New, Young, and Disenfranchised: Academy X-Men Appreciation 2024

[Sutekh]

To think OG Quire was actually an interesting character. He never should have been used in the way he has been since Schism. Jason Aaron turned him into someone else entirely and Ben Percy did even less research.

I thought it was neat that he built an anti-grav system for Martha Johanssen, so that she could fly around and not be stuck immobile, like a goldfish in a bowl. That and being more or less homeless, rejected by his adoptive parents, and addicted to a power-enhancing drug because he was a marginal telepath without it and wanted to feel powerful and important and popular. He had a lot of potential to go either way, into full-blown villain, or to build on his kindness to Martha and ability to gather together other marginal or neglected mutants, and become a new young mutant leader.

But he's changed so much, in powers, background and personality. He's an entirely different character, and one that's not nearly as potentially sympathetic. If Morrison's Quire came back and replaced the one that's replaced him, I'd be willing to give OG Quire a chance, but the current character is not someone I want to read about. (And, frankly, there's at least two dozen people ahead of OG Quire on the list of young mutants I'd want to read about!)

Everything *this* Quire does (attitude, telekinesis, former rich kid thrown out by the fam) Hellion does better.

[Rift]

That OG QQ art makes him so unlikable. I can see why they spent so much time fixing him. He looks like he went to H****r School.

Homer School?

[Grunty]

As disheartening as the thought might be, perhaps it's not really a problem that there is no new comic with these characters on the horizon, since that is likely going to get canceled before the characters are even fully re-introduced.

Rather what they might actualy need would be a proper new X-men cartoon. If not featuring them as main cast, at least one that gives them the chance to appear in supporting or side story roles again.

Because metaphorical speaking "nobody" (as in a barely significant number compared to the wider fanbase) reads the comics anymore, especially not a young and more open minded audience who would be willing to give these "unknowns" a chance or become invested in them.

Which is not to say that the (apparent) primary current buyership of collectors and hobbiest are entirely opposed to supporting titles featuring young, different and new characters, as long as the quality is there, considering many of them likely once supported New Mutants, Generation X and the original New X-men (Acadamy) too.

However it seems a lot of this goodwill has eroded over the last 2+ decades because of "dubious handling" of the IPs and characters, on top of at times almost hostile relation with the established fans and buyers.

After all, why become invested in new characters when they are just one writer or title change away from being presented entirely differently, lose all their character development, regressed, turned into something different with no build up, thrown into limbo or killed off for cheap shock moments?

As such even if a new "young mutant" title would knock it out of the park again with good writing, great art and engaging stories (something sorely missing ever since New X-men got caceled) there is still a 50/50 (or higher) chance now that it would still fail because the buyers had been disappointed too often.

As such Marvel has unintentionaly fostered the worst possible situation for these many viable characters full of potential.

Meanwhile a proper new cartoon could not only reach a much wider audience, which hasn't been turned into such cynics as the comic fanbase yet, but would also be made outside the stuck in it's way office structure of the comic division.

But at the moment it seems Disney and Marvel rather try to play it safe with reviving a 30 year old cartoon show which can't use the characters created after it or break the illusion of being a throw back product.

[CGAR]

Homer School?

Magneto would not like this school.

[Rift]

Magneto would not like this school.

Sorry sorry, I'm mustering all the Jewish blood with me and I still can't recognize the word. I can only think of Homer, Hamburger, Hooker and Hater. I do be a little dumb like that.

EDIT: Oh OHHHHH Now I get it

[CGAR]

I guess it makes sense since QQ was all about that mutant supremacy.

[Thirteen]

That OG QQ art makes him so unlikable. I can see why they spent so much time fixing him. He looks like he went to H****r School.

I guess it makes sense since QQ was all about that mutant supremacy.

YEAH. Was going to say: that's NOT an accident and, while he's a compelling character, he's not held out for us to "like" him at that point. That he wasn't a flash in the pan as a writer's pet character and then discarded (regardless of how subsequent writers utilized him) speaks volumes to his worth to the X-Lore.



...But not to turn this into a QQ Appreciation...I think his class at the school really had some standouts that deserve inclusion alongside HELLION, MERCURY, WALLFLOWER, ELIXIR etc
Beak
Angel
Dust
No-Girl
Ernst (I KNOW)
Glob
etc...

[Psych1c]

.I think his class at the school really had some standouts that deserve inclusion alongside HELLION, MERCURY, WALLFLOWER, ELIXIR etc
Beak
Angel
Dust
No-Girl
Ernst (I KNOW)
Glob
etc...

This last picture... this art is so bad IMO. I really like Martha Johansson! The concept, her story, some moments like when she mindwiped Rachel during Spider-man and the X-men.

Although not the best art, this cover is one of the best during this era. Look at them! They look so powerful as a team.


As much as I like Julian and I usually prefer telekinesis over any other powers, Surge is so much distinctive as a character. It's a shame she hasn't been used for real in the Krakoa era.

This video does a good job telling her story:

[Milici]

Surge, Armor and Bling! Had many chances to shine in the Krakoan era, they were even candidate to be X-Men.

Also a very loud portion of the fanbase think Surge is racist. They would never get over that.

At least we got to see Spectr, DJ and Tag using their powers. I hope the new era spread the spotlight a bit more.

[Fokken]

As the resident biggots among Dani's squad, Josh's & Noriko's prejudices are definitely something I would have appreciated seeing explored and addressed and eventually have them evolve from --had the book lasted longer.

