Lila Cheney

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caption=Lila Cheney
comic_color=background:#ff8080
character_name=Lila Cheney
real_name=Lila Cheney
species=Human Mutant
publisher=Marvel Comics
debut="New Mutants Annual" #1 (1984)
creators=Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod
alliance_color=background:#ffc0c0
alliances=X-Force New Mutants Gladiators
aliases=
powers=Teleportation|

Lila Cheney is a fictional character in the Marvel Universe. She is a mutant with the ability to teleport, but only over vast intergalactic distances.

Publication history

Lila Cheney was created by Chris Claremont and first introduced in "New Mutants Annual" #1 (1984).

The character next appears in "The New Mutants" #25 (March 1985) - which features a brief description of her powers in the "Private Journal of Professor Xavier." The character subsequently appears in "Secret Wars II" #1 (July 1985), "The New Mutants" #29 (July 1985; first appearance of Dazzler as Lila's backup singer), #42 (August 1986; visit to Kentucky), "The Uncanny X-Men" #214 (February 1987), "The New Mutants" #55 (September 1987), #67-70 (September-December 1988), "The Uncanny X-Men" #269-270 (October-November 1990), #273-277 (February-June 1991), "X-Men" #5 (February 1992), "X-Men" #10-11 (July-August 1992), "The Uncanny X-Men" #294 (November 1992), "X-Force" #19-22 (February-May 1993), "X-Factor" #93 (August 1993), "X-Men" #30 (March 1994), "X-Men: The Wedding Album" #1 (March 1994), "X-Factor" #110-111 (January-February 1995), "The Amazing X-Men" #4 (June 1995), "Cable" #42 (April 1997), "Strong Guy Reborn" #1 (September 1997), "Excalibur" #125 (October 1998), "X-Men Unlimited" #21 (December 1998), "X-Treme X-Men" #24 (June 2003), #31-36 (November 2003-February 2004), #40 (March 2004), #42 (April 2004), #46 (June 2004), "X-Men" #165 (February 2005), "X-Men: The 198 Files" #1 (March 2006), and "I (heart) Marvel: My Mutant Heart" #1 (April 2006). The character also appears in the "X-Treme X-Men", "Intifada," graphic novel.

Lila Cheney received an entry in the "Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update '89" #2, and in the "All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z" #2 (2006).

Fictional character biography

Born in England, Cheney is mostly known on Earth as a musician, often performing with the band Cat's Laughing. (Another singer with mutant abilities, Dazzler, has performed with Lila in the past.) Previously, Lila also used her powers for personal gain as a thief.

The New Mutants first met Lila when Sunspot took them to one of her concerts, where they subsequently foiled an assassination attempt made upon her by an alien race called the Vrakanin. At that time, Lila had attempted to "steal" the Earth and sell its population on the intergalactic black market as slaves. It was here the New Mutants encountered Lila's home away from home, a Dyson sphere.

The New Mutants would become fans of Lila's, which ended up with them invited to an Earth-based party she was involved with. A jealous admirer of Lila would drug and then attempt to kill Sam Guthrie, also known as Cannonball, one of the New Mutants, in the skies outside.

Lila's blossoming romantic relationship with Sam included and proposal for a music video with the New Mutants and plans to visits Sam's home to meet his mother and siblings. Sam was worried as Lila's far-reaching, dramatic lifestyle was very different from his family's Kentucky farm-life. They meet beforehand and things are soured when Sam accuses her of stealing the gift she had planned to give to Sam's mother. An argument ensues and the gift, a crystal statue, slightly cracks due to the negative emotions. Sam flies off. Before the two can later reconcile, Lila's plane crashes in the mountains. Nobody is killed but Lila had been knocked out, making her unable to rescue anyone. Sam and his brother Josh work with Dazzler, who was touring with Lila, to free everyone. Dazzler berates Sam, revealing Lila had spent a month mining the crystal and even longer shaping it. The slightest mistake could have demolished it. Later, the two reconcile on the front porch of the farm, Lila with the still-flawed gift and dressed in a simple black dress and blue jacket, because she recognize that this image was what Sam desired.

The alien crimelord Spyder once desired to own Lila. He would finance a group of unidentified beings. They did succeed in capturing Lila, but Spyder assists Lila in escaping. The beings were ruined and Lila's contract is sold to Spyder himself.

During one of Lila's concerts, attended by the New Mutants, Spyder's forces, called 'accountants' were sent to Earth. They succeeded in kidnapping Cheney. A being called Gosamyr had stowed away with the 'accountants' and had stolen a ship from them. The New Mutants use the ship to pursue Cheney.

Over the course of battling Spyder's forces, it is learned that several entities of Gosamyr's race are about to undergo a transformation into very powerful, very destructive beings. Lila teleports them to the nearest sun, apparently losing her life in the process. She, of course, survives in an unrevealed manner, as it would not have been possible for her to go to the sun if she had not been there before.

Lila would encounter the X-Men many times. When the Shi'ar are invaded by the Skrull empire, she comes to Earth to fetch as many X-Men as she can. Later, she would assist former X-Men Longshot and former bandmate Dazzler in their fight against the inter-dimensional madman Mojo. Unfortunately Mojo proves able to intercept Lila's teleport beams.

Lila was performing a concert in a nightclub in Valle Soleada one night when a young woman named Marie D'Acanto attempted to detonate a bomb, to avenge the deaths of her parents at the hands of mutants. Cannonball and Rogue foiled this murder attempt and took Marie D'Acanto into their custody.

The mutant Guido Carosella, aka Strong Guy, sometimes works as her bodyguard, although he spends most of his time on various adventures with other mutants, and he is most recently once more a member of X-Factor. Lila has popped in on him from time to time, occasionally taking him away from his current responsibilities against his will, or once, without his clothing. During one of these times, Lila helped Guido defuse a territory war that two alien races were having over a lifeless, barren planet. This was solved by destroying the planet.

Lila was last seen in the pages of X-Treme X-Men where she renews her relationship with Sam. Much later, she was one of the mutants who had retained their mutant abilities after M-Day.

Powers and abilities

She has the ability to generate a teleportational field about herself with which can transport herself and other people/objects across interstellar distances, even across the Milky Way galaxy. But she can't teleport across distances shorter than several light-years. Hence, when she teleports from one spot on Earth to another, she actually teleports herself to her Dyson sphere from her starting point, and then teleports herself from the sphere to the other point on Earth. Apparently, she must specifically know any location to which she teleports herself in order to do so.

Other versions

Age of Apocalypse

Lila appeared in "Gambit and the X-ternals" during the Age of Apocalypse storyline.

First Flight

An alternate version of Lila is mentioned in Chris Claremont's novel "First Flight" (ISBN 0-441-23584-0). The novel is set in the near future, and the main character, Nicole Shea, is a big fan of Lila, who is mentioned to be amused that an astronaut has her music aboard her vessel.The novel has nothing to do with X-Men continuity and the character had no special powers.

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In this alternate future, Lila has multiple children with Cannonball. They stay together for decades and are allies of President Kitty Pryde.

External links

* [http://www.uncannyxmen.net/db/characters/showquestion.asp?fldAuto=329 UncannyXmen.net, Character information of Lila Cheney]