50. Xorn - 29 points
Kuan-Yin Xorn is an interesting X-Men figure. Under the pen of Grant Morrison, he was a pacifistic healing mutant who had a "star for a brain" and manipulated energy and gravity, but in actuality, it was all a ruse, and Kuan-Yin Xorn was actually an invetion of Magneto, who used his powers to fake all of Xorn's abilities, all in an attempt to infiltrate the X-Men.
After Grant Morrison left the title, it was revealed that this Xorn was a real person who was manipulated by John Sublime into pretending to be Magneto.
His twin brother Shen Xorn became a member of the team briefly.
49. Longshot - 30 points
Longshot was from the Mojoverse, where Mojo ruled over a whole pile of humanoids. Longshot eventually began to lead a rebellion, so Mojo sent him to Earth. Eventually, after some battles with Mojo, Longshot ended up right back on Earth with amnesia. It was at this point that he ended up joining the X-Men. Longshot is insanely agile, and throws these sharp blades, but the most important thing is that he has this weird "luck" power.
Eventually, Longshot regained his memories, so he took his girlfriend with him to the Mojoverse to lead a rebellion. Mojo was eventually killed, and Longshot and Dazzler were married.
Dazzler returned with little reference to her time with Longshot, and after Longshot became a member of the Exiles, he met up with Dazzler (who was with New Excalibur), and the two decided to explore their past together. He has not been seen since, but a Skrull imposter of Longshot recently popped up in X-Factor.
48. Cargill - 30 points (1 first place vote)
Joanna Cargill made her living for years as the super-strong mercenary named Frenzy.
She even worked for Apocalypse's Alliance of Evil.
Later, though, she hooked up with Magneto as one of his most-trusted Acolyte (now using her last name, as I guess she figured Frenzy made her sound kinda stupid).
When Magneto flipped out during Eve of Destruction, Jean Grey was forced to throw together a rag-tag group of X-Men. She used her mental powers to convince Cargill to be a member of the team. That was the only mission that Cargill served as an X-Man.
Recently, she was working with the Acolytes again (led now by Exodus) and after wishing to kill Professor Xavier (a prisoner, of sorts, of the Acolytes) she was hurt badly by a now human Magneto.
47. Sabretooth - 38 points
One of the, uhm, golden hair members of the feral mutants...oh, never mind, Sabretooth has been one of the X-Men's deadliest enemies since they first ran into him as a member of the Marauders.
Wolverine, in particular, has quite a history with ol' Creed. Still, as deadly as Sabretooth is, that's how egotistical Charles Xavier is (noble, but egotistical), and Xavier feels he can heal Creed of his evil nature. So Xavier keeps Sabretooth in the X-Men's house, and Creed even helps out once or twice.
Wolverine, though, ends up basically giving Creed a lobotomy with his claws, leading to Sabretooth was taken in by the X-Men as a nice little puppy type guy. He, of course, was faking, and he escapes again (mauling Psylocke on the way out).
He fought the X-Men a few more times, and recently, he actually joiend the team, when he needed a place to hide from some bad guys who wanted him dead. Rogue injected him with nanosentinels to keep him in line. He, shockingly, betrayed the team, and he was hurt badly by Cable.
X-Men writer Mike Carey on Sabretooth, "I’m not making him into a hero; I’m making him into a team member"
Sabretooth was later decapitated by Wolverine, and is thought to be dead.
46. Mimic - 39 points (1 first place vote)
Calvin Rankin was the FIRST new member of the X-Men, joining after the original five. In fact, his power to mimic powers and abilities (and even knowledge) of people he's around go further when it comes to the original five X-Men. He has their powers permanently!
Calvin also (at the time, it's up for grabs now) was the first non-mutant to join the X-Men, as he (apparently) gained his powers from an accident, not from being a mutant.
Eventually, the X-Men thought Calvin was just too self-serving, so they kicked him off of the team. He later seemed to die (although he came back later on).
An alternate universe version of Calvin was a stalwart for the Exiles team until his death.
45. Sunfire - 48 (1 first place vote)
Shiro Yoshida was only an X-Men for a brief period of time, helping the All-New, All-Different X-Men save the original X-Men from Krakoa.
However, he has been a constant prescence in the X-Titles, whether it be helping the X-Men when they visit Japan, or well, helping/fighting anyone who goes to Japan. :)
Awhile back, Rogue absorbed his fire powers permanently. At that point in time, he had his legs cut off - but Apocalypse saved him and brought him back as a Horseman.
He broke free of Apocalypse's control, and then ended up working with, of all people, Mister Sinister.
He may have had good intentions, though!
44. Forge - 50 points (1 first place vote)
Jonathon Silvercloud was taught magic by the Shaman of his tribe, Naze. During Vietnam, Silvercloud tragically lost part of one of his legs as well as one of his hands in an attack. He built himself replacement parts. After the war, he ceased using his magic powers.
After the war, Silvercloud picked up the government weapons contracts that Tony Stark gave up on, and after one of his weapons was used on Storm, he began a relationship with the now-powerless Storm.
When the X-Men were scattered throughout the world, Forge and Banshee helped bring the team together, but afterwards, Forge backed off (especially when Storm turned down a marriage proposal).
He came back as the leader of X-Factor, but since then, he has basically been hanging out as an adjunct ally of the X-Men and punching bag/Wal-Mart for Bishop.
43. Madeline Pryor - 50 points (1 first place vote)
Maddie Pryor was a replacement for Jean Grey in Scott Summers' life - literally. That is what Mister Sinister cloned her to be.
She ended up splitting with Cyclops after he, you know, left her and their son to be with his ex-girlfriend.
She then hooked up with the X-Men, serving as their pilot, their computer expert (this was not the brightest group of X-Men - Colossus kept trying to get an exterminator to capture the mouse) and eye candy for Scott's brother, Alex.
Maddie then turned evil and died.
But for that brief period in time she was as much a member of the X-Men as the others - especially more so than Longshot.
42. Stacy X - 51 points
Stacy was a mutant who used her mutant pheremone powers to ply her trade as a prostitute. When her brothel was attacked by anti-mutant jerkwads, she ended up taking protection from the X-Men, and ultimately ended up becoming a member of the team.
After awhile, she got tired of the team, and left.
M-Day stripped her of her powers, and last we saw her, she was a prostitute once again - only a powerless one.
41. Warpath - 58 points
James Proudstar grew up idolizing his brother, John Proudstar. So when John died as a member of the X-Men, James dedicated his life to revenging his brother's death. So James tried to kill Xavier, but ultimately saw the error of his ways.
He couldn't bring himself to be a student of Xavier, though, so he joined Emma Frost's school and became a Hellion.
Later on, he joined the group of former New Mutants called X-Force (which was lucky, because his former group, the Hellions, were slaughtered soon after). He stayed with the team for quite some time.
Eventually, after the group broke up, he helped out in the X-Corp, and after M-Day, he went back to the X-Mansion.
Recently, he officially became an X-Man when he joined Xavier and other X-Men on a mission to the Shi'Ar Empire to stop the evil Vulcan.
Even MORE recently, he became part of Cyclops' ode to Murder, Inc. - X-Force. He now kills the hell out of people - for truth, justice and the American way!
40. Husk - 59 points
The younger sister of Cannonball, Paige Guthrie was one of a number of young mutants who were kidnapped by the Phalanx. Rescued by Banshee and Emma Frost, Paige remained with the others to attend school.
After the dissolution of the Generation X group of young students, Paige graduated to the X-Men, where she used her weird/odd powers (where she tears off her skin, revealing a new power each time) to aid the team, and where she fell in love with Archangel.
The two even had sex in the air above her mother - it was super creepy.
Husk has been sort of lost in the mix as of late (Warren has moved on), except for a weird appearance in a Divided We Stand story, and to be honest, I have no idea why she hasn't been killed yet - if you're a former X-Man and not on the official team, that's usually a recipe for being killed.
You know, like, "Oh my god! You killed Husk! NOOOOOO!!!!!!!" "Who's Husk, Wolverine?" "I dunno, but she was an X-Man, and now she's dead!" "Nooooooo!!!!!!!"
39. Armor - 59 points (1 first place vote)
In the endless sea of "characters meant to be like old school Kitty Pryde," Hisako Ichiki, the X-Man known as Armor (because she has the ability to surround herself with psionic armor, like Cece Reyes) is one of the less annoying ones.
She was chosen by Cassandra Nova to be her new host body, but that was staved off (or WAS it?!? duh duh duuuuuuuuuh).
Now she is on the X-Men, and to make the whole "new Kitty" thing even clearer, she is even wearing Kitty's old costume!
38. Marrow - 68 points (2 first place votes)
Sarah was a young Morlock who witnessed the Mutant Massacre, but was saved by Gambit. She later hooked up with the other Morlock survivors who went into a different dimension with Miguel Rasputin. Time went by quicker there, so when Marrow returned to our dimension, she was a young woman. She led a group of Morlocks called Gene Nation - they were an awful terrorist group, and ultimately, Marrow ended up forcing Storm to kill her.
Later, it turned out she had (sigh) TWO hearts, so the heart Storm pulled out of her was no biggie.
Hanging out with Callisto, her mother figure, Marrow eventually found herself aiding the X-Men, who were on the run from Bastion and his Omega Sentinels.
Afterwards, she ended up using her weird-ass powers (she could pull sharp bone weapons from her body) to be a member of the X-Men. She even stuck around after the "real" X-Men came back.
Ultimately, though, during one of the countless regroupings of the X-Men, Marrow ended up on the outs, and, after working for SHIELD, hooked up with Weapon X. There, she was given control over her powers.
She lost her powers on M-Day, although not a lot of the physical traits that came from her being a mutant, oddly enough. At first, she was working as a spokesperson for depowered mutants, but as has been the case all throughout Marrow's comic book "life," a different writer took over and suddenly, she was a terrorist blaming the US Government for M-Day.
37. Omega Sentinel - 75 points
X-Men have come from all sorts of different places. Some notable X-Men have been members of the Hellfire Club, Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and heck, prostitution.
Few X-Men, though, have come from as unlikely a source as Chris Claremont's second stint on the X-Men, and yet that is where Karima Shapandar, the Omega Sentinel, came from.
She showed up in X-Men Unlimited as part of Thunderbird II (Neal Shaara)'s back story. She was a police detective assigned to help Shaara look for his missing brother in India, but along the way, they fell in luuuuuuve.
However, they soon discover that his brother was a Prime Sentinel (a shtick where humans are secretly sentinels and are only activated in the presence of a mutant). Neal's brother dies, but then Neal discovers Karima is a Prime Sentinel, too (seriously, was, like, every third person in India turned into a Prime Sentinel?). Her love for him allows him to escape, but she tells him he must never search her out.
Anyhow, she shows up in Genosha somehow, only now she can control her Sentinel programming.
She shows up next in X-Men, and ends up joining the team. Then, sadly, she is infected by Malice, and becomes a bad guy.
Luckily, she cures herself of Malice, but then gets her ass handed to her by Joanna Cargill. She was last seen escaping the Acolytes with Magneto.
