Julio Richter - Phase 1
This page is about the Phase 1 incarnation of the character. For other uses, see Alex Summers (disambiguation).
| Julio Richter | |
|---|---|
 Portrayed by Diego Luna | |
| Codename: | Rictor |
| Affiliations: | Elpis, Xavier Institute - Grad Student |
| Birthdate: | July 7th, 1990 |
| Journal: | Good Morning Aztlan |
| Player: | Retired |
"Big Daddy rules"
Julio Richter is an easygoing young man determined to make amends for his part in the San Diego earthquake, and to not let his temper get the better of him.
Contents
Details
Character Journal: x_rictor
Real Name: Julio Esteban Richter
Codename: none
Aliases: Big Daddy. Ron Mexico.
First Appearance: May 31st, 2006
Date of Birth: July 7th, 1990
Place of Birth: El Paso, Texas
Citizenship: Dual American and Mexican
Relatives: Luis Richter (father), Paloma Reyes Richter (mother, deceased), Maternal and Paternal grandparents, countless aunts, uncles and cousins.
Education: Graduate of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Attends Vassar.
Relationship Status: Single; formerly dated Noriko Ashida
Occupation: Student, Elpis employee
Team Affiliation: none
Biography
Childhood
Julio was born in El Paso, Texas and lived there until the age of two when his mother died in a car accident. His father, who was an arms merchant and illegally running guns across the border, received a warrant for his arrest and fled for Mexico with his son. Julio lived with his father's family in Mexico City until he was 10, and then drifted with his father until they settled in Guadalajara when he was 12.
When Julio was 15, he attended a Christmas party given by his father's employers, and he met the pretty wife of his father's boss. The woman, Felicia, who was already sort of unstable, began seeing Julio shortly thereafter. The affair went unnoticed for several months.
Meanwhile, Julio was having severe migraines, and Guadalajara began to experience tiny earthquakes. This caught the attention of Magneto, who after months of tracking traced the source of the quakes to Julio. In late June, Magneto caused a car accident in which Felicia was killed and Julio manifested his powers, causing a moderately powerful quake. Julio was later kidnapped out of his hospital bed and taken to San Diego by Magneto. The X-Men, having been contacted via Nathan Dayspring, who was a friend of Julio's father, rallied and tried to rescue the boy. Magneto tormented Julio until he caused a devastating earthquake that destroyed San Diego. Julio was eventually saved and taken back to the school, but the damage had been done.
Coming to Xavier's
Julio woke up in the medlab and slowly began to recover from his injuries. He befriended both Forge and Kyle Gibney, and the latter became his roommate. After a month of being left to his own devices for varying reasons, he acquired a powers trainer in Lorna Dane. Julio began to learn how to control his powers, although after an incident with Amara Aquilla where he nearly lost control again he decided to never do any more unsupervised powers training. Julio also befriended Angelica Jones when she came to the mansion, and she, Kyle and Julio have formed something of a trio.
He had a mild meltdown during the events of The Gates, which were probably triggered by the arrival of Pietro Maximoff more than anything, where he questioned the competency of the school on the journals and was lectured up and down the halls for it. He has since calmed down.
After being coerced into taking Angel as a date to winter ball, the pair found themselves under some mistletoe. And the two promptly proceeded to make out, Julio being completely oblivious to her feelings towards him and his own feelings for her until this moment. The two have begun dating. There are some underlying issues with his roommate and best friend Kyle because of this, as Kyle nurses a small crush on Angel.
When It All Goes Wrong Again
During one of the infamous Xavier School field trips, an unexpected powers interaction between student counselor David Haller and a con man named Thomas Glorian led to Julio becoming trapped in a dream where he lived in a world had he never manifested his powers. Driven by a sense of something missing and rebellion against his continued coddling by his father, he leaves home and goes to the US, where he meets Forge, trapped in the same dream and driven by the same sense of something's wrong. After making physical contact, the pair remember their other lives and begin to hunt for the others trapped in the dream (being those where were on the field trip with them) leading them to an undamaged San Diego.
