BIOGRAPHY - PAGE 1
According to Shi’ar legend, all sentient beings face their own mummudrai - their ultimate opposite - in the womb, shortly before birth. It is one’s first experience of the alien, the “other.” The different. Whether legend or not, Charles Francis Xavier faced such an entity shortly before birth.
In truth, part of a bodiless, parasitic species, born without true flesh or real substance, the mummudrai copied Charles Xavier’s cells to build its body, in turn copying his latent mutant abilities - in effect becoming his twin sister.
Though still gestating, Charles’ mind detected Cassandra and her monstrous thoughts. He sensed a raging hunger, vast enough to consume him and the entire world. So, Xavier’s first conscious act was to lash out, in their mother’s womb, and to kill his twin. Cassandra, however, was not defenseless and retaliated with a portion of what could become the most powerful telepathic mind on the planet. The attack, however, affected their mother, who was climbing the steps of their home, and she fell. When their mother eventually gave birth, Charles was healthy, but Cassandra was stillborn. [New X-Men (1st series) #121, 126]
Despite her death, Cassandra endured. Born without a body, she survived as chaotic matter - living emotional energy, formless and unique. For forty years, she clung to a sewer wall, waiting until she was strong enough to walk free. During that time, while she formed a new body, basing it off of Xavier’s genetic structure, Cassandra grew convinced that the universe in which she existed and the womb in which she first gained consciousness were one and the same. In all the universe, only she and Charles were real. This would no doubt ease the horrific actions she would later take.
The questions as to how Cassandra survived during those forty years, how she came to complete the construction of her new body (based on Charles Xavier’s) and even how she came to claim the name of Cassandra Nova are unclear. However, by the time she made her presence known to the world, Cassandra Nova seemed for all the world to be an educated, aged woman, very well-schooled in the powers of persuasion.
The first known act of Cassandra Nova was the recruitment of Donald Trask III, nephew and last known relative of Sentinel creator Bolivar Trask. Finding him running a dental practice in Albuquerque, Cassandra introduced herself as the world’s foremost evolutionary biologist and explained her findings: an extinction gene would cause the extinction of human race within four generations. These claims, it should be noted, were also discovered by X-Men geneticist Hank McCoy, the Beast. [New X-Men (1st series) #114]
Explaining humanity’s predicament, Cassandra took Trask to an abandoned Sentinel Master Mold factory in the hills of Ecuador. There, Cassandra demonstrated his purpose: the Wild Sentinels, which the Master Mold manufactured, would only respond to instructions from a Trask. Under the direction of Cassandra, Donald Trask ordered the construction of two immense Mega-Sentinels, which were immediately dispatched to the island nation of Genosha, off the coast of Africa.
Trask’s usefulness, however, was soon at an end. With her ability to mimic genetic structure - much as she had done Xavier’s over the past few decades - Cassandra had spent the previous ten hours reading and copying the three billion base letters in Trask’s DNA sequence. Without a second thought, she eliminated him, then turning her attention to the next stage of her plan.
Arriving, almost as if on cue, were Cyclops and Wolverine. At the Xavier Institute, Xavier had become aware of Cassandra’s presence through the recently completed Cerebra and had sent the two X-Men to investigate. Arriving at the Master Mold factory, the two faced the facility’s Wild Sentinels and were easily captured. Waiting for her pawns to recover, Cassandra injected herself with a syringe of liquid, and then turned to Wolverine for his role. Moments later, Wolverine recovered and quickly broke free of his bonds, capturing the elderly woman. Though he had her at the mercy of his claws, Wolverine could not help but notice her smile, wondering what she thought was so funny.
Half a world away, the Mega-Sentinels arrived at their destination. With the civil war in Genosha having recently been resolved, the nation had become a homeland of sorts for mutants, with a population of over sixteen million people. Within minutes, the attack was complete, and half the world’s mutant population was no more. [New X-Men (1st series) #115]
With Cassandra seemingly under their control, Cyclops and Wolverine brought her to the Xavier Institute, where the Beast studied her. Immediately, he recognized that, while Cassandra looked human on the outside, nothing like her had existed before. He theorized that she was something new, neither human nor mutant - possibly a new species.
The Beast did not have time for greater examination, however, as Cassandra was not helpless. Having underestimated her abilities, the X-Men were not prepared as she burst free from the gravitational bottle, which had been meant to contain the Juggernaut. Making short work of the X-Men, Cassandra leisurely made her way to the Cerebra chamber. Though she knew that the machine would allow her to take hold of every mutant mind on Earth and extinguish it… she only wanted one.
Seemingly before she was able to accomplish her feat, Cassandra’s neck was snapped by Emma Frost. As the then-believed only survivor of the Genoshan holocaust, Emma had a particular score to settle with Cassandra. However, the X-Men at the time had no idea that Cassandra had succeeded with her latest gambit, using Cerebra to switch minds with Professor Xavier. As Xavier attempted to explain his predicament in the already mangled body of his sister, Cassandra (in Xavier’s body) used a pistol to end the apparent threat.
Having no clue as to the reality of what had just happened, the X-Men were equally unaware of the ulterior plan of Cassandra shooting her own body. Not only did she effectively incapacitate her brother, Charles, but by shedding the blood of her own body she had infected the X-Men with its spatter, as she had infected herself via a syringe at the Master Mold facility with Nano-Sentinels, microscopic machines which would eat at their immune system, weakening them.
While the X-Men reeled at Xavier’s actions, Cassandra continued to keep them off balance, almost immediately booking “Charles” on talk shows. On one such show, Cassandra announced to the world the X-Men’s greatest secret: Xavier and the X-Men’s true identities. [New X-Men (1st series) #116]
With their identities exposed, both prospective students and the watchful eyes of the world descended on the Xavier Institute. Protestors began to amass at the outside gates of the school. Inside, while the rest of the X-Men attempted to make sense of Xavier’s actions, the Beast continued his research on the comatose but still living body of Cassandra Nova. Making a shocking discovery on the genetic match between her and the Professor, the Beast confronted him.
The shocked Beast was ill equipped to handle the psychic attack from Cassandra, now being the most powerful telepath on the planet. Further, Cassandra used her abilities to control a recently enrolled student nicknamed the Beak, forcing him to use his titanium baseball bat to beat Beast. As the Beast lay on the floor, slipping into a coma, Cassandra wheeled Xavier’s body outside, where Lilandra, empress of the Shi’ar Empire, had come at his request. Eyeing the flagship of a galactic empire, Cassandra imagined what it could do in the wrong hands. Having told the X-Men that he wished to depart for a vacation with Lilandra, Cassandra departed the Earth, now to lay havoc among the stars. [New X-Men (1st series) #117]