Lila Cheney

Lila Cheney is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. 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," after which she has popped up in a variety of other titles, mainly in the X-family of books.

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. 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. By chance, her power enabled her to find a Dyson sphere, which Lila came to use as a home away from home.

Lila met the New Mutants 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, just in order to prove that she was "the best thief of all". After the New Mutants followed her to her Dyson sphere and saved her life from the Vrakanin, who intended to betray her, Lila retracted her selfish intentions, and also developed a relationship with the New Mutant Sam Guthrie, also known as Cannonball, to whom she subsequently dedicated a love song.^[1]

The New Mutants would become fans of Lila's, which ended up with them invited to an Earth-based party with which she was involved. A jealous admirer of Lila would drug and then attempt to kill Sam in the skies outside. Lila's blossoming romantic relationship with Sam included a 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, but 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 recognizes that this image was what Sam desired.^[2]

Spyder, Alien

The alien crime lord 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.^[3]

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 interdimensional madman Mojo. Unfortunately Mojo proves able to intercept Lila's teleport beams.

After a long period away from X-Men stories, Lila is shown in an X-Treme X-Men arc performing in a nightclub in Valle Soleada 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.^[4]

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.^[5]

Lila is seen in the pages of X-Treme X-Men where she renews her relationship with Sam.^[6] Much later, she was one of the mutants who had retained their mutant abilities after M-Day.^[7]

Lila becomes an unwilling pawn for the mutant known as Legion. The plan, as encountered by British operative Peter Wisdom, seems to be Legion using Lila and other mutants to completely obliterate England. However, this is a feint. Lila is forced to explain to Wisdom that it was a grand series of public relation incidents, many that did stop quite genuine violent acts, intended to show England now accepts mutants.^[8]

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. She is in a romantic relationship with Gambit. She and the Starjammers assist the team in their attempt to gain part of the M'Kraan Crystal. Guido betrays them all.^[9]

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.

X-Men: The End

In this alternate future, Lila has multiple children with Cannonball. They stay together for decades and are allies of President Kitty Pryde.^[10]

External links

• UncannyXmen.net Spotlight on Lila Cheney

References