Julio doesn't even consider staying in the dream, unwilling to accept the "lie" of the dreamworld and unwilling to continue to run away from the events of the summer. After a series of comedically escalating events as the dreamers' collective subconscious rebelled and logic began to break down in the dreamworld, he helped wake up both Shiro Yoshida and Lorna, steal a plane with Crystal Amaquelin on it, break Kyle out of jail, and chase the dream-Glorian through a Scooby-Doo-esque chase sequence before bringing the man back to meet with Haller and break out of the shared dream.
As a result of the dream, Julio gained a degree of maturity about the events of the summer and no longer wished to go back to the way things were before. Instead, he looked forward, learning to use his powers and find a way to do service to the memory of the people who died in the earthquake.
Spring and Summer 2007
Julio had a busy spring. First he helped clear snow for the Red Cross in Kansas City, then he helped locate the missing girl, Janet Van Dyne, and then he went for his preliminary driver's test with Scott Summers, where they were attacked by dinosaurs on the steps of the Hellfire Club. This lead to a strange limo ride home with Sebastian Shaw.
When his roommate was kidnapped again, he went to comfort his girlfriend, Angel. Unfortunately, she said the word "love," and it freaked him out (though it definitely was not in the context he thought it was). At the end of May, his father arranged for it so he attend a cousin's wedding in DC. Miraculously, Julio avoided the latest round of kidnappings as well. It was during Parents' Day that he ended his relationship with Angel. She did not set him on fire for his crap timing, and they remained friends.
Julio disappeared on the anniversary of the San Diego quake. He took a very long walk, and sneaked back in after curfew. Two days later Laurie Collins dragged him out to the pier for a surprise birthday party.
The rest of the summer was uneventful for Julio, something he was incredibly grateful for. He continued to go about his daily routine and heal from his experiences. Which included more of his mischievous streak becoming apparent. Like shaving Kyle's cat and falling off a drainpipe and knocking himself out because he failed at being an urban ninja.
Evacuation
When Magneto decided to take over a Russian Space Station, he threatened the residents of Xavier's and all had to be evacuated to a safer location. Julio somehow wound up in the house of his ex-girlfriend's father. Thankfully, there was less awkwardness than one might think. But trapped with many people, seemingly helpless, and kept in the dark by all the adults as to why they had been evacuated, Julio was on a short fuse. Especially after he was able to get Kyle to secretly tell him why all the hubbub. He did not like the overbearing Jay Guthrie and very nearly lost his temper on several occasions. He also encountered a passed-out Noriko Ashida and after a slight lecture, he cleaned up after her and covered up the bender.
His brash words on the journals continued to earn him several lectures and to this day he harbors a slight grudge about being kept in the dark and stuck in an apartment for the entirety of it. Not in the least because it happened to be with Kyle's ex-boyfriend.
The Great Tokyo Earthquake ...?
A field trip to Tokyo in order for the professor to attend a conference allowed many Xavierites to experience the wacky fun of another country. The kind that involved beer in vending machines. Yet Julio came down with what seemed like a cold on the first day, which only grew worse as the trip progressed. When Laurie and Nori tried to drag him out of his hotel room during one of the final days of the trip, he finally figured out the cause behind his illness. Tokyo was about to experience The Big One. With very little time to do anything else, the girls were able to get Julio to a park, where he physically channeled the energy of the earthquake through him and up into the sky. Laurie had to give him a short burst of adrenaline to keep him from passing out during the process, and Nori wound up having to re-start his heart when it quit working afterwards. As it turned out, his nervous system was not built to handle that kind of power. Strangely enough.
After recovering at the hospital and receiving a promise to never attempt anything of the sort again without proper supervision, he was released and went home to New York, with Japan none the wiser about the earthquake that wasn't at Julio's insistence.
Me gusta, no me gusta...
A crazy Betsy Braddock attempted to teach several Xavier's students proper manners during the advent of The Shadow King (plot). Julio's smart mouth almost got him in trouble again, at the business end of Betsy's katana, but thankfully Scott Summers intervened in time and Julio was able to retain all of his limbs.
