BABEL

Real name: Thame Panagitis
Occupation: Historian, Museum Trustee, Secret Mutant Activist
Identity: Thame's identity as a mutant is not public knowledge, nor is his connection to the Brotherhood.
Legal status: Citizen of Greece with no criminal record
Other aliases: None known
Place of birth: Kerkira, Greece
Marital status: Married
Known relatives: Cassandra (wife), Phaedra and Antigone (daughters)
Group affiliation: Formerly member of the Mutant Brotherhood, current member of the Board of Trustees of National Archeological Museum of Greece, Acropolis Museum, Byzantine Museum. Currently on the board of Excelsior.
Base of operations: Athens, Greece
First appearance: Not yet seen, but mentioned
History:

Much of Babel's early history in Greece was unremarkable. He had a happy childhood growing up on the isle of Corfu (Kerkira), a popular tourist spot. Growing up, he developed a love for history, and especially famous military battles of ancient Greece.

Sometime in his late teens, he noticed an odd thing. All the tourists that came to the island began to speak perfect Greek. He knew a little bit of English, but now even that seemed unnecessary. They would give him odd looks when he insisted he did not know how to speak their language, whatever it was, but despite this very few people managed to put two and two together... after all, mutants weren't known about back then... except to a very few individuals.

His mother was the first, having seen him carry on conversations with complete strangers from all over the world. She was convinced it had religious implications, that he was given the gift to speak to all people. It was then that he realized exactly what it was he was doing, but after talking it over with his family, they decided they would wait to see if God made it clear he wanted Thame to do something specific, and perhaps in the meantime he would start to prepare for a career in politics, just in case.

In the mid 80s, after getting a business degree at Columbia University, Thame returned to Greece after his mother died (his father died some years before), and live on the land he inherited. He decided to continue his education in Athens, and worked on a PhD in history. By this time he'd somewhat abandoned the idea of going into politics.

Magneto was the next one to notice on his own, the first mutant that he met. While visiting Athens, Magneto somehow met Thame and, by being observant, Magneto spotted the oddness of everybody understanding what Thame was saying, despite the fact that he never spoke Greek. He realized Thame must be one of the mutants he searched for, and made it a mission to develop a friendship with the young man, and they eventually discussed his theories about mutants. Thame was intrigued, having developed a somewhat scientific mindset and agreed with Magneto that people might fear mutants, and that steps would need to be taken to protect them. They stayed in touch regularly over the next decade.

In his own personal life, Thame met a woman named Cassandra and married her once he got his Ph.D. She was human, and comparatively wealthy, but eventually he came to confide in her about his gifts. She didn't leave him, since she still loved him and was by this time carrying his first child. He has kept the exact nature of the Brotherhood from her, though she knows it involves him in sometimes clandestine activities.

Since the Black Prom, Thame, or Babel as his Brotherhood codename came to be, worked with Magneto to set up safehouses in a variety of countries, his gifts making him the perfect translator and director of communications between safehouses. He also ran training sessions, bringing together people of many different backgrounds, and languages, to work together and follow his directives. A long student of strategy and tactics, Babel was finally able to put some of these theories into practice on small missions.

Babel was for a long time one of Magneto's most trusted operatives working in the Old World, and they have grown to be close friends as well. Unfortunately, they lost contact when unknown forces, believed to be working in concert with factions within the US government, launched a massive raid on the European Brotherhood.

Babel took the opportunity to go on the run with his family, and make preparations to leave. In 2004, he re-emerged as a publicly admitted mutant, and currently travels regularly between Greece and New York, where he works with Excelsior.

Height: 5'9" Weight: 180 lbs.
Eyes: Brown Hair: Black
Unusual physical characteristics: Full beard and moustache
Strength level: Babel possesses the normal human strength of a man his age, height, and build, who engages in some regular exercise.
Known superhuman powers: Babel possesses the superhuman ability to understand any spoken language, and to have his spoken words perfectly understood by anyone listening, regardless of the language they speak, because they hear it in the language they understand best. In fact, by hearing alone, Babel cannot distinguish what language a person speaks, as it's automatically translated into perfect Greek. By reading lips, he could make a guess. On the other hand, people listening see his lips forming the words in the same language they hear; it's possible this is due to some kind of hypnotic effect.

This ability does not extend to writings, but it does, somehow, transmit over electronic media and recordings, so it must not be completely telepathic in nature. Some speculation is that he has an instinctive knowledge of some kind of 'root language' that underlies all human speech.

His ability to understand languages is constantly in use, but for short periods, with conscious effort, he can choose to speak only in one particular language that he knows. Since he cannot hear other languages being spoken, this limits him primarily to Greek and heavily accented English, or barely understandable versions of his other languages.

Listeners who speak two or more languages perfectly will usually hear his normal speech in their most 'native' language, unless they have had some suggestion that it is in one of these other languages. For example, in a group of people who speak both Greek and English fluently, if they were told for some reason that only Greek should be spoken in the room, they would hear it perfectly as Greek (regardless of which they learned first)... But if someone came in the room who didn't know the rule, or who did but didn't understand Greek very well, they would hear it as whichever was their best language.
Other abilities: Even without the benefit of his mutation, Babel understands how to read and write fluently in at least 15 languages, and has written several textbooks on historical warfare. He's an excellent military strategist and leader for the Brotherhood.
Weapons and paraphernalia: Whatever the Brotherhood provides. He usually wears expensive business suits.
Other notes: Although they have shown no signs of it yet, Babel believes his daughters may be mutants as well, which is one of the reasons he wants to make it a better world for mutants everywhere.