The whole ResurreXion thing is supposed to be returning the mutants to a position of importance in the Marvel universe but it’s not working for me. The Gold team is an arbitrary “Hey, let’s just take the most known heroes and put them on the same team with a questionable writer at the helm” while the freakin’ O5 are still hanging around ruining everything for the young generation of X-Men, who we continue to only be allowed to see as a bunch of jokes in the new Generation X. This all needs to change. The X-Men have long since lost track of what made them so special. The whole paramilitary thing is fun, but what made them so great was that they were teens, who did normal things while learning both how to save the world and just be themselves. And a lot of that has gotten lost in recent years.
My vision for the X-Men, as I previous outlined, features X-Factor and X-Force and a 2nd year slated Amazing X-Men title alongside the central Uncanny book, which is what I’ll be focusing on here. The setting is the New Xavier Institute, rebuilt in a word where mutants and humans are at last coexisting. It seems like the late, great professor’s dream has finally come true. Some past mutant students venture out into the “real world”, but Storm takes over the school to train mutants to represent their race in our fields and, for the select few in the elite Senior Class, perhaps one day become the newest generation of X-Men. That Senior Class is the focus of the book, with the central leads being a modern reimagining of the classic Scott/Jean/Logan trio in the form of future leaders Indra, Oya, and Kid Omega.
Oya
Idie Okonkwo has had an interesting journey since she was first introduced. Various authors have run her through a gauntlet of various motivations, mindsets, and development, some rolling back advances made by others (Looking at you, Bendis) But at her core she’s the future of the X-Men, a strong, independent female leader along the lines of Jean Grey and Storm, even if she doesn’t know it yet. Idie doesn’t want to be a leader, her own worries prevent her from seeing the potential the teachers hope to groom. Normally reserved, but prone to rash, emotional decisions, and with a deep spiritual faith that is so rarely covered in comics, she’s an incredibly unique and powerful character, the perfect focal point for the series.
Every generation needs its bad boy. And this time the “bad boy” just happens to be one of the most potentially powerful mutants of all time. Quentin has been at the school way longer than anyone else, trapped in arrested development, and he knows it. Watching students his age like Rockslide and Hellion graduate to field duty just may knock some sense into him yet, but for now he’s stuck with the kids, including Idie, whom he has a complicated romantic past with. It’s high time we let Quentin grow up a little, but he won’t be doing it without a fight. I see him a lot like Max Fischer from
Rushmore, underachieving because of a fear of growing up. Out of all the characters in the Marvel stable, Quentin is by far one of the ones I would most want to write for, so it was inevitable to put him center stage here.
Indra
Paras Gavascar is not nearly as well known as several of his fellow teammates. In fact, he wasn’t even in my first draft of the lineup. But while looking for supporting students to round out the cast, I found him, and realized he was the perfect Scott Summers archetype. Awkward and unsure of just who he is meant to be, he still maintains the quiet confidence and leadership qualities this rambunctious team needs. Having walked away from his family when he chose to leave their pacifistic ways to fight for his friends, the X-Men are the only family he has left, and he is fully committed to being the steady center holding together the new, rambunctious team.
Cornea
Trevor Hawkins is Eyeboy. And despite having such a potentially epic powerset, no one seems to like him. Which is why I’m having him, on Quentin’s advice, change his codename to something significantly cooler: Cornea. This long-running punchline has been taken under the wannabe leader’s wing. Quentin sees something in Trevor that no one else does, and the befuddled youth is just playing along, while inwardly freaking out as his fighting skills amplify. Outwardly he’s ready to become the toughest brawler on the team, but inwardly, he’s running scared, just trying to keep his powers in check and impress the “cool kids”.
The Others
The Senior Class is rounded out by
Gentle, Match, Trance, and
Bling! Picking the main cast for the series was tough, with the huge swath of students. It’s hard when age is so indeterminate for the students, but I basically decided that the pre-Schism students are all late teens, early 20’s at this point, allowing them to either have graduated or remain on the Senior team. All creations since then remain in the younger classes, the one exception being Trevor. Going from there I tried to pick students who added the most in unique personalities, power sets, and story attributes. Gentle is the “strong guy”, who struggles to balance harmony and rage. He also holds an important connection to Wakanda. Match is the stereotypical hot-headed flame-wielder. He’s a cliché, and proud of it. Trance holds a unique, stealthy power set and a bit of a more “basic” personality. And Bling! Provides a stern, world-weary attitude and sexual diversity. Together, they round out a powerhouse team of unique students with the highest of potentials.
