Alexi Garnoff (Earth-616)

Blind Faith
Name	Alexi Garnoff
Current Alias	Blind Faith
Aliases	Holy Ghost Father Garnoff
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	Siberforce, Catholic Church Formerly Neo-Soviets
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Male
Hair	Brown
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Mutant
Living Status	Alive
Reality	Earth-616
Personal Information
Identity	Secret
Citizenship	Russian
Occupation	Priest; freedom fighter
Base of Operations	Formerly the 'Mutant Underground' in Siberia
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Bob Layton, Bob Layton
First	X-Factor Annual #1 (July, 1986)
First	X-Factor Annual #1 (July, 1986)

History

Under the Soviet government, all of the communist states viewed mutants as a threat to humanity's survival. As such, mutants were forced to band together in subversive hideaways in an elaborate safehouse system. Blind Faith, the Catholic priest Father Alexi Garnoff, was the leader of one of these cells, whose membership included Mentac, Concussion, Iron Curtain, and Siberian Tiger (later known as Sibercat).

A German member of the KGB named Wolfgang Heinrich, also known as the Doppelganger, was capturing and vivisecting mutants. When the original X-Factor team came to the USSR to investigate, Doppelganger captured Iceman and posed as him. Garnoff and Iron Curtain rescued Iceman, who helped these exiles raid the Doppelganger's facility and with X-Factor brought the mutants to safety.

The cyborg assassin, Firefox, under orders from Project: Remont soon infiltrated the safehouses looking for mutant runaways. He brutally killed many mutants until Blind Faith called for the abandonment of the safehouse system and escaped with five other mutants, Vanguard, Darkstar, Ursa Major, Sibercat, and Stencil. Mentac, Concussion, and Iron Curtain were not so fortunate, as they were killed by Firefox.

Garnoff saw the need for a mutant freedom fighting force to undertake dangerous missions and organized the surviving mutants into a team called the Exiles, dedicated to fighting for the rights of other Russian mutants. In one such mission, Blind Faith and Darkstar encountered an immensely powerful psychic being, the Soul Skinner, who had taken over a small Russian town. With the help of the X-Men, the Soul Skinner was defeated.

Garnoff was also once the leader of an incarnation of the Russian superteam formerly known as the Soviet Super-Soldiers, now known as the Winter Guard.

Later Blind Faith lost his mutant powers after the event known as M-Day.

Attributes

Powers

None

Former Powers

Telepathy: Alexi Garnoff was a mutant who had the power to sense the thoughts of others.

• Memory Alteration: He could also alter the memories of other people.
• Mind Control: Garnoff also has the power to place others under his direct mental control.
• Telepathic Camouflage Able to telepathically mask people from the perception of others.
• Hypnosis: Garnoff could emit hypnotic lights from his eyes that are able to entrance others.

See Also

• 7 appearance(s) of Alexi Garnoff (Earth-616)
• 1 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Alexi Garnoff (Earth-616)
• 1 minor appearance(s) of Alexi Garnoff (Earth-616)
• 3 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Alexi Garnoff (Earth-616)
• 10 image(s) of Alexi Garnoff (Earth-616)