X-Books FAQ/Mutant Tracker Thread II

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Q85: Who were the “Original X-Men”?

A85:

The first group of X-Men, brought together by Professor X, are commonly known as the “O5” and consist of Cyclops (Scott Summers), Iceman (Bobby Drake), Angel (Warren Worthington III), Beast (Henry “Hank” McCoy, and Marvel Girl I (Jean Grey), all introduced to readers in Uncanny X-Men (vol. 1) #1.

Now, which of the original X-Men was first is a matter for some debate. While Uncanny X-Men (vol. 1) #38-42 revealed Xavier to have recruited Cyclops first, before he would eventually add Iceman, Angel, Beast, and then introduce Marvel Girl to the boys last, Jean was counseled as Professor Xavier’s student prior to him bringing all the Original X-Men together as the school (revealed in Bizarre Adventures #27, Classic X-Men #42, etc). So there are those that claim she’s Xavier’s first X-Man because of being the first student. Cyclops, however, was the first student Xavier created a uniform for, and the first to refer to himself as an X-Man.

There are some around the CBR X-Book Forums, however, who acknowledge that Charles Xavier had already met Tessa (a.k.a. Sage) and telepathically reached out to her for help after he was crippled in Afghanistan by the alien menace known as Lucifer. She was revealed to have been at the Xavier Mansion in X-Treme X-Men (vol. 1) #44, however, Xavier explicitly told her he did not want her at the school, and sent her on a mission to infiltrate the Hellfire Club, and relay intelligence of their activities back to him. There was once a thread around CBR suggesting the O5 have Tessa added to an O6, created by Novaya Havoc once upon a time.

In any event, before the first generation of X-Men were complete, Professor Xavier had a few more attempts at adding recruits, some of which were successful, and some not.

• Attempts were made on various occasions by Professor Xavier to recruit Emma Frost to his school (via retcons), or near misses where his young team interacted with her. (See here for more details.)
• The X-Men made an attempt to recruit the Blob (Fred Dukes) in Uncanny X-Men (vol. 1) #3, which got him in the door of the school, but backfired in a big way.
• For a time, the X-Men managed to get the Mimic (Calvin Rankin) to join the team in Uncanny X-Men (vol. 1) #27, before he left in Uncanny X-Men (vol. 1) #29, after losing his powers in battle with the Super-Adaptoid.
• There was a time where Xavier placed the mutant known as Changeling on the team (revealed in Uncanny X-Men (vol. 1) #65), to impersonate him, which tragically ended with Changeling’s death in Xavier’s stead at the hands of Grotesk in Uncanny X-Men (vol. 1) #41-42.
• Polaris (Lorna Dane) and Havok (Alex Summers) joined the X-Men in Uncanny X-Men (vol. 1) #60-61.

That was about it for members of the “first generation” of X-Men.

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Q86: What were the “X-Men: 1.5 that I've heard some people refer to?

A86: The answer to this question would involve a reader immersing themselves in the X-Men: Deadly Genesis (written by Ed Brubaker) miniseries, that retconned some things into the X-Men mythos that had seemed constants for over thirty years.

In that storyline, written in 2006, after the Decimation hit, all the mutant energy signatures that were stripped from mutants were not eliminated, but transferred. While a majority of them ended up finding Michael Pointer in Alaska in New Avengers (vol. 1) #16, during New Avengers story arc, “The Collective”, before it congregated back on Earth, it was shown in orbit around it in the final panel of House of M #8.

That energy managed to waken some unknown entity in X-Men: Deadly Genesis #1, who had a much older connection to the X-Men then anyone, save for Professor Xavier or Moira MacTaggert had known.

While the “Original 5” X-Men were already having adventures, Professor X had still kept recruiting mutants to place at his school, with the students, but had them being trained by Moira MacTaggert on Muir Isle in Scotland. In effect, these mutants were his “Plan B”, should anything happen to his main students, and keeping them separate was, in a way, not “keeping all their eggs in one basket”.

