Who Rules The School?

[Strong Girl Daken]

Academy X has an edge because they had a series and have had a lot more development (not recently though). I chose Academy X because they have a bit more narrative heft being the "last generation" of mutants for so long. These kids really did the heavy lifting of making the Decimation years meaningful. The weight is a blessing and a curse since so many of them were made disposable devices in order to raise the stakes. Messiah Complex was the first event I collected in floppies, so I'm a bit biased since Academy X tied into that event (I didn't read the entirety of the run until much much later). This is also the generation that moved to Utopia and put in the hard labour of building it. They really don't get the credit they deserve. They also have a "cool factor" in terms of appearance and powers. It also helps that X23 belongs to this generation.

I loved Generation Hope probably more than most people. The "Lights" was a great concept that deserved to have its own series. I liked the entire cast except for Primal. These characters, aside from Idie, are even more buried than the Academy X characters. It's a shame because they served a thematic purpose and Kenji and Laurie have great designs. They really should have been the ones to usher in and guide the rebirth of mutants. They should have been involved with Hope and the Phoenix, and probably should still have something that makes them unique. Marvel put out 17 issues with these characters and then totally dropped them.

The JGS kids represent a lot of annoying fumbles, mainly AvX and its aftermath. I appreciate the book for bringing a lighter tone after years of grimdark, but it didn't have to sacrifice the trajectories so many characters were going in to do it. Out of this generation, I'm fans of Idie and Kid Apocalypse and Bendis' kids (who are more like a separate entity because they aren't Aaron's creations). I loved Bendis writing for Tempus, Triage, Goldballs, Morph, the Cuckoos, and the O5. I still think the JGS kids are ok but they don't have a lot of substance and Marvel just doesn't care about these students or new characters. Hopefully Disassembled ends the nostalgia fest that prevented any new characters from getting development.

The Cuckoos kinda count for all these generations. It's nice to see them aged up and take on a non-student role in X23. I'm still confused about if characters like Anole are graduated yet.

Morisson's students are amazing and they are amazing as the special class. I think they belong in this world and should be used more. Martha alone makes me want to vote for them.

[Triniking1234]

The New Mutants vol. 2/Academy X kids.

[kevlon]

Oops accidently voted for Morrison because I was thinking of QQ and the cuckoo's.

I should have voted academy X for those 2 based on the guidelines. Not that it makes a difference, academy X is winning by a mile!

[MYCMTSC]

The ones I liked:

The Morrison Era: Angel, Beak, Slick, Dust, Stepford Cuckoos, Quentin
Total: 6

Academy X/New X-Men: Prodigy, Mercury, Pixie, Anole, Rockslide, Bling!, Indra, Wind Dancer, Cipher, X-23
Total: 10

JGS/NCXS Kids: Oya, Eye-Boy, Shark Girl, Hijack, Goldballs, Morph, Hindsight
Total: 7

The Morrison crew have the lower count but they have the vibe I dig the most. They are dark little oddballs that are kind of creepy and occasionally unlikable but intriguing and exciting (even the ones that weren't explored or the ones that I didn't like had an air of mystery around them).

I appreciate the strangeness of JGS but there's a lack of depth in most of those characters. The Academy X are more accessible superhero fare - and there is a definite place for that - but they don't excite/inspire me in the same way as the Morrison crew (and the characters that I don't like just irritate me). Pixie is also the only one that doesn't immediately draw up comparisons to older characters (FOR ME) despite her trials in Limbo.

[AJpyro]

Academy X/New X-men forever.

[NewMutant]

There is so much overlap. These generations have really been pushed into one group. Morrison's expand the school and is a defining run, the Academy X kids were a side title that merged the characters once Morrison left, when that titled end Young X-Men was still a continuation of Academy X which leads directly back into Wolverine and the X-Men JGSL. That's why Generation Hope and Bendis teens was such a huge miss/mess. Generation X vol 2 was a great job of merging things all back together again but of course was cancelled.

Morrison: Quentin Quire, Stepford Cuckoos, Dust (and lately Glob... ugh)

Academy X: X-23, Pixie, Rockslide, Anole, Armor (sort of), (plus Hellion and Elixir who were used a lot at the time but not after)

JGSL: ... Idie and Genesis? This was really Quentin's title. There were some great interesting characters but the only only developed outside of the main run was Quentin and Idie (who has now dropped off as well).

[Sundown]

Academy X is the only group of students I actively dislike, with a few exceptions (Laura, Gentle, Dust, Rockslide). The trend of the time period was snarky=funny, so they came across as the worst of high school for me, and I hated high school anyway.

JGS kids got way too silly, but I liked Evan and his backstory from UXF, thought Broo was cute and didn't mind Quire overly much. I like Oya, even though I don't much care for her origin story.

[Harpsikord]

I'll be honest: the only real generational gap is between Academy X and the JGI kids, and I disagree with the idea of putting Quire there. New Mutants and New X-Men ran at the same time, and that was where the majority of the Academy X characters were initially introduced, so that means that Quire and Beak and etc all existed alongside Hellion and Surge and Elixir. And even then the gap between these kids and the JGI kids, in universe, is slim. They've coexisted as the same generation for years due to the sliding timescale, but when it comes down to it (despite some weirdness of QQ dating fourteen year old Idie when he was at least 17) it's more like while they're the same generation, the Morrison/Academy X kids are the upper classmen while the JGI kids are the junior classmen. Either way, the more interesting kids are in the upper class, as opposed to the lower one, and they have largely been a part of the story for much longer and have generally more significant roles.

As a note I'm going to go ahead and consider most of the Gen Hope kids as Academy X, except for Idie, who is JGI. They occupy a space in between both "generations" but largely even though they haven't been used to their fullest extent, and probably never will be, and are literally a part of a different set of mutants than the Academy kids the ideas behind them and their character types mesh more with the Academy kids than the ones that were introduced for JGI (especially because they were introduced mostly in a joke book by Aaron) and Bendis's NXI kids, though the NXI kids are more like the Academy kids than the JGI kids.

Yeah. I hope that made some kind of sense lmfao.