The Teachers
Storm takes the seat of Headmistress. While she’d rather be out in the field kicking butt, she knows she is one of the few prominent leaders left, and the only one fit and/or interested for a teaching position. On her staff are
Rachel Grey, who finds herself particularly home at the school and
Gambit, who, despite his dubious credentials, takes to education enthusiastically.
Madison Jefferies and
Broo head the science department. The other two recruits are less willing:
Rogue quickly finds the life of a teacher much more boring and less gratifying than that of an Avenger and
Forge’s short patience is constantly tested by his new wards. However, all will come to grow into their new roles as new, unexpected challenges and secrets present themselves.
New Students
The younger students include some of the more recent creations, including
Nature Girl, who I see a lot of potential in. And then of course there’s the new creations.
Diamond Jack is the young, sheltered country dweller from a mutant family with a secretive past. He’s not the brightest bulb around, but has a heart of gold.
Mainframe is Forge’s “technopathic” niece. Forge is fiercely protective of her, which creates conflicts with her wild, outgoing personality.
Moth and
Gravitas are the “bad girl/bad boy” duo one a winged shut-in with telepathic powers and the other a rebellious, gravity-manipulating youth from the streets of China whose vast mutant power coupled with his volatile personality bears great concern to the instructors.
The Villains
The primary connecting plotline of this three year plan is the
New Breed: Geneticist
Dr. Crane is seeking to replicate the X-Gene, and along with his henchman
The Woodsman kidnaps and recruits mutants to further his goals. Their members grow to include the bitter, non-mutant brother of Diamond Jack, who receives powers from Crane; a young, weaponized Russian psychic; the illegitimate son of Warren Worthington III, and ultimately Gravitas, a young X-Man who was lied to about the extent of his powers by the teachers at the school. The Woodsman aligns himself with Osborn’s Shadow Council, ultimately betraying Dr. Crane when it is revealed he is Wolverine from another reality. I’ve also created a new, gay mercenary villain duo:
Hellbender and Basilisk, one a mutant who can manipulate water, the other a scaled Inhuman who can control surface tension of liquids. Together, the two lovers operate international smuggling operations and come into the X-Men’s crosshairs repeatedly. Other existing threats the team faces range from
Omega Red to
Sebastian Shaw & Kade Kilgore, to
Mysterio.
Year One
The school opens, and the stories follow the teachers and students as they come into their new roles. While shorter stories elaborate on the teachers and younger students, the focus is on the Seniors, as they grow as a team. Quentin’s arrival in the first issue changes everything, as he promptly asserts himself as the leader, believing this is the only justification for how he can still be a student. Oya, intended by the teachers to be the leader despite her own reservations about that role, steps back, risking falling back to her old fears. Indra and Bling! are less than pleased with Quentin’s presence however. He also takes a particular interest in Trevor. While his guidance may be presented as condescending (Quentin is still Quentin, after all) he is the only one who really sees “Eye-Boy”’s potential. The duo of awkward misfits just may have more in common than they would ever admit.
Plot wise, the team trains and gets caught up in some adventures running publicity, but their teachers refuse to allow them “field work” as a super hero team, especially considering their growing pains and inner conflicts. However, it’s this attitude that ultimately unites the Seniors, as, following Quentin’s lead on secret missions of escalating intensity. This leads to them discovering a secret Russian group that has been abducting and weaponizing mutants. The mission goes horribly south and the teachers must intervene to save them. But not before Match is grievously injured and a mysterious figure calling himself The Woodsman makes off with the Russian data and prisoners. With Match’s powers raging out of control, he is separated from the team. However, the Seniors don’t take kindly to being grounded, and break out, fighting the “real” X-Men to get to their friend. They reach him, discovering the science team has recreated the mutant cure and removed Match’s powers to save his life. The Woodsman returns once more, fighting off both the Seniors and the adult team. He downloads the science team’s research and destroys the secret base. Gentle dies saving his team and the mysterious villain flees into the night.