36. Bishop - 90 points (1 first place vote)
Lucas Bishop grew up in a world where Sentinels had taken over North America and killed (or enslaved) all mutants. Eventually, there was a rebellion, and in the new world order, Bishop was a member of XSE - Xavier's Security Enforcers, who hunted down mutant criminals.
One such criminal was Trevor Fitzroy, who escaped to the 20th century with a bunch of fellow criminals, with Bishop and two of his fellow officers following close behind, even though they knew they could not return. His two friends were killed, but not before they killed all the escapees (except Fitzroy, who was captured). Afterward, Bishop ended up joining the X-Men, using his energy absorption and redirection powers for the team.
He served with the X-Men for quite some time, until Deathbird kidnapped him. During this time, he was sent to another timeline, but he returned in time for the Twelve storyline. He then rejoined the X-Men, and and later served as an intermediary between the US government and the X-Men.
That meant he agreed to hunt down some escaped mutants for the government, and as anyone who reads comics knows, if you work for the government, you're evil, and during Messiah Complex, Bishop felt that the best way to save the future was to become a total psyhopath and go all "Hal Jordan in Emerald Twilight" on everybody.
He currently plays Wile E. Coyote to Cable's Roadrunner every month in Cable, in a plotline that certainly won't ever get dull and repetitive seeing Cable JUST get away for the 235th time.
35. Juggernaut - 90 points (2 first place votes)
Juggernaut is Cain Marko, the half-brother of Charles Xavier.
Marko and Xavier found a tomb to Cyttorak, and, after a cave-in, Xavier managed to escape, but Marko was trapped inside for years. However, he had the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, which turned Marko into the unstoppable Juggernaut!
As this powerhouse, he spent years fighting the X-Men, Hulk, pretty much everybody. Eventually, he became really good friends with a criminal named Black Tom Cassidey.
Over the years, Juggernaut mellowed out, and awhile back, he ended up JOINING the X-Men!
He then joined up with Excalibur, and expertly recreated the role of Lennie from Of Mice and Men for awhile ("Dazzler's so purty.")
Now he's off on his own again, probably being a sort of bad guy once more.
34. Pixie - 93 points (1 first place vote)
And in this corner...Armor's challenger for "who gets to be the next old school Kitty Pryde".....Pixie!!!
Megan Gwynn was a cute background character at Xavier's - a shy, friendly girl with pixie wings (she could also produce "pixie dust" that would cause hallucinations) and the ability to teleport.
She came to the forefront a bit when the mutant class shrunk a bit due to the events of M-Day.
She then got a little more bad ass when she traded a piece of her soul to create a magic Soul Dagger that is actually part of her soul!
She is now the POV character for the X-Men (and she was attacked by some mutant-hating thugs).
33. Chamber - 97 points (3 first place votes)X-Men have come from all sorts of different places. Some notable X-Men have been members of the Hellfire Club, Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and heck, prostitution.
Few X-Men, though, have come from as unlikely a source as Chris Claremont's second stint on the X-Men, and yet that is where Karima Shapandar, the Omega Sentinel, came from.
She showed up in X-Men Unlimited as part of Thunderbird II (Neal Shaara)'s back story. She was a police detective assigned to help Shaara look for his missing brother in India, but along the way, they fell in luuuuuuve.
However, they soon discover that his brother was a Prime Sentinel (a shtick where humans are secretly sentinels and are only activated in the presence of a mutant). Neal's brother dies, but then Neal discovers Karima is a Prime Sentinel, too (seriously, was, like, every third person in India turned into a Prime Sentinel?). Her love for him allows him to escape, but she tells him he must never search her out.
Anyhow, she shows up in Genosha somehow, only now she can control her Sentinel programming.
She shows up next in X-Men, and ends up joining the team. Then, sadly, she is infected by Malice, and becomes a bad guy.
Luckily, she cures herself of Malice, but then gets her ass handed to her by Joanna Cargill. She was last seen escaping the Acolytes with Magneto.
36. Bishop - 90 points (1 first place vote)
Lucas Bishop grew up in a world where Sentinels had taken over North America and killed (or enslaved) all mutants. Eventually, there was a rebellion, and in the new world order, Bishop was a member of XSE - Xavier's Security Enforcers, who hunted down mutant criminals.
One such criminal was Trevor Fitzroy, who escaped to the 20th century with a bunch of fellow criminals, with Bishop and two of his fellow officers following close behind, even though they knew they could not return. His two friends were killed, but not before they killed all the escapees (except Fitzroy, who was captured). Afterward, Bishop ended up joining the X-Men, using his energy absorption and redirection powers for the team.
He served with the X-Men for quite some time, until Deathbird kidnapped him. During this time, he was sent to another timeline, but he returned in time for the Twelve storyline. He then rejoined the X-Men, and and later served as an intermediary between the US government and the X-Men.
That meant he agreed to hunt down some escaped mutants for the government, and as anyone who reads comics knows, if you work for the government, you're evil, and during Messiah Complex, Bishop felt that the best way to save the future was to become a total psyhopath and go all "Hal Jordan in Emerald Twilight" on everybody.
He currently plays Wile E. Coyote to Cable's Roadrunner every month in Cable, in a plotline that certainly won't ever get dull and repetitive seeing Cable JUST get away for the 235th time.
35. Juggernaut - 90 points (2 first place votes)
Juggernaut is Cain Marko, the half-brother of Charles Xavier.
Marko and Xavier found a tomb to Cyttorak, and, after a cave-in, Xavier managed to escape, but Marko was trapped inside for years. However, he had the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, which turned Marko into the unstoppable Juggernaut!
As this powerhouse, he spent years fighting the X-Men, Hulk, pretty much everybody. Eventually, he became really good friends with a criminal named Black Tom Cassidey.
Over the years, Juggernaut mellowed out, and awhile back, he ended up JOINING the X-Men!
He then joined up with Excalibur, and expertly recreated the role of Lennie from Of Mice and Men for awhile ("Dazzler's so purty.")
Now he's off on his own again, probably being a sort of bad guy once more.
34. Pixie - 93 points (1 first place vote)
And in this corner...Armor's challenger for "who gets to be the next old school Kitty Pryde".....Pixie!!!
Megan Gwynn was a cute background character at Xavier's - a shy, friendly girl with pixie wings (she could also produce "pixie dust" that would cause hallucinations) and the ability to teleport.
She came to the forefront a bit when the mutant class shrunk a bit due to the events of M-Day.
She then got a little more bad ass when she traded a piece of her soul to create a magic Soul Dagger that is actually part of her soul!
She is now the POV character for the X-Men (and she was attacked by some mutant-hating thugs).
When Jonothon Starsmore's power developed, it showed up via a blown hole in the young lad's chest, destroying much of of his upper chest and his lower skull.
Pretty gross, eh?
Anyhow, Jono could only talk via telepathy, and could not (and did not NEED to) sleep.
He ended up joining Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, and the Generation X group of youngsters.
Jono ended up graduating to the full team of X-Men, where he served for awhile. Afterwards, he decided it would be better if he went to college, to serve as a sort of ambassador to the public.
After this time, he went undercover in Weapon X. Weapon X gave him a new body, but when M-Day hit, the new body fell apart, and Jono was pretty screwed.
As it turned out, though, Jono's ancestors included some servants of Apocalypse, so the Apocalypse servents gave Jono brand new powers, allowing him to basically finally live a pretty normal life - but then some stuff happened that it's best not to discuss.
32. Sage - 101 points (2 first place votes)
Sage was a young girl when she met Charles Xavier, who had been crippled in a fight with a bad guy named Lucifer. She brought him to safety. Xavier then enlisted Tessa (her name, natch) as his spy inside the Hellfire Club, which is where she remained for many years.
Eventually, she broke cover and joined the X-Treme X-Men as Sage. She stayed with the team until they disbanded.
She then went to join the newly formed Excalibur, but during a fight, she went undercover and created an identity so strong that it still fights with her mind today.
And afterwards, in a battle involving the Exiles, Sage was given the knowledge of Roma, so Sage is now with the Exiles, trying to keep all the voices straight in her head, but especially worrying about the undercover identity who keeps trying to take over control of Sage's body.
31. Lady Mastermind - 104 points
Lady Mastermind's bosum - 52 points each
Regan Wyngarde is the daughter of the original Mastermind. And yes, I realize we already saw the daughter of the original Mastermind, but, well, this is his OTHER daughter.
I'm sure it seemed like a necessary addition at the time.
Anyhow, she fought the X-Treme X-Men, but then later found herself captured and taken in by the X-Men. She eventually joined the team, only to turn out to be working for the Marauders undercover.
Wolverine stabbed her in the chest, but as seen with Rachel Summers, that is not the most effective way of actually killing someone, apparently (you'd think it would work out pretty well) and she is now alive and well and in character limbo.
30. Cable - 108 points (1 first place vote)
Cable is the superpowered son of Cyclops and Maddie Pryor, who was infected by Apocalypse with the techno-organic virus, which there was no cure for in our time. Sadly, Cyclops was forced to send his son to the future, where he hopefully would be cured.
In the futue, Nathan Summers grew up and learned to use his vast telekinetic powers to hold the techno-organic virus in check, and as he grew older, he became quite a thorn in the side of Apocalypse.
Later, Cable brought the fight to Apocalypse by going back in time to fight him in the 20th century. Ultimately, Cable discovered that Sam Guthrie supposedly was to be an important figure for mutants - so Cable went back and assumed control of Sam's team, the New Mutants, turning them into X-Force.
Later on, when Cyclops was possessed by Apocalypse, Cable joined the X-Men for a short period of time.
He just recently returned to them, then seemingly was killed by, of all people, Gambit and Sunfire (srsly?). But SHOCKINGLY....
I mean SHOCKINGLY...
I mean, lord, I was BLINDSIDED by this....
This could not be predicted by ANYONE!!
He was not really dead, and now he is tediously protecting a baby the size of a mouse from Now-Evil-Bishop.
29. M - 119 points (1 first place vote)
Monet St. Croix was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia to an Ambassador father. She had a brother and two twin sisters and yadda yadda yadda, the twins were now pretending to be Monet.
She joined Generation X and served with the team for awhile and yadda yadda yadda, Monet was once more M.
Then Generation X broke up and yadda yadda yadda M was with the X-Men on this mission where Angel got the blue sucked out of him (which was completely and totally logical).
Then yadda yadda yadda, M is a member of X-Factor, where she uses her strength, her telepathy, yadda yadda yadda...tant perceiving aura to fight the good fight (bitchily, of course).
28. X-23/Talon/Claws/Stab Girl/McStabby - 119 points (5 first place votes)
X-23 is a clone of Wolverine who was raised and trained as a bad-ass killer.
She was taken in by the X-Men to curb her of her killing ways, except for when Cyclops figured he could use her terrible childhood training for his own purposes.
She was also on the New X-Men for awhile.
