Academy X: New X-Men Appreciation 2022

[mugiwara]

Yup. And I think it would be interesting to know how they would justify denying Preview (or any non-dead precog) the chance to regain her powers considering Moira's behind-the-scenes rule about precogs. Did they ever give Legion a reason in Way of X for not resurrecting Blindfold? I can't recall one.

No, they didn't and it was disturbing that nobody seemed to care.

[Milici]

There was also a Morlock precog, I don't remember her name. But she had a lot of followers. It would have been nice to see the consequences of the no precog rule beyond Destiny and Blindold.

[BobbysWorld]

Well we did see Preview definitively back in the Academy X 'prom' after most of them were resurrected in X-Factor #5. And like, the obvious explanation is Marvel just didn't consider Preview a known or relevant character and thus it wouldn't matter if she slipped under the radar, but my No-Prize take is the reason Moira, Charles and Erik didn't fight her resurrection or repowering is because not all precogs are the same and she just didn't represent the threat to their plans that Destiny or Blindfold did. From what little was ever established about Preview, my take on her was that she had a much more 'immediate' kind of future sight. Like she could just see at most a minute or two into the future, the kind of thing that could give her an edge in hand to hand combat or on action-oriented missions, but wasn't ever going to generate the kind of prophecy Moira feared revealing that 'mutants always lose.'

But honestly agreed on the lack of awareness about how many overlapping powers there are, especially in things like precognition. (Which is why I'm really keen on the idea of Krakoan Guilds for the different powersets. Like with the precog ban lifted, there should be more than enough precogs for a whole guild dedicated just to exploring and honing precognition....just look at how many people Sinister had the Marauders take off the map during Messiah Complex, so they couldn't share their insights. Its not just Destiny, Blindfold and Preview, its also Dark Mother and Quiet Bill and Qwerty and like a dozen more. LOL all of whom should be pissed at Sinister for targeting them AND the QC members who blocked/delayed their resurrections. Gimme a Precog Council/Guild/circuit dedicated to being like "Heads up for all people afraid of what we know.....YOU should know that if you're gonna try and take us off the board for that very reason, you should really do a better job of making sure we STAY down.")

But anyway, back to Academy X......lol I'm glad I'm not the only one who was a fan of Specter. Ugh that pretentious little nerd "Don't call me Shadow something, its too predictable. I'll go for Specter because its more esoteric." Love him. Really wanted to see his vaunted shadow-form in action, but hey there's a chance for it to happen now, so I'm willing to give it time.

Random thought, but I always had this fan theory I was obsessed with during the Academy X run.....because what little we knew about Dallas was that he was allegedly orphaned at a very young age, and he was raised by his grandfather. My obscure old-timey X-franchise trivia powers activate: so there was this minor villain used in one story only, but still referenced as of the 198 as one of the few mutants who kept his powers after M-Day....he was from the very first X-Factor Annual, when the 05 went on a mission to the then Soviet Union to rescue a bunch of mutants being experimented on by a guy named Dr. Wolfgang Heinrich, aka the Doppelganger. He was the original genetics obsessed mad scientist, even predating Sinister (though not by much) and his mutant power was to duplicate someone's DNA at a touch, allowing him to shapeshift into a perfect replica of them, powers included. During the Annual, Doppelganger had his men kidnap Bobby, who he then shifted into in order to infiltrate the 05. Bobby was ultimately the one to take him down himself, in an Iceman vs Iceman battle as the Doppelganger gloated about thinking of uses for Bobby's powers that Bobby had never imagined and Bobby retorting that he still had more experience with them. And at the very end of the issue, after the 05 thought Doppelganger died in the collapse of his facilities, we saw Heinrich on a plane to America, contemplating his revenge against Bobby in specific, as he held him personally accountable for the loss of his power structure and his experiments.

