HAVOK

Alex Summers absorbs ambient cosmic energy and vents it back out as plasma, but in his early days he had almost no control over the buildup. Captured by Larry Trask — son of Bolivar Trask, creator of the Sentinels — Alex was handed a black containment suit fitted with special sensors, plus a codename he considered a bit corny: Havok. The concentric circles on the suit's chest are not decoration. Per Marvel's own character history, the costume regulated, monitored, and displayed his body's cosmic energy levels — and the pulsating rings on his chest indicate how much cosmic energy he has stored.

As the energy stored inside Havok's body increases, the circles on the costume expand outward — a warning light worn over the heart. The original outfit went further than measuring: the strange headgear, with its special gemstone, and the circuits woven through the suit actively limited his energy powers to a controllable degree, telling a walking reactor when he needed to vent plasma and cool down before the charge got away from him.

The gauge mattered because Alex's cells never stop drinking in cosmic radiation, and burning off his whole charge at once leaves him running on empty — by the standard handbook accounting, a spent Havok needs roughly sixteen and a half hours to recharge to peak. He kept returning to the containment suit for years afterward: when his powers flared out of control again during his X-Factor service, he quietly wore it under his regular clothes rather than risk an accident. The rings stayed — long after he mastered control, they remain the centerpiece of his look.