A medical doctor, Cecilia Reyes offers her expertise to the merry mutants of the X-Men, and eventually joins their ranks. Though she finds her passion for healing more potent than fighting battles and leaves the X-Men to treat all those that come to her aid. She remains their steadfast ally and always treats the afflicted, even if they’re an enemy.
Medical Doctor with Mutant Powers
Puerto Rican Cecilia Reyes is born to Alejandro and Maria Reyes in the Bronx, New York City, New York, and has a brother named Miguel. After Cecilia witnesses her father shot and killed in a drive-by shooting at the age of six, she dedicates her life to becoming a medical doctor. Soon after achieving her goal, however, her latent mutant power awakens and she seeks out help from Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X, founder of the X-Men. He invites Reyes to join the X-Men but she declines, wanting instead to continue working as a trauma surgeon at the Our Mother of Mercy Hospital in New York City’s South Bronx.
Invisible Force Field
Cecilia Reyes can generate a psioplasmic bio-field six inches away from any point on her body to protect her from harm, though she still feels the impact of any blows received. The field can be triggered by the kinetic impact of outside forces, as well as energy signatures, temperature changes, and even certain psionic forces. The limits as to the amount of pressure that can be applied to the bio-field before it breaks down have yet to be tested. Originally activated subconsciously, Reyes has since learned to utilize the field offensively by shaping it into simple clubs or spikes. She is a trained medical practitioner and a skilled trauma surgeon.
Anti-Mutant Antagonists
The anti-mutant group Operation: Zero Tolerance (OZT) attacks Cecilia with their Prime Sentinel who poses as a patient. She is later tricked by one of her patients, St. John Allerdyce, AKA Pyro, which results in Cecilia losing her job.
Joining the X-Men, she faces many enemies, and one group in particular: the super mutants called the Neo whose leader Hunter follows Kurt Wagner, AKA Nightcrawler to a treatment center in Brooklyn where Cecilia works. While Cecilia treats him, Hunter attacks her and out of self-defense she projects her force field as spikes into Hunter’s body, killing him and thus earning the enmity of his mate, Domina.
Close Ties and Mutant Allies
Cecilia is born to parents Alejandro and Maria Reyes who are both deceased. She has one brother, Miguel Reyes. She grows up to become a surgeon and around her colleagues, she acts as though mutants are a problem to be dealt with, despite having mutant abilities herself.
When her colleagues find out about her powers, they shun her. Having nowhere else to go, she joins the X-Men as their medical physician, and soon becomes close friends with fellow X-Man Hank McCoy, AKA Beast. Though she eventually leaves the team to establish a medical practice, she remains their ally and joins them when needed. She also has a romantic relationship with fellow X-Man Remy LeBeau, AKA Gambit.
A Medical Doctor’s Journal
After the anti-mutant OZT declared a clandestine war against mutants, Reyes was attacked by an OZT Prime Sentinel posing as an injured patient. Saved by the X-Men’s Bobby Drake, AKA Iceman, she is forced to work alongside him, and fellow mutants Sarah Knuckey, AKA Marrow, and Ruth Bat-Seraph, AKA Sabra, to survive. After OZT’s threat was ended by the global law enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D., Reyes accompanied Iceman back to the X-Men’s mansion, where her skills as a physician saved the life of the X-Man Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, whom OZT had implanted with a nanotech bomb. As thanks, Reyes was offered X-Men membership. Hesitantly accepting, Reyes attempted to return to work but was shunned by her colleagues and rejected by a patient’s family due to her being outed as a mutant. During the course of her first day back at work, Reyes treated both the mutant villain Pyro and the costumed crime-fighter Matt Murdock, AKA Daredevil, for gunshot wounds. Pyro later tricked Reyes into aiding his escape, and Reyes was conveniently fired as a result. Having nowhere else to go, Reyes committed to the X-Men.
During her time with the X-Men, Reyes faced such threats as the Ru’Tai, the Shadow King, and the Psycho-Man, and formed a close friendship with Beast; however, Reyes soon opted to leave the team to open her own medical practice in Salem Center, though she remained their ally. Later, Reyes treated Nightcrawler, after he had been wounded by the super mutants called the Neo, unaware that the Neo had followed him. To save Nightcrawler’s life, Reyes was forced to kill the Neo’s leader, Hunter, thus earning the enmity of Hunter’s mate, Domina. Trapped in the Neo’s headquarters, Reyes used the illegal addictive drug Rave to enhance her powers to avoid capture until rescued by the X-Men, and ultimately overcame her drug addiction with Xavier’s help. During her recuperation at the mansion, Cecilia witnessed the Beast’s discovery of a cure for the Legacy virus and failed to prevent Piotr Rasputin, AKA Colossus, from sacrificing his life to release it.
After M-Day when most mutants were depowered, Reyes returned to practicing medicine, setting up a small practice in homeless shelters and her apartment through which she helps the downtrodden and disenfranchised. Reyes helped wounded mutant runaway Tatiana Caban, AKA Catiana, after she had been shot.
Cecilia moved to Utopia with the X-Men and after Max Eisenhardt, AKA Magneto, brought back Katherine Pryde, AKA Kitty Pryde, Cecilia treated him for possible injuries sustained while saving her. Cecilia also worked alongside fellow X-Man Betsy Braddock, AKA Psylocke, to locate the first mutants who manifested powers post M-Day. Though, she eventually left Utopia to avoid fighting super humans, but still treated mutants out of her apartment when they came to her in need.
She later joined a team of X-Men to oppose Cain Marko, AKA Juggernaut, who had changed into the form of Kuurth, the Breaker of Stone. Sometime afterward, joined Logan/James Howlett, AKA Wolverine’s team of X-Men alongside Beast, Gambit, Iceman, Jean-Paul Beaubier, AKA Northstar, and Ava'Dara Naganandini, AKA Warbird. During this time, she assisted with Northstar’s wedding, helped Xi’an coy Manh, AKA Karma, through mind control by Ms. Hatchi, and had a romantic interlude with Gambit.
Cecilia later helped a time-displaced Wolverine, AKA Old Man Logan, try to discover why his healing factor mysteriously started to weaken.