27. Cecilia Reyes - 137 points (2 first place votes)
Cecilia Reyes hid her mutant ability to have a shield envelop her and work as a defensive (and, if she concentrates, an OFFENSIVE) tool from people for years as she grew up and entered medical school and became an emergency room doctor. Unfortunately for her, the evil dude Bastion had other plans, and when he sent Omega Sentinels to terminate any mutants they found, well, they found her.
Luckily, the X-Man Iceman showed up to save her, and the two teamed up with Sabra and Marrow to keep ahead of Bastion until the US government finally wised up and shut Bastion down.
Now, hanging out with the X-Men, Cecilia tried desperately to keep her old job as a doctor.
Unfortunately, the bigots wouldn't let that happen. So Cecilia was basically stuck being an X-Men. She was on the team for awhile until the teams reshuffled.
The next we saw of Cecilia, she was running a small clinic near the X-Men's mansion.
She was trapped with Nightcrawler against some Neo members, and was forced to use an addictive drug to power herself up so she could stay alive.
After she detoxed, she just hung around - until there was another reshuffling. This time, Cecilia was nowhere to be seen, until we next saw her in a mutant concentration camp in the pages of Weapon X.
Apparently, she was killed there. Which makes sense, because it's not like she's popular or anything. Ranking higher than Cable and both new Kitty Pryde stand ins, that's no big deal or anything. No one is interested in her.
26. Jubilee - 142 points (3 first place votes)
Jubilation Lee grew up the daughter of rich Chinese immigrants. However, when her parents were accidentally murdered, she ended up in an orphanage.
Jubilee broke free and ended up living in a mall. The mall security ended up hiring "mutant hunters" to get her out, but the mutant hunters picked the wrong time to do so, as the female members of the X-Men had teleported to the mall to shop, so they trounced the mutant hunters. Jubilee snuck along with the X-Men when they returned to their Australian home.
Jubilee lived on the Australian base of the X-Men, hidden, for awhile (even wearing their extra clothing), until she ended up having to save Wolverine's life from the evil Reavers.
For awhile, she travelled the world as Wolverine's partner, basically. And was even an X-Man!
Ultimately, though, when the X-teams expanded, a kid was a bit out of place, so Jubilee basically just hung around the mansion until Generation X formed, with Jubilee as the founding member of the group.
After they broke up, Jubilee tried her hand at acting with her friend, Skin. However, the two were kidnapped and crucified on the X-Men's lawn as a message. Jubilee survived - Skin did not. Jubilee, then, realized she wanted to have sex with Skin's corpse.
She hung out with the X-Men for awhile, going on a few missions, then went to go live with her newly discovered aunt in California. She returned back (after her aunt was presumed dead) just in time for House of M, where she lost her powers.
I don't know what she's up to nowadays.
No idea.
I try to think of it, but my mind just blanks.
25. Banshee - 143 points (1 first place vote - I wonder who from?)
Sean Cassidey worked for the international crime-fighting organization Interpol. He had sonic powers, but kept them hidden from everyone.
While on a mission that took him away from his wife for quite some time, his wife was killed. His wife was pregnant when Sean left (neither he nor his wife knew at the time) and gave birth while he was away. Sean's nefarious cousin Black Tom Cassidey took the daughter and raised her on his own, so Sean didn't know he had a daughter until many years later.
After his wife's death, Sean threw himself into his work, and eventually became a freelancer - which led to some crime on his part. At this time, the evil organization Factor Three forced Sean to be a member of the group.
Luckily, the X-Men rescued him and he helped them defeat Factor Three.
Later, when Xavier needed new X-Men, Sean joined the All-New, All-Different X-Men, and stayed with the team until he lost his powers saving Japan from Moses Magnum.
Later on, he rejoined the team when his powers returned. He left the team again to hang out with his love, Moira MacTaggert (which is where he was when he had no powers). He eventually came back to be the Headmaster of the new school for mutants. During this period, Moira was killed.
This freaked Sean out, so he was manipulated into forming the X-Corps.
At the end of the debacle, his throat was sliced by Mystique.
He slowly regained his powers, but while doing some research for Xavier, he discovered some horrible news. Upon returning home, though, the villain Vulcan sent a Blackbird shooting at his commercial airline. Banshee flew out to try to stop the Blackbird, but he was unable to do so - and the Blackbird collided into him and the commercial airliner, killing all the passengers.
Quite a death for a hero, eh?
Horribly failing to save hundreds of innocents.
Not that I'm bitter or anything.
24. Professor X - 150 points
Charles Xavier is a powerful telepath who formed the X-Men (because Mister Sinister implanted something in his head to tell him to do so, I'm sure).
He remained as the head of the school for many years, until he eventually left the team to be with his "wife" Lilandra in the Shi'ar Empire (most likely because Mister Sinister implanted something in his head to tell him to do so).
He returned some years afterward, and he stayed with the team, even though he had some absences here and there (most of them due to an implant in his mind by Mister Sinister, the coolest character ever).
After the events of House of M, Professor X disappeared, for it turned out Scarlet Witch gave him the use of his legs again, but stripped him of his mutant powers (Mister Sinister was not involved....or was he?).
He returned when the former X-man Vulcan demanded his revenge on Xavier. Vulcan then took off to revenge himself on the Shi'ar Empire. Xavier couldn't have this, so he formed a team of X-Men to go stop Vulcan (pretty sure it is because Mister Sinister wanted him to do that).
During the battle in space, Xavier had his mental abilities returned (Sinister was uninvolved).
After his return, Cyclops was really mad at him, so Professor X used this rage to make Nightcrawler feel like he was actually useful, and went looking for Magneto with Kurt (Mister Sinister wanted him to do this, of course).
However, during Messiah Complex, Professor Xavier was shot in the head by Bishop, who was actually trying to assasinate Cable (the way the writers assasinated Bishop's character - Sinister probably told them to do so).
The mutant Exodus (who was just working with...guess who?) healed Xavier, but now there are holes in Xavier's memory, so he is currently traveling the world, finding himself - while, of course, being mindful that around each corner, something Sinister might come.
23. Mystique - 171 points (1 first place vote)
Mystique has worn many hats, which makes sense, with her shapeshifting abilities.
She's been a mercenary, she's been an adventurer, she's been a sociopath - she's been all over the place.
Recently, though, she added "X-Man" to her list of accomplishments, as she asked to become a member of the X-Men (presumably to keep tabs on her foster daughter, Rogue). Later, when Rogue was allowed to choose her own team of X-Men, she chose Mystique to be a member, presumably to keep tabs on HER.
This stint with the X-Men, however, was all part of a ruse by Mystique. One of those, "To save you from a stubbed toe, Rogue, I will shoot you in the leg!" things.
Along the way, Mystique played upon her gender-bending abilities to get Iceman to fall for her.
She then used that opportunity to screw him over.
After Messiah Complex, Wolverine gutted her and left her for dead, but while you would think he would notice that the people he guts never seem to actually die, he didn't - and she recently came back to screw with Iceman some more.
22. Dani Moonstar - 181 points (1 first place vote)
Danielle Moonstar was born in Colorado as a member of the Cheyenne tribe.
She was mostly raised by her grandfather, and after an attempt to kidnap Danielle by the Hellfire Club fails (in which her grandfather tragically dies), Dani is taken in by Charles Xavier who makes her one of his New Mutants.
She serves with the New Mutants for many years, most of them as co-leader of the team.
She lost a bet and was forced to use the lame name Psyche for awhile, as her power was to tell what people were most afraid of and show it to them.
Later, she lost a separate bet, and took the name Mirage.
Along the way, she also gained the ability to make her psychic manisfestations tangible.
She ended up leaving the New Mutants after she was taken in by the Valkyries (she was made a Valkyrie on an earlier trip to Asgard).
She returned and joined with her former New Mutants friends in X-Force.
When X-Force broke up, Dani ended up joining the X-Men, part-time, mostly working with Forge as a sort of advance scout for the team.
She then became an instructor at Xavier's, but on M-Day, most of her charges lost their powers, and Dani lost hers, too.
She was so saddened by the loss of her powers that she went out and got plastic surgery to get larger breasts to help with her confidence.
Where's my No-Prize?!?
I'm sure she'll get her powers back some day in the future!
At the very least, she can always change her personality and get mechanical-derived powers from some guy.
21. Havok - 201 points (3 first place votes)
Alexander Summers was split from his brother Scott early on, as the two boys were both in an orphanage, but Alex was less of a loser than his brother, so he got adopted, while his loser brother did not.
They did not meet until many years later, as young adults, when Alex was manipulated by this dude named The Living Pharaoh as basically a power cell, transforming the Pharaoh guy into the Living Monolith. The X-men showed up to stop the Living Monolith.
It was at this time that Alex first demonstrated his powers - but they were SO powerful, he could not control himself, so decided not to go home with the X-Men, even though he finally reunited with his long-lost brother, Scott.
Soon after, Larry Trask captured Alex and built him a suit that could contain his cosmic energy. After the X-Men defeated Trask, Havok now joined them, because the suit could help him learn to control his powers. He fell for his teammate, Lorna Dane, and the two eventually quit the team to study, of all things, geophysics (Alex never struck me as having the highest cognitive capacity, but who knows?)!!
Eventually, due to unforeseen circumstances (namely, Lorna being turned into an evil mutant), Havok rejoined the X-Men, which he stayed with until the team split up at the Siege Perilous. After going through the Siege Perilous, Alex thought that he was a magistrate in Genosha (mutant soldiers, basically).
After realizing he wasn't actually a magistrate in Genosha, he became the leader of a new team of government-sanctioned mutants, X-Factor. He re-teamed with his old girlfriend, Lorna, and they rekindled their romance. He left the team, though, to go undercover with a mutant terrorist group. He returned just in time to seemingly be killed in an explosion, but in actuality, he was sent to an alternate universe, where he stayed for awhile.
Upon returning, he came back in a coma. The nurse who helped him had this son who had this freaky power over people's minds, so he had Alex and the Nurse "meet" in dreams, so when Alex woke up, he was in love with the Nurse.
Upon his recovery, he rejoined the X-Men.
Alex was on the team for quite awhile, but reecently, he learned he had ANOTHER brother, the evil mutant, Vulcan, who was on his way to destroy the Shi'ar Empire. Alex joined Professor X's team of X-Men to go stop him (and his old girlfriend Lorna came along as well).
During the battle, Vulcan killed his and Alex's father, the space pirate Corsair.
Due to a teleportation error, Alex was left stranded in outer space with Lorna and Alex's "niece," Rachel. They have since kept fighting the good fight with Vulcan (who has since become the King of the Shi'ar Empire).
ean-Paul Beaubier, and his sister, Jeanne-Marie, were orphaned at a young age. The two were split apart as Jean-Paul was adopted. He became quite a rebellious teen, even joining a Quebec separatist terrorist group, which he eventually quit because terrorism was for squares.
He then became an Olympic skier, until people found out about his superpowers.
He then employed his super-speed (and flight) as a memebr of Canada's Alpha Flight for many years. Eventually, though, Alpha Flight broke up, and Northstar really didn't have anything to do, so he wrote a book about growing up as a mutant and a homosexual (oh, I forgot to mention, to paraphrase Jean-Paul, from an issue of Alpha Flight in the early 90s, "HE'S GAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Oh, and while he's been gay for decades, he's never actually even kissed a guy - lame, huh?)
