#shakti haddad

[heckcareoxytwit]

The Proudstar Family - Thunderbird (John Proudstar), Warpath (James Proudstar) and Grandma Lozen Proudstar, are in charge of Camp Gozhoo where they shelter the mutant refugees. However, the Orchis soldiers had invaded their place and they started to harass the mutants. This prompts the Proudstar Brothers to fight off the Orchis soldiers. Also, Grandma Lozen stood up to the Orchis soldiers showing no fear as she laughs in their faces defiantly.

X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic # 121, 2024

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From Marauders Vol. 2 #012, “Pre-Genesis, Part 2”

Art by Eleonora Carlini and Matt Milla

Written by Steve Orlando

[monsieuroverlord]

AIPT’s X-Men Monday talks about the current X-Men Unlimited arc, featuring Marrow and Feral, with writer Zac Thompson!

Source here

Above is one of the preview images from Marauders featuring Psylocke and Cerebra!

[marvel-dc-art]

The Marvel Masterpieces 2 Collection #3 (1994) art by Bob Larkin

[panels-of-interest]

First appearance of Cerebra.

[from X-Men 2099 (1993) #1]

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

X-Men 2099 by Ron Lim

[dvarapala]

okay no i lied i’m not shutting up about this so good afternoon and welcome to my tessa talk, in which i (tessa) talk about the indian characters in marvel and dc that could have and should have been used in their live action properties, if only the (mostly white, and mostly men, lbh) people in charge cared enough.

let’s jump into marvel first!

do you know who shri is? in the comics, she went to the pan-asian school for the unusually gifted and has powers that point towards her being either durga’s reincarnation or her avatar.

pom pom was shri’s classmate and has, you guessed it, pom poms made out of organic matter that she generates herself. and she can bind and ensnare people with it.

do you know michaela ladak? fashion queen. mutant who can solidify her own spit. which is a bit of a strange mutation but you know what? aim right and you can take someone’s eye out. knows ice man.

jackie chopra? canonically the daughter of the character played by the dude who also played jon snow in the eternals. helps him wield the ebony blade. if eternals has a sequel, i’d like to see jackie be a part of it.

raz malhotra? giant man. took over the mantle from hank pym, i think? gay. iconic. is dating this guy named isaac in the comics, iirc. he could easily take over from scott lang if/when he retires.

radha dastoor, aka haven. rich. genuinely kind. deserved better writers. deserves her own movie. and the same goes for her brother, aloba. google her and her backstory. you’ll know what i mean.

dinesh deol is an inhuman who lost both of his hands after he gained his powers. now he has two metal hands which he made for himself - very impressive - and tries to get a handle on his magnetokinesis and his other abilities.

shakti haddad can trash your nervous system. she can also track you down if you have powers. which is why her code name is cerebra. she can also kick your ass the regular way because she’s trained in martial arts. in another universe, she can reveal everything about you through mere touch.

paras gavaskar doesn’t just rock the purple, but also a retractable exo-skeleton suit. also, he had the right idea when he coined ‘indra’ as his super hero name. i, too, would name myself after the armorer of heaven after my mutant powers - granting me armor - manifested. he’s a vegetarian and, according to the yearbook, reliable and all around a good boy.

pavitr prabhakar is an alternate version of peter parker. but, you know, indian. worries a lot about his place in the universe. worries that he’s but a reflection of peter parker. has a cool outfit. especially the earrings. someone should hug this guy.

karima shapandar is more machine than person. has been through a lot of retcons. deserves her own d+ miniseries detailing her life and job. had a relationship with neal shaara for a while.

neal shaara can convert heat and generate solar energy. i don’t know why he picked thunderbird as an alias, but okay.

rina patel has bonded with venom in one universe, is called ms slip in the marvel noir universe, has time powers in another universe and has recently made an appearance in the comic book world in which she works against the champions if i remember correctly. in any case, i would want to see her in her prime hero days in which she interacts with the new warriors.

