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Sooraya Qadir (Earth-616)

From Marvel Database

Character Template Help
Real Name
Current Alias

Aliases
Turaab (Dust in Arabic)

Identity

Alignment

Affiliation
New X-Men(trainee team), formerly:Hellions Training Squad, Special Class

Relatives
Mirah Qadir (mother), unidentified father

Universe


Characteristics
Gender

Height


Eyes

Hair

Status
Citizenship

Marital Status

Occupation
Adventurer, Student

Education
Currently in high school level courses

Origin
Origin
Sooraya is a mutant, born with her amazing abilities that developed during puberty.

Place of Birth
Western Afghanistan


First appearance

Contents

History

Sooraya

Dust is an adolescent Sunni Muslim girl who possesses the mutant power to turn herself into a sand-like substance. Born in Afghanistan, she was rescued by Wolverine and Fantomex from a slave-trading ring. They had captured her after she was separated from her mother. She was sent to the X-Corps base in India. Sooraya hid herself from the X-Men who were stationed there by turning into sand and spreading herself around the complex. Phoenix sensed Sooraya's presence and telepathically convinced her to reveal herself to everyone present. Sooraya announced her presence by speaking a single word: "dust."

Ultimately, Dust was enrolled at the Xavier Institute in Westchester County, New York. Quiet and nervous, she experienced difficulty adapting to her new surroundings - particularly after being placed into Xorn's Special Class, which at the time was becoming increasingly radicalized as Xorn prepared to usurp Xavier. Xorn attempted to indoctrinate Sooraya, but she resisted because he demanded that she renounce her faith and embrace his vision of a world dominated by mutants, which she refused to do. She attempted to alert Xavier about Xorn's plans, but Xorn convinced the Professor that she was out of control, and thus Xavier used his powers to calm her enough so that she could be gathered into a jar. Even after being contained, the Professor could sense her panic, and shortly after, Xorn crippled him and began his destructive campaign to reverse the Earth's magnetic poles.

Sometime later, when the school was rebuilt, Sooraya was given the loud and rebellious Surge as a roommate. This turned out to be a disaster, as the two often came to disagreements over the traditional garb which Surge believed to be an affront to women's rights. She was also made a member of the Hellions Training Squad, which seemed an odd choice given leader Julian Keller's penchant for causing trouble. Her discomfort with questioning Keller's authority, even as he prepared the Hellions for an attack against the F.B.I., further soured relations between her and Surge. By the time Hellions and the New Mutants battled each other outside Salem Central Station, Surge despised her roommate so badly that Wind Dancer blew Sooraya in her granular form all the way back to campus to prevent Surge from hurting her. This had the unfortunate effect that Sooraya ended up naked when she materialized back at the Academy. Seeing how badly she had humiliated her roommate, Noriko resolved to at least tolerate her till the end of the term. Meanwhile, despite her discomfort around others, Sooraya forged a friendship with Icarus. He asked her to the school dance, but she declined since the idea of the dance made her uncomfortable but he was not insulted.

During House of M, a decidedly more secular, less reserved version of Sooraya was a member of the New Mutants. Whether this was a manifestation of her secret desires or not is unclear. After M-Day, she retained no memory of these events.

After House of M, Wanda Maximoff depowered over 90% of the mutant population, thereby reducing the population of Xavier's student body to only 27 students. The squad system has been dissolved, and the remaining students have been merged into one large group. She has recently been paired as roommates with X-23.

Dust

Sooraya became a target of William Stryker's crusade against the Xavier Institute, as he expressed his need to "eliminate the Muslim." Icarus gave her a note, which X-23 told Sooraya not to trust, as Icarus "smells like death". When Icarus visited the church of William Stryker he was shown why Dust was his next target. Nimrod had a vision of an altered future in his memory banks which showed Dust killing all the Purifiers by turning into a sand storm and ripping the flesh from their bones. After entering the church of Reverend Stryker, she was shown being shot down, though it was revealed to be X-23 wearing one of her niqabs. When Stryker's team infiltrated the school, Dust reappeared, surprising Stryker and playing a key role in defeating his Purifiers after all.

Sooraya cried with Icarus's mother, when she came to the Institute, and apologized for not being able to do more to save her son. His mother tells her that Icarus thought she was beautiful (a significant statement, since he had never seen her without her veil on).

She, with the help of the rest of the New X-Men, would later defeat Nimrod, Stryker's back-up plan for destroying the mutants.

Dust is shown praying to Allah before being teleported with the other students to Limbo where she was being held captive by Belasco and his demons. X-23 broke free and urged Dust and Mercury to join her in fighting Belasco. Dust was too afraid of the demon that she thought of as the Devil, but when X-23 was seemingly killed, Dust broke free and attacked Belasco, saying that if she was to die, she would make Allah proud.

Dust is one of the students that goes up against the Hulk in World War Hulk: X-Men. She attacks him after he defeats Hellion but she too, is defeated when Hulk pulls a water pipe up from the ground and sprays water on her.