Meanwhile, Nori left Julio a gift of Valentine's chocolates, anonymously, and Julio wound up spending the better part of a month trying to figure out who left him the missive. He finally figured it out in time in order to reciprocate in March for White Day, but not before he decided to return to San Diego in order to start helping to rebuild what he had broken, fulfilling a promise he had made in a confession to a priest during December. After his return they began to date and Julio and Nori's relationship quickly developed, aided by a bit of Spanish poetry. While essentially physical, the pair learned to trust each other and shared elements of their pasts no-one else knew.
Julio joined Elpis and quickly fell prey to the Elpis field mission curse when a trip to Guatemala resulted in him being turned into a were-jaguar for a short time as part of a plan for vengeance against the local magistrate. Julio in the were-jaguar form killed the corrupt magistrate and later claimed to have no memory of the incident. A follow up with Amanda Sefton determined that he was magically protected from any other future possession.
A new powers application, a type of echo location using his shockwaves, came in handy when Julio was recruited to help in the battle for New York. He survived a meatspore-infested run through the tunnels under New York and a battle with Post. Two months later, he had an even more difficult challenge when he met Nori's parents, who did not approve of their daughter's gai-jin boyfriend. Following Nori's night in New York after fleeing the mansion, the young couple had it out and promised to try and be better for each other than just having sex. Julio's later elevation to RA required they keep the details of their relationship off the journals, at least until Nori returned to Japan at her parents' behest in September 2009.
Julio remained at the mansion until January 2010, when his grandfather became very ill and his family asked him to return to Mexico to help care for him.
Physical Characteristics
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 140 lbs
Eyes: Brown.
Hair: Dark brown.
Other Features: Scar on back of right hand from IV being yanked out. Several smaller scars from the car accident.
Powers
Julio is a terrakinetic. He can sense, absorb and manipulate the energy released by the shifting of the tectonic plates. He absorbs the power and can project it, or merely cause the ground to shake. He can also control the level of power he projects, either causing a subtle vibration that feels like a "taser" and can shatter smaller objects, or larger, more destructive waves. He has gained a degree of fine control over his powers, allowing him to create things like sinkholes and sense geologic abnormalities.
His power level varies depending on whether he is near an active fault line. In New York, which is relatively tectonically stable, his power level is only moderate. As opposed to the California coast, where he has the power to wipe out a city. If you were to stick him somewhere where there was absolutely no geologic activity whatsoever (like say, oh, Mars) he would be powerless.
Equipment
He carries his Xavier Issued Cellphone at all times.
Trivia
- Julio's great-grandfather, Heinrich Richter, was a communist who fled to Mexico from Nazi Germany during the 1930's. Heinrich married a Mexican woman and settled down, so Julio is 1/8 German. As if the name weren't a dead giveaway.
- He hates the song "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" by Paul Simon because it's been sung to him. At great length.
- Julio is also deathly afraid of snakes. There was an Unfortunate Incidient involving a rattlesnake when he was 10.
- He is fluent in both English and Spanish. He speaks English almost perfectly, but with a thick accent. It was due to his father's strange parenting methods that he was able to speak English at an early age. It was "ask for it in English or don't get fed."
- He is fond of referring to himself as Big Daddy in third person, and replacing all of his pronouns with Big Daddy. Much to the annoyance of Big Daddy's English teacher.
- Julio is on a quest to find the best bad movie ever. So far runners in this catergory include Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter, Delta Delta Die, and Black Sheep.
External Links
Phase 1 Comms
Plots
2006
2007
2008
Meta
Player: Retired
E-mail:
AIM:
Player Icon Base: Diego Luna
Meta Trivia:
- X-Factor originally located Rictor when he was hooked up to a machine and used to nearly destroy San Francisco. His writer was too fond of San Francisco to destroy it so she opted for San Diego instead. Much to Twiller's 'protest', as he grew up in and currently lives in San Diego, despite his willingness to assist with providing accurate landmarks and geography of the city to be destroyed in the plot.
- Julio's entrance is the undisputed winner of the "Most Traumatic Character Entrance" title.
- Julio was played by Azzy until January 2010, when she left the game due to RL responsibilities.
- In March 2023 a Phase 2 version of the character was apped, and this version retired.