shilpa khatri is a recent addition to superhero canon. called out the pay gap in india. actually did something about it by using her technopath abilities to drain said rich people’s bank accounts and give back the money to the people said rich people screwed over. one of my favorites. is in either a flirtationship or an actual relationship with gentle aka nehzno abidemi and yes, they’re my otp.

raani jatwinder is also another favorite of mine. mutant. lives/works in london. technopath. has cool hair.

qureshi gupta should be played by sunny parwar if/when that character gets introduced. nicknamed pinpoint he can, you guessed it, teleport. has cool teal colored hair.

parul kurinji’s alias is zero/one which is badass. she can shapeshift her limbs into whichever weapon she needs whether this is energy projection or force fields or something else entirely. she can fly just a little bit and has minor time based abilities, too. 

sapna is my absolute favorite. a little cutie pie who can speak every language ever and controls demons. get her in a doctor strange movie asap!

sati is a superhero in india, named after brahma’s granddaughter. she can fly, has super strength, is basically invulnerable and has declared herself it’s protector.

skanda is either a god or a hero. or maybe both. also a protector of india. his code name is a cool mythological nod, too.

krista marwan kind of got the same treatment that radha / haven did. seriously, what is it with marvel? why do they have such a hard on for this?

garabed bashur is a deadpool villain, has electric telepathy or something. his code name is black box which is cool.

rana mousabi is a secret agent, an excellent shot, a fashion icon because she looks cute in her hijab and has matched it to her outfit whilst in the field. according to the wikia, she’s dead, but hey, let her live her second and best life in live action, am i right?

all of them are indian characters that marvel easily could have used in their live action properties. a couple of years ago, i read the comic that shri and pom-pom were in (a prelude to thanos arriving on earth) and i was so excited that i tweeted at the writer whose name i forgot (to this day i still don’t know why a white man was writing asian and black characters but okay) but whose reaction i can still recall because i got the most lukewarm response ever back.

so let’s shift it over to dc because i cannot believe we only got brainy in supergirl who got his happy ending and made it to the end without dying (yes i will judge them forever and a day for killing off jack spheer and william dey). 

what about jinx? who is most decidedly not gray skinned and pink haired (looking @ you animated series!)

or roshana chatterjee? ace queen who is super powerful but also kind. is part of a cool looking superhero team.

or kiran singh, who canonically has powers on raven’s level to the point where her powers of light make raven uncomfortable. she’s been a part of the teen titans. and to this day i still think that turning her into a slab of rock is bullshit. so reverse that and give her a show of her own.

arani desai, aka celsius. part of doom patrol. which, i must admit, i haven’t seen but a quick google search reveals she was in the show. but she was only in one episode. and i think she’s one of the first - if not the first - dc superheroes to be of south asian descent so i think they should do better.

aruna shende, shapeshifter, actress, stuntwoman. born in the slums. took the name of a male mythological figure. her powers manifested when she was young. helped batwoman out once (!!) and then vowed to use her powers for good. according to the wikia, her parents were never quite sure of her gender and so i am just gonna throw it out there: genderfluid aruna shende who’s out there living life and saving people.

chandi gupta, aka maya; a member of the european justice league. (as a european, i didn’t know that was a thing, either ;P) does archery like a badass. (@ green arrow: hello??? why’d you never take her on as your protege, huh?! why didn’t she ever meet speedy and/or red arrow, huh?!) has energy construct powers. can grant herself and other people abilities. has super strength and speed.

ava, aka freak, was born in india, became a host to an alien at some point which granted her prehensile hair, part of doom patrol at some point, is cute. 

jaina hudson aka white rabbit is a gotham city sociallite and villainess who deserves a better defined power set and a better look because come on? a brown woman becoming lighter skinned when she uses her powers? can you say whitewashing?!

queen cobra is part of black adam’s entourage and i hope she’s in his movie, at least. her get up is really cool.

kali gari is on the list because she may be a villain but she has cool powers.

levi kamei aka the new swamp thing. the swamp thing show got cancelled. perfect time to reboot it but this time, with levi (and his brother jacob) at the center.

