Banshee (comics) - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

Sean Cassidy is the heir to both a small fortune and a castle in Cassidy Keep, Ireland, where he was born. In his youth, he marries Maeve Rourke and takes a job with Interpol as an Inspector. While Cassidy is away on a long mission, his wife discovers she is pregnant and gives birth to their daughter, Theresa Cassidy. Not much later, Maeve dies in an IRA bombing. With no means to contact Sean, his cousin Tom takes care of Theresa. When Sean returns to learn of his wife’s death, he is devastated. Before Tom can even tell him of the existence of his daughter, Sean lashes out at Tom with his sonic scream for not having taken better care of Maeve. While Sean flies away in anger, Tom falls into a chasm, breaking his leg as a result of the attack, which leaves him with a limp. Angrily, Tom swears to make Sean pay and vows to never tell him about his daughter, raising her himself instead.

Cassidy leaves Interpol (later retconned as being due to Deadpool unintentionally botching one of Sean's missions), and becomes a freelance detective. The villainous Changeling discovers him through the group Factor Three and invites him to join the organization. Cassidy is appalled upon learning Factor Three's goals and adamantly refuses. However, Factor Three, with the Ogre, captures him and places a headband containing explosives around his head to force him to obey them. Code-named after the banshee, a spirit from Irish mythology, Cassidy is forced to obey Factor Three's commands and performs various criminal missions for the organization. On a mission in New York City, Banshee encounters the mutant team of superheroes called the X-Men. Professor Charles Xavier is able to use his telepathy to disarm the headband and remove it, allowing Banshee to help the X-Men defeat Factor Three.

Later, Factor Three again capture him but he helps the X-Men defeat Factor Three's ally, the Mutant Master. The Sentinels capture him, but he is released from their captivity. While on the run from the Secret Empire, who were capturing mutants in order to harness their powers, he fights Captain America and the Falcon, mistaking their then fugitive status for a link to his pursuers.

A few years later, Xavier approaches Banshee to join his second group of X-Men and Banshee accepts. After the mission at Krakoa, Banshee remains with Xavier and, along with Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Thunderbird, becomes a part of the first core team of "New X-Men." Banshee accompanies the team on many different missions and is present for several key moments in the X-Men's history, including the first appearance of the Phoenix and the team's first encounter with the Shi'ar. While with the X-Men, he meets the X-Men's ally, Dr. Moira MacTaggert, and then falls in love with her. Alongside the X-Men, he first fights his cousin Black Tom Cassidy and the Juggernaut.

However, Banshee loses the use of his powers when his vocal cords are severely damaged in battle with the terrorist Moses Magnum and leaves the X-Men to stay with Moira MacTaggert.

Banshee later learns of his daughter Theresa's existence. Theresa has developed sonic powers of her own, which she uses under the alias of Siryn. Siryn feels obliged to assist Black Tom with his crimes, as he had raised her. Siryn reforms after the pair were defeated by Spider-Woman and the X-Men, and she is reunited with her true father.

Banshee's powers gradually return as he heals, and he remains an ally of the X-Men and especially of Moira MacTaggert. He reveals that he had an encounter with Wolverine before either of them joined the X-Men. Eventually, Sean heals fully and regains his sonic powers. After the near dissolution of the team following the events of Inferno, Banshee is instrumental in piecing the X-Men together and returns to the team for a second stint.

Shortly after the team is formed into the "Blue" and "Gold" teams, Banshee's jaw is broken in battle, and he leaves the X-Men again to be with Moira MacTaggert.

For a time, Banshee is the co-headmaster at the Massachusetts Academy where he teaches the young mutants of Generation X in the use of their powers alongside Emma Frost. Banshee and his students investigate odd occurrences and Cassidy Keep. Banshee also becomes part-guardian, for a time, to Franklin Richards, Artie, and Leech. However, the Academy eventually closes its doors due to the students abandoning their teachers. During this time period, Dr. MacTaggert dies from injuries sustained in an explosion set up by the shapeshifter Mystique.

Banshee, distraught and possibly suffering from a breakdown, founds the "X-Corps", a group of mutant adventurers who came into conflict with the X-Men over their questionable methodology and membership. Among the group are several former members of the Brotherhood of Mutants. It is revealed that Banshee was having the new Mastermind, the daughter of the deceased original Mastermind, manipulate the Brotherhood's members into having them work with him. However, it turns out that Mystique was posing as one of the members, Surge, and she is working with the new Mastermind behind Banshee's back. Mystique helps the brainwashed members revolt; two members of the X-Corps are killed and Mystique stabs Banshee through the throat before being stopped by the X-Men. Banshee survives the attack and recuperates in the hospital. Siryn later joins a similarly named yet less militant organization known as the X-Corporation, in order to atone for what she perceives as her father's misdeeds.

Banshee attempts to save an airplane full of innocents from Vulcan who is piloting the X-Men's jet, the Blackbird. Flying towards the Blackbird, Banshee attempts to alter the craft's trajectory with a sonic scream. His plan is unsuccessful, however, as Banshee's throat has not completely healed, and his scream is not strong enough to deflect the jet. The Blackbird flies straight through Sean and collides with the passenger plane. Wolverine and Nightcrawler find Sean's lifeless body in the crashed Blackbird and confirm that he and all the civilians died in the crash.

Cyclops delivers the news of Banshee's death to his daughter, Siryn. Siryn is given a video tape that Banshee made for his daughter in the event of his death. In the message, Banshee states that he felt he had done more good than bad in his life, and that he hoped St. Peter would allow him entrance into Heaven. He expresses the hope that he would there be reunited with Siryn's mother. In his will, Sean gave his daughter the family castle—Cassidy Keep—as well as his pipe. Some time later, Siryn is pregnant with Jamie Madrox's child and, upon his birth, names him Sean, in honor of her late father. The child dies soon after, however (he is inadvertently absorbed by Madrox into his own body, due to a mix-up of the condition of his birth and Jamie's mutant powers), and Siryn falls into deep mourning for both her losses, and takes a brief leave of absence from the team. Upon her return, she adopts her father's code name as her own, now going by the code name of Banshee herself.

During the Dark Reign storyline, Banshee is among the dead people seen in Erebus gambling for his resurrection when Hercules travels to the Underworld. It is the belief of some of the characters that the gambling is not a normal state of affairs.

During the Necrosha storyline, Banshee is among the dead mutants resurrected by the transmode virus that Selene sends to attack the X-Men. Although Sean attacks Cyclops, Emma and others, he briefly regains his senses before he's once more overwhelmed by Selene's control. He was last seen being pushed out of Utopia by Cyclops's beam.

During the "Chaos War" storyline, Banshee is among the dead people released by Pluto in order to defend the Underworld from the forces of Amatsu-Mikaboshi. Banshee is among the dead X-Men who briefly return to the world of the living because of Amatsu-Mikaboshi's victory in the death realms. He remembers his time as a slave for Selene, despite it being brief. Alongside the resurrected X-Men and Moira, Banshee is able to fight back the forces of the death realm before presumably vanishing back out of existence.