Course this was never followed up on, but I remember when the twelve issue New Mutants series introducing a lot of the Academy X characters debuted, and we saw Dallas in that advisor meeting with Emma and the other Hellions (since he was originally supposed to be on the Hellions squad, then moved to Scott's Corsairs instead for some reason)....my mind immediately flashed to that X-Factor Annual, because of how much Dallas reminded me of Bobby....and one other character in particular. Another major gripe of mine has always been that the geneticists of the Marvel U only ever obsess over Scott and Jean and Logan with their experiments, because we have all these other extremely powerful mutants, like Bobby had been well established by an omega by that point, so it was always like, why is everyone just gunning for the same handful of mutants with these storylines and ignoring all these other powerful ones?

Anyway, point being, my first gut thought about Dallas Gibson aka Specter, a guy with a Darkforce based shadow form he physically transforms into, no parents, and raised by his grandfather.....was that he reminded me a LOT of Bobby Drake and one of Bobby's oldest friends....Laynia Petrovna aka Darkstar. A Russian mutant who'd been teammates with Bobby on the Champions BEFORE X-Factor ever formed, and thus was a known associate before Doppelganger ever debuted, AND who frequently worked with or for the Russian government, which presumably would have given the Doppelganger easy access to her DNA as well as the DNA he acquired when taking Bobby's form and powers.

And what might you get if you combined the DNA of a snarky light brown or blond-haired mutant with the power to physically transform himself into a body made wholly of ice....with a blond haired mutant with the power to access the Darkforce dimension and utilize its energies for a variety of effects like teleporting through darkness, force blasts, etc? Perhaps a snarky young blond mutant with the power to physically transform himself into a body made wholly of shadow that he could use for a variety of effects like teleporting through darkness, etc?

Just saying, lol. Anyway, ah man, I used to gun super hard for the idea that maybe Doppelganger had created a kid from his access to Iceman and Darkstar's respective DNA and then raised this kid himself a la that one guy from Angel the TV series who kidnapped Angel's son and raised him to be his ultimate enemy who as a teenager tried to kill Angel. Bobby's like, okay I know I used to hit on Laynia a lot but I am extremely certain we never had sex. And Laynia's like, and I would definitely remember having been pregnant. And Doppelganger's like ugh you barbarians, like making a baby in a mad scientist lab and rapid-aging him is hard? People do it with Wolverine babies all the time!

(And yeah, Laynia was dead at the time of Academy X, but she came back not long after so, point stands. And then Laynia - who I always really liked, see my comments on liking shadow powers, lol, and thus always wanted to see used more in the X-books - would be like ugh dammit Bobby, I can't believe your stupid crush on me when we were eighteen is the reason I have a teenage son and I'm not even thirty yet! Especially given that you're gay and were totally just overcompensating back then because compulsory heteronormativity!

And then Bobby's like: Exactly! Why are you yelling at me when its clearly compulsory heteronormativity's fault! And also what is that exactly? And also also hello did we forget about the mad scientist in the room!? Yell at him!

Cut to Dallas: I can not believe these are my parents.)

Anyway, random thoughts are random, but they amuse me, so I share them. The point is just I would love to see Specter used more, he's got potential and like I said I love shadow powers. Even when they aren't a highly specific amalgamation of the powersets of two specific mutants who have history together. *whistles innocently*

[Sutekh]

Ooh, Dallas as the secret chimeric X-gene hybridization of Bobby and Laynia is intriguing! (It is amusing how many X-characters kind of feel like syntheses of who has come before. I used to think, before I read the comics, that Elixir, a metal-skinned healer, seemed like what sort of child would have been produced by the pairing of Colossus and that alien healer T'Saji back from the old Secret Wars.)

In either case, I think it's interesting how many darkness/darkforce related mutant teens have shown up and not really been explored. Dallas, Gloom (picked on Bishop and Sage once along with Tantra and Rubbermaid), Umbra (from the Advocates, Rogue's squad), at least one other I'm forgetting at the moment (Elsewhere?). Plus earlier (Darkstar) and later (Shade/Darkveil) additions.

