ANIMAX

BIOGRAPHY

Blake Schiel grew up near Phoenix, Arizona. She had a difficult home life owing to her father, who was physically and probably sexually abusive towards her and her mother before abandoning them. Blake began acting out in early childhood, and her teenaged rebellion of hair dye and tattoos sharply escalated to outright criminal activity. She and an accomplice attempted to rob a bank and were imprisoned for their crimes. While incarcerated, however, Blake discovered she was a mutant, one of the first to manifest in the months after Hope Summers lifted the Decimation spell from the mutant population.

Blake chose the name Animax from her new ability to summon genetic aberrations. These creatures were formulated from her own DNA, but altered from baseline human genes to create monsters resembling demons, dinosaurs and dragons among other variations. Reveling in her new power, Animax escaped from prison and began wrecking havoc in downtown Phoenix. She was detected by Cerebro and confronted by Kitty Pryde and the original five, time-displaced X-Men. Their conflict was interrupted by the arrival of rogue Sentinels and later a second team of X-Men, led by the adult Cyclops. In the chaos that followed, Animax decided she had had enough for the day, and surrendered to the authorities. [X-Men: Battle of the Atom #1]

Blake took a moment after that to consider the direction her life was taking. She decided to seek out her erstwhile father and find some closure with their relationship, maybe helping herself heal in the process. The possibility of reconciliation went out the window when she found him living in Tempe, Arizona under an assumed name. The alias was necessary given his past transgressions for him to get a job working with kids as a high school coach. Blake was already horrified seeing her father near children when she heard him preaching anti-mutant ideas to his students. Animax flew into a rage, unleashing her monsters on the city.

A spin-off team of X-Men students known as the Hero Squad responded to the chaos and began fighting with Animax. The Stepford Cuckoos attempted to shut Animax down mentally, but she lashed out with her creatures before they could make her sleep. Another young X-Man, Benjamin Deeds, used his abilities to empathize with her instead. Benjamin got Blake to recognize that the high school kids she was terrorizing hadn't done anything wrong. Animax relented that her father was the real problem. Whether she was about to stop fighting altogether or merely focus the full fury of her monsters on one unarmed man is unknown, because Goldballs stepped in before she made her next move. Blake was battered senseless by the golden balls of Goldballs, knocking her out and causing the monsters to dissipate. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #35]

Animax continued her criminal activities in earnest, especially in her home region of the American Southwest. She was hired by the New Intelligencia as one of their "Monster Masters" and pitted against the NuHuman called Kid Kaiju and his own personal monsters. Animax staged a riot in Salt Lake City before Kid Kaiju defeated her on behalf of Damage Control. [Monsters Unleashed (3rd series) #1] She also was defeated by the Champions after trying to rob an airport in Wyoming. The authorities attempted to institutionalize her in Cheyenne, but Blake broke out and started another monster riot. She fought with Riri Williams before again being knocked out. [Invincible Iron Man (3rd series) #1]

Blake was eventually transferred to a mutant-specific prison called the Robert Kelly Correctional Facility, aka the Box. She teamed up with the yard's "alpha," Crazy Maisie, and her posse including Bliss and Electric Eve. When Shadowcat, Prestige and Storm were locked up in the Box, Maisie wanted to prove her stripes by throwing down with the X-Men. Without powers, however, Animax and her drogues were easily overcome by the combat-trained super-heroes. [X-Men: Gold #23-24]

Animax was among the villainous mutants offered amnesty by the X-Men on the new mutant nation-state of Krakoa. The island of Krakoa would be a paradise for mutantkind, where all mutants would enjoy the protection of the X-Men and the Quiet Council, who ruled the country now officially-recognized by the United Nations. Animax's criminal past had been largely reactive, a response to her human parents and unpleasant circumstances. It remains to be seen if she can truly reform in the absence of stressors and temptation. [House of X #5]