Name: Remy LeBeau Code Names: Gambit First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men Annual #14 (July ’90) Powers: Can charge objects with kinetic energy, southern charm Teams Affiliation: X-Men, Marauders, X-Factor, Horsemen About When I was 10 Sonic Adventure 2 Battle came out. That game introduced a dark brooding version of Sonic the Hedgehog creatively named Shadow the Hedgehog. He…
This Editorial comes to us from Everett Christensen. Stories matter, representation matters. Representation impacts how we see others as well as how we see ourselves. If there is a direct critique to be leveled at the X-Men franchise as a whole on this point it is the lack of stories that directly address the present state…
Name: Sophie, Phoebe, Mindee, Celeste, and Esme Cuckoo Code Names: Stepford Cuckoos, Five-In-One, Four-In-One, Three-In-One, Thousand-In-One, Weapon IVX First Appearance: New X-Men #118 (Nov ‘01) Powers: Telepathy, Diamond form Teams Affiliation: X-Men About Identical twins are a bizarre concept for me. They are copies of yourself, and not just physically. The major influencing factors in life like…
Announced last night at the “Marvel: The Next Big Thing” panel, the creator of the New York Times best-seller Hip-Hop Family Tree Ed Piskor will be the heading a new X-Men mini series called X-Men Grand Design. It will be a 6 issue series of oversized, 40-page comics to be released over the next 3 years. It…
Name: Neena Thurman Code Names: Domino First Appearance: New Mutants #98 (Feb ‘91) Though it is a bit more complicated than that Powers: Luck Teams Affiliation: X-Force, X-Men, Six Pack, Merc$ for Money About There is a beauty in coincidence. Domino Harvey was the daughter of Academy Award winning actor Laurence Harvey and, if she wanted, she…
Name: Mortimer Toynbee Code Names: Toad First Appearance: X-Men #4 (March ‘64) Powers: Jumps good, long tongue, weird spit, experiences lightning the same way everything else does Teams Affiliation: Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, The Misfits, The Hellfire Academy About My son is eighteen months old and is really into Disney’s 2017 remake of Beauty and the Beast….
There are a lot of models for how to assemble an ensemble cast. Some of it is going to be dictated by the show’s concept and setting – Star Trek modeled its cast after the functions of a ship at sea (or space as the case may be): A captain, first officer, helm, security, medical,…
In our modern 2017 world, one question haunts all. “Do you vape bro?” Today I intend to answer this for the X-Men. Please note that my answers are definitive based on my experience as both a self-proclaimed X-Pert and a 2016 Reddit /r/comicbooks “/r/comicbooks Award” nominee (of which I was robbed). Professor X – He…
Art by Frank Quitely Name: Sooraya Qadir Code Names: Dust First Appearance: New X-Men #133 (Dec ‘02) Powers: Turns into living sand Teams Affiliation: X-Men, Hellions About On Friday May 26th, 2017 on a train in Portland, two teenage girls, one of whom was wearing a hijab, were accosted by a man yelling at them to “go back…
Art by Chris Bachalo Name: Robert Drake Code Names: Iceman First Appearance: X-Men #1 (Oct ’63) Powers: Ice manipulation Teams Affiliation: X-Men, Champions, Defenders, X-Factor About My first draft of this article had a pretentious quote from Watchmen (the Pagliacci joke) because I wanted to talk about how much Iceman avoided his real internal problems by being a clown….
Art by Jim Cheung and Laura Martin Name: Hope Summers Code Names: Hope First Appearance: X-Men #205 (Jan 08) Powers: Power mimicry Teams Affiliation: X-Men, Lights, X-Force About Douglas Adams once wrote, “It’s one thing to think that you’re the center of the universe — it’s another thing entirely to have this confirmed by an ancient prophecy.” That’s the cornerstone…
Art by Clay Henry, Mark Morales, and Christina Strain Name: Several Code Names: Several First Appearance: X-Men #188 (Jan ‘08) Powers: Several Teams Affiliation: The Children of the Vault About The first thing Marc Guggenheim did in X-Men Gold was to lay out an argument for the fear of mutants. Unlike the Avengers, or the Fantastic Four, or…
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. After a huge shift in the status quo, the X-Books relaunch with a flagship title written by a famous creator from genre television. It’s pitched as a back to basics premise where the X-Men are focused on heroes again. All of this is viewed through the eyes of…
Art by Alan Davis Name: Kurt Wagner Code Names: Nightcrawler First Appearance: Giant Sized X-Men #1 (Oct ‘75) Powers: Teleportation, prehensile tail, being a great acrobat Teams Affiliation: X-Men, Excalibur About If there is one thing the X-Men stand for, it is equality. They believe in the dream of a world where people aren’t judged by the color…
Art by Andrea Sorrentino and Marcelo Maiolo Name: Logan Code Names: Wolverine First Appearance: Fantastic Four #558 (but only on a technicality and has unofficially been retconned out of continuity) Powers: Healing factor, enhanced senses, adamantium coated claws in hands and feet Teams Affiliation: X-Men About The beauty of alternate realities in comic books is their ability to show…