[Paleo_Rage]

With the Academy X kids being back.. I really hope writers use them and pepper them through out the books..

DJ being used in a book really was a highlight for me.. I hope that someone uses Tag ( and tweak his power), and I pray Ewing does me a a solid and has Kidogo pop up on in Xmen red. Additionally, I hope that slightly more popular folks like Trance, Indra, and Match finally get some screen time this era.

[Sutekh]

With the Academy X kids being back.. I really hope writers use them and pepper them through out the books..

DJ being used in a book really was a highlight for me.. I hope that someone uses Tag ( and tweak his power), and I pray Ewing does me a a solid and has Kidogo pop up on in Xmen red. Additionally, I hope that slightly more popular folks like Trance, Indra, and Match finally get some screen time this era.

Kidogo was definitely one of the most neglected members of the main six squads, along with Dryad and Specter, so I'd like to see them get a little something, although I'll admit I'm more interested in seeing personal faves like Hellion, Wind-Dancer, Dust and Indra.

[BobbysWorld]

Places I'd love to see Academy X characters pop up:

DJ - Legion of X or X-Men Red. Spurrier's already shown an interest in using him, and I think there's some really interesting ideas to explore about culture if you had DJ hanging out on Arakko in order to learn about different styles of Arakkii music or maybe even Okkaran from the few mutants who were there before the island split in two....what kinds of powers could a mutant able to develop different abilities from different genres of mutant gain from music styles made by mutants of different mutant cultures or civilizations? Similarly, what could he pick up from hanging out in Port Prometheus and interacting with musicians from various alien civilizations.....hey, with the upcoming focus on the Shi'ar in X-Men Red.....remember there's an elite faction of power-hungry, empire-manipulating assassins called the Fraternity of Raptors, aka the various other beings with armor and powers like Darkhawk? All the powers and knowledge of the Darkhawks and the Fraternity of Raptors come from two things....their connection to the Darkforce, where the Tree of Shadows they're created from resides....and their awareness of the Datasong....and extradimensional mix of music and technology that allows them glimpses of all kinds of important events past, present and future. Imagine if through an encounter with a Fraternity of Raptors assassin on Mars to target Vulcan or Storm or some other mutant political figure, like, DJ gets a glimpse or taste of the Datasong....what kind of power could that awaken in him?

DJ - Legion of X and X-Men Red: Similarly, have Specter hanging out on Mars too, since you could easily tie him into the same kinds of stories via his Darkforce connection. Or as Sutekh pointed out, there have actually been LOTS of random mutants said to have Darkforce based powers over the years.....I wonder if the same proportions are true even among the Arakkii, and if mutants were born connected to the Darkforce Dimension even while not even being born in Earth's dimension. Would being born in another dimension like Amenth mean mutants who had access to Darkforce there might have a stronger connection to it than most Earth born mutants, OR potentially just more knowledge of it, since its still a poorly understood subject on Earth? All reasons for Specter to be on Arakko learning from mutants there and seeking answers or greater understanding of his own powers....and again, tying it back into the Shi'ar connection in X-Men Red, there's pretty much ALWAYS been a Nightside figure among the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, a Darkforce manipulator from an entire planet of people connected to it, so there's plenty of reasons Dallas might seek out answers from aliens in Port Prometheus too. Aaaaand I mean, X-Men Red promo art DID show Darkstar in it, and we're still speculating Iceman might be a core part of that cast so I mean I GUESS I could always cross fingers for crumb-like interactions between certain characters I could fuel my headcanon speculations with for Reasons.

