Character Spotlight: Jean-Paul Beaubier aka Northstar
Concept:
Jean-Paul was the last addition to the team. I had already decided that I wasn’t going with the original line up or any of the newer teams because I had specific ideas where I wanted certain characters to be. Yet, I knew the team needed one more member in the core team, it just wasn’t feeling right as is.
So I got to thinking about my villains and who would be a good thwart for Quicksilver and I thought to myself ‘another speed mutant’. I looked at a list of those with speed and Northstar jumped out at me as a character with a great background who would work perfectly into the universe I was creating.
Coming from Canada and Department H, I have a plethora of possibilities, story wise, to draw from. His sister, Jeanne-Marie, sets up my ideas for Dissociative Identity Disorder. Jean-Paul himself is a perfect analogue for Mutants and current equality parallels. He’s also a bit of a jerk which nicely rounds out all the personalities.
Unfortunately, due to the realistic take I’m doing, I had to nix his ability to fly. But he can still run really fast, has endurance and invulnerability. This still makes him pretty formable.
Series Biography:
Growing up in Quebec with his twin sister Jeanne-Marie, Jean-Paul was kicked out of the house at 18 when he came out to his parents that he was homosexual. Not sure where to go, he joined the Canadian Armed Forces along with his sister Jeanne-Marie who also left their parents as a form of protest. Their mutant abilities were easily discovered and the siblings were then moved up into elite training and became some of Department H’s finest soldiers.
When Jean-Paul realized that his sister was being pushed too hard and being mistreated by those who only saw Jeanne-Marie as a weapon to use against other mutants, he took her and fled South, ending up at Xavier’s. Seeking refugee, Xavier welcomed the twins, giving Jean-Paul a job as a teacher at the school.
There is much Jean-Paul left behind in Canada but he blames himself for his sister’s current dissociative state and will do anything he has to in order to help her.
X-Men: The (fan fic) Series 