Orphan X: The children of the atom

[yogaflame]

Many of the X-Men are orphans. Most famously is Cyclops, whose parents were seemingly killed in a fiery explosion of their private aircraft. Of course, many years later his father was reintroduced as Cosair, and even after he died again by Vulcan's hand(another reintroduced family member), he seems to have been revived yet again.

That said, young Scott was raised in an orphanage(to be experimented upon by Mr. Sinister), while young Alex was adopted. While this thread could be a place for all of the various orphaned mutants to get some light shined upon their tragic backstories, I am particularly interested in Alex.

Have we met his adopted family? Have there been stories with them?

Are there other mutants whose family histories remain a mystery?

Did Xavier intentionally target orphans to bring into his fold, knowing they had no where else to go?

[Sutekh]

Are there other mutants whose family histories remain a mystery?
Did Xavier intentionally target orphans to bring into his fold, knowing they had no where else to go?

The original five had only two orphans, Scott and Warren, with Jean, Bobby and Hank all having relatively happy and well-adjusted families (although Jean's family is dead *now,* and Bobby's family didn't react well to the mutant thing, leaving Hank as probably the only one who can 'go home again').

Warren, IIRC, still has a living mother, as of 'X-Men: The Hidden Years,' so he's only half-orphan, I suppose. I'm not sure if that was a retcon, and his parents were assumed dead before that...

(It's interesting that if your parents were rich, they are most likely dead, and you are conveniently wealthy without having had to do any work or have a job to earn that wealth. Stark's parents, Worthington's parents, Danny Rand's parents, Bruce Wayne's parents, even older rich folk like Xavier have few, if any, living relatives).

Of the later X-Men, only Colossus' parents were known to be alive, when he was introduced, and I don't think we ever heard anything about Thunderbird or Sunfire's family (until their Suddenly Siblings! James Proudstar and Leyu Yoshida materialized out of the void, with identical powers...). Banshee apparently inherited a castle, so I guess his folks are dead. Ororo's family is dead. Kurt didn't seem to have a family, until his connection to Mystique was established. Wolverine didn't seem to have a family, and seemed a blushing virgin when introduced, all stammering and shy around Mariko, only to be retconned into being older than ebola and twice as fertile, but even then, his (living) relatives were all his various spawn and clones, not his parents or uncles/aunts/nephews/nieces/cousins. (Granted, *many* team book characters don't have uncles/aunts/nephews/nieces/cousins... That sort of development seems to be saved for characters with solo books, and sometimes not even them.)

There's plenty of sketchy stuff circling around Charles Xavier, but I don't think he specifically targeted orphans or, except for Scott, particularly, people who 'couldn't go anywhere else.' (And even then, the assumption that Xavier glommed onto Scott as best choice for X-leader, because, of all the X-Men, he had nowhere else to go, and couldn't just live a normal life, was something Emma said while literally screwing with his mind under the influence of Cassandra Nova in Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run, so I'm not sure how much I'd trust it.)

The Fantastic Four (all of them, at least until Sue and Johnny's dad was retconned into being alive, and living in orbit, or whatever) are even *more* 'orphans,' as are the founding Avengers (of whom, only Thor had living relatives, IIRC, and his living relatives are immortal gods!).