It was at this point that Jean Grey formed a ragtag team of X-Men, and she enlisted Jean-Paul's help.
He headed off after that battle, but soon after, Professor Xavier convinced him that he should join the school. If not as an X-Man, then at least as a teacher. This intrigued Jean-Paul, so that's what he did, serving as a member of the X-Men for awhile.
After one of the seemingly weekly team-shuffling, Jean-Paul ended up not on any active squad, and simply as a teacher at the school. This was the capacity he was in when a brainwashed Wolverine broke into the grounds to kill Kitty Pryde.
Northstar ended up stepping between Wolverine and Kitty, taking the claws to his chest - killing him.
What was worse is that the Hand then revived him as a psycopathic zombie. When he was captured by SHIELD, they tried to reprogram him, but to no avail.
Northstar was then broken out from SHIELD custody by a mystery group calling themselves "The Children." Eventually, a continuity machine reboot Northstar, so he's basically back to normal.
Still hasn't kissed a guy, though.
18. Magneto - 236 points (1 first place vote)
The young (Magnus? Erik Lensherr? What IS his name?) grew up in a concentration camp during World War II, so he grew up pretty messed up.
Afterwards, though, when some angry villagers came by and killed his young child and he flipped the heck out on them. His wife (who was pregnant) headed off and gave birth, but hid the kids from her husband, who scared the heck out of her. After this, he began to search for his wife.
During this period, he met Charles Xavier, and their friendship was pretty important in making Magnus less psycho. Eventually, though, the influence of jerkwads (who killed his girlfriend of the time) caused Magnus to flip out and basically become "Magneto." When he next showed up, he was flat-out a villain.
Over the years, Xavier worked on Magneto constantly to try to regain his non-psycho friend. Eventually, when Xavier headed off to space with Lilandra, he left his school in Magneto's hands.
So Magneto was in charge of the X-Men for a time. But then he thought the X-Men were killed, so he felt pretty stupid about that. That was it for him being a member of the team.
He's gone through various stuff since then, including having his mind-wiped by Professor X after Magneto ripped out Wolverine's adamantium skeleton. But he always seems to come back to the relatively same status quo.
After losing his powers on M-Day (this guy seems to lose and gain powers on a whim), Magneto recently teamed up with High Evolutionary to fix the mutant race.
17. Polaris - 245 points (9 first place votes)
Polaris is an early example of the since heavily used "boy/girlfriend of superhero somehow has superpowers, too" cliche. Lorna Dane was Bobby Drake's girlfriend, whose latent powers were activated by some bad guy.
She joined the X-Men, and eventually fell for her teammate Havok. The two left the X-Men to explore their love of geophysics (I STILL don't get this - wouldn't you LOVE to hear EITHER of them ever mention that now?).
Sadly, their time together was cut short when this evil thing called Malice possessed her and made her a bad guy for quite some time. Eventually, she broke free, but gained new powers (as her "sister" Zaladane, stole them). But when Zaladane was killed, her power of magnetism eventually returned.
She then joined X-Factor, until that team broke up when Havok was seemingly killed. His death really shook her up, and she was tricked into becoming the power source for the depowered Magneto, who she had thought was her father for some time.
That was the status quo until Alex Summers DID return! At the same time, she discovered Magneto WAS her father - just in time for the island of Genosha (where she was staying) to be attacked by Sentinels. Alex returning, the Genoshan massacre and her true lineage all pretty much drove her insane.
Eventually, though, she got better - just in time to lose her powers on M-Day! However, Apocalypse made her one of his Horsemen, giving her new versions of her old powers.
She was on the run when the X-Men picked her up and asked her if she'd like to go on a mission to the Shi'ar Empire. As she lost her appointment book, she figured she was free for the next, oh, couple of years, so she said yes.
She is now on the X-Men...in SPACE!!
16. Archangel/Angel - 253 points
Warren Worthington grew up rich. When he discovered he had wings, he used them to become a superhero, the Avenging Angel.
He then met up with Charles Xavier, who convinced him to come to his school. Warren was one of the original five X-Men.
He stayed on the team for years, until a new group of mutants joined up, so Warren left (although he kept coming back to help out often).
He joined the Champions with his X-Men teammate Iceman, and later, joined the Defenders with his X-Men teammates Iceman and Beast.
After the Defenders broke up, he joined X-Factor, with all the original X-Men. He stayed on that team until they merged with the X-Men to form one big-ass X-Men team.
Warren, while with X-Factor, lost his wings during the Mutant Massacre, and after trying to kill himself, Apocalypse gave him new metal wings and made him one of his Horseman. Warren broke free, and eventually, the metal wings fell apart and he had normal wings once again.
Warren served with the X-Men for quite awhile, and had a long relationship with Psylocke. Then, his secondary mutation kicked in, and he became a jailbait attractor, and began hooking up with his young teammate, Husk (including having sex in the air on top of her mom - classy).
Angel also can heal people with his blood - and he turned blue but then had the blue sucked out of his skin. This was a weird time for Warren, as you can tell by the costume he wore at the time...
Currently, he not really much of an active X-Men. He mostly runs his father's corporation and helps fund the X-Men.
Recently, his Archangel persona popped up again.
Who knows if this will happen again. You know he sure doesn't want it to happen again.
15. Rachel Grey (Some Various Names Jean Grey Used First) - 265 points (10 first place votes)
Rachel is from an alternate future where Scott Summer and Jean Grey had a kid (her).
Sentinels, though, ended up killing most every mutant, except for those, like Rachel, who were forced into becoming mutant hounds, using their powers to hunt down other mutants.
Through help of the remaining mutant rebels, Rachel was cured of being a hound, and ultimately, with the help of her friend Kate Pryde, Rachel used the Phoenix Force to send herself back in time, to help avert the future she came from.
She joined the X-Men, and after a little...ahem..incident with Wolverine, she ended up joining Excalibur for awhile.
Then she was trapped in time...and, well, a whole pile of silly stuff involving time travel ensued, until she finally came back and re-joined the X-Men.
Now she's calling herself Marvel Girl and wearing her mother's old costume. She also took the name Rachel Grey (as opposed to Summers) because she's pissed that her dad, Scott Summers, is hooking up with Emma Frost.
Rachel has really powerful telekinetic and telepathic powers. Recently, afraid she would become the Phoenix, the Shi'ar Empire sent these folks down to Earth to kill off EVERY PERSON in the Grey lineage, so none of them could become Phoenix. However, they were unable to kill Rachel, but they DID put a mark on Rachel so they could track her everywhere, so they'd be sure to know if she came after them.
She's now one of a few X-Men stuck in the Shi'ar Empire fighting the evil lunatic former X-Man, Vulcan.
She was also with some goofy alien guy named Korvus for awhile.
14. Psylocke - 294 points (4 first place votes)
Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock was the twin sister of Brian Braddock, otherwise known as Captain Britain.
She had telepathic powers, and worked for a British version of SHIELD, going undercover as a model while doing missions.
The evil Mojo kidnapped her and replaced her eyes with bionic eyes. The New Mutants saved her, and she decided to stay in Westchester and join the X-Men. She also tried to one-up Colossus for a little bit in the jail bait area, by heavily flirting with Doug Ramsey.
Anyhow, after being a widely mediocre member of the team for awhile, she was one of the four X-Men who entered the Siege Perilous, depositing her in Japan, where she was promptly kidnapped and had her mind swapped into the body of an asian assassin.
Now that she wasn't an ugly supermodel anymore, but an asian assassin, Psylocke really started getting some attention, including the wandering eyes of that scamp, Scott Summers.
Eventually, she started dating Warren Worthington, which made sense, as they were both spoiled rich kids.
Also about this time, she was almost killed by saving the life of Boomer, who was stupid enough to think Sabretooth was "tame." Warren and Wolverine teamed up to help save her, and the resulting process got her this (cool?) face tattoo and new Crimson Dawn powers.
She then lost her telepathic powers to stop the Shadow King, but later (I don't believe it's ever been explained HOW), she gained teleKINETIC powers.
Then, in a battle with the super-cool-awesome-will-be-a-major-villain-
for-years-and-won't-ever-be-forgetten-as-
soon-as-he-stops-appearing-in-the-comic villain Vargas, Psylocke was killed.
She came back awhile later.
She then re-joined the X-Men, and then, when visiting her brother in England, got zapped by the Shadow King (who is still pissed at her - what a baby).
She currently is a member of the Exiles, and is being hounded by this lame villain, Slaymaster (think Vargas, but less cool), who is obsessed with her for no particularly good reason.
She might also be becoming the greatest...martial artist...EVER.
That is unclear.
13. Colossus - 322 points (5 first place votes)
Piotr Rasputin was born in a Russian farming collective. His older brother was a cosmonaut who everyone thought had perished (but had actually been transported to another dimension and turned Spanish).
His powers first appeared when he saved the life of his sister from a runaway tractor. His ability to turn to "living steel," along with his invunerablity and super-strength, made him a powerful figure.
Therefore, it came as no surprise that Professor X would want Colossus to join his All-New, All-Different X-Men.
It was here that Piotr discovered the joys of being a superhero, namely hooking up with young teenage girls then cheating on them with alien chicks.
Piotr was a longtime member of the team, lasting the longest on the team of all the All-New, All-Different X-Men. Ultimately, he was one of the four X-Men who entered the Siege Perilous, sending themselves into new lives.
Piotr found himself an artist in New York, but soon, that identity was shrugged away as he rejoined the X-Men.
However, his young sister, the only living member of his family other than himself (or so he thought at the time) perished from the Legacy Virus. This put Colossus in a bad mood, so he was willing to join Magneto's side after Magneto showed up at his sister's funeral, talking all sorts of trash about the X-Men.
Colossus quickly realized this was pretty stupid, so he left the Acolytes, and found his way to joining Excalibur. When that team broke up, he rejoined the X-Men.
Eventually, he "died" helping Beast find a cure for the disease that killed his sister.
However, a little while later, we learned his death was faked by some alien bad guy for some super logical reason that made perfect sense.
He re-joined the X-Men and while sadly, his former flame, Kitty Pryde, was now no longer an adolescent, he still mustered up/faked the interest to date her again.
Sadly, like everyone else in his life, Kitty was taken from him.
After a short stint with the Defenders, Piotr is back with the X-Men in some capacity.
And he is most likely hanging out outside a Hot Topic and/or Spencer's Gifts.
Say, I wonder what Pixie and/or Armor are doing tonight?
12. Cannonball - 357 (6 first place votes)
Sam Guthrie was just a Kentucky coal mining lad, helping to support his family after his father's death before he discovered his mutant powers. Sam could fly, and, while flying, he was "nigh invulnerable" while he was "blastin" (that's what Sam would call his flying, because his propulsion was generally in the form of stuff that looked like flames and also because he liked to remind people that he was just a Kentucy coal mining lad...incessently...we GET it, Sam!).
