Academy X: New X-Men Appreciation 2022

[Alex.]

Does Hellion have his hands back? I was re-reading Way of X and he had them, and I was wondering if it was a continuity error from the artist. I also think Leah said something about it off panel towards his hands. Do any of you (@Rift) have a source for that?

[Rift]

I can field this, yeah. After his appearance in X-Factor, Leah Willaims took to Twitter to explain that he had prosthetics built by Forge. He didn't go through the Crucible because there were depowered mutants who needed it more, and he didn't want to get in the way of that.

His Way of X appearance came after that, and yeah it seems like he went through the Resurrection Protocols and got his hands back. AFAIK artist Bob Quinn threw Hellion in as a cameo because of fan demand. Here, he mentioned a lot of fans asking for Hellion. I also remember him posting a Hellion preview or two leading up to the book to get fans hyped.

I'm taking all of this as him waiting until the queue was shorter and more people were powered. Once more people got their powers back, he went through the Crucible. Maybe Sofia's revival spurred him towards going through with it.

[Rift]

Fun fact: Since you can submit letters to the X-Office, that means you can continually message them about your favorite character until you get a reaction.

[BobbysWorld]

Rift, you seen this Hellion drawing by Luciano Vecchio yet?

44lbtgbvecx81.jpg

[Rift]

!!! I love this. And the updated X is a nice detail, too.

He also made this picture, featuring Julian, Cessily, Santos, Surge and Soorya.

I swear, I gotta find his commission prices and hit him up sometime. Even before this, I've been dying to see my mutant OCs in his style.

[BobbysWorld]

Anyone remember the Danger Cave story from shortly after M-Day, where the remaining Academy X kids did a Danger Room scenario in the 'Danger Cave' that had them all outfitted like various X-Men from famous battles throughout their history?

I had a random thought today when thinking about the Age of X-Man Nightcrawler series where Hellion was a famous actor: if they ever get bored of whatever the **** it is they're doing with Nature Girl in the X-Men Unlimited comic, they could get a lot of mileage out of an arc about Hellion and some of his friends working with Sofia and Mojoworld to start Krakoa's first network.

Because just think about how often the X-Men have been referred to as the soap opera of superhero comics.

Like, don't try and tell me its hard to imagine characters who spent their formative teen years at Xavier's, witnessing all the drama their teachers engaged in regularly.....

thinking 'hey what kind of show could we make' and coming up with some kind of soap opera pretty blatantly inspired by the hot messes they were privy to on a daily basis.

Or that the average Krakoan citizen, being very familiar with the X-Men from a distance, wouldn't be hella interested in watching shows that were clear facsimiles of things that actually happened between the real X-Men, as told and acted by their own students, who absolutely would have knowledge of the X-Men that most other Krakoans lack.

Like, I'm just picturing the X-Men hearing about the launch of the first homegrown Krakoan television programming, curious to see what their former students came up with, and then all tuning in to watch.....

And like, there's Julian wearing a ridiculous homage of Piotr's costume, as his character "Peter" gets dumped at the altar by Sofia's character "Kathy" who runs away with Peter's sister "Iliana" (played by Wallflower), while "Kathy's" ex-boyfriend "Fireman" (played by Match aka Ben Hamill) chooses that moment to stand-up and announce he's gay ('but don't call me flaming!') and was really in love with Peter the whole time.

Cut to the Krakoan network's phone lines being swamped with X-Men calling in to complain, while Tag and DJ gleefully field all the calls with a stock response of "Creative license! Die mad about it and tell Josh we said hi!"

Julian: See? What did I tell you! We're a hit! And we haven't even introduced the Scott, Logan, Jean and Emma characters yet!

[Rift]

Anyone remember the Danger Cave story from shortly after M-Day, where the remaining Academy X kids did a Danger Room scenario in the 'Danger Cave' that had them all outfitted like various X-Men from famous battles throughout their history?

I actually reread it recently, yes.

But yeah, I freaking love your idea LMAO. Especially since the kids would not only have the gossip, but some of them would have bad relationships with the adults. I can also see Surge working as a writer, specifically so she can talk **** about the adults. Like, just portray them in the most unflattering light as possible, throwing jabs about how irresponsible or messy they are, and showing how they repeatedly let the kids down.

Can't wait for the episode where they portray the Quiet Council and X-Force as bumbling idiots who can't take down Karima and Nimrod, when the Academy X kids already dealt with them as highschoolers.

EDIT: Actually now that I think about it, they'd all probably have very different ideas for a show. It'd be cool to see what each of them have in mind.We know Hellion would want to focus on the drama, sex and scandals. Prodigy might want a more objective and analytical approach (though still colored by his perspective.) Elixir would probably want to make Wallflower/"Iliana" the star. DJ might want to turn it into a musical.

[CGAR]

Fun fact: Since you can submit letters to the X-Office, that means you can continually message them about your favorite character until you get a reaction.

