Aurora

FIRST APPEARANCE: X-Men Vol. 1 #120 (April 1979)

Born in Canada, Jeanne-Marie and her twin brother, Jean-Paul, were separated in infancy after their parents died in a car accident which caused them both to grow up without knowledge of the other. She was raised at Madame Dupont's School for Girls, a hyper-religious school in Quebec. Extremely nervous and introverted to the point of suicide, she soon discovered her mutant powers of flight, believing them to be a divine gift due to her strict religious upbringing. Telling her story to Soeur Anne, Jeanne-Marie was severely and inhumanly disciplined for "blasphemy". This incident began the Dissociative Identity Disorder she would suffer for the rest of her life - her primary personality of a prim and proper, repressed woman, and a secondary personality of an uninhibited extrovert. As with most disorders of this type she could not remember what she did when reverting back to Jeanne-Marie. Because her problem wasn't understood or really looked at it caused her to be punished even more severely. Soon she buried the personality as well as the knowledge of her powers deep within her mind. At one time she even contemplated jumping off the roof of the school to see if her powers would save her. Instead she finished school and began teaching. Both personalities strongly disliked the other, and would switch in fear, despair, or severe stress.

Leaving school and learning of her acceptance as a schoolteacher, Beaubier's uninhibited personality exerted herself to revel in joy. She was attacked by muggers, however, and used her powers to defend herself. She used her powers to defend herself against one of them when Wolverine, who was nearby at the time, noticed the commotion and stopped the second mugger. He told Jeanne-Marie that she should seek James Hudson in Ottawa. Noting her strong resemblance to Jean-Paul Beaubier, Hudson contacted him when she arrived. The two reunited and joined Alpha Flight as Aurora and Northstar.

The extroverted Beaubier personality reveled in the superhero aspect of her life, adventuring with Alpha Flight and having many affairs, including a long romantic relationship with fellow teammate Walter Langkowski (aka Sasquatch). Langkowski, at Beaubier's request, performed an experiment that would negate the twin's need for contact with each other to release their powers.

Later, when Alpha Flight sought the magic of the Fire Fountain which had briefly made Aurora's personality a cohesive whole, Loki, in revenge for Alpha Flight's tampering with his earlier schemes led the Beaubier twins to believe they were not mutants, but half-elves. Loki claimed that Beaubier's mental dysfunction (and her brother's current physical disease) was due to the broken gestalt that separated their powers. Aurora used her power on Northstar, which seemed to cure his illness and leave herself powerless. Loki transported Jeanne-Marie to a convent in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré which helped her regain a healed psyche but allowing her powers to manifest slightly differently (releasing inner light). When her former lover Walter Langkowski was on trial, she travelled to see him and used her powers to aid him in seeing through illusions. Sister Beaubier was forced by Talisman to return to Alpha Flight to help rescue her brother, who was trapped in Asgard by Loki. The two remained with the team.

Aurora was of the many mutants that joined the mutant nation of Krakoa. Aurora and her brother Northstar were sent on a flyover scouting mission to Arakko by Krakoa's Captain Commander Cyclops, in their report they mentioned the island being full of giant hostile beasts.