Marvel Girl

Origin

Rachel Summers is the daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey, Cyclops and Phoenix, on Earth-811 (Days of Future Past), Her reality diverged from the regular timeline when Senator Robert Kelly was assassinated by the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants. In her world, this even caused the mutant/human relations to escalate to the point that an anti-mutant candidate won the next presidential election. He put forth the legislation that brought the giant mutant hunting robots known as the Sentinels. The goal was to eliminate all mutants. The Sentinels adapted and decided the best way to do so was to take over North America. They did not stop with just mutants. Several super-powered humans were also killed or imprisoned.

When Rachel was a child, the X-Men's base, Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, was attacked. Rachel was the only survivor. Rachel was taken and brainwashed. Using her psionic powers, Rachel became a mutant "hound" and tracked down other mutants. Her face was tattooed with the mark of a hound. Rachel was even forced to kill some of her fellow mutants.

After some time, Rachel ended up at a Mutant Containment Facility where she found other surviving X-Men. In a plan to end the nightmare that was their world, Rachel used her psionic powers to switch the psyche of the X-Man, Kate Pryde with that of her younger self. Kate found herself in the body of a young Kitty Pryde who was still new to the X-Men. Together they prevented the assassination of Senator Kelly.

Rachel's Starjammers costume

Unfortunately, history couldn't be changed. Rather than switching psyches with her younger self, Kate was actually sent into a different reality. So even though the assassination was stopped, the Sentinels still ruled their world. With everyone killed except for Kate and Rachel, Kate hypnotized Rachel to use her powers to tap into the Phoenix Force. Kate forced Rachel to travel back in time when the two were trapped in the laboratory of Project Nimrod, the next evolution in Sentinels.

Rachel was followed by Nimrod and found herself, not in her past, but that of the mainstream reality. She was finally able to come to terms with her situation and found a home with the X-Men of this world.

Korvus and Rachel

Upon hearing about the death of Jean Grey, Rachel decided to take on the mantle of Phoenix in the hopes of clearing her mother's name after the destruction the Phoenix Force had caused while in the guise of Jean. Rachel even became part of the England super-team, Excalibur, with a couple of her X-Men teammates. Excalibur was able to travel to Rachel's future where they were able to change the directives of the Sentinels and putting an end to their tyranny.

On the way back to the present, Captain Britain got lost in the timestream and Rachel switched places with him. Rachel found herself in far future where the evil mutant, Apocalypse ruled. She started the Clan Askani who had a hand in saving and raising her half-brother, Nathan Summers, also known as Cable. Rachel used her psionic abilities to bring Scott and Jean's consciousness forward through time to care for Nate. This caused a great deal of strain on Rachel's body.

With Excalibur, Rachel was a big help. Galactus came to earth sending one of his Heralds to tell Excalibur to rednder Rachel. The herald tells them that Glactus wants take the Phoenix out of Rachel saying Rachel it  too dangerous to Galactus to have the Phoenix. Rachel laughed it off and asked was the Herald joking. She use her telekinesis to hit the Herald out of the Earth's orbit and onto the moon. Galactus made a machine that would take the Phoenix from Rachel and send it into orbit. Rachel goes to other dimensions and finds out she is the only Rachel Summers anywhere. She comes back and the Herald returns and charges at her. Rachel use her telekinesis to swing her around and throw her at Galactus.

Later Cable was able to save Rachel and bring her back to the present. Rachel currently is back with the X-Men under the name of Marvel Girl, again in honor of her (again) dead mother Jean. Rachel was accepted with open arms by the Grey family. They attempted to throw a party in her honor but was attacked by the Shi'ar Death Commando's, an elite squad of bounty hunters. In the process the Death Commando's killed the entire Grey family in 24 seconds, also marking Rachel's back with some sort of ink that set into her DNA, a sort of scarlet letter for bounty hunters. With the help of the X-Men the Death Commando's were defeated.

After trying to cope with the loss of her new family the Death Commando's escaped and attacked her again while at a therapy session. She escaped again only to fight most of the Death Commando's on her own. Once again the X-Men showed to help her battle her new foes. The defeated them but the world was attacked by a Shi'Ar battleship, Rachel combined her powers with Psylocke's to block the attack, redirecting it back to the ship and saving the planet.

