Aurora (comics)

Jeanne-Marie Beaubier was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She and her twin brother Jean-Paul were separated in infancy after their parents died. Jean-Paul was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Louis Martin, who were cousins of his mother. The Martins could not afford to adopt Jeanne-Marie as well and arranged for Jeanne-Marie to be raised at Madame DuPont's School for Girls in Laval, Quebec, a reactionary religious school.^[3] Soon afterward, the Martins moved to Northern Quebec. The Martins were killed in an accident several years later and Jean-Paul was placed in a foster home, unaware that he had a sister.

Extremely nervous and introverted, Jeanne-Marie Beaubier was miserable at Madame DuPont's School. At the age of thirteen, she attempted suicide by throwing herself from the roof of one of the school's buildings. Instead of falling to her death, Beaubier discovered that she could fly at great speed. Unaware that she was a mutant, the deeply religious Beaubier believed that her flight was the result of a divine miracle. The next morning, she explained to the school's headmistress what she believed had happened. Believing the young girl to be guilty of blasphemy, the headmistress had Beaubier severely disciplined. This incident (and possibly other abuse) triggered a dissociative identity disorder in Jeanne-Marie; a second personality, extroverted and far more uninhibited, emerged. Under the influence of this second personality, Beaubier secretly left the school that same night. Returning three days later, she had no memory of where she had been or what she had done and she was again physically punished. The resulting trauma was so great that Beaubier repressed her second personality.

Alpha Flight

Five years later, Beaubier's application to become a teacher of history and geography at the school was accepted. By this time, Beaubier had adjusted to life at the school and her everyday personality was that of a prim, proper, repressed woman. The same night that her application was accepted, her second personality re-emerged and she left to enjoy herself in Montreal. Confronted by muggers, she knocked one unconscious by moving at superhuman speed (this was the first time that she had used her superhuman powers in five years). The second mugger was halted by Wolverine, who had witnessed the attempted assault. Recognizing that Beaubier had superhuman powers, Wolverine invited her to go to Ottawa to meet James MacDonald Hudson, who was organizing a team of superhumanly powerful agents for the Canadian government's Department H. Hudson accepted her as a recruit and reunited her with her brother. After a period of training, both Beaubier siblings joined the team that Hudson created, Alpha Flight, under the code names Aurora and Northstar.^[4]

On Alpha Flight's first mission, Aurora aided in combating the

She was later temporarily cured of her multiple personalities. Alongside the X-Men and Alpha Flight, she battled Loki.^[12] She was again attacked by Gilded Lily.^[13] Aurora was captured by Box, who had gone insane, but was later rescued by Alpha Flight.^[14] Loki deceived Aurora into believing that her mother had been an Asgardian Light Elf. The team brought her and Northstar to the place where they once encountered a magical Firefountain; they wanted to heal her mind and Northstar's body. During a battle with dark elves, she cured her brother by giving him all of her light.^[15] She was carried off by the elves, but Loki (in an attempt to curry favor with Those Who Sit Above In Shadow) transported her to a convent for safety, who took her in.^[16]

Talisman later came to Jeanne-Marie at the convent and transported her to

The twins are sent on a mission to attack the X-Men and retrieve Sabretooth for the Children of the Vault. The twins are able to defeat several of the X-Men and New X-Men until Mystique is able to exploit Aurora's shattered psyche by taking on her image. Iceman manages to incapacitate Aurora while Cable subdues Northstar.^[25]

The X-Men take Northstar and Aurora to the S.H.I.E.L.D.

They later reappear in the mini-crossover series Secret Invasion: X-Men, joining the X-Men when the Skrull invasion reaches San Francisco.^[26]

Aurora next appears in Uncanny X-Men, having formed a snowsporting company with Northstar, Team Northstar Extreme Snowsports. Aurora appears to be living a relatively normal life since regaining control of her mind, working as the joint CEO of the company. She is contacted by Wolverine when he wishes to extend an invitation to Northstar to join X-Men on Utopia.^[27]

During one of Aurora's therapy sessions to deal with her disorder, she is given a device to wear on her head for tests, when in actuality, her therapist was bribed by Norman Osborn to use it on her so he could speak with her more dark and violent personality about joining his Dark X-Men. Jeanne-Marie, though, does not care to take orders from anyone, least of all someone who is just as broken as herself, and goes to leave, before he turns the device on her again, saying he does not take no for an answer. However, Aurora brings up another personality to combat the guards, and brings up more for each time the device is used on her, before she is able to turn it on Osborn himself and walk away.^[28]

During the

As part of the All-New, All-Different Marvel event, Aurora appears as a member of the Alpha Flight space program.^[30]

Dawn of X

As part of Dawn of X, Aurora was one of the many mutants that joined the mutant nation of Krakoa. Aurora and her brother Northstar were later sent on a flyover scouting mission to investigate a strange island that mysteriously appeared off the southern coast of Krakoa. In their report they mentioned the island being full of giant hostile beasts.^[31]

Some time later, Northstar strangely felt his connection to his sister evaporate. He immediately heads to the hatchery to try and get Aurora resurrected but unfortunately he needs proof of death to start the reincarnation process. Northstar then seeks to find out where his sister could have gone. He enters the Green Lagoon Tiki Bar to see what the bartender may know but ultimately runs into Polaris. Polaris suggests they form an investigative team to head to Vancouver where she was last seen. They recruit the repowered Prodigy, Prestige,

Aurora has the powers of flight and superhuman speed and reflexes (theoretically able to approach light-speed.^[33] This has never been attempted since if any being or amount of matter were to approach the speed of light in our solar system, it would wreak devastating havoc on the gravitational forces holding our system together). The greater her increase in speed, the more durable her body becomes, but this ability has not been measured.

She also has super-human levels of endurance and stamina that allows her to maintain her super-speed. In an early issue of Alpha Flight, Northstar reveals to readers that Aurora has greater endurance and can fly longer, while he can fly faster in the same period of time.^[3] Her strength and reaction time are above-average for a woman of her age and exercise level, however, Aurora usually does not rely on her physical strength while battling opponents and, instead, uses super-speed tricks, like flying with someone at great speed until they pass out from lack of oxygen or pummeling them with hundreds of punches a second until they succumb. Aurora also uses her super speed to perform stunts such as creating a cyclone by running in circles, running up walls and across water, and she could breathe while traveling at subsonic speeds.

Originally, while in physical contact with her brother, usually while holding hands, the pair could emit bursts of brilliant white light with an average flash equal in intensity of one million candela (one candela being equal to the amount of light created by one candle). It was generally used to blind their opponents, but with the minor drawback that they were not able to control its intensity. Experiments performed on Aurora by Walter Langowski enabled her to generate light independently from Northstar, but a side effect of this was that physical contact between the two would temporarily neutralize both of their powers.^{[volume & issue needed]} Her speed was also greatly reduced to only being able to move and fly at the speed of sound. However, with Aurora's recent resurrection in a new body, these modifications are now gone, enabling them to generate light together again and restoring her previous levels of speed.^[34]

Aurora is moderately skilled in hand-to-hand combat using a style utilizing her superhuman speed, and received coaching from

Reception

Critical reception