Aaaah! My beautifully complex Julian!! One minute he's blustering bravado and the next, his beaming heart takes hold and no amount of TK Shielding can mask the pain his body betrays. I love him sooooo much.
My baby Jules has been through so much.
Aaaaaall the X-chillenz have been through so much, but permit me to gush briefly...
The Big G (thank you) got me thinking the other day, after having posted the list of things/events/stuff that has failed to kill Julian thus far which made me reflect on him as a person and all that he's endured extending beyond cheating death.
Julian Keller. Emma Frost's golden boy. Confident. Capable. Charismatic. Ambitious. A natural leader. Yes he had some significant egocentric issues that negatively affected his image and relationships with the overall student body and maybe even some of the faculty, but when you've got all that going for you and you come from the family he came from these are all understandable, though not necessarily excusable, character flaws that enrich a character's personality progression. Cliche? Maybe. But I and so many others embraced him either way.
But then it all came crumbling down around him, one tragedy after the next.
His family's shame lain bare for his friends to witness in the Hellions mini (so good, btw).
His unrealized romance cut short by depowered Sofia's departure from the institute.
His best friend Brian murdered in front of him.
The loss of Emma's favor and the subsequent loss of his station, as leader, to Noriko.
The increasing strain of being unable to protect his friends from harm -- in Mercury Falling and the Quest for Magik.
His TK mastery sacrificed to save Laura Kinney.
Lady Deathstrike's butchery.
Unceremoniously abandoned, while still in recovery from said butchery, by both the X-Men AND his birth parents.
Rejected by Magneto.
Reluctantly returning to the X-Men (because really??? Where else could he go?) only to be swept up by the Sapien League and once again, nearly (NEARLY!!) killed.
Further shamed, being defeated and captured by his former mentor Emma Frost, during the Anti-Osborn riot.
But still, he rejoins his fellow X-Men and fights alongside them -- losing his hands against the Second Coming invasion -- which naturally lights the anti-sentinel spark that would later erupt against an ooc(ontrol) Karima, only to be put on disciplinary probation for SAVING his his team and the surrounding civilian population AT THE REQUEST of ooc(ontrol) Karima. OMG.
THEN he gets STABBED by a possessed Wolverine (omg join the club, ammirite??) and rejected by another unrealized romance (Laura) and finally afflicted with the mutant killing M-POX strain.
And still, here he is, alongside his fellow X-Men doing the job. Kudos, Julian Keller. You're made of sterner stuff than most.