Kidogo - X-Men Red: I've actually kinda wanted to see what Ewing would do with him ever since he wrote Brand using Pym Particles in SWORD. Size-changers NOT based on Pym Particles are rare and I'd be curious to see Ewing explore if this potentially makes a mutant size-changer's experiences/interactions with something like the Micro-verse different from that of someone using technology to visit it. Like given how esoteric the Micro-verse/Quantumverse is said to be to experience for anyone, messing with the minds of a lot of size-shifters who visit it, could the minds of mutants born with the power to reach it on their own potentially interpret it or glean things from the experience that other people miss? Also given that Manifold's powers manipulate space in lots of ways, not just for teleportation, I wonder what kinds of circuits these two characters could build, affecting spatial dimensions and proportions and mass in various ways?

Tag - Legion of X, X-Men Red, or even Marauders: Whoops I'm starting to feel a theme here. ANYWAY, I've always loved highly specialized powers and I think Tag's power always had a lot of untapped potential as is. Especially if he could grow to use it to not just tag items or people as things for everyone to run away from....what if he could do the reverse and tag things to almost compulsively draw people or at least their attention TO like a kinda psychic lodestone. Maybe he could rename himself something like Beacon, and he's ideal for crowd control. There's a firefight happening and he 'paints' a random point in the distance with his tag/beacon signal and psychically redirects the focus of all enemy fire, so they just harmlessly shoot at this distant object they can't seem to look away from. He'd be ideal in relief efforts too, designating safe zones with his power that people are irresistibly drawn to and can't lose track of no matter how much confusion gets in the way. Etc, etc.

Dryad - New Mutants, X-Men Red, Legion of X: Black Tom and the Healing Gardens are two distinct gripes of mine in the current era. The fixation on ONLY showing him in all plant-related matters or ONLY ever showing Cece and the Morlock Healer in what's essentially THE hospital for an entire people who number over 200,000 now and climbing....it makes the island feel a lot smaller than it actually should be. There are so many random mutant healers and plant-manipulators out there, even just use them in the background of the Healing Gardens or interacting with Krakoa's vegetation? Like, as to Dryad and plant-manipulators in particular, Krakoa's the ideal spot to show them building and working in circuits with the island itself. It doesn't have to always JUST be Doug, Warlock and Black Tom interacting with it. Many plant manipulators like Klara in Runaways have even professed that plants kinda 'talk' to them, so what kinds of interactions might Dryad and others like her be capable of having with the island, unique just to them? Also, we know Nature Girl didn't vibe with Mars at all in X-Men Green, but we also know X-Men Green was written by Duggan, who appears to be physically allergic to writing nuanced takes, so who's to say that Dryad and other plant-manipulators all have the same view of Mars? Maybe some of them can do things or interact with Arakkoan vegetation in ways they never have with Earth vegetation?

Preview and Network - Legion of X and X-Men Red, maaaaybe Immortal X-Men: Technopathy and precognition both play such huge roles in the current era and the emerging Krakoan society, so why not give some prominence to a pair of siblings that cover both bases? It'd be kinda cool to just have Preview and Network even just in the background of key titles as they're like....apprenticing with two of mutantdom's prime examples of those powersets, with Preview learning directly from Destiny and Network working side by side with Wiz Kid.

Trance - Legion of X, Marauders, maaaaybe Knights of X: I'm very curious to see how Trance's powers might work in the Altar place that Legion made, since its essentially a piece of the Astral Plane Legion made people able to interact with physically by going through a gate. And given that Trance has always been vagued as having a very unique way of interacting with physical and nonphysical environs when in her energy projection form....I'm wondering if there might be unique ways in which going to that place might be different for her. Similarly, I wonder how her nonphysical form might interact with Otherworld energies, and given the vagueness built up around mutant energies and magic, like, I mean she's such a relatively blank slate I'd almost rather Howard use her than more established characters and it could be cool if her energy form had sorta....magical capabilities when zooming around Otherworld, similar to how Otherworld transforms Shogo due to his child-state of innocence. As for Marauders, idk, her power just could be really handy on recon in search and rescue missions.