Sam was part of the first group of New Mutants, and stayed with the team for years. Ulimately, when Magneto was put in charge of the team, Sam and the others went off on their own, eventually hooking up with Cable, who turned them into X-Force.
After awhile on X-Force, the group ended up going back to Xavier, at which point Sam "graduated" to the X-Men. He stayed with them for awhile.
At one of the typical team shuffling, Sam ended up rejoining X-Force. Then, after that broke off, he ended up joining the X-Treme X-Men.
He stayed with the X-Treme X-Men until they became affiliated with Xavier's again. Sam stayed there until Cable needed him, so Sam went back to X-Force, but has since returned.
He then became a member of Rogue's team of X-Men.
But now he is sort of unaffiliated.
Recently, in an elaborate hoax, Sam pretended to be a dumb angry redneck while visiting his sister. It is unknown what his motives were behind this clever, yet odd, ruse.
11. Gambit - 431 points (19 first place votes)
Remy was abandoned as a child. He was raised by a group of thieves, and when trying to steal from the head of the Thieves Guild in New Orleans, Remy was caught, but the man, Jean-Luc Lebau, decided, instead, to raise Remy as his own son. Later on, Remy married Bella Donna Boudreaux, of the Assassins Guild, in an attempt to merge the two Guilds. Sadly, her brother challenged Remy to a duel - and Remy killed him. This caused things to be kinda uneasy for Remy in New Orleans, so he headed off.
Remy then became a pretty darn good thief, until his powers got to the point where he could not contain all the energy being released. The evil scientist Mr. Sinister fixed Remy's problems, but in exchange, he had Remy put together a team of mercenaries for Sinister. Remy did not know at the time, but the team of mercenaries he put together were responsible for the Mutant Massacre. When Remy realized what was going on, he saved the only Morlock he could (a girl who would later grow up to be the X-Man Marrow).
Remy kept up his thieving ways, until he came across a teen girl named Ororo.
The two became traveling companions, and Ororo convinced Remy to use his mutant powers for good, as a member of the X-Men. Remy agreed (and Ororo eventually re-aged to her regular age as Storm, leader of the X-Men). While with the X-Men, he began a romance with his teammate Rogue.
Everything was hunky-dory until everyone found out about him forming the Marauders.
People were quite pissed.
However, eventually people forgave him, and he rejoined the X-Men, even LEADING a squad for awhile! Then, after one of many team reshufflings, he headed off on his own.
Again, though, he found himself hooking up with the X-Men, this time the X-Treme X-Men. After fighting some bad dude named Vargas, who is super memorable and will long live on in X-Men history, he and Rogue both lost their powers. Now powerless, they finally had a chance to live a normal life. Eventually, though, both regained their powers and rejoined the X-Men.
Sadly, though, after listening to a few too many Cure and Smiths albums, Remy got too depressed, so he was easy fodder for Apocalypse to convince Remy to become a Horseman - for the good of the X-Men. Remy agreed (always figuring he'd just betray Apocalypse), but the transformation into a Horseman messed his head up - not to mention gave him special flatulance powers...or something like that.
After a battle, Remy headed off with Sunfire, who also was a Horseman. The two surely had a number of hilarious adventures as they were quite the odd couple, "Sunfire! Did you drink de milk and put de almost empty carton back in de fridge??!"
Eventually, they showed up working with the Marauders, but Remy was only involved because he wanted to protect Rogue. He also was back to looking normal.
After a big battle, he hit the road and recently helped out Professor X.
10. Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat/Ariel/Jailbait/Sprite - 432 points (9 first place votes)
Kitty Pryde was the first addition to the X-Men after the All-New, All-Different X-Men team. It was kinda weird, though, as she was basically the only student at the school ("You got the best grade on the test!" "Woohoo!" "Sadly, you also got the worst grade on the test." "Awww."
Kitty had her first trial of fire as an X-Man when she defeated an evil demon on Christmas.
Kitty was a solid member of the X-Men, and grew close to all her teammates, but most especially, her teammate Colossus. Colossus apparently goes by the "if there is grass on the field, then play on!" rule, when it comes to relationships with women.
At one point, while the X-Men were in space and presumed dead, Professor X put together a new team of students - the New Mutants. They were all contemporaries, age-wise, of Kitty, so Professor X considered putting Kitty (who had gone by two codenames, Sprite and Ariel, by this time) on the new squad. This got her mad, and eventually, he relented.
Soon after, Kitty found out about Colossus' particular bad habit, which is that if you strand him anywhere (Savage Land, Battleworld, Walmart), he WILL end up having sex with one of the natives. So they broke up. Also, she became really good friends with Colossus' little sister, Illyana.
Some time later, Kitty and Nightcrawler were injured during the Mutant Massacre, and while they were in England recuperating, the X-Men seemingly were killed. So Kitty and Kurt helped form a NEW team in England - Excalibur.
Kitty (as Shadowcat) was a long-time member of Excalibur, until the team disbanded and Kitty, Kurt and Colossus (who had joined Excalibur at one point) rejoined the X-Men.
Kitty eventually quit the X-Men after Colossus died, to have a "normal" life.
Recently, Cyclops asked her to re-join the X-Men because she could set a good example for mutants. She said yes.
Soon after, Colossus returned from the "dead." Making up for lost time, the two got together.
Sadly, Kitty recently appeared to die when she jumped from a tower to close a portal.
Hopefully, she returns when the X-Men move to UPN.
9. Emma Frost - 445 points (7 first place votes, 3 less than Rachel Grey)
Emma Frost first met the X-Men when she was a member of the Hellfire Club, which was a group of rich mutants who got high one night watching the old English television series The Avengers, and decided to dress up like characters on the show. This was also how Emma Frost first began talking like a British person.
The Hellfire Club had a Black and White King and Queen, and Emma was the White Queen. The Hellfire Club captured the X-Men during the lead-up to the Dark Phoenix Saga.
Later, Emma showed up again, having "convinced" Kitty Pryde's parents (using her considerable telepathic abilities) to send her to Emma's school of mutants. Luckily, the X-Men were able to force her to change her mind by threatening her with being stuck in Storm's body via a mind-swap.
This same school of mutants often clashed with Xavier's young students, the New Mutants. It was around this time period that Emma totally messed with Angelica Jones' mind, in an attempt to use Angelica to kill a rival to Emma in the Hellfire Club. That plan did not work out so well, and Angelica went off to become the hero known as Firestar.
Later, in an attack by some bad guy named Fitzroy, most of Emma's prized students were slaughtered, and she was put into a coma. When she awoke, she possessed the body of Iceman. She was eventually coaxed back to her own body. Shortly afterwards, she helped Banshee save some young mutants.
It was decided that Banshee and Emma would run a NEW school for young mutants. Eventually, through various screw-ups, the students (known as Generation X) left the school, leaving Emma without students once again.
So she headed off to the mutant island of Genosha, and began teaching mutants there. However, Emma must have a black cloud following her around, because not long after she began teaching there, Sentinels annihilated most of the mutant population of Genosha (Emma survived via her secondary mutation - the ability to turn into a diamond-like subtance).
Once again, Emma lost her students.
This time, the X-Men brought her into their school to teach and become a member of the X-Men. During this time period, she started having an illicit relationship with her married teammate, Scott Summers (it was all done telepathically).
As it turned out, Emma really cared for Scott, so when his wife died, they started shacking up together.
Emma and Scott ended up becoming the co-heads of the school, but then M-Day hit, and suddenly, there were very few students left who WERE mutants.
Then this bad dude named Rev. Stryker showed up, and he killed most of the former mutant kids (and a couple of the still mutant ones).
So Emma lost MORE students.
At this point, you would figure they would start considering having Emma tutor the Masters of Evil and the Sinister Six or something like that, and actually use her death powers for good, but instead, she remained the co-head of the X-Men.
Now based in San Francisco, Emma continues to lead the X-Men with Cyclops.
And by "lead," I of course mean they spend half of every issue having sex.
8. Storm - 531 points (18 first place votes)
Ororo Monroe was born in New York, the daughter of a black photographer and an African princess. The couple moved to Egypt when Ororo was but a child, and her parents were killed when their house was destroyed during an armed conflict. Being trapped in the rubble gave Ororo a life-long case of claustrophobia.
Now an orphan, Ororo grew up on the streets of Egypt, becoming a master pickpocket. This is where she first encountered Professor X, stealing his wallet.
As she grew into a young adult, she met T'Challa, prince of Wakanda. The two fell in love, but ultimately, the two were going in different directions at the time.
Ororo then ended up back in Africa at the land where her mother came from. The people there treated her as a goddess, and that was her state when Professor X recruited her into the All-New, All-Different X-Men.
Storm was a stalwart for the X-Men, eventually becoming the leader of the team when Cyclops left the group. Storm went through a lot of character changes over the years, at one point drastically changing her look - and then when she lost her powers for a considerable amount of time.
Eventually, with her powers back, she once again remained a stalwart on the X-Men, whether it be Uncanny, X-Treme, XSE or whatever, she was there for the team as one of its main leaders.
She was quite an X-Man (although there are some who wish to differ on the X point).
Storm has been romantically linked with a number of characters, with Forge being a main beau - at times, there has even been significant hints that Storm was bi-sexu....excuse me, I made a mistake! Throughout her time with the X-Men, Ororo was in love with T'Challa and T'Challa only - her thoughts never strayed from him, and she certainly never even considered the warm embrace of another woman - even if that woman had tentacles!!
After the effects of M-Day, though, Ororo decided to help out the many African ex-mutants, feeling as though they were not given the same amount of treatment ex-mutants in America were.
It was at this point that she rekindled her romance with T'Challa, now the King of Wakanda and the Black Panther. He needed to have a queen, so he proposed, and Ororo accepted.
She is now the Queen of Wakanda.
She has recently begin popping up in the X-Books again, so perhaps her marriage may be going through some problems in the future.
Kurt Wagner was orphaned by his mother as an infant. Taken in by Margali Szardos, a witch, Kurt is raised as a gypsy. He eventually becomes a popular circus performer, but when he is forced to kill his adopted brother, Stefan, Kurt is hunted by the village people, who only see a monster killing a human. Saved by Professor Xavier, Kurt gladly takes Xavier up on his offer to come to America and join the X-Men.
Kurt becomes a stalwart member of the X-Men after that, staying with the team for quite some time, on many adventures, using his agility and teleportation powers to help the team in many fights.
What was notable about Kurt was that, despite his monsterous appearance, he was pretty happy-go-lucky, but even he often had problems, mostly ones about his own competence, which he doubted frequently ("Am I good enough?" etc.).
In fact, it was his feelings of inadequacy that, during the Mutant Massacre, caused him to use his powers beyond their limits, leaving him open for a brutal assault by one of the Marauders.
Kurt and Kitty Pryde (who as also injured) ended up joining a new team, Excalibur, when they thought that the X-Men had been killed. Kurt's confidence grew a lot as a member of Excalibur.
Eventually, though, the team broke up, and Kurt re-joined the X-Men, where he has stayed ever since.
