On September 27th, after 154 Wednesdays without him, the classic Wolverine emerged from his adamantium cocoon to begin life anew. This development brought forth a cacophonous symphony of meh across Twitter threads, message boards, and subreddits throughout the internet. Personally, the return filled me with dread about the direction of the X-Line and not just…
This Editorial comes to us from Everett Christensen Also you can get a T-Shirt with that header image from the Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men store The X-Men Franchise has taken a lot of heat for its portrayal of gay and lesbian characters. Over the past few decades the number of textually lesbian and gay…
Name: Ariel Code Names: Ariel First Appearance: Fallen Angels #2 (May ‘87) Powers: Persuasion, ability to make doors open into different doors Teams Affiliation: Fallen Angels, X-Men About In 1983 recording artist Cyndi Lauper took the world by storm with her massive hit single “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”. With its amusing lyrics and an inescapable…
Name: Lucas Bishop Code Names: Bishop First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #282 (Nov ‘91) Powers: Energy absorption and redirection Teams Affiliation: XSE, X-Men, X-Force About When I was young I had a weird idea that I was just fixated on. I wanted the next Metal Gear Solid game to give Solid Snake a teen sidekick who could be…
Name: Max Eisenhardt, Erik Magnus Lehnsherr Code Names: Magneto First Appearance: X-Men #1 (Sept ‘63) Powers: Control of Magnetism Teams Affiliation: The Brotherhood, X-Men, Hellfire Club About Conflict is at the root of all storytelling. All the exciting set pieces and witty banter doesn’t mean much if there isn’t a strong conflict to get the audience invested. X-Men:…
Name: Nimrod Code Names: Nathan Hunter First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #191 (Mar ‘85) Powers: Body transformation. time travel, teleportation, lasers Teams Affiliation: N/A About Evolution is key to the X-Men. Not just an evolution of characters and their powers, but an evolution of ideas. Since X-Men will never really end, at least not in the foreseeable future, nor…
Name: Alex Summers Code Names: Havok First Appearance: X-Men #54 (Mar ‘69) Powers: Plasma Beams Teams Affiliation: X-Men, X-Factor, The Brotherhood, The Six, The Starjammers, The Avengers About Siblings have a relationship that few others do. There is the unique challenge of living up to an older brother who is so accomplished. Younger siblings can feel left in the…
Name: Emma Frost Code Names: The White Queen First Appearance: X-Men #129 (Jan ’80) Powers: Telepathy, Organic Diamond Form Teams Affiliation: X-Men, Hellfire Club, Generation X About Ambition is a powerful force. The desire to control your own destiny and get what you want drives many lives. Ambition isn’t good or evil, ambition is just a quality in a…
Name: Barnell Bohusk Code Names: Beak, Blackwing First Appearance: New X-Men #117 (October ’01) Powers: All the bad parts of being a bird Teams Affiliation: X-Men, Exiles, New Warriors, Teen Brigade About I like to think we all know someone who means well, who is the sweetest guy, but life dealt them a bum hand. They aren’t…
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….