Icarus - I desperately want SOME book, maybe New Mutants, maybe a new one, to do sorta a revolving Day In the Life take on various mutants on Krakoa, and I like....want to know what day to day life looks like for something like the Guthrie family, ten kids strong with at least half of them mutants by now and the other half all potential mutants. Also, there's so much left unexplored about Jay's feelings before his death and now that he's back.

Jeffrey Garrett - I have no idea where I want this kid to go, just that he should be back now and I think there's lots that can be explored about a teleporter whose secondary mutation let him live on as a ghost after he died, until M-Day depowered that version of him. What's his perspective like in particular, now that he's back and has a lot more experience with different states of existence than even mutants twice his age?

Hydro, Flood, Naiad, etc - Totally obscure water-based mutants like that kid who drowned on M-Day and other background figures, but other than that one glimpse we got of an aquatic mutant community based off of Krakoa, we've seen nothing. Would love to see a book use one of them to explore what life's like in that Krakoan subaquatic community, or whether Arakko has something similar....and I'd also love to see even hints of aquatic mutants working or training with SWORD to interact with various water-dwelling alien races or civilizations. Part of the appeal of mutants in galactic affairs is mutants have so many unique cross-sections of abilities and life experiences, they can interact more broadly with the breadth of alien life forms and cultures out there with greater potential for common ground to build off of.

[K7P5V]

With the Academy X kids being back.. I really hope writers use them and pepper them through out the books..

DJ being used in a book really was a highlight for me.. I hope that someone uses Tag ( and tweak his power), and I pray Ewing does me a a solid and has Kidogo pop up on in Xmen red. Additionally, I hope that slightly more popular folks like Trance, Indra, and Match finally get some screen time this era.

Yeah! Definitely would LOVE to see more of Trance working with her peers, along with higher-ranked members from other X-teams.

Kidogo was definitely one of the most neglected members of the main six squads, along with Dryad and Specter, so I'd like to see them get a little something, although I'll admit I'm more interested in seeing personal faves like Hellion, Wind-Dancer, Dust and Indra.

In agreement with you about Sofia & Julian. Still believe they made a great couple (IMHO):

[Paragon]

Of the second and third tier characters, I think the two I'd most like to see get used more are Dryad and Trance. Dryad's power set is very relevant in the current age and Trance's powers have a lot of potential for exploration and advancement. Plus, I just like Trance. Hey, remember that time Nanny and Orphan-Maker tried to kill her parents?

Though, obviously, I most want to see Mercury get a more prominent and enjoyable role. The two most logical places would be X-Men Red due to survivability and New Mutants because magic resistance and back-and-forth sniping at each other with Magik with the Limbo storyline. I don't expect either to happen, but I can dream.

[BobbysWorld]

Of the second and third tier characters, I think the two I'd most like to see get used more are Dryad and Trance. Dryad's power set is very relevant in the current age and Trance's powers have a lot of potential for exploration and advancement. Plus, I just like Trance. Hey, remember that time Nanny and Orphan-Maker tried to kill her parents?

Though, obviously, I most want to see Mercury get a more prominent and enjoyable role. The two most logical places would be X-Men Red due to survivability and New Mutants because magic resistance and back-and-forth sniping at each other with Magik with the Limbo storyline. I don't expect either to happen, but I can dream.

I totally forgot about Cessily's magic resistance! There are a couple other mutants with magic resistance I'm pretty sure, but add her to the list of 'would totally make sense to be useful in Knights of X but do I actually WANT her there hmmmmm.'

[Paragon]

I totally forgot about Cessily's magic resistance! There are a couple other mutants with magic resistance I'm pretty sure, but add her to the list of 'would totally make sense to be useful in Knights of X but do I actually WANT her there hmmmmm.'

Yeah, Knights of X would be the third option because Cessily should be useful and durable in Otherworld. But that invites the danger of sending an Academy X character who would be the implied hardest-to-kill member of the team to the place where their personalities get destroyed forever upon death, so I kind of just...ignored it.

