Real name: Margaret 'Meg' LeBeau

Occupation: Student/adventurer, leader of the X-Men

Place of birth: Xavier's School for Gifted Children, Westchester, New York

Group affiliation: X-Men

Base of operations: Xavier's School for Gifted Children

First appearance: Next X #1

 

Age: 17

Height: 5'9''

Weight: 135 lbs.

Eye color: Amber

Hair color: Deep red

Powers: Blaze can change the potential energy of any inorganic object into kinetic energy, making the object an explosive projectile. She also has the ability to absorb electromagnetic energy through skin-to-skin contact and redirect it as a blast of concussive force. It has been speculated that Blaze's reflexes are also enhanced by her mutant powers.

Weapons: Virtually anything small and inorganic becomes an explosive weapon in Blaze's hands, she most often uses playing cards or small spinning disks of her own design. Blaze is also a skilled and acrobatic martial artist.

History: The only child of Rogue and Gambit, two of the last surviving X-Men, Meg was given to a foster family when she was barely a month old. Rogue knew that with the world's opinions of mutants worsening by the day that their beloved child could never have a normal or happy life, and against his better judgment Gambit agreed. Meg was a difficult child and bounced from one foster home to the next throughout her young life.

When Meg was fourteen, she was attacked by a gang of boys on her way home from school. Beaten nearly to death, her mutant power to kinetically charge objects manifested, and she charged the club of one of the boys attacking her, blowing his hand off. Terrified, Meg ran away from her foster home and lived on the street for a year. During that time she learned some degree of control over her powers and also to utilize her other gift, energy absorption.

Meg was picked up by social services just after she turned fifteen, and was placed in another series of foster homes until she was seventeen. During that time she kept her gift hidden as best she could, but her kinetic powers were growing by the day and sometimes she couldn't conceal the fact that she was a mutant. Finally, Meg's latest foster father let her see the videotape given to him by social services. The tape had followed Meg throughout her life, but it was not to be viewed until she was eighteen. On the tape were her real parents, and Rogue and Gambit explained to Meg about the X-Men, her mutation, and that she had the potential to be a very powerful hero. Overjoyed at finding out her parents hadn't abandoned her because of her mutation, Meg searched out two other children of the X-Men, and took them to Westchester to reform the team.

Parents: Gambit (Remy LeBeau) and Rogue (Marie LeBeau)