Real name: Lauren Grey-Summers

Occupation: Student/Adventurer

Place of birth: Hamptons, Connecticut

Group affiliation: X-Men

Base of operations: Xavier's School for Gifted Children

First appearance: Next X #1

 

Age: 18

Height: 5'7''

Weight: 125 lbs.

Eye color: Blue

Hair color: Strawberry blond

Powers: Lauren is telepathic - she can read minds, induce illusions and locate people by their mental signal. She is also pyrokinetic, causing objects to burst into flame by a concentration of will.

Weapons: None.

History: Flame is the daughter of Jean Grey and Scott Summers, two of the most famous X-Men of all time. Jean and Scott left the team when Lauren was born, and kept their mutation a secret from their daughter. As far as Lauren was concerned, her mother was a geneticist and her father was a popular deejay, and all three were completely normal humans.

Her illusions were shattered one day when she was fourteen, and had a blinding vision of her parents dying in a fiery car crash. Several hours later, the police came to the Grey-Summers's door and told Lauren that her parents were dead. The method - an auto accident. Jean had telepathically cried out to her daughter at the moment of her death, and the already traumatized Lauren had a new secret - she could read minds. Her parents had provided a generous trust for her, and Lauren went to a private boarding school in Stamford to complete her education. Convinced that her mutation was a dirty secret, she never told a soul, and tried to curb her telepathy every time it occurred.

Lauren began to have nightmares about her parent's death more and more frequently as she held back her burgeoning gift, and one night she awoke to find her dorm room in flames. Fortunately, no one was hurt and she was able to blame the incident on faulty wiring, but Lauren knew now that her gift was dangerous and she was going to have to learn to control it if she wanted to keep her secret. Lauren practiced 'turning off' her telepathy, in the process honing it's edge, and she learned to hold back her pyrokinetic powers in moments of emotional stress. Lauren managed to delude herself that she was normal until she met Meg LeBeau, who had found Lauren and wanted her to join the new team of X-Men. Lauren was at first terrified that her secret had been exposed, and she refused, but she went with Meg after the other girl threatened to inform her school's dean that she was a mutant.

At first the most reluctant member of the team, Flame finally used her powers in a battle against the Eclipse Army. The feeling intoxicated her, and she began to feverishly develop her telepathic skills. Lauren was on the road to becoming one of the most powerful X-Men, and she never looked back.

Parents: Cyclops (Scott Summers) and Phoenix (Jean Grey)