I would have loved to see how the rest of the New Mutants squad reacted when made aware of Nori's behavior around Sooraya.
Would that affect David's romantic feelings? Would that prove irreconcilable for Sofia's bleeding heart? Would Icarus fully quit the squad? Would Nori request a transfer?
And how about Josh? These kids were, in my humble opinion, remarkably swift to forgive Josh's Reaver days. If anything, the Hellions ought to have been routinely vocal about it.

All the stories prior to Kyle/Yost had a lot of slow simmering subplots, (very Benjamin Percy) but none of them are fully dug into or resolved because the decimation happened and the prospect of LONG TERM SLOW BURN in comics requires a BIG NAME (both creator and character) to pull off.

[Sutekh]

As the resident biggots among Dani's squad, Josh's & Noriko's prejudices are definitely something I would have appreciated seeing explored and addressed and eventually have them evolve from --had the book lasted longer.

I would have loved to see how the rest of the New Mutants squad reacted when made aware of Nori's behavior around Sooraya.
Would that affect David's romantic feelings? Would that prove irreconcilable for Sofia's bleeding heart? Would Icarus fully quit the squad? Would Nori request a transfer?
And how about Josh? These kids were, in my humble opinion, remarkably swift to forgive Josh's Reaver days. If anything, the Hellions ought to have been routinely vocal about it.

All the stories prior to Kyle/Yost had a lot of slow simmering subplots, (very Benjamin Percy) but none of them are fully dug into or resolved because the decimation happened and the prospect of LONG TERM SLOW BURN in comics requires a BIG NAME (both creator and character) to pull off.

As has already been noted, Josh's personality has radically changed from the putz he was in those days to the spokesrep for the Five in the early Krakoan age (before Hope stepped up and took the baton and became the only member of the Five allowed to speak...).

Nori's original crap treatment of Sooraya, I felt was at least softened a bit by A) her own crap treatment as 'the stinky homeless chick' (and the 'kicked out by the fam when they found out she was mutant' thing that led to her homelessness in the first place) when she arrived and B) her later dashing out to bring Sooraya her clothes after she reformed naked out in the woods and them having a talk about modesty on the way back in.

Especially with teens, I willing to forgive not everyone getting it right at the start, so long as they show some willingness to change, and Nori was doing so, IMO.

Compare to Sam Guthrie, a character I very much like, who to this day calls Roberto 'Bobby,' which is a form of racism, to some folk, some rando to 'Americanize' someone's foreign name to make it easier for themselves.

[Psych1c]

Surge, Armor and Bling! Had many chances to shine in the Krakoan era, they were even candidate to be X-Men.

Also a very loud portion of the fanbase think Surge is racist. They would never get over that.

At least we got to see Spectr, DJ and Tag using their powers. I hope the new era spread the spotlight a bit more.

As the resident biggots among Dani's squad, Josh's & Noriko's prejudices are definitely something I would have appreciated seeing explored and addressed and eventually have them evolve from --had the book lasted longer.

I would have loved to see how the rest of the New Mutants squad reacted when made aware of Nori's behavior around Sooraya.
Would that affect David's romantic feelings? Would that prove irreconcilable for Sofia's bleeding heart? Would Icarus fully quit the squad? Would Nori request a transfer?
And how about Josh? These kids were, in my humble opinion, remarkably swift to forgive Josh's Reaver days. If anything, the Hellions ought to have been routinely vocal about it.

Before I comment on the topic, what makes this portion of the fandom think Noriko is racist?

I do remember her being hostile towards Soraaya when they first met. I just read it again to make sure, and I do think Surge was being stupid and disrespectful for no reason, but I also remember later her helping Dust later when she used her powers and didn't have her clothes on. It seems they got along better as time went by.

Reading their dialogue again made me think that what Noriko said aligns well with feminism and I wonder if Soraaya were Christian or just conservative (nowadays) if this large portion of the fandom would think Noriko was wrong or just being progressive. Regardless of their opinion, though, Noriko had no reason to be that confrontational. She was like that because of her past and family situation, yeah, but it's not an excuse to mistreat people.

About Josh, people make mistakes and they change. I won't fight anyone that doesn't want to "forgive" him, but it would be hypocritical to believe people need to learn to be less ignorant, to change and get better and also be like "nah, that character did this once". It gets worse when you have people like Emma Frost, Rogue, even Jean Grey, that have done something bad before (it's arguable how bad it was and if they did intentionally, in Grey's case). It's a delicate matter.

[Ulysian_Thracs]

Before I comment on the topic, what makes this portion of the fandom think Noriko is racist?

Oversensitivity? People who see every single interaction through the lens of race or religion or sexuality, and every disagreement as something born from such animus?

I recall the tension when they met, and it had nothing to do with racism. Nori didn't understand and disagreed with Sooraya's beliefs on modesty. That is not nearly the same thing as hating her for who she was. It is completely normal and acceptable to think someone else's beliefs are wrong. In fact, there are debates going on within Islam right now over women's rights (and gay rights). We have to respect each other's rights to believe as they believe. But we are under no obligation to agree, or even approve, of each other's personal beliefs.

Just like the people who hate Hellion because he grabbed Laura's hand once or something. Forget that he was a wounded child soldier double amputee struggling with mental illness/suicidal thoughts whose best friend (who he was always there for) totally ditched him. Context never matters. Nor does it matter that she's killed more people than heart disease and didn't care herself. It's some kind of domestic violence thing, so he is a terrible character.

[Master of Sound]

I have a big surprise to reveal: The very first Young/New X-Men kid hero will make their entry on the Marvel Contest of Champions game.

It's not Armor, it's not Hellion, or Surge, it is.....


DUST

[JB]

Marvel Contest of Champions:

Dust and Ironheart are stepping into the Battlerealm, ready to unleash their powers.



Cool!