During the House of M storyline Rachel's and Psylocke's combined energies transported them to the White Hot Room and they were able to retain their powers. Upon returning to Earth-616, they realized that Betsy, in this reality, was a princess, sister of Captain Britain, ruler of England. They were able to save Nocturne, alternate reality daughter of Nightcrawler and Scarlet Witch, from a group of Marauders (in this reality consisting of Callisto, Black Tom Cassidy and Caliban) and they were also vital in Captain Britain's effort to save Earth-616 from destruction.

After The House of M, Rachel, having retained her powers,was chosen by Professor X to be a member of a team, which would travel to space,to defeat Vulcan, thought dead but awoken after the combination of lost mutant powers and the formation of The Collective. Vulcan was a student of Xavier, believed dead after the Krakoa island incident. Other team members included Havok, Polaris, Nightcrawler, Warpath and Darwin (another student of Xavier's who had survived Krakoa). The team launched into space using an old Shi'ar spaceship and started following Vulcan, who having regained his memory,was slowly destroying the Shi'Ar empire. They were soon joined by The Starjammers, Lilandra and Korvus,a mysterious Shi'ar prisoner, originally sent to kill Professor Xavier. Korvus wielded the Blade of the Phoenix, which contained a small portion of The Phoenix Force, being passed on to him by one of his ancestors who, though a Shi'ar, was an avatar to the Phoenix Force. Upon having contact with The Blade, as she was fighting Korvus, Rachel telepathically exchanged memories with him and absorbed The Phoenix Force contained in it. After that, the attraction between the two was obvious and they started becoming more and more intimate. The group fought the Shi'ar, whose leader was now Emperor Vulcan, having married Deathbird and executed D'Ken, who in the meantime had claimed and taken the throne from Lilandra. In the final battle against the Shi'ar, on Vulcan's and Deathbird's wedding day, the X-Men freed the captive Professor X and won, but with a cost; Corsair ,leader of The Starjammers, was dead. Lilandra transported half of the team away from battle, whereas Havok, Polaris and Rachel remained in space to fight and defeat Vulcan, no longer as a team of the X-Men, but of The Starjammers.

In the recent mini-series, X-Men: Emperor Vulcan, Rachel continued with the others to rebel against her "uncle". When the Sc'yar Tal attacked, Rachel used her telepathy to contact the Eldest. She was shown how the M'Kraan Crystal was originally theirs. After fighting Gladiator, Rachel escapes with Korvus, while the other Starjammers are taken captive by Vulcan.

Powers

Just Getting Warmed Up

One of her psionic powers is telekinesis. Rachel is one of the most powerful and well-known telekinetics in the Marvel Universe. Even though she possesses strong telekinetic powers, strong enough to create a black hole, lift a city and create forcefields to block Shi'ar weapons (although she did have help from Psylocke), she apparantly isn't as powerful as Psylocke is currently (according to the two of these characters), but that is debatable (Psylocke's telekinesis has been said to be strong enough to shatter a mountain at her current power level, but that could probably be evened out by some of the feats Rachel has performed). But even though she might not be as powerful as Psylocke (debatable!), she does have better moter control over this power, and can even rearrange molecules with this power. With the help of the Phoenix while she was its host, Rachel was even able to use her telekinesis to time-travel, by using telekinesis to bend time.

Another psionic power Rachel possesses is Telepathy. Although not as skilled as some who are less powerful than her (e.e. Emma Frost) and can be beat by these more skilled telepaths, Rachel possesses immense raw telepathic power. She is capable of controlling the minds of others, including the ability to inject her own mind into the minds of others, possessing them. She is also able to use these psychic skills to inhibit the powers of other superhumans, render herself invisible to the minds of others, and cast powerful illusions into people's minds. She is also one of the more well-known astral projectors in the Marvel Universe. Her telepathy is, in fact, so powerful that she can see psychic imprints from the past with it.

Rachel is also one of the many, and most probably well-known hosts of the Phoenix Force. When she is the host to the Force, her psionic powers are increased to new power levels, with her Phoenix level skills, she was able to go toe to toe with the Beyonder and was even capable of defeating Galactus in one-on-one.

She has always held a part of the Phoenix with her, but more recently after a small confrontation with her now lover Korvus, she became linked with his sword and now when she uses her powers, they manifest blue and her Phoenix logo over her eye is currently blue too, this echo of the Phoenix has increased her already immense powers to unknown levels as she was able to survive in the vacuum of space unaided and summoning an astral firebird that made quick work of Gladiator.

Characteristics