Real name: Dr. Helena Parry
Occupation: Molecular Biologist
Identity: Her mutant status is unknown to the general public.
Legal status: Citizen of the UK with no criminal record.
Other aliases: The Sculptress
Place of birth: London, England
Marital status: Single
Known relatives: Dr. Bernard Parry (father, deceased), Elena
Sanchez (mother, deceased)
Group affiliation: None
Base of operations: Formerly Cambridge University, now unknown
First appearance: October, 2001
History:
The only child of Bernard Parry, a brilliant biochemist, and Elena Sanchez, a leading light in London literary circles, Helena Parry was destined to achieve great things from the very beginning. Her father worked at Oxford, and her mother taught at London College. They were the perfect family, respected and admired by friends and colleagues. Helena enjoyed an idyllic childhood, and she was groomed from an early age for a life in academia.
It was not to last, however. Her father was killed when Helena was only thirteen, in what appeared to be a car accident. Bernard Parry had been under severe pressure from EuGen, an up-and-coming biogenics corporation, to desist his research, and though his death was ruled an accident, Helena was convinced her father had been murdered.
Consumed by grief and rage, the young Helena retreated from the world, including her own mother. At thirteen, she was old enough to understand the enormity of what had happened, but still too immature to deal with it effectively. One day, brooding alone in the small house she shared with her mother, she suddenly realized that the table on which her hands rested was.....changing. Her fingertips were actually sinking into the formica! Confused and frightened, she hurried outside, leaving her mother to wonder over the strange depressions left in the table.
Over the next months, Helena slowly came to grips not only with her father's death, but also with the fact that somehow, she herself had changed. After that first manifestation of her gift, it was impossible to make it stop. She gained a modicum of control out of sheer necessity, eventually realizing that she was able to reshape inorganic material through will alone. Intrigued by the possibilities, she began to experiment, and by the time she was fifteen, she had refined her mutant ability to the point that she was able to control its manifestation. But only so long as she kept her emotions under control. Without rigorous self-restraint, she would almost certainly expose herself, and that was something she was unwilling to allow.
Her interest in her own ability led her, perhaps inevitably, to study biology. At seventeen, she had blossomed into a brilliant young woman, and, encouraged by her mother, she decided to major not only in molecular biology, but also in the history of science, at Cambridge. Praised for her obvious intelligence and desire to learn, she breezed through her undergraduate years and into graduate work, specializing in the somewhat incongruous pairing of genomics research and the history of Renaissance science. Her mutant ability faded into the background, as it were, remaining a puzzle for the young scientist, but one which had little impact on her daily life.
Years passed. Helena received a double doctorate from Cambridge, and then accepted a position there. The death of her mother, when she was 29, hardly seemed to affect her at all. Shortly afterwards, however, EuGen began to suffer a series of crippling disasters. Acts of sabotage destroyed valuable research, equipment was severely damaged, and entire laboratories were razed by fire. The only connection between these events was a single clue left at every one: a handprint, impressed into a hard surface as if someone had melted the concrete, or steel, or glass. The police were baffled, and EuGen's stock began to plummet.
The perpetrator, of course, was Helena Parry. A respected scientist and academic in all outward respects, she had finally found a use for her gift. She saw herself as something set apart from normal humans, and she was determined to put that difference to use. Filled with a cold self-righteousness, Helena carried out devastating acts of sabotage and terrorism against a number of influential scientific companies and corporations, eventually choosing to call herself the Sculptress when she started to claim public responsibility for her actions. No one, of course, connected this determined saboteur with Dr. Helena Parry. She made sure of that.
Following the Black Prom, however, and recent interest in the phenomenon of living mutants with extraordinary abilities, Helena has decided to do some investigating of her own. Taking a leave of absence from her lecturing duties at Cambridge, she has recently arrived in America looking for answers to her own questions.
Height: 6'1 Weight: 147 lbs.
Eyes: Deep Brown Hair: Black
Unusual physical characteristics: None
Strength level: Just slightly above average for a woman
in her thirties, thanks to regular exercise.
Known superhuman powers: Matter Disruption and Telekinesis
Other abilities: Science, Languages, History
Weapons and paraphernalia: None of note
Other notes: None