- Name: N/A
- Code Names: Fantomelle & Culpepper
- First Appearance: Wolverines #2 (Jan ’15)
- Powers: Misdirection, External Nervous System/Fox Friend, Total Control Over Her Body’s Position In 6 Dimensions
- Teams Affiliation: N/A
About
One of the most omnipresent things to come out of superhero culture is merchandise. Whether it is the three-foot-tall stuffed Batman my dad had as a kid or the X-Men socks I’m wearing now, superheroes make for great branded products. You have to imagine that in-universe it is even more frantic. Who wouldn’t want Power Man’s tiara or the Scarlet Spider’s hoodie? To your average denizen of the Marvel universe, those are pieces of pop-history. The problem is that superheroes are a traditionally private bunch and acquiring such items could be a challenge. Only a master thief could find a way to sneak into the Baxter Building and find the unitard The Thing wore in his Future Foundation days. Or perhaps, a thief and her pet fox.
The Weapon X program never really went away, at worst the branding was just too good not to use for a supervillain organization. One such branch of the organization created Fantomex and The World. Dr. Cornelius in his Paradise, Nevada facility saw this and decided he could do better. Thus, Fantomelle was born. She too was a master thief with a gift for misdirection, different though was how she expressed her version of EVA. Instead of being a UFO, Fantomelle was created with a partner, a fox named Culpepper. What Cornelius never thought through was that a master of breaking and entering would be pretty good at escaping, which after everything with Wolverine he really should have known better. Fantomelle, Culpepper, and another unnamed experiment from Paradise (we’ll call him Sterance) made their way to Barcelona and tried to start a new life.
Fantomelle and Culpepper started to use their thieving skills to make money in the very lucrative field of superhero memorabilia. She would steal whatever bits of costumes or gadgets she could get her hands on and have them sold to the highest bidder. Just not weapons, never weapons. One such idea was an authentic skull shirt from The Punisher. Fantomelle and Culpepper broke into his foxhole while he was sleeping and stole it right off his back. They returned home to celebrate a job well done, only to find that Sterance had started before them. He took up the bottle after escaping Paradise, it was his only way to forget what was done to him there. Fantomelle tried to encourage her friend but they didn’t have long before Siphon broke through their window.
Siphon was hunting down healing factors and wanted Fantomelle’s. He grabbed Sterance and chucked him to his death (RIP Sterance) as he closed in on Fantomelle. Luckily, Laura Kinney was waiting with a shotgun to fend Siphon off and recruit Fantomelle for a mission. Laura had teamed up with several Wolverine villains and other escapees of Paradise to form a makeshift group with one mission, rescue the adamantium corpse of Wolverine from Mister Sinister. It didn’t take long to convince Fantomelle and Culpepper to steal something unique and cool so they were soon on their way. They fought their way into Sinister’s base but soon found that another group wanted Logan’s remains, the Amazing X-Men.
Fantomelle saw the big superhero brawl as the perfect distraction and used her misdirection powers to make everyone think the body was still there. Sinister had prepared for the eventuality that someone might try to escape with his prize and set elaborate traps to prevent it. Fantomelle countered them with her total control over her body’s position in six dimensions which is a real sentence. What she wasn’t ready for was Nightcrawler who thanked her for getting through all the difficult parts and BAMF’d away with his big metal buddy. Fantomelle and Culpepper were understandably upset but decide that Sinister had to have something else worth taking.
Even though the heist was a failure Fantomelle had Wolverine on her mind. She traveled to Madripoor on a hunt for Patch’s eyepatch. To Brazil for the heart of a robot. To Colorado for Logan’s old dog tags. But that wasn’t all, she had costumes, fake claws, more Wolverine memorabilia than anyone could imagine. All for her mysterious Collector. He walked out of the flaming wrecking of a helicopter to meet her. He was wearing what looked like an off-brand Spider-Man costume with swords on the back, like something a twelve-year-old kid would design. His name was Deadpool and he had big plans for all of this Wolverine equipment. What were they? Fantomelle didn’t care, she got paid.
Fantomelle continued to be a rogue for hire. When the Inhuman Ennilux Corporation was going to present their Terrigen Mist suppressor, Fantomelle and Culpepper stole it right off the stage. She felt a bit apprehensive about her client, some guy named the Capo. He said he was the rightful owner of Ennilux and had some elaborate plot to overthrow the entire Inhuman system or something. Frankly like most of us, Fantomelle didn’t much care about the interworking of the Inhuman’s power struggle. She had her big duffle bag of money and that made her happy.
Must Read
Fantomelle and Culpepper have been in 12 comics so we don’t have much to go with. However, their introduction in Wolverines #3 is pretty fun. The core of this issue is Fantomelle and Culpepper trying to steal the shirt off Frank Castle‘s back and it is exactly what you want. It also has Charles Soule throwing subtle shade at Daniel Way which is delightful. You can read this mostly as a standalone and Juan Doe’s art is worth the price of admission.
Ranking
Fantomelle and Culpepper have a fun hook and a killer design, which helps. They don’t have much in the way of character depth, which hurts. The best thing I can say about Fantomelle and Culpepper is that I want to see more. They have a lot of depth and potential to explore, an issue about them meeting Fantomex and EVA pretty much writes itself. The lack of an entire trade worth of content really hurts them. Previously the character on this list with the fewest appearances was Negasonic Teenage Warhead but Fantomelle is better on the merit of being an actual character. I like her better and Ariel or Toad but she isn’t better than someone like Karma. Oddly comparable is Wiz Kid who I like but I don’t think has as much potential as a girl and her fox. That makes Fantomelle and Culpepper the new number 78 in the Xavier Files.
Fantomelle and Culpepper were requested by Patreon supporter Andrew Robertson. Thank you for your support! If you have a request for how about you send it below? If you want to cut to the front of the two-year long line, we have a Patreon you can support Xavier Files for just $1 to get a line cutting reward.
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Next week I try and make Wolverine’s entire life story make sense! See you then!
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Zachary Jenkins co-hosts the podcast Battle of the Atom and is the former editor-in-chief of ComicsXF. Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside all this.