That team included:

• Petra- The daughter of immigrants from Denmark, who lived in New York City, and had earth-manipulation powers.
• Sway- Suzanne Chan, the daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong, who possessed time-manipulation powers.
• Darwin- Armando Munoz, a half-African-American, half-Latino mutant with the power of reactive evolution.
• Vulcan- Gabriel Summers, the long-lost child of Christopher Summers (Corsair) and Katherine Summers, who was removed from his mother’s womb after she died, at only two month’s gestation, and placed in a Shi’ar incubator to be raised to young adulthood to be used as a slave of Erik the Red (Devan Shakari), only to escape, and be found by Moira MacTaggert. Much later, Xavier and MacTaggert discovered to be the brother of Cyclops and Havok. He has the power to psionically manipulate various types of energy.

Well, when the original X-Men, with Havok and Polaris, were captured on Krakoa, the living island, it turned out that the “All New, All Different” X-Men team was not the first rescue team sent by Professor Xavier to find them, and that Krakoa had not simply let Cyclops escape, to lure more mutants for it to feed upon. As was revealed in X-Men: Deadly Genesis #6, the “X-Men 1.5” rescued Cyclops, placing him in the strato-jet, where Cyclops watched hopelessly as Krakoa began to slaughter his rescuers. Xavier, upon hearing Cyclops’ story, knew that he needed the leader of his young students to be clear of mind when he led a new team of mutants to rescue the rest of the original team, who he could still sense were alive. Xavier wiped Cyclops’ memory of his brother Gabriel, and the rest of the rescue team from his mind, and swore Moira MacTaggert to secrecy, in spite of her protests, and the fact she knew the rescue team wasn’t ready to be sent.

Well, as it turned out, Cyclops only saw Sway and Petra killed as he was leaving Krakoa. Their last actions as they died, respectively, were to slow down the flow of time to prevent Krakoa from murdering Darwin and Vulcan, while simultaneously burying them beneath the soil of Krakoa itself, where it could not reach them. In this underground pocket, Darwin’s power of reactive evolution transformed him into living energy, which allowed Vulcan, in turn, to use it for sustenance, and to stay alive. Within this slow-time cavern, Vulcan lost consciousness, and lay dormant… when the “All New, All Different” X-Men came to the rescue in Giant Size X-Men #1, they battled Krakoa, and then Polaris finally threw it into orbit around the Earth, not knowing that Vulcan was still trapped inside it. It then orbited the Earth as a distant asteroid for years, until the energies of the depowered mutants on M-Day moved close enough to allow Vulcan to use his powers to sense them, and manipulate them to aid in his awakening, and escaping to return to Earth. Darwin was eventually separated from Vulcan by Rachel Summers, who detected him inside of Gabriel telepathically, and helped free him. Thus, the “X-Men 1.5” had a 50% mortality rate after one mission.

• Vulcan ended up becoming the focus of a 12-issue storyline, Uncanny X-Men (vol.1) #475-486, as he sought out vengeance against the Shi’ar, and within a shockingly short span of time, managed to usurp their entire empire out from under them to rule, in part by becoming the consort to Deathbird, restoring her brother D’Ken to the throne, then marry Deathbird, then kill D’Ken, and while he was at it to commit patricide and kill Corsair in the chaos that ensued.
  
  He continued to remain an antagonist, in particular to Havok and his Starjammers, through such miniseries as X-Men: Emperor Vulcan, X-Men: Kingbreaker, and was finally defeated in apparent mortal combat against Black Bolt of the Inhumans during War of Kings. While it was eventually revealed that Black Bolt survived their clash, Vulcan is still believed to have been killed in the explosion of the T-Bomb, that opened the dimensional rift in space known as The Fault.
  
  
• Darwin joined a team of X-Men officially in Uncanny X-Men (vol.1) #475 to attempt to bring him home before he could do any harm to the Shi’ar, or himself, and remained on the team until after “Messiah CompleX”, when he returned to be with his father in Detroit. There, he was kidnapped by a group of scientists from the Karma Project who wanted to study and exploit his abilities for their own gain, hoping to clone an army of him. He was rescued by X-Factor Investigations in X-Factor (vol. 3) #38, joined the team, and remained until he took a leave of absence in X-Factor (vol. 1) #213, after he using his evolutionary reaction powers to survive the magicks of the Asgardian goddess of death, Hela.

That’s as much as can be said about the "X-Men 1.5" currently, as of this post.