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Neal Shaara, also known as Thunderbird, is a Marvel Comics superhero, who was briefly a member of...

Neal Shaara, also known as Thunderbird, is a Marvel Comics superhero, who was briefly a member of the X-Men. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Leinil Francis Yu, he first appeared in X-Men #100 (May 2000). An Indian pyrokinetic, he has no connection to the previous X-Men characters called Thunderbird. He is a vegan and was originally intended to be called Agni, after the Hindu god of fire. Neal Shaara comes from an affluent family in Kolkata (Calcutta), India, where his father is the city's chief of police. When his journalist brother Sanjit disappeared, Neal decided to investigate, against his parents' wishes. Neal was shadowed by his father's best detective Karima Shapandar, and when Karima had to save him from a group of thugs, the two fell in love and began a romantic relationship, looking together for Neal's missing brother. They were ultimately captured by the villain Bastion, who planned to turn them into Prime Sentinels as he had already done to Sanjit. Unlike his plans however, the shock of the transformation caused his latent mutant powers to manifest, the power to generate and control solar plasma and heat. Sanjit was able to disable the other Sentinels,