After a time on the loser squad (where Kurt also began to question his confidence, especially due to his involvement in one of the stupidest evil plans ever, involving the Raptu...no, I won't even dignify it with a recap - same thing with Racoday)...
Kurt joined the XSE, who were basically X-Men who were sanctioned to work anywhere in the world as superheroes.
Kurt stayed on this team (even becoming the default leader) until Professor Xavier asked him to go on a mission into outer space. When the man who saved you from a pack of murderous villagers asks you for a favor, it's kinda hard to turn down, so Kurt gladly accepted.
While half of the team that went into outer space were Lost in Space (tm), Kurt returned to Earth with Xavier.
Professor X and Cyclops were not in a good place in their relationship at this point in time, so Professor X needed someone else to help him go look for Magneto, and, let's face it, Kurt had no other plans, so he helped Professor X search for Magneto.
Then Messiah Complex hit, and Kurt is, well, I dunno, a member of the X-Men, I suppose.
And he's religious.
Not really much going on in the House of Wagner.
5. Beast - 586 points (8 first place votes)
Hank McCoy was an original member of Professor X's X-Men.
After being on the team for quite some time, Hank was the first X-Man to leave the team, choosing to take a job at the Brand Corporation as a research scientist. For some weird reason, he decided to use a formula he had been working on that could make anyone a mutant for a short period of time to disguise himself while he investigated who was trying to steal his research. Why he didn't just try, like, a big coat, is beyond me. In any event, it ended up turning him into a blue-furred guy, with sharp teeth and pointy ears, while maintaining his strength and agility mutant powers.
He joined the Avengers soon after, and was a member of that team for awhile. Then he became the leader of the Defenders. Upon the break-up of that team, he joined X-Factor. When THAT team broke up, he joined the X-Men.
Hank took some time off to cure the Legacy virus, which, with the help of Destiny's Diaries, he eventually DID cure.
Soon after, though, Hank was severely beaten by the super-cool-will-never -be-forgotten villain Vargas. In order to save his life, Sage jump-started Hank's secondary mutation, making him more of a cat-like creature, losing a lot of the still human characteristics he had (like his hands).
After most of the world's mutants lost their X-Gene, Beast spent what felt like years searching for a way to find new mutants, but was stymied at every step of the way - until a new mutant showed up right after he finished determining that there could not be any more new mutants.
Boy, is he purple in the face!!
Even MORE recently, Beast recovered the use of his hands, which is quite useful in his everyday membership of the X-Men.
4. Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/Mind-Witch/Phoenix - 587 points (14 first place votes)
Charles Xavier met Jean Grey when she was a young teen, as her powers had manifested themselves when her friend was hit by a car - Jean linked minds with her dying friend, and her friend's death almost killed Jean - sending her into a coma. Xavier put blocks upon her powers and eventually got her back to the waking world. Ultimately, as Marvel Girl, Jean would become one of the original five X-Men (and if only it weren't for that blasted wheelchair, Xavier would be all over that young, nubile girl).
Jean stayed with the team for quite some time, until the All-New, All-Different X-Men showed up. She took a break from the X-Men, but when all the X-Men were kidnapped by Stephen Lang, who is ready to unleash a whole pile of Sentinels from space, Jean found herself along for the ride.
As the X-Men were escaping from Lang's space station, they found that their space shuttle was damaged. Someone had to pilot the ship, but that someone would almost certainly be killed by radiation. Jean decided to do it, and when the shuttle landed, Jean emerged as a NEW being called the Phoenix!
The Phoenix was pretty damn powerful, but after being messed with by the Hellfire Club, the Phoenix's powers got out of hand, and went on a murderous rampage in outer space.
The Shi'ar Empire tried to stop it, but ultimately, Jean Grey decided to sacrifice herself rather than become the evil Dark Phoenix again.
However, years later, it turned out that, ever since that space shuttle crash, the REAL Jean Grey had been healing in an energy cocoon where the shuttle crashed! The Phoenix only was a COPY of Jean, which makes the fact that it was STILL willing to sacrifice itself pretty damn impressive.
Jean became a founding member of X-Factor, where she was too distracted by all the changes since she was away ("What is this fascinating show about the two cousins? Why, one of them is naive and kind and the other one keeps trying out hilarious schemes - oho - the scheme failed!! Haha!") to notice that her former flame was married with a kid - that caused some issues.
However, she stayed with X-Factor until the team merged with the X-Men to form a BIG X-Men squad. Initially assigned to the Gold (i.e. the "loser squad"), Jean soon took a bigger role at the school, especially when she married her teammate Cyclops and the two became co-heads of the X-Men's school for mutants. Their marriage was almost as filled with passion as Bill and Hillary's. I'm surprised they didn't sleep in separate beds like Lucy and Desi.
Awhile later, we learned that Jean is still connected to the Phoenix Force, through whatever means, I dunno, to be honest.
Sadly, Jean discovered her husband was cheating on her with Emma Frost, and soon after, a defeated Magneto added injury to insult as he lashed out one last time - killing Jean Grey.
The Phoenix Force has shown up a few times since then, so never say never for Jean coming back!
Although she is never coming back.
3. Iceman - 608 points (7 first place votes)
Bobby Drake was a member of the very first team of X-Men (the youngest, to be precise). He used his ice powers to help the team on many adventures.
Eventually, the original X-Men left, to be replaced by the All-New, All-Different X-Men. Bobby went to college, presumably to become an accountant.
Along the way, however, Bobby ended up joining TWO other superhero teams. In the first team, the Champions, Bobby romanced his teammate, the Russian mutant Darkstar.
Later on, Bobby joined the Defenders, who had been reformed by his friend and former teammate, Hank McCoy (the Beast).
Shortly after the Defenders broke up, Bobby found himself back together with the original five X-Men in a new group called X-Factor.
Ultimately, X-Factor merged with the X-Men to form one big team of X-Men, split into two squads. Bobby was on the Gold team, otherwise known as the "loser team".
Eventually, Bobby took a leave of absence from the X-Men to take care of his father, who used to be an anti-mutant bigot, but had since changed his ways. Bobby also was dealing with the weird effects of what happened when Emma Frost possessed his body and used his mutant powers in ways he never could even IMAGINE using.
Bobby returned to the X-Men when the evil dude Bastion was hunting down mutants. Bobby rounded up a couple of mutants to oppose Bastion, but once Bastion was defeated (not due to Bobby), Bobby returned back to take care of his dad.
After one of the many team reshufflings, Bobby once again joined the X-Men, and once again, Bobby was assigned to the loser squad. Other team members of the loser squad came and went (Nightcrawler was bumped up to one of the cool squads, Archangel quit the X-Men, Chamber quit the X-Men, Havok and Polaris switched squads, Gambit became a Horseman), but Bobby remained a stalwart member of the loser squad.
Subsequently, fellow loser squad member Rogue was given control of a NEW team of X-Men, designed to be sorta like X-Force. She was allowed to chose any X-Men she wanted (the hidden proviso was "so long as they weren't busy on a cooler team") and she chose Bobby as one of her team members.
He served with Rogue's team for awhile, forming a twisted relationship with Mystique that led to her screwing him over big-time.
Recently, while Bobby is not actively on any X-Men team, Mystique returned to screw with him some more.
In addition, the following line will be written in a comic at least ten more times in the next 10 years to Bobby - "You don't even realize how powerful you are!" By now, you'd think he'd get it....
2. Cyclops - 612 points (22 first place votes)
When Scott Summers was a young boy, he was in a small plane with his parents and his younger, cooler brother Alex. Aliens attacked the plane and in an attempt to save their best chance at having a happy son, the parents sent Alex down in a parachute. Scott saw his opportunity to live, and hitched a ride - the weight of the two boys, though, was too much, and Scott hit his head pretty bad, giving him severe brain damage and a predilection for telepathic women (you would think such a fetish would have left Scott fairly lonely - not so, as it turns out).
He spent much of his youth in an orphanage, as Alex, being the younger, cooler brother, was adopted quickly. As it turned out, the greatest, coolest and not at all lame character of them all, Mister Sinister, was in control of the orphanage, as he wanted to take advantage of Scott's new-found attraction to telepathic women to create the perfect child!!
Later on, Scott was a member of the first team of X-Men (technically, I believe he is the FIRST "X-Man" - Storm MAY have beaten him to that particular punch).
Scott was the leader of the team, and served with everyone until they broke up when the All-New, All-Different X-Men showed up.
Scott, however, hung around to be the leader of the NEW team (unlike the others, Scott really did not have much going on outside the X-Men).
Scott left the X-Men for a time after Jean Grey, the love of his life, seemingly killed herself rather than become the Dark Phoenix. Scott ultimately returned to the X-Men afterwards, and even ended up meeting (and MARRYING) another women, Maddie Pryor, who looked just like his dead girlfriend (Scott does not always make the healthiest life choices).
When Jean Grey returned (as it turned out that the Phoenix was the being that died, not Jean) though, Scott was quick to run to her side and form a new team, X-Factor with her - he heroically gave his wife and child a few moments of thought before doing so, which was nice.
Things were nicely resolved when Scott's wife Maddie turned out to be a clone of Jean, and Maddie turned evil anyways, so Scott had smooth sailing to getting with Jean (most of Inferno was made up of Scott saying, "This is awesome - this is awesome - this is awesome").
Surprisingly, even with Maddie out of the picture, Jean wasn't giving it up - it seemed she might have a problem with the whole kid thing. So Scott quickly decided to send his son into the future, so he would have a clear path to Cupid's Grove with Jean.
And it worked!
Of course, later his son came back as the mutant soldier Cable, but Cyclops can't think of EVERYthing, can he?
X-Factor ended up merging with the X-Men, and during their time as X-Men, Scott and Jean got married. Sadly, though, in an attempt to stop Apocaylpse, Scott ended up MERGING with the dude! They were ultimately separated, but Scott was quite changed afterwards (how much brain damage can one dude have?).
Scott and Jean grew apart, and Scott began a psychic affair with his new teammate, the former villain, Emma Frost.
Yes, there are, like, four hot women who are telepaths, and Scott has attracted TWO of them!
After Jean was killed by Magneto, Scott and Emma (with telepathic urging by Jean) got together as an official couple.
Scott then decided that the X-Men should be seen more often as superheroes, to help mutant public relations.
Recently, after the destruction of the X-Men's mansion, Scott broke up the X-Men, then re-formed them in San Francisco, in a more militaristic state (again, this is the brain damage talking here). He also thought it would be a good idea to use X-23 and Wolverine's psychoses for his benefit by forming a murder squad called X-Force.
In addition, every few months, Cyclops tells Professor X how much Professor X screwed up - it's a thing they do.
1. Rogue - 711 points (13 first place votes)
The mutant named Rogue (I know she has a real name now, but I don't like it) had a tough childhood. First, she lost her parents, but then later, when she kissed a boy named Cody, her powers kicked in - and she put Cody into a coma!