Regrouping after their failed attack under the leadership of Matthew Risman, the Purifiers are keeping track of the escaped Predator X. Horribly scarred by Dust's attack, Matthew is fixated on training Predator X to seek out and kill Sooraya by using abayas and niqabs bearing some recognizable quality of hers (possibly her scent). While being trained to seek out and kill Dust, Predator X senses the mutant it was originally created to destroy (the unknown mutant featured in X-Men: Messiah Complex) and the Purifiers follow. Dust is crucial in the success of the battle against the Marauders as she helps take out the massively powerful and dangerous Exodus, by entering his body in her sand form and lacerating his lungs.

A recently revealed cover of the upcoming X-series "Young X-Men" portrays Dust on the cover along with Rockslide, Wolf Cub, Blindfold and two new characters, Ink and Greymalkin.

Despite being in the series Young X-men, Dust appears in the X-men series of Secret Invasion, battling along side Emma Frost, Mercury and X-23. Sometime after Cyclops disbanded the institute, Sooraya had returned to Afghanistan. Sooraya is seen driving a group of Taliban guerillas from a small town and declaring the town to be under her protection, with the Taliban thinking she is some sort of extension of Allah's wrath. Shortly afterwards, Cyclops appears, asking her to return to New York to join his new team of Young X-Men.

Unaware that "Cyclops" was actually Donald Pierce in disguise, the Young X-Men proceed with their first mission to take down a new Brotherhood of Mutants supposedly composed of the original New Mutants. In the ensuing battle against Magma, a blast of flame turns Dust's sand form into glass. Sooraya's glass form is later shattered into hundreds of glass fragments in a battle between Donald Pierce and Graymalkin. However, Magma used her powers to return the glass back into sand and Sooraya is able to revert back to human form. Realizing that they were used by Pierce, the Young X-Men and former New Mutants defeat Pierce, albeit with the death of Wolf Cub, and Sooraya joins the real X-Men in San Francisco.[15]

During a conversation with the now-incarcerated Pierce, Sooraya revealed to him that she is dying.[16] It is later revealed during a confrontation with the Y-Men that part of her arm appears to still be locked in glass form.[17] Her condition is worsening, as more of her body turns to glass. Beast conducts tests and confirms her prognosis, giving her less than a week to live. She demands that this be kept a secret, despite Beast's offer to find a way to save her. She later has a final conversation with Donald Pierce who offers to save her in return for his release, stating that he has since grown to appreciate Sooraya and their conversations. However when the X-Men try to stop them, during the confrontation Dust is found by Danielle Moonstar, dead.[18] Her body is then prepared for burial, though Ink intends to use his untested Phoenix Force tattoo to revive her. It succeeds, and Dust is revived, though the strain leaves Ink catatonic. Dust happily rejoins her teammates and her revival convinces the Young X-Men not to disband.

Depictions of an alternate future in the same issue suggest that Ink's successful revival of Dust could have negative ramifications. The future depiction of Dust shows her no longer observing Islamic hijab and with combustive abilities along with her original powers, and a mission to cleanse the world of "the mutant plague." She easily kills future versions of Wolverine, Anole, Graymalkin, and Emma Frost, and before killing a now decrepit Ink, they discuss how her revival "corrupted" her soul and how she blames him for her present state, though she admits his heart was in the right place.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Sooraya

Dust is an Alpha-Level mutant.

Sand Form: ability to convert herself into a destructive sand blast by simultaneously transforming the substance of her body into loose silicon particles and creating an explosive release at her center, expelling her sandy mass at high velocity in all directions, then cause her particles to reassemble themselves back into her human form. With apparent telepathic control, she can then move at high velocity resembling a sand storm. The sand storm effect is strong enough to destroy steel and rip the flesh from one's bones.

  • Telepathic Resistance: very hard to telepathically detect or influence while in her sand-like form.
  • Enhanced Durability: skin, bone and muscle augmented to make it stronger and harder than human; impervious to injury to a certain extent.
  • Magical Resistance: very hard to magically detect or influence while in sand-life form.

    Abilities

Dust speaks Arabic and English fluently.

Strength level

Sooraya possesses the normal human strength of a woman of her age, height, and build who engages in moderate regular exercise.

Weaknesses

While in her granular form, Sooraya can be weakened by wind or water.

Notes

  • Normally, Dust appears to be able to convert her clothing to granular form. However, during the fight between the Hellions and the New Mutants outside the Salem Center Station, Wind Dancer trapped her in a wind while she was in the middle of her transformation and sent her all the way back to campus before she could convert her clothing. This effectively left her naked back at campus. Ironically, Wind Dancer's intentions were good - Sooraya was being attacked by Noriko and refused to fight back
  • Dust is a Devout Sunni Muslim.

Trivia

  • There are some similarities between Dust's powers and the powers of Sandman, a classic Spider-Man foe. Dust's typical state while using her powers, however, is that of an airborne dust storm, while Sandman typically maintains a more ground-based solid and roughly-humanoid form.
  • Another mutant named Dust appeared in the Marvel 2099 book 2099 Genesis. He was a man with long gray hair, and telekinetic powers, who claimed to have almost joined the original X-Men, and was involved in the founding of X-Nation 2099. His appearance and powers were similar to Cable or Nate Grey.
  • Characters in the comics refer to Dust's traditional Muslim outfit as a burqa. Actually the outfit Dust wears is an abaya with a niqab for her face, an ensemble originating in and worn mostly by Muslim women in the Persian Gulf states of the Middle East.

Links

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