[BobbysWorld]

Yeah, Knights of X would be the third option because Cessily should be useful and durable in Otherworld. But that invites the danger of sending an Academy X character who would be the implied hardest-to-kill member of the team to the place where their personalities get destroyed forever upon death, so I kind of just...ignored it.

Yeah, you're right. We're just gonna innocently whistle-and-stroll our way past that and move things along, before any writers go getting any ideas there. Nothing to see here folks. As you were.

[Sutekh]

Dallas Gibson - Legion of X and X-Men Red: Similarly, have Specter hanging out on Mars too, since you could easily tie him into the same kinds of stories via his Darkforce connection. Or as Sutekh pointed out, there have actually been LOTS of random mutants said to have Darkforce based powers over the years...

Aand I just remembered another, Silhouette Chord, of the New Warriors!

Kidogo - X-Men Red: I've actually kinda wanted to see what Ewing would do with him ever since he wrote Brand using Pym Particles in SWORD. Size-changers NOT based on Pym Particles are rare and I'd be curious to see Ewing explore if this potentially makes a mutant size-changer's experiences/interactions with something like the Micro-verse different from that of someone using technology to visit it. Like given how esoteric the Micro-verse/Quantumverse is said to be to experience for anyone, messing with the minds of a lot of size-shifters who visit it, could the minds of mutants born with the power to reach it on their own potentially interpret it or glean things from the experience that other people miss? Also given that Manifold's powers manipulate space in lots of ways, not just for teleportation, I wonder what kinds of circuits these two characters could build, affecting spatial dimensions and proportions and mass in various ways?

And various other size-changers like Tower, Thumbelina or even, potentially, Elizabeth Guthrie / Amazon, could get involved.

Tag - Legion of X, X-Men Red, or even Marauders: Whoops I'm starting to feel a theme here. ANYWAY, I've always loved highly specialized powers and I think Tag's power always had a lot of untapped potential as is. Especially if he could grow to use it to not just tag items or people as things for everyone to run away from....what if he could do the reverse and tag things to almost compulsively draw people or at least their attention TO like a kinda psychic lodestone. Maybe he could rename himself something like Beacon, and he's ideal for crowd control. There's a firefight happening and he 'paints' a random point in the distance with his tag/beacon signal and psychically redirects the focus of all enemy fire, so they just harmlessly shoot at this distant object they can't seem to look away from. He'd be ideal in relief efforts too, designating safe zones with his power that people are irresistibly drawn to and can't lose track of no matter how much confusion gets in the way. Etc, etc.

If his powers expanded to be able to cause people to avoid or be attracted to himself, in particular, I could see him being pretty handy. Make everyone ignore him and waltz through a firefight. Nobody can even aim at him, he'd only be at risk of large area effect explosions that hit him by accident, or random bullets not aimed at him. Alternately, focus everyone's attention on him while flashing a nonsense 'badge' too quickly to be read and pretend to be some sort of authority figure or government agent, counting on his power to make people used to a chain-of-command think he's at the top of the heap, as he's drawn all attention to himself like a 'leader' should. Tag's got great potential, and I've always liked people like Dani or Doug or David Alleyne who take one small subset of 'telepathy' and manage to be a completely viable character anyway.

Dryad - New Mutants, X-Men Red, Legion of X: Black Tom and the Healing Gardens are two distinct gripes of mine in the current era. The fixation on ONLY showing him in all plant-related matters or ONLY ever showing Cece and the Morlock Healer in what's essentially THE hospital for an entire people who number over 200,000 now and climbing....it makes the island feel a lot smaller than it actually should be. There are so many random mutant healers and plant-manipulators out there, even just use them in the background of the Healing Gardens or interacting with Krakoa's vegetation? Like, as to Dryad and plant-manipulators in particular, Krakoa's the ideal spot to show them building and working in circuits with the island itself.

