X-Men Annual #1 - Textless Preview and Interview

[Dream Boy]

The more I see and read about this annual, the more excited I get. Nice to see a writer familiar with Angelica's history and specifically mentioning that she has never been anti-mutant and her extensive history as a hero. Plus, we get to explore some of her past with the Hellions. Should be a good book.

[MexM]

Awesome to see Bobby's new costume here. It looks better in this style imo

Also always glad to see them continue his and Angelica's friendship, hopefully we get more of Firestar interacting with team (unless it's Magik making fun of her lol) like that Cyclops part.

[FluffyCyclopsRLZ]

Is it too early to joke about how this will somehow end up with a scene of Angelica and Scott talking about how awesome Emma is?

[blinkingblah]

Love to see Catseye there but not as a bully hopefully...

[Nicoclaws]

I mean, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I'd argue that any of the Hellions could have literally been New Mutants if Xavier had gotten to them first, given that the original Hellions were pretty clearly created as deliberate analogues of the New Mutants.

(It is after all the quickest and easiest way to come up with a whole lineup of new characters meant to be antagonists to an existing lineup of characters).

Cannonball - Jetstream
Mirage - Empath
Magik - Tarot
Wolfsbane - Catseye
Karma - Roulette (obviously their powers don't mirror each other's the same way the others parallel, but its not hard to see how when riffing off the New Mutants lineup and not wanting to make another telepath - likely because Emma was much more directly involved in the Hellions stories in ways Xavier wasn't in the New Mutants so that'd create a lot more overlap there than exists with Xavier and Karma - well, if you want to make a dark mirror counterpart to Karma and you don't want her to be telepathic, what do you go with? "Hey, what if one of the Hellions can hit her enemies with weaponized bad luck - kinda like a riff on 'instant karma'?" LOL I always did think it was funny that given how little Karma's codename has to do with her actual power, the character created just to be her inverse counterpart has a closer thematic tie to Karma's own codename than she does).

And then of course Warpath and Firestar weren't created specifically TO be Hellions/parallels to the New Mutants, and were added to that lineup for other reasons, but there was no need to create analogues to Sunspot and Magma when the teams initially clashed, since they had Jimmy and Angelica there to be Roberto and Amara's sparring partners in those first conflicts.

Which meant, of course, once Jimmy and Angelica DID split from the Hellions....here comes new bruiser character Beef and energy caster/elemental Bevatron.

Poor Doug, the only New Mutant who didn't get his own special nemesis. All because he was so firmly regarded as a noncombatant back then, nobody saw any point to giving him one. LMAO.

What's funny is that the mirror effect is so obvious.
Jetstream is arrogant, Empath is deeply unempathic, Tarot is insecure, Catseye is free, Roulette was irresponsible...

[BobbysWorld]

What's funny is that the mirror effect is so obvious.
Jetstream is arrogant, Empath is deeply unempathic, Tarot is insecure, Catseye is free, Roulette was irresponsible...

Well now I'm actually mad we never got a Hellion-ized Doug counterpart.

I mean, if the pattern holds, we were denied the ultimate himbo.

[Master of Sound]

Beef and Bevatron were later additions and barely received any focus. Beef was an a-hole for sure, like a bully. But Bevatron I could not say if he is likable or not. I am not even sure if he was spotted on Krakoa since the start of this era. But I could be mistaken.

[kevlon]

The writer said that her previous time as a teacher in the school and as a former X-Man hasn't been forgotten and will also be explored in the annual.

Which is great because I was starting to think all the writers had forgotten that Angelica has been around the X-Men for almost the last decade.

[kevlon]

It says a lot about the X-Men office that they’re doing this for Firestar, but didn’t do anything close to it for Polaris, and now they have Polaris completely disconnected from current affairs in the wake of her father dying while stopping an attempted genocide.

This isn’t a complaint about Firestar getting this work. It’s a complaint about Polaris not getting it too, and the X-Men office having absolutely no plans in that vein.

Yeah that's a shame, I love Polaris and don't think she was utilised enough during her stint on the team.

I'm sure she'll show up again soon on a team.

[BobbysWorld]

The writer said that her previous time as a teacher in the school and as a former X-Man hasn't been forgotten and will also be explored in the annual.

Which is great because I was starting to think all the writers had forgotten that Angelica has been around the X-Men for almost the last decade.

Yeah, I'm glad to see that too.

(Though I mean, I spend so much time trying not to think about Aaron's X-Men stuff that when X-writers do the same thing I'm like, look, I get it. Heh.)

[Aeon]

I think Cyclops told her to burn her Avengers ID card.

„ah don’t want any of those things in ma house! You know what ahm say‘n? Mmhhhmmmmm“

[kevlon]

I don't love Bobby's newer costume, but it's not awful and I can deal with it. But the artist also seems to be drawing his ice form in the style of Vecchio, and I do not care for that hair and ugly ice goatee at all.

In a conflict between Firestar and her former schoolmates the Hellions, I am 100% rooting for the Hellions.

I guess someone needs to root for the bullies. I'm not sure how any of them have the bare faced cheek to judge her. The only thing they've proven good at is dying.

[danielsan52]

Love to see Catseye there but not as a bully hopefully...

She usually isn't. From the look on her and Jetstream's faces, I think they disapprove of Roulette.

[Triniking1234]

This preview made me realize how interesting the original Hellions were, and that it's sad that they never really got their moment in the sun. They should unleash Warren Ellis and Humberto Ramos and go totally DV8 with them in their own book.

The Hellions were just the generic rival team like the Masters of Evil and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. I'm still trying to figure out why they tried to redeem Empath of all members.

[Milici]

Beef and Bevatron were later additions and barely received any focus. Beef was an a-hole for sure, like a bully. But Bevatron I could not say if he is likable or not. I am not even sure if he was spotted on Krakoa since the start of this era. But I could be mistaken.

Bevatron was in the first issue of Hickman's New Mutants and in the last issue of Hellions.