Xavier Institute grounds, crucified by the Church of Humanity, and Jesse appeared to be among them. So it seems that he somehow survived the massive explosion at the alien base, only to be murdered by another group later on.
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