Peter Bristow

History

Origin

Stevie Hunter continued to teach regular human children, as well as the students of Xavier’s School for the Gifted.  Among her students was a young red-haired lad with freckles and circular rimmed glasses known as Peter Bristow.  He appeared to be a helpful student who would turn up early for his dance classes and offered to clean up.

Crank Caller

However, Stevie had been receiving mysterious calls.  They would call Stevie on the telephone, but then wouldn’t say anything.  Stevie has been to the police, but they were powerless to do anything.   Karma observed Stevie’s frustrations as she slammed down the telephone receiver and implored Stevie to do more.  When Stevie refused out of frustration, Karma approached Professor Xavier for help.

With the Professor’s help, Sunspot created a phone-tap.  When the crank caller made his next call, the phone-tap located the telephone that had been used to make the call.  Stevie drove the New Mutants into nearby Salem centre to a phone booth, which the phone-tap had identified.  There, Wolfsbane used her lupine senses to detect the scent of the person who had made the crank call and followed their trail.  She led them to a dance being held for local high school students.  However, Wolfsbane could not isolate the scent of the crank caller in the busy crowd of kids.  So Stevie was sent inside into the dance in an attempt to flush out the guilty party.

Wolfsbane observed the entire crowd from outside.  In her wolf-form her senses revealed the sudden fear in one of the students.  Through her psychic-rapport with Psyche, Wolfsbane uncovered the identity of the crank caller; it had been Peter Bristow.

Chase

Peter panicked when he saw Stevie and fled.  Outside the disco he stole a car and drove away.  As an inexperienced driver he nearly drove into a mother and her young daughter, but they were saved by Cannonball.  Peter lost control of the car and drove into a nearby demolition site.  The car burst into flames and soon set the whole premises alight.  The New Mutants arrived at the scene and entered the site to find Peter.  Sunspot used his strength to throw the car away & protect the girls.  Meanwhile Karma had to use her power to posses Peter and stop him from beating Wolfsbane to death with a metal bar.  Sunspot & Cannonball then cleared an escape path for Karma & Psyche.  

Victim of Child Abuse

The New Mutants took Peter back to Stevie’s apartment to discover why he had been tormenting his teacher.  He refused to co-operate at first, but soon panicked when Stevie mentioned his parents.  With a telepathic order from the Professor, Psyche used her power to conjure up an illusion of what Peter wanted the most; they were all shown an image of Stevie Hunter passionately kissing Peter Bristow.  Cannonball had to restrain Peter, as he went to fight Psyche.  Stevie couldn’t understand why a childhood crush on a teacher could bring out such strange and eratic behaviour in Peter.

Psyche continued to use her power through Peter’s emotions.  She then pulled out an image of his greatest fear.  The New Mutants and Stevie were all shocked to see a mirage of Peter being beaten by his father with a leather while his mother looked on with her arms crossed and a stern expression on her face.  They could hear Peter’s father telling him that it was for his own good.  Embarrassed and angry, Peter lurched out of Cannonball’s grip and dived to attack Psyche.  His shirt ripped in Cannonball’s hands, and Karma had to possess him once more to prevent him from hurting anyone else.  The New Mutants and Stevie all stared in horror as they could see the scars and fresh lacerations across Peter’s back.  It was evident that his parents had been physically abusing him for a long time, and quite recently too.

When Karma released her hold over Peter, he broke down in tears.  He explained to Stevie that he only wanted her to show signs of affection.  However, because of the way he had been raised, he believed that meant that he should be punished.  Therefore, he had been making the crank calls in an effort to receive negative attention from the woman he loved.  Peter Bristow continued to cry and Stevie warmly embraced him.

Protection

Professor Xavier used his telepathic powers to remove all memories of the New Mutants and their identities from Peter’s mind.  The local authorities had been contacted, and an ambulance arrived to take Peter into care.  The Professor confirmed that the police had taken Mr & Mrs Bristow into custody.  He acknowledged that Peter would receive psychiatric help to break the cycle of abuse hat Peter had been caught in, and added that he would use his own telepathic powers to try to help Peter’s recovery.

Despite being a high school student of the same age as the New Mutants and living in the local area, Peter was never seen or heard from again.  It is therefore debatable whether he made a full recovery or not.