Dryad's an interesting case because she's not even the only plant-manipulator *in her family,* her father (Giancarlo?) created the hedge maze at Xavier's, and was described by Emma, IIRC, as a 'famous mutant landscaper.'

Interesting ideas about Trance and DJ, tying them potentially to concepts like Legion's astral realm or the Fraternity of Raptors 'datasong.'

Icarus - I desperately want SOME book, maybe New Mutants, maybe a new one, to do sorta a revolving Day In the Life take on various mutants on Krakoa, and I like....want to know what day to day life looks like for something like the Guthrie family, ten kids strong with at least half of them mutants by now and the other half all potential mutants. Also, there's so much left unexplored about Jay's feelings before his death and now that he's back.

Yeah, his whole story is untold. The kid was self-mutilating, and borderline suicidal, because he hated being a mutant, and now he's back and, apparently cool with it? If there's ever an argument for Krakoa doing something to the minds of it's many mutant residents to make them strangely compliant with the new order, the total non-reaction of Jay to being dragged kicking and screaming back to a life of mutancy is exhibit one.

I'd also be interested in seeing whether or not his mom Lucinda is one of the humans allowed to live on Krakoa (like Northstar's hubby Kyle, or Jubilee's kid Shogo). Or his five not-yet-mutant-siblings. Or do they have to stand at the back of the bus?

Jeffrey Garrett -

I was never clear on whether his ghostly state had something to do with his mutation, or he was just a straight up ghost, the way Ilyanna is a sorceress, and that has nothing to do with her also being a mutant.

It could go either way. He might have, like Amelia Voight, been teleporting by dispersing his molecules into a misty state, and his 'ghost' form just be an expansion of that (he never 'rematerialized' because he thought he was dead!).

Hydro, Flood, Naiad, etc -

Definitely, and since it's been established that Atlanteans can also be mutants, such as Crosta, I'd expect to see even more, as well as various mutants whose mutations might not be specifically aquatic, but allow them to function underwater as well, such as Shark Girl or any other fishy-mutants.

[BobbysWorld]

Jay's a complicated subject but desperately in need of focus for precisely all of these reasons. I know I've said elsewhere that I don't agree that his resurrection and appearance since then is proof that there's shadiness or mind whammies involved in resurrection, its just the lack of focus that makes it feel like whiplash. There's nothing inherently PREVENTING the character from getting from the point we saw him at in New X-Men to the point he's apparently at now, but the willful refusal to SHOW any of that journey is a huge disservice to the character, readers, and many concepts of the current era as a whole, because it just makes it FEEL shady or suspect, due entirely to the writers just not wanting to do the hard work of EARNING the most recent depiction of Jay and trying to fast forward to it past all the writing about recovery that such a story or transition SHOULD entail.

Like yeah, this is a character who has struggled with suicidal impulses in the past, particularly when written by writers like Chuck Austen not known for their nuance or tact either, but he did not actually kill himself or even try to when he died, nor was it as simple as him chopping off his wings because he was a self-loathing mutant. He was a messed up kid who had a lot of trauma and guilt directly tied to his being a mutant since he felt Julia would never have died if he wasn't a mutant....but he didn't just hate being a mutant in a complete vacuum like it was that simple and all there was to it. And additionally, the ONLY reason he actually cut off his own wings was because Stryker deliberately sought him out and preyed on his emotional state and guilt, and convinced him by way of using foreknowledge from Nimrod to act like he had a chat window to the Divine open on the side, and it said that if Jay 'gave up' his wings it would somehow save or protect his classmates.

THAT was specifically written as why he was so against Elixir trying to heal him, he yelled at him to get away not because he hated being a mutant that much, but because he never got a chance to work through all the trauma he had surrounding his mutant manifestation and was convinced that this was his penance for all the bad things he felt had happened because of him. And since he'd yet to learn Stryker had lied to him, he was afraid Josh healing him and giving him back his wings would 'undo' Jay's sacrifice and the protection he thought it'd bring his classmates.