You can imagine how traumatizing that must be, from a romantic state of mind, which is why from then on out, Rogue has only been attracted to sleazy guys, like Gambit, Magneto, Magneto Jr. (Joseph to his friends) and sorta kinda Colossus ("You're fourteen? I'm for teens, too!").
Still, can you imagine how messed up it must be to absorb someone's personality with a single touch? Messed up!! She can't even give people hi-fives without getting their personalities! Think of how much that messes up celebrations!!
So yeah, she was messed up pretty good, leaving her pretty easy prey for her foster mother, the mutant terrorist, Mystique, to twist into becoming a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Mystique also used a special chemical treatment to make Rogue look like a 50 year old (do you have a better explanation?).
As a member of the Brotherhood, Rogue tussled with the X-Men a few times, but her most notable moment was when she permanently absorbed Ms. Marvel's powers - AND personality!
Ultimately, it was having Ms. Marvel's personality stuck in her head constantly that led Rogue to Professor X to ask for help. He granted it, and made her a member of the team.
The other members of the team did not take kindly to this.
Ultimately, though, they welcomed the Southern Belle into their open arms as she routinely proved herself to the team (they didn't even make fun of the way she talked like Foghorn Leghorn). In addition, she soon got really good looking, due to the subtle genetic experiments Xavier does to all his students to make them all, no matter what they looked like BEFORE they were X-Men, hot-looking by the time they leave.
After serving with the team for quite some time, Rogue went through the Siege Perilous, and when she came out, she was able to FINALLY get rid of Carol Danvers' personality.
Eventually, Rogue returned to the team, and stayed a member for a real long time, during this time, she began a relationship with her teammate, Gambit. It was kinda rocky.
She was one of a group of X-Men who followed Storm to find these diaries that a precognitive wrote, as the info in the diaries were pretty important. Along the way, Rogue and Gambit lost their powers and "retired" to live a normal life together.
This was not to last, as they both ended up returning to the X-Men, and both were assigned to the loser squad. Sadly, Gambit ended up becoming a Horseman of Apocalypse, which messed Rogue up pretty bad.
Cyclops then decided to give Rogue her OWN team of X-Men to lead, in the style of a quick response unit.
Then the X-Men figured Rogue was best suited for being in a coma and barely appearing in the comic book, which is what has happened the past year or so.
But that makes sense, it's not like she's popular or anything, right?
Sean Cassidey worked for the international crime-fighting organization Interpol. He had sonic powers, but kept them hidden from everyone.
While on a mission that took him away from his wife for quite some time, his wife was killed. His wife was pregnant when Sean left (neither he nor his wife knew at the time) and gave birth while he was away. Sean's nefarious cousin Black Tom Cassidey took the daughter and raised her on his own, so Sean didn't know he had a daughter until many years later.
After his wife's death, Sean threw himself into his work, and eventually became a freelancer - which led to some crime on his part. At this time, the evil organization Factor Three forced Sean to be a member of the group.
Luckily, the X-Men rescued him and he helped them defeat Factor Three.
Later, when Xavier needed new X-Men, Sean joined the All-New, All-Different X-Men, and stayed with the team until he lost his powers saving Japan from Moses Magnum.
Later on, he rejoined the team when his powers returned. He left the team again to hang out with his love, Moira MacTaggert (which is where he was when he had no powers). He eventually came back to be the Headmaster of the new school for mutants. During this period, Moira was killed.
This freaked Sean out, so he was manipulated into forming the X-Corps.
At the end of the debacle, his throat was sliced by Mystique.
He slowly regained his powers, but while doing some research for Xavier, he discovered some horrible news. Upon returning home, though, the villain Vulcan sent a Blackbird shooting at his commercial airline. Banshee flew out to try to stop the Blackbird, but he was unable to do so - and the Blackbird collided into him and the commercial airliner, killing all the passengers.
Quite a death for a hero, eh?
Horribly failing to save hundreds of innocents.
Not that I'm bitter or anything.
24. Professor X - 150 points
Charles Xavier is a powerful telepath who formed the X-Men (because Mister Sinister implanted something in his head to tell him to do so, I'm sure).
He remained as the head of the school for many years, until he eventually left the team to be with his "wife" Lilandra in the Shi'ar Empire (most likely because Mister Sinister implanted something in his head to tell him to do so).
He returned some years afterward, and he stayed with the team, even though he had some absences here and there (most of them due to an implant in his mind by Mister Sinister, the coolest character ever).
After the events of House of M, Professor X disappeared, for it turned out Scarlet Witch gave him the use of his legs again, but stripped him of his mutant powers (Mister Sinister was not involved....or was he?).
He returned when the former X-man Vulcan demanded his revenge on Xavier. Vulcan then took off to revenge himself on the Shi'ar Empire. Xavier couldn't have this, so he formed a team of X-Men to go stop Vulcan (pretty sure it is because Mister Sinister wanted him to do that).
During the battle in space, Xavier had his mental abilities returned (Sinister was uninvolved).
After his return, Cyclops was really mad at him, so Professor X used this rage to make Nightcrawler feel like he was actually useful, and went looking for Magneto with Kurt (Mister Sinister wanted him to do this, of course).
However, during Messiah Complex, Professor Xavier was shot in the head by Bishop, who was actually trying to assasinate Cable (the way the writers assasinated Bishop's character - Sinister probably told them to do so).
The mutant Exodus (who was just working with...guess who?) healed Xavier, but now there are holes in Xavier's memory, so he is currently traveling the world, finding himself - while, of course, being mindful that around each corner, something Sinister might come.
23. Mystique - 171 points (1 first place vote)
Mystique has worn many hats, which makes sense, with her shapeshifting abilities.
She's been a mercenary, she's been an adventurer, she's been a sociopath - she's been all over the place.
Recently, though, she added "X-Man" to her list of accomplishments, as she asked to become a member of the X-Men (presumably to keep tabs on her foster daughter, Rogue). Later, when Rogue was allowed to choose her own team of X-Men, she chose Mystique to be a member, presumably to keep tabs on HER.
This stint with the X-Men, however, was all part of a ruse by Mystique. One of those, "To save you from a stubbed toe, Rogue, I will shoot you in the leg!" things.
Along the way, Mystique played upon her gender-bending abilities to get Iceman to fall for her.
She then used that opportunity to screw him over.
After Messiah Complex, Wolverine gutted her and left her for dead, but while you would think he would notice that the people he guts never seem to actually die, he didn't - and she recently came back to screw with Iceman some more.
22. Dani Moonstar - 181 points (1 first place vote)
Danielle Moonstar was born in Colorado as a member of the Cheyenne tribe.
She was mostly raised by her grandfather, and after an attempt to kidnap Danielle by the Hellfire Club fails (in which her grandfather tragically dies), Dani is taken in by Charles Xavier who makes her one of his New Mutants.
She serves with the New Mutants for many years, most of them as co-leader of the team.
She lost a bet and was forced to use the lame name Psyche for awhile, as her power was to tell what people were most afraid of and show it to them.
Later, she lost a separate bet, and took the name Mirage.
Along the way, she also gained the ability to make her psychic manisfestations tangible.
She ended up leaving the New Mutants after she was taken in by the Valkyries (she was made a Valkyrie on an earlier trip to Asgard).
She returned and joined with her former New Mutants friends in X-Force.
When X-Force broke up, Dani ended up joining the X-Men, part-time, mostly working with Forge as a sort of advance scout for the team.
She then became an instructor at Xavier's, but on M-Day, most of her charges lost their powers, and Dani lost hers, too.
She was so saddened by the loss of her powers that she went out and got plastic surgery to get larger breasts to help with her confidence.
Where's my No-Prize?!?
I'm sure she'll get her powers back some day in the future!
At the very least, she can always change her personality and get mechanical-derived powers from some guy.
21. Havok - 201 points (3 first place votes)
Alexander Summers was split from his brother Scott early on, as the two boys were both in an orphanage, but Alex was less of a loser than his brother, so he got adopted, while his loser brother did not.
They did not meet until many years later, as young adults, when Alex was manipulated by this dude named The Living Pharaoh as basically a power cell, transforming the Pharaoh guy into the Living Monolith. The X-men showed up to stop the Living Monolith.
It was at this time that Alex first demonstrated his powers - but they were SO powerful, he could not control himself, so decided not to go home with the X-Men, even though he finally reunited with his long-lost brother, Scott.
Soon after, Larry Trask captured Alex and built him a suit that could contain his cosmic energy. After the X-Men defeated Trask, Havok now joined them, because the suit could help him learn to control his powers. He fell for his teammate, Lorna Dane, and the two eventually quit the team to study, of all things, geophysics (Alex never struck me as having the highest cognitive capacity, but who knows?)!!
Eventually, due to unforeseen circumstances (namely, Lorna being turned into an evil mutant), Havok rejoined the X-Men, which he stayed with until the team split up at the Siege Perilous. After going through the Siege Perilous, Alex thought that he was a magistrate in Genosha (mutant soldiers, basically).
After realizing he wasn't actually a magistrate in Genosha, he became the leader of a new team of government-sanctioned mutants, X-Factor. He re-teamed with his old girlfriend, Lorna, and they rekindled their romance. He left the team, though, to go undercover with a mutant terrorist group. He returned just in time to seemingly be killed in an explosion, but in actuality, he was sent to an alternate universe, where he stayed for awhile.
Upon returning, he came back in a coma. The nurse who helped him had this son who had this freaky power over people's minds, so he had Alex and the Nurse "meet" in dreams, so when Alex woke up, he was in love with the Nurse.
Upon his recovery, he rejoined the X-Men.
Alex was on the team for quite awhile, but reecently, he learned he had ANOTHER brother, the evil mutant, Vulcan, who was on his way to destroy the Shi'ar Empire. Alex joined Professor X's team of X-Men to go stop him (and his old girlfriend Lorna came along as well).
During the battle, Vulcan killed his and Alex's father, the space pirate Corsair.
Due to a teleportation error, Alex was left stranded in outer space with Lorna and Alex's "niece," Rachel. They have since kept fighting the good fight with Vulcan (who has since become the King of the Shi'ar Empire).
20. Dazzler - 215 points (8 first place votes)
Alison Blaire discovered her mutant power as she was singing at a high school dance. Everyone figured it was just a light show. After high school, she decided to make her living as a singer, which is what she did. However, while she didn't actively LOOK for trouble, she always seemed to end up having to use her special powers to do some good.
Eventually, after she publically revealed she was a mutant, her career hit the skids (filthy bigots!). So she figured she might as well become a flat-out superhero. She got a fancy costume and joined the X-Men.
She stayed with the team until they split up into the Siege Perilous. Ali was in the Mojoverse with Longshot, helping to lead a rebellion against the bad guys, but ultimately, she came back to Earth, and seemed content to just be Alison Blaire - awesome singer.
However, after some hoodlums sent by the Shadow King attacked her, Ali ended up becoming a member of the newly formed Excalibur, where she started dying a lot. Then she hooked up with Longshot again, and left the team.
She apparently will be joining the X-Men someday. When is a bit unclear. Next issue, I guess?