[sofiamantegafan110]

Cerebra/Shakti Haddad - Shakti possesses a specific form of telepathy that allows her to 'sense' mutants in a similar manner to Charles Xavier's Cerebro and can connect with their minds enough to know if they're alive. The range of her power is unknown.

[bigskydreaming]

Ugh, now I’m thinking about X-Nation and how much I loved those little twerps, I hate that nobody knows they even existed.

Okay so the mentor of the team was an Asian woman named Cerebra, one of the X-Men 2099 team. Her real name was Shakti Haddad, the daughter of a wealthy businessman whose company did illegal genetic experiments, leading her to oppose him which resulted in him sending bounty hunters after her except she totally seduced one and he fell in love with her and helped her escape and she eventually joined the X-Men. And then later she took on the mentor role for their young trainees, X-Nation. Her mutant power was the ability to sense other mutants, making her the one to seek out and find young mutants in need of her help, and also she could telepathically manipulate other peoples’ nervous systems. 

The kids she gathered together for the X-Nation team were ones she rescued specifically because there was this prophecy (can’t remember this part well, it never ended up completed and was poorly handled so it was vague) that one of them was some kind of Mutant Messiah who was going to save the mutant race. And so tons of bad guys (including Exodus, who being immortal survived til 2099 from the present day) were after these kids because nobody knew which of them was this so-called Messiah, just that it was one of them.

And so of the kids, the leader was a black kid named Hayes Isaacs, whose codename was Clarion (his name was an homage to musician Isaac Hayes). He had the power to absorb sound and convert it into energy blasts. Then there was December Frost, heavily implied to be the descendant of Emma Frost and Bobby Drake, with the latter’s ice powers. Then there was Willow, a shapeshifter who could duplicate someone exactly, even down to their powers (and who IMO was definitely coded as being in love with her best friend December). 

Then you had Wulff, your token Wolverine-type character because there had to be one on every X-related team, that’s The Law, so he was your basic generic feral mutant with super strength, claws and healing, and he had a werewolf like appearance. Matt Finn, or Uproar, was a white jock type dude whose powers let him grow in size and strength. Shane Lee aka Metalsmith had the power to control and reshape all metal, and he was implied to be a descendant of Magneto’s (and thus he was the one Exodus was convinced was the subject of the prophecy and the one he fixated on). He was always drawn with darker skin than Uproar or Nostromo, so I don’t think he was intended to be read as white, but his specific ethnicity was never detailed in canon. Gabriel Hess, or Nostromo, was a white kid with the power to psychically control and reshape machinery. 

And then finally, you had Twilight, who is hands down one of my fave characters and powersets/signatures of all time and I mourn that nothing more ever came of her like, daily. She was a black Muslim girl named Aminah Ferrara, and her codename was a reference to the Twilight Zone, because her mutant power was she had this purple sphere of influence around her, where she could completely manipulate reality anywhere her sphere of influence touched. Which meant she could melt, reshape, levitate matter, phase through things, teleport, turn invisible, fly, change size or shape or set things on fire....if it came into her sphere, she could do whatever she wanted to it. Twilight was AMAZING. 

The whole team was pretty awesome and had a ton of potential. Sadly, their series only lasted six issues, though they showed up a bit in other series like X-Men 2099 and in the miniseries event that wrapped up the 2099 storylines.

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From Marauders Vol. 2 #007, “Here Comes Yesterday, Part 1”

Art by Eleonora Carlini, Rachelle Rosenberg and Matt Milla

Written by Steve Orlando

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X-Men 2099

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Marvel Universe - Series 5 (1994)

#173 Cerebra

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

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