Sorry, its just there's certain narratives that pop up a lot on this board about how Jay should have stayed dead, and I don't think its nearly that simple and that's one hundred percent WHY there's always gonna be hella potential for a story exploring Jay in particular, Before and After, and like, SHOWING him post-resurrection getting the focus and help from his family and mental health professionals that could actually have led to him adjusting to life on Krakoa as a mutant again, and this time, happy about it. No, Julia hasn't been brought back of course, but the idea that this means he could NEVER be happy as a mutant has always bugged the crap out of me, because intentionally or not, it just validates the idea that Jay should feel culpable for her death because it was his fault for being a mutant. No. Julia's death will always be fucked up, but there exists the potential for Jay to be happy and a mutant in spite of that at some point because whether that ever happened was never dependent on Julia being resurrected, it was dependent on Jay coming to terms with the fact that hateful bigots killed her....whether or not they were only there to go after him doesn't change the fact that he is not responsible for their actions and neither is the fact that he's a mutant.

And the fact that they have no seeming interest in WRITING that story and just want to short cut to 'everything's all better now' is annoying as hell, patronizing, and also a disservice to their own characters and franchise because in the right writer's hands, that's a really powerful emotional journey to take readers on.

But yeah, also we just need an issue or two showing us the Guthrie family status quo on Krakoa, because that could go such a long way to making Krakoa work and be more palatable in the long run, if like, we got to see them as an example of a family of both mutants and humans, all living safely on Krakoa and benefiting from it. Like, its not just that Kyle's a human living on the island over in X-Factor, Sam's also married to a non-mutant and has a son with her and I can't imagine him being okay with Izzy not being able to come and go from the island with him and their son as much as she likes. Same logic extends to his mom and siblings. Personally I prefer to imagine there's a Guthrie homestead on Krakoa near the Akademos Habitat, where Lucinda lives with all of her kids human and mutant alike, except for the ones who have their own places and just pop in to visit, like Sam and Paige (since Gen-X supposedly has a house just for them too).

Hell, I'd like to expand on even that.....anyone remember the girl who died of M-Pox in Limbo, with the X-Ray vision power? Lucid I think she was called....there was a really touching story in IvX where her human mother and sister had come to Limbo with her, and because she was a huge X-Men fan and wanted to be one when she grew up, when she was on her deathbed her sister basically just went and yelled at the X-Men to come see her before she died because all Lucid ever wanted was to grow up to be just like them.

Like, c'mon Marvel, gimme a story where Storm shows up at the house of the mom and sister now and just asks them to trust her and come with her, there's something they need to see, and then brings them to Krakoa for Lucid's resurrection ceremony and they end up getting a Krakoan-grown house just down the 'lane' from the Guthrie house, so Lucid can grow up safe and happy around other mutants and her sister can come and go as she pleases and maybe ends up joining SWORD and idk. I think there's plenty of room for a balance to be drawn between Krakoa as a safe haven for mutants and complete isolationism...there's plenty of reason in the Marvel U for mutants not to feel comfortable just blithely throwing open their gates to anyone to access for any reason, but that could still pair with the idea that over time, more and more humans start to be integrated into their society as well because its never been sustainable for them to be completely estranged from human society as long as mutant couples can still have human babies and many young mutants like the Guthries and Carmen Cruz from Children of the Atom have human family members who accept and love them.

[K7P5V]

Of the second and third tier characters, I think the two I'd most like to see get used more are Dryad and Trance. Dryad's power set is very relevant in the current age and Trance's powers have a lot of potential for exploration and advancement. Plus, I just like Trance. Hey, remember that time Nanny and Orphan-Maker tried to kill her parents?

In agreement with you about Trance having great potential. And yeah, still remember that One-Shot. Definitely good times (LOL):