Cecilia Reyes
| Dr. Cecilia Reyes | |
|---|---|
 Cecilia Reyes | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | X-Men (vol. 2) #65 |
| Created by | Scott Lobdell Carlos Pacheco |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Cecilia Reyes |
| Species | Human Mutant |
| Team affiliations | X-Men |
| Abilities | Force field generation |
Cecilia Reyes is a Marvel Comics character who was briefly a member of the X-Men. Created by writer Scott Lobdell and artist Carlos Pacheco, she first appeared in X-Men (vol. 2) #65 (June 1997).
Raised in the Bronx, she is an Afro-Latin American (originating from Puerto Rico) medical doctor specializing in trauma surgery. She has the mutant ability to project a force field around her body. Unlike most X-Men, she has no interest in superheroics, and desires only to live an ordinary life, having been forced into the team by circumstance.
Fictional character biography
Operation Zero Tolerance
Cecilia Reyes decided to become a doctor when her father was gunned down in front of her as a child, and she was unable to do anything to help him. The X-Men tried recruiting her when it was discovered that she was a mutant, but Reyes had no interest in being a superhero. However, when Operation: Zero Tolerance, a government-backed anti-mutant task force, targeted her, she was forced to join forces with the X-Man Iceman and other mutants to escape New York City and track down Bastion, Operation Zero Tolerance's leader.
Becoming an X-Man
She refused to join the X-Men at first, making an attempt to return to her normal life. However after meeting with problems with racism and both encouragement from Daredevil and an encounter with the villain Pyro, Reyes reluctantly joined the X-Men. She had several adventures with the team, combating the Ru'tai and the Shadow King. She usually did not bother with a costume, wearing either the yellow and blue training uniform or, on one occasion as a joke by Beast, an old costume of Wasp's. It was while wearing Wasp's old uniform that Reyes became involved in a battle with the X-Men's frequent enemy, the N'Garai. Reyes mostly ran away, but was saved (and mocked) by the X-Man rookie Marrow. She was eventually sucked into the N'Garai dimension, to be experimented upon, but her force field saved her from the cutting instruments. She escaped with the rest of the X-Men and the civilians they had saved.
Later, Reyes was tempted by the Shadow King by offers of a new life, but managed to resist the villain's offer. Reyes did not find costumed adventuring suitable for her, and left to set up her own medical practice.
Later, she was caught up in the X-Men's battle with the Neo, a villainous group of mutants who claimed to have evolved beyond the level of other mutants. Reyes was trapped in the Neo's fortress below New York City and used a street drug called Rave to make her mutant powers more destructive, ensuring her survival. The X-Men rescued her, and the telepathic Professor X helped her kick her addiction to Rave during a detox period back at the X-Mansion.
Reyes last appearance with the X-Men was at the time when Beast discovered the cure to the Legacy Virus. She was the one to discover Colossus dead after injecting himself with the cure. Reyes attempted to revive him, but was unsuccessful.
Neverland
Later, she was seen as a prisoner at a mutant concentration camp run by the Weapon X program, called Neverland. There she attempted to use her medical expertise to help out the other prisoners. She was apparently killed off panel when a brainwashed Agent Zero destroyed the camp, and her death was later confirmed in the letter column of New Excalibur #1. However it seems this was a mistake, as Mike Marts clarified in an interview on uncannyxmen.net, stating that if Cecilia would be dead they would show it on panel, and therefore Cecilia was not yet considered deceased at that time.[1]
In X-Men: The 198 Files, it has been revealed that Cecilia's older non-mutant brother, Colonel Miguel Reyes, had been assigned to head O*N*E security on the Xavier School grounds, with the purpose of finding out the fate of his sister.
Return
After M-Day and her escape from Neverland, Cecilia volunteers at local homeless shelters as well as working out of her apartment. According to Bobby Soul, she works off the record and under the table. The NYX teenagers bring an injured Tatiana to her for help. During their visit to her apartment she doesn't reveal to the teens that she used to be an X-Man. After treating Tatiana, she offers them a place to rest while she goes out for a few hours. Unaware Kiden Nixon is following her, she calls up Beast to ask a favor.[2] Later when Cecilia returns with groceries, she finds the teens have left.[3]
Sometime after these events, Cecilia moves to the X-Men's new base of operations; Utopia. When Magneto decides to bring back Shadowcat as a good will gesture, Cyclops asks specifically for her to help treat him of any injuries he might have suffered.[4]
The Five Lights
After the events of Second Coming, Cecilia is partnered with Psylocke and sent to Mexico to locate the second of the Five Lights; the first mutants to manifest powers since M-Day. After sedating Gabriel, she informs his parents of what is transpiring and offers him help from the X-Men. Psylocke comes to the room and explains that something has happened, Gabriel's manifesting speed powers caused him to move so fast he is invisible to the naked eye. Psylocke taps into Cecilia's powers to create a force field around his room so they would not lose him before Hope Summers could arrive to help.[5]
Powers and abilities
Cecilia can generate a force field, described in her first appearance as a "psioplasmic bio-field" around her body which provides resistance to energy and physical attacks, and can shape or expand it to protect those nearby; however, impacts on the force field cause Cecilia pain. She also has shown the ability to wield her forcefield as a blunt force, pushing others out of her way. In X-Men (vol. 2) #100, she created spikes which could punch through a human body. While under the effects of the mutant-enhancing drug Rave, Cecilia is also able to use her force field offensively, forming it into a blade that can be used to attack enemies. The field can be raised consciously, but in her initial appearances, it is triggered by any external force used against it. While effective against external force, her field still leaves her vulnerable to attacks of insufficient force, such as gas, as seen when Colossus rendered her unconscious with a gas weapon.
Cecilia is also a capable medical doctor and surgeon.
Other versions
In Days of Future Now, Cecilia survived the death camp Neverland and tried to help Wolverine to change the past to prevent "Days of Future Now" from ever happening. However, while watching over him, she was shot in the back by a Sublime-controlled Fantomex.
In X-Men: The End, she also had survived Neverland and has married Beast and they have three children (two boys and one girl), Ciaran, Francesca & Miguel McCoy.
In other media
In the 2006 movie X-Men: The Last Stand, Kavita Rao was played by Iranian-American actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, despite claims Aghdashloo made in an interview in the August 26, 2005 Entertainment Weekly that she would be playing Dr. Cecilia Reyes.