Im going to start doing this for Sofia.

I honestly cant believe they wont even give us a mini or a one-shot. Like come on.

[Ambaryerno]

Im going to start doing this for Sofia.

I honestly cant believe they wont even give us a mini or a one-shot. Like come on.

Anyone remember the Valentine's Day or something XMM from a couple years back where on pretty much the first question they were like, "Ok, let's just get the HeliX questions out of the way right now..." because of how popular/requested the Ship is?

Marvel KNOWS how popular the AX/KYost kids are. They've acknowledged it. They've also made it DAMN clear they're never going to let them have any sort of significance like they did after M-Day again, and why. Letter writing campaigns like this are ultimately meaningless, no matter how much editorial/etc. knows about it. Can you imagine how much hate mail Quesada must have gotten over One More Day? And it still took like a DECADE to undo its effects.

[Milici]

Im going to start doing this for Sofia.

I honestly cant believe they wont even give us a mini or a one-shot. Like come on.

I will join Rift and You in this harassment campaign to get Hellion and Windancer back in the spotlight, I will add Skids and Rusty to the petition.

[Rift]

Yeah, the letter campaign is most likely hopeless. But if I'm not getting my boy back, then I can sure as hell make sure that they're suffering almost as much as I am. Just straight-up go for the revenge route by constantly annoying them.

[CGAR]

The lame excuse is the age-ing of the popular X-Men.

BUT

BUT

BUT

BUT

that **** SHOULD NOT even matter anymore because of the ressurrection protocols.

AGE SHOULD NOT MATTER ANYMORE.

Therefore hitherto the New X-men should all be in 19-21 age range.

And it should have NO EFFECT on the OG X-men ages.

And ALSO Ambaryerno. I get that youre being realistic but your constant pessimism also doesnt help.

[Rift]

I dunno, Ambaryerno is just being realistic and trying to help. Luckily though, I don't listen to reality. I listen to my heart, and my heart says "Spam their emails with Hellion posts."

Since I'm already posting, here's a question I've been meaning to ask: if the Academy X students didn't become X-Men, what careers would you like to see them take up? Personally, I see Surge becoming a teacher. She likes kids, she could relate to troubled children, and she'd want to do better for the next generation than the X-Men did for hers.

[Kingdom X]

Anyone remember the Danger Cave story from shortly after M-Day, where the remaining Academy X kids did a Danger Room scenario in the 'Danger Cave' that had them all outfitted like various X-Men from famous battles throughout their history?

I had a random thought today when thinking about the Age of X-Man Nightcrawler series where Hellion was a famous actor: if they ever get bored of whatever the **** it is they're doing with Nature Girl in the X-Men Unlimited comic, they could get a lot of mileage out of an arc about Hellion and some of his friends working with Sofia and Mojoworld to start Krakoa's first network.

Because just think about how often the X-Men have been referred to as the soap opera of superhero comics.

Like, don't try and tell me its hard to imagine characters who spent their formative teen years at Xavier's, witnessing all the drama their teachers engaged in regularly.....

thinking 'hey what kind of show could we make' and coming up with some kind of soap opera pretty blatantly inspired by the hot messes they were privy to on a daily basis.

Or that the average Krakoan citizen, being very familiar with the X-Men from a distance, wouldn't be hella interested in watching shows that were clear facsimiles of things that actually happened between the real X-Men, as told and acted by their own students, who absolutely would have knowledge of the X-Men that most other Krakoans lack.

Like, I'm just picturing the X-Men hearing about the launch of the first homegrown Krakoan television programming, curious to see what their former students came up with, and then all tuning in to watch.....

And like, there's Julian wearing a ridiculous homage of Piotr's costume, as his character "Peter" gets dumped at the altar by Sofia's character "Kathy" who runs away with Peter's sister "Iliana" (played by Wallflower), while "Kathy's" ex-boyfriend "Fireman" (played by Match aka Ben Hamill) chooses that moment to stand-up and announce he's gay ('but don't call me flaming!') and was really in love with Peter the whole time.

Cut to the Krakoan network's phone lines being swamped with X-Men calling in to complain, while Tag and DJ gleefully field all the calls with a stock response of "Creative license! Die mad about it and tell Josh we said hi!"

Julian: See? What did I tell you! We're a hit! And we haven't even introduced the Scott, Logan, Jean and Emma characters yet!

This is so dumb but when I was thinking about what a New X-Men relaunch could be like one of my thoughts was… what if they formed an influencer house on the West Coast. They’d actually be generating the PR that the X-Men in New York think they’re getting (but 100% aren’t) and they could still do a mix of super-heroics and messy YA drama.

[Rift]

Oh God. That idea is both dumb, and ingenious. I absolutely want it and I want at least 100 issues of it. Bonus points if they get to rope Laura into it for a bit, and she's just perplexed by things expected of an influencer. Scout would actually be well-utilized for that, since she'd be their in target audience's age range and know about all the trends.