Reboot the X-Men: Your Way

[CRaymond]

Not a surprise that the best idea in this thread is also the one with the most thought and effort put into it. I wanna see more of this kind of stuff from fans when this kind of question gets asked, not "REEE go back to da 80!!!"

LOL that’s remarkably shady.

The thread is “how we’d have done it”, so I walked the reader thru big events and roster shuffles.

My goals were to trim the fat of excess characters, add significant weight to mutant POCs and LGBTQ storylines, and put the toys back in the box in a way that feels natural and appropriate.

[bigstupidjellyfish]

LOL that’s remarkably shady.

The thread is “how we’d have done it”, so I walked the reader thru big events and roster shuffles.

My goals were to trim the fat of excess characters, add significant weight to mutant POCs and LGBTQ storylines, and put the toys back in the box in a way that feels natural and appropriate.

Yours is good too, but it’s also a lot lol.

[CRaymond]

Well yeah. I rewrote EVERYTHING.

I don’t expect everyone to like my ideas, it was funny to me how pointed you got.

[GodfatherIV]

I could worldbuild for months around the evil empire of Genosha's 20th century, but I think what people came here for is rosters. SO.

In the wake of his son's death, Xavier begins the Xavier Institute with funding from Worthington and Yashida, and technology stolen from Weapon Plus facilities.

His first student is a high school graduate named Enrique McCoy(Beast), son of an Illinois farmer and a migrant worker.

His next five are all middle schoolers from around the world:
Jean Grey(Marvel), Scott Summers(Cyclops), Ororo Munroe(Storm), Kurt Wagner(Nightcrawler), Shiro Yoshida(Sunfire)
Their first adventures lead them to discover friends and defeat enemies around the world.

Additions to the school include:
The abominable Bobby Drake(Iceman), the amnesiac mercenary Wolverine, and the defected Russian child soldier Piotr Rasputin, codenamed Beta Red*.

It's during this time that Belasco returns from his 20 year banishment cycle, and seeks his runaway consort. Destiny pleads with her old Weapon Plus teammate to help, so the team arrives at Wundagore Mountain, as Belasco is fighting the Soviet Super Soldiers and their cavalry, Generation Red. Belasco is banished with the help of the Avengers, but not before he kidnaps Iota Red(Illyana), the youngest member of the Generation Red team.

Upon graduation, Shiro is inexplicably removed from the school under mysterious circumstances. He begins a solo hero career as Japan's "Captain America".

The Phoenix Saga:
While Hank, Ororo, Kurt, and Piotr(now Colossus!) are convalescing from injuries on Muir Island, Magneto threatens the Boston's McRyan-Kristol Nuclear Power Plant. The remaining X-Men scramble, but it results in Jean's near-death. She miraculously survives the event, but experiences a strange secondary mutation. The engineers' repairs to the McRyan-Kristol plant cause a second meltdown, but Jean easily repairs it. Xavier is concerned she is becoming like Proteus, but she angrily pulls out his secrets: 1. Shiro & Bobby were in love, so Saburo Yoshida removed his son from Xavier's care, after demanding the boys' memories were altered. 2. Wolverine's amnesia and years of homelessness followed a failed experiment at Weapon Plus; Xavier was personally responsible for Wolverine's fractured mind and identity. 3. Jean Grey died as a child; self-resurrecting upon the trauma releasing her mutant powers. Xavier similarly psychically blocked access to her potential.

The X-Men dissolved but Scott managed to enlist Wolverine for one last ride: rescue Jean from the Hellfire Club. Jean and Bobby had befriended the White Queen, and had persuaded Scott to attend one of the Club's debauched costume parties. Knowing Wolverine's paternal feelings toward Jean, the two men snuck in and tried to take her back to Xavier's. Jean was enraged, but the White Queen interceded, and was subsequently rendered apoplectic by an increasingly dangerous Jean - now calling herself The Phoenix. Jean is summoned to the McRyan site, where Xavier pleads with her: They were forced to kill their own son when his powers manifested beyond their ability to protect him. The Phoenix says "No More Secrets." as she personally detonates the power plant, instantly killing thousands of people. Xavier was protected by the Phoenix so he could witness the power he were so afraid of.

The US Military arrived in order to confront the mutant terrorist responsible for the atrocity, but was easily repelled. Wolverine tries to attack her, but he cannot bring himself to harm her. Scott manages to beg her to stand down, but he screws up when he says that "Charles can fix her --and everything can go back to the way it was before." With that distraction, Xavier manages to invade and begin blocking her mind again. It's then that Jean realizes the game is up: the world will never change, Xavier will never let go, and Scott will never understand her. With tears in her face, she self-destructs, choosing to die as a goddess than live as a mortal.

*End Chapter 1 of the X-Men*

I like the redefining of the Phoenix and Jean Grey.

[CRaymond]

I like the redefining of the Phoenix and Jean Grey.

You’re my biggest cheerleader Godfather :-)

There’s a lot to like about the Dark Phoenix Saga, but there’s a LOT that’s idiosyncratic to Claremont and culturally out-of-date. Think-pieces and parodies have inverted its themes despite those same themes being muddied in its original text. Worst of all, it’s described as a “Jean Grey” story but it’s actually about the men lost in her gravity.

I challenged myself to build a Phoenix story that was ENTIRELY about Jean’s choices, and not hand-waived as “Phoenix corruption” or mental illness. Where the Phoenix isn’t a super-powered hysteria analogy or a hedonistic cosmic demiurge, but a self-actualization that goes way too far.

As for the Phoenix itself, it is a thing —and it isn’t. The flames and bird motifs are taken from the car accident in her childhood. The last thing she saw before “dying” was the artwork on the hood of a 1981 Firebird Trans Am. The power is similar to Morrison’s interpretation: It’s the immune system of the universe, and “burns away what doesn’t work”. In Jean’s case, it burns away her self-repression, her childish relationships, the influence Xavier has over several X-Men, and the secret he’s been trying keep: the true destructive potential of mutantkind. The Phoenix ushers in a new era, incinerating the people of Metropolitan Boston, the original X-Men, and Jean herself.

[Chris0013]

4 books.

X-Men Blue relocating the school back to Westchester.
--Field Team, School Staff, Students
X-Men Gold another school opened in San Francisco in the facility they had out there.
--Field Team, School Staff, Students
X-Factor Operating out of NYC in a facility on the land the original X-Factor HQ was on.
--Field Team, Administrative Staff
X-Force A covert ops team. Not sure offhand where they should be but would be isolated like in the desert or Rocky Mountains

There would be no overlap of characters.