Year Two
After Gentle’s death, the entire team is emotionally shattered, and physically grounded by the school. Quentin feels responsible for mistakes for the first time in his life, Cornea must deal with having snapped and killed Russian guards, and Oya feels like she could have done more to prevent the disaster. Storm meanwhile faces her first major crisis as de facto mutant leader when Black Panther learns of the demise of the Wakandan youth he entrusted to the X-Men. The two ex-spouses lock heads and tensions flare until the Seniors, rallied by Indra’s unfailing optimism get back together again to stop a threat to Wakanda that both restores the teachers trust in them and defuses the Panther’s rage.
Over the following year, the Seniors grow and expand both individually and as a team, while younger mutants Mainframe and Diamond Jack graduate into the Senior Class. This displeases new resident problem-child Gravitas who, along with Moth and an increasingly rebellious Nature Girl, start a new student riot. When Quentin is ultimately the one to calm the chaos, he is first to come to grips with his growing maturity and must find how to stay true to himself while finally accepting the responsibilities of being an adult. Through this, he resumes his romantic relationship with Oya, who has herself finally fully accepted who she is, breaking Indra’s heart in the process. Cornea meanwhile realizes that the version of himself Quentin brought out is in fact his true self, and the cowardly persona was “the mask” and Bling! must learn to be more honest about her feelings when she again attempts to pursue romance.
Just when everything seems to be coming together, The Woodsman and his master, Dr. Crane, return. Over the past year (and multiple X-Title appearances) they have assembled a team of young marginalized mutants to help in Crane’s quest to genetically replicate the X-Gene. This “New Breed” attacks the new school, and while they are fought off, they reveal the teacher’s deepest secrets about the school: That the Seniors were brought in because they were considered too dangerous for the outside world and that several students (Including Quentin and Gravitas) unwittingly received psychic power dampeners. The New Breed is defeated and Crane captured, but the X-Men are destroyed.
Year Three
In the aftermath of the attack on the school, only Oya, Jack, and Mainframe remain at the school, the others having quit in disgust while the teachers and Sunspot desperately try to hold their dream together. Determined not to let her team die, Oya and the two rookies traverse the world to hunt down their friends, who are finding life after the X-Men to be less than satisfactory. Quentin is the last on the list, having gone into hiding, wanted by every hero and villain on the planet. Oya and the reunited members fight their way through many foes, including the Wild Breed, which Gravitas has joined to save him and the team returns united and are finally recognized as “real X-Men”. Only Cornea declines to return, having instead started a new, flourishing business as a Private Investigator.
The new, united team becomes more prominent they become more closely tied with Sunspot’s machinations with the Hellfire Club, leading to a throwdown with former Black Kings Sebastian Shaw and Kade Kilgore, who seek to take back their old organization now refurbished for benevolent purposes. Meanwhile, the science team makes the startling discovery that The Woodsman is in fact an alternate Wolverine. Everything comes to a head when Crane is broken out of prison and Canonball is murdered. Sunspot takes the blame and goes on the run, with the X-Men in hot pursuit while his trusted mentor Elisha Murdoch takes over the Hellfire Club. Cornea, however knows the truth, and with the help of his old teammates attempts to expose the conspiracy as Murdoch is revealed as Norman Osborne in disguise, who has conspired with a secret Shadow Council of villains, including recruiting Dr. Crane, to summon the Goblin Force.
Goblin War
All of the X-Men teams play a pivotal war in the massive Goblin War crossover, and once the dust clears, things will never be the same. On Earth, The Woodsman turns on Crane and leaves with the New Breed after Forge sacrifices himself to save the “pesky kids” who caused him so much trouble. In space, Rachel is killed by the Goblin Force and Quentin finally summons the Phoenix to save the day in the final battle. In the aftermath, the older Seniors officially graduate into the adult teams, with a new class of young pupils joining Jack and Mainframe in
Uncanny going forward. Cornea joins
X-Force to put his killer instinct to work while the others are divided between
Amazing and
X-Factor. Oya and Quentin must be separated, as the Phoenix can’t be allowed to stay on Earth and he must learn to harness its power in a new ongoing. Oya, meanwhile steps up into team leader at long last to lead the X-Men into a wild, uncertain future.
Well, that's it for my Uncanny X-Men pitch. I hope you enjoyed it, and be sure to comment below with any thoughts that come to mind!