Cerebra's Files

Thunderbird III


Real Name: Neal Shaara
Affiliation: None
Previous Affiliations: (X-Treme) X-Men, X-Men
Relatives: Parents (unnamed), Sanjit (brother, deceased)
Powers: The ability to turn his body into solar plasma, and/or to generate heat and plasma from almost any part of his body. Neal Shaara comes from an affluent family in Bangladesh. His father is the local chief of police. Last year, when his brother Sanjit, a journalist, disappeared, Neal took it upon himself to find him. Neal was shadowed by his father's best detective Karima, and the two began a realtionship after Karima revealed herself to save him. They were eventually captured by Bastion, who planned to turn them into Prime Sentinels, as he had already done to Sanjit. The shock of the procedure activated Neal's latent powers. Sanjit fought his programming long enough to disable the other Sentinels, but was fatally wounded. Karima also told Neal to leave her, as she had already been transformed into an Omega-class unit, and could not hold off her transformation for long. Lost and alone, and scared to death of his powers, Neal contacted Moira MacTaggert, an old friend of his family's and soon came to Muir Island, where he met and joined the X-Men early in the six months between the High Evolutionary's cancellation of all mutant powers and the first attack of the Neo. He is a university graduate, who is having trouble dealing with the prejudices about mutants, and so believes whole-heartedly in Xavier's dream of racial integration. He is also having difficulty controlling his powers, and hesitates in battle, making him a liability to the team at times.

Recently, his teammate Psylocke began flirting with him, leading to her break-up with Archangel. Shortly thereafter, Neal joined other members of the X-Men on a secret mission to find the lost Books of Truth, prophecies written by the precog Destiny. He and Psylocke continued to explore both their relationship and their powers together. As a result, Neal is now able to form simple plasma shapes, as well as "grenades" that detonate on command.

After Psylocke's death, Neal began seeing new teammate Lifeguard. However, when Lifegaurd began to mutate into a Shi'ar form, her brother Davis (Slipstream) couldn't take it and ran away. Neal followed Lifeguard when she left the X-Men to find Davis. He did show up in Genosha at one point, and was on hand to help rescue Polaris from a descent into madness.

More recently, Thunderbird was seen with Lifeguard as a member of the X-Corp office in Mumbai, India, where they assisted in damage control following a terrorist attack.
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