Rictor

Background

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Powers and Abilities

Rictor can generate seismic waves, and direct them as blasts of force. In geologically unstable areas, this allows him to cause earthquakes. He has developed a high degree of fine control over his powers, allowing him to do such things as blow out the tyre on a moving car.

He also has a familiarity with guns and explosives, from the family business.

Weapon XII

In New X-Men 130 Rictor is discovered to have natural psychic defences against Weapon XII’s viral powers. At a touch Weapon XII can overwrite a victims mind, turning their body into a drone for his own hive mind. This is fatal to the victim.

This may be a limitation for Weapon XII, that if he fails to infect someone on the first attempt, they have a natural immunity to his powers.

Since this is the only evidence of any psychic defences on Rictor’s part, and since Weapon XII isn’t likely to return anytime soon, I haven’t covered this in the write-up.

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History

Julio was born in Guadalajara , Mexico, to arms dealer, Louis Alelandro Richter. His mother died when he was young, and he spent much of his time with his extended family, or travelling with his father on business trips. While still young he witnessed his father being killed, as a result of a business dealing which didn’t work out.

The first manifestation of his power occurred in Guadalajara, where he caused an earthquake which levelled three city blocks. He was unaware that he was the cause. Julio remained ignorant of his powers until he was abducted by the anti-mutant organisation, the Right, headed by Cameron Hodge.

The Right forced him to use his powers to threaten San Francisco, giving him the name Rictor. Theirs was an attempt to further turn humanity against mutants. Julio was rescued form the Right by X-Factor, and joined the other young mutants they were sheltering.

While with X-Factor, Julio and other young charges were again kidnapped by the Right but they were soon rescued. Later on X-Factor dropped their charade of being mutant hunters and revealed that they were mutants. As a result, Julio and the other kids were sent to school.

Demons and time-travelling cyborgs

This didn’t last long, as the Inferno event occurred soon afterwards. The kids decided to help fight the demon invasion.

They ran away from school, and called themselves the X-Terminators (a group name X-Factor had previously used to maintain their secret). They met up with the New Mutants during this event. Following its resolution Rictor, Rusty Collins, Skids and Boom Boom joined the New Mutants.

After an adventure in Asgard, the New Mutants soon encountered the man known as Cable. They decided to accept him as their new mentor, despite Rictor’s hostility towards him. Julio recognised him as the man who had killed his father, but kept the knowledge to himself. During his time with the New Mutants, Julio developed a crush on Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair).

Genosha’s a bad place

Rictor was among the mutants (the others being Wolfsbane, Boom Boom, Storm and Warlock) kidnapped by the Genoshans, under the orders of Cameron Hodge. They were stripped of their powers, and forced to stand trial for the crimes of the X-Men against the Genoshan state. They managed to escape, but could not take the weakened Warlock with them.

Rictor remained on the run until joining up with the X-Men.

He learned that Warlock had been executed, and that Wolfsbane had been recaptured and turned into a mutate by the Genoshans. With his powers restored, Rictor joined in the assault on the Genoshan citadel with the other mutant teams. During the assault he encountered Hodge, and overcame his fear of him.

After the battle, Rictor used his power to collapse the – already weakened – Genegineers citadel.

Wolfsbane decided to stay in Genosha, to help in the rebuilding. Rictor returned to America with the others. He shortly decided to leave the New Mutants and travelled to Genosha to see Wolfsbane again. By the time he got there, she had already left to join the new X-Factor team, so Rictor wandered back to America.

P.R.I.M.E. time

During this time he was recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Weapon P.R.I.M.E. unit.This superpowered team had been organised for the express purpose of arresting X-Force, the team that the remaining New Mutants had become under Cable’s guidance.

During the battle between the two teams, Cable was separated from the action as X-Force’s base was destroyed. Thus Rictor changed sides, having only been interested in freeing his friends from Cable’s influence. He joined X-Force. They were soon captured by the X-Men and X-Factor, after Cable apparently tried to kill Professor Xavier.

It was discovered that Cable’s enemy, Stryfe, was a clone of Cable. It was he who had tried to kill Xavier, and had killed Julio’s father. But even after Cable’s return to X-Force some time later, Julio retained his dislike of him.

After a reorganization of the team, Cable announced that he was going to be using his telepathy more, to allow better communication among the team. Uncomfortable with this, Rictor quit the team, and moved back to Mexico, to try and get his family out of the gunrunning business.

Wherever I may roam

During their time on the team, Julio and Shatterstar had developed a close friendship. Rictor eventually returned to the team to check on his friend. Shortly after the team split with Cable, and when Rictor returned to Mexico, Shatterstar joined him.

Sometime later, Rictor was recruited into the X-Corporation, where he served in the Paris branch (along with Madrox, Cannonball, Monet, Darkstar, and others). He was involved in the Weapon XII incident, in which it was discovered that he has a natural psychic defence to Weapon XII’s viral powers.

More recently he has relocated to New York, where he has joined Jaime Madrox’s X-Factor Investigations agency.

Personality

Early on in his career he developed a tough guy persona, to hide his initial fears over his powers and the situations they led him into, but this has changed into a generally more confident attitude. He is open, and doesn’t keep his feelings bottled up, but he also doesn’t let them control him, and he generally maintains a clear head in stressful situations.

He has a somewhat rebellious streak, and a dislike of authority figures, although this may just be because the main authority figure he has had in his career has been Cable, who he dislikes anyway.

Quotes

Cable: “I told you Julio. I did not kill your father.”
Rictor: “Yeah. An’ I actually believe you, too. Doesn’t mean I can’t look for a whole ’nother bunch of reasons t‘ hate your guts, does it ?”

DC Universe History

Rescued by the Titans from a terrorist organisation trying to use his power, he hung around with them for a while. He was later recruited into a couple of versions of the Conglomerate (replacing Reverb). Vibe was his cousin.

By Gareth Lewis.

Source of Character: Marvel Comics.

Helper(s): www.rictor.8m.com (defunct), KalEl el Vigilante.