19. Northstar - 216 pointsAlison Blaire discovered her mutant power as she was singing at a high school dance. Everyone figured it was just a light show. After high school, she decided to make her living as a singer, which is what she did. However, while she didn't actively LOOK for trouble, she always seemed to end up having to use her special powers to do some good.
Eventually, after she publically revealed she was a mutant, her career hit the skids (filthy bigots!). So she figured she might as well become a flat-out superhero. She got a fancy costume and joined the X-Men.
She stayed with the team until they split up into the Siege Perilous. Ali was in the Mojoverse with Longshot, helping to lead a rebellion against the bad guys, but ultimately, she came back to Earth, and seemed content to just be Alison Blaire - awesome singer.
However, after some hoodlums sent by the Shadow King attacked her, Ali ended up becoming a member of the newly formed Excalibur, where she started dying a lot. Then she hooked up with Longshot again, and left the team.
She apparently will be joining the X-Men someday. When is a bit unclear. Next issue, I guess?
ean-Paul Beaubier, and his sister, Jeanne-Marie, were orphaned at a young age. The two were split apart as Jean-Paul was adopted. He became quite a rebellious teen, even joining a Quebec separatist terrorist group, which he eventually quit because terrorism was for squares.
He then became an Olympic skier, until people found out about his superpowers.
He then employed his super-speed (and flight) as a memebr of Canada's Alpha Flight for many years. Eventually, though, Alpha Flight broke up, and Northstar really didn't have anything to do, so he wrote a book about growing up as a mutant and a homosexual (oh, I forgot to mention, to paraphrase Jean-Paul, from an issue of Alpha Flight in the early 90s, "HE'S GAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Oh, and while he's been gay for decades, he's never actually even kissed a guy - lame, huh?)
It was at this point that Jean Grey formed a ragtag team of X-Men, and she enlisted Jean-Paul's help.
He headed off after that battle, but soon after, Professor Xavier convinced him that he should join the school. If not as an X-Man, then at least as a teacher. This intrigued Jean-Paul, so that's what he did, serving as a member of the X-Men for awhile.
After one of the seemingly weekly team-shuffling, Jean-Paul ended up not on any active squad, and simply as a teacher at the school. This was the capacity he was in when a brainwashed Wolverine broke into the grounds to kill Kitty Pryde.
Northstar ended up stepping between Wolverine and Kitty, taking the claws to his chest - killing him.
What was worse is that the Hand then revived him as a psycopathic zombie. When he was captured by SHIELD, they tried to reprogram him, but to no avail.
Northstar was then broken out from SHIELD custody by a mystery group calling themselves "The Children." Eventually, a continuity machine reboot Northstar, so he's basically back to normal.
Still hasn't kissed a guy, though.
18. Magneto - 236 points (1 first place vote)
The young (Magnus? Erik Lensherr? What IS his name?) grew up in a concentration camp during World War II, so he grew up pretty messed up.
Afterwards, though, when some angry villagers came by and killed his young child and he flipped the heck out on them. His wife (who was pregnant) headed off and gave birth, but hid the kids from her husband, who scared the heck out of her. After this, he began to search for his wife.
During this period, he met Charles Xavier, and their friendship was pretty important in making Magnus less psycho. Eventually, though, the influence of jerkwads (who killed his girlfriend of the time) caused Magnus to flip out and basically become "Magneto." When he next showed up, he was flat-out a villain.
Over the years, Xavier worked on Magneto constantly to try to regain his non-psycho friend. Eventually, when Xavier headed off to space with Lilandra, he left his school in Magneto's hands.
So Magneto was in charge of the X-Men for a time. But then he thought the X-Men were killed, so he felt pretty stupid about that. That was it for him being a member of the team.
He's gone through various stuff since then, including having his mind-wiped by Professor X after Magneto ripped out Wolverine's adamantium skeleton. But he always seems to come back to the relatively same status quo.
After losing his powers on M-Day (this guy seems to lose and gain powers on a whim), Magneto recently teamed up with High Evolutionary to fix the mutant race.
17. Polaris - 245 points (9 first place votes)
Polaris is an early example of the since heavily used "boy/girlfriend of superhero somehow has superpowers, too" cliche. Lorna Dane was Bobby Drake's girlfriend, whose latent powers were activated by some bad guy.
She joined the X-Men, and eventually fell for her teammate Havok. The two left the X-Men to explore their love of geophysics (I STILL don't get this - wouldn't you LOVE to hear EITHER of them ever mention that now?).
Sadly, their time together was cut short when this evil thing called Malice possessed her and made her a bad guy for quite some time. Eventually, she broke free, but gained new powers (as her "sister" Zaladane, stole them). But when Zaladane was killed, her power of magnetism eventually returned.
She then joined X-Factor, until that team broke up when Havok was seemingly killed. His death really shook her up, and she was tricked into becoming the power source for the depowered Magneto, who she had thought was her father for some time.
That was the status quo until Alex Summers DID return! At the same time, she discovered Magneto WAS her father - just in time for the island of Genosha (where she was staying) to be attacked by Sentinels. Alex returning, the Genoshan massacre and her true lineage all pretty much drove her insane.
Eventually, though, she got better - just in time to lose her powers on M-Day! However, Apocalypse made her one of his Horsemen, giving her new versions of her old powers.
She was on the run when the X-Men picked her up and asked her if she'd like to go on a mission to the Shi'ar Empire. As she lost her appointment book, she figured she was free for the next, oh, couple of years, so she said yes.
She is now on the X-Men...in SPACE!!
16. Archangel/Angel - 253 points
Warren Worthington grew up rich. When he discovered he had wings, he used them to become a superhero, the Avenging Angel.
He then met up with Charles Xavier, who convinced him to come to his school. Warren was one of the original five X-Men.
He stayed on the team for years, until a new group of mutants joined up, so Warren left (although he kept coming back to help out often).
He joined the Champions with his X-Men teammate Iceman, and later, joined the Defenders with his X-Men teammates Iceman and Beast.
After the Defenders broke up, he joined X-Factor, with all the original X-Men. He stayed on that team until they merged with the X-Men to form one big-ass X-Men team.
Warren, while with X-Factor, lost his wings during the Mutant Massacre, and after trying to kill himself, Apocalypse gave him new metal wings and made him one of his Horseman. Warren broke free, and eventually, the metal wings fell apart and he had normal wings once again.
Warren served with the X-Men for quite awhile, and had a long relationship with Psylocke. Then, his secondary mutation kicked in, and he became a jailbait attractor, and began hooking up with his young teammate, Husk (including having sex in the air on top of her mom - classy).
Angel also can heal people with his blood - and he turned blue but then had the blue sucked out of his skin. This was a weird time for Warren, as you can tell by the costume he wore at the time...
Currently, he not really much of an active X-Men. He mostly runs his father's corporation and helps fund the X-Men.
Recently, his Archangel persona popped up again.
Who knows if this will happen again. You know he sure doesn't want it to happen again.
15. Rachel Grey (Some Various Names Jean Grey Used First) - 265 points (10 first place votes)
Rachel is from an alternate future where Scott Summer and Jean Grey had a kid (her).
Sentinels, though, ended up killing most every mutant, except for those, like Rachel, who were forced into becoming mutant hounds, using their powers to hunt down other mutants.
Through help of the remaining mutant rebels, Rachel was cured of being a hound, and ultimately, with the help of her friend Kate Pryde, Rachel used the Phoenix Force to send herself back in time, to help avert the future she came from.
She joined the X-Men, and after a little...ahem..incident with Wolverine, she ended up joining Excalibur for awhile.
Then she was trapped in time...and, well, a whole pile of silly stuff involving time travel ensued, until she finally came back and re-joined the X-Men.
Now she's calling herself Marvel Girl and wearing her mother's old costume. She also took the name Rachel Grey (as opposed to Summers) because she's pissed that her dad, Scott Summers, is hooking up with Emma Frost.
Rachel has really powerful telekinetic and telepathic powers. Recently, afraid she would become the Phoenix, the Shi'ar Empire sent these folks down to Earth to kill off EVERY PERSON in the Grey lineage, so none of them could become Phoenix. However, they were unable to kill Rachel, but they DID put a mark on Rachel so they could track her everywhere, so they'd be sure to know if she came after them.
She's now one of a few X-Men stuck in the Shi'ar Empire fighting the evil lunatic former X-Man, Vulcan.
She was also with some goofy alien guy named Korvus for awhile.
14. Psylocke - 294 points (4 first place votes)
Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock was the twin sister of Brian Braddock, otherwise known as Captain Britain.
She had telepathic powers, and worked for a British version of SHIELD, going undercover as a model while doing missions.
The evil Mojo kidnapped her and replaced her eyes with bionic eyes. The New Mutants saved her, and she decided to stay in Westchester and join the X-Men. She also tried to one-up Colossus for a little bit in the jail bait area, by heavily flirting with Doug Ramsey.
Anyhow, after being a widely mediocre member of the team for awhile, she was one of the four X-Men who entered the Siege Perilous, depositing her in Japan, where she was promptly kidnapped and had her mind swapped into the body of an asian assassin.
Now that she wasn't an ugly supermodel anymore, but an asian assassin, Psylocke really started getting some attention, including the wandering eyes of that scamp, Scott Summers.
Eventually, she started dating Warren Worthington, which made sense, as they were both spoiled rich kids.
Also about this time, she was almost killed by saving the life of Boomer, who was stupid enough to think Sabretooth was "tame." Warren and Wolverine teamed up to help save her, and the resulting process got her this (cool?) face tattoo and new Crimson Dawn powers.
She then lost her telepathic powers to stop the Shadow King, but later (I don't believe it's ever been explained HOW), she gained teleKINETIC powers.
Then, in a battle with the super-cool-awesome-will-be-a-major-villain-
for-years-and-won't-ever-be-forgetten-as-
soon-as-he-stops-appearing-in-the-comic villain Vargas, Psylocke was killed.
She came back awhile later.
She then re-joined the X-Men, and then, when visiting her brother in England, got zapped by the Shadow King (who is still pissed at her - what a baby).
She currently is a member of the Exiles, and is being hounded by this lame villain, Slaymaster (think Vargas, but less cool), who is obsessed with her for no particularly good reason.
She might also be becoming the greatest...martial artist...EVER.
That is unclear.
13. Colossus - 322 points (5 first place votes)
Piotr Rasputin was born in a Russian farming collective. His older brother was a cosmonaut who everyone thought had perished (but had actually been transported to another dimension and turned Spanish).
His powers first appeared when he saved the life of his sister from a runaway tractor. His ability to turn to "living steel," along with his invunerablity and super-strength, made him a powerful figure.
Therefore, it came as no surprise that Professor X would want Colossus to join his All-New, All-Different X-Men.
It was here that Piotr discovered the joys of being a superhero, namely hooking up with young teenage girls then cheating on them with alien chicks.
Piotr was a longtime member of the team, lasting the longest on the team of all the All-New, All-Different X-Men. Ultimately, he was one of the four X-Men who entered the Siege Perilous, sending themselves into new lives.
Piotr found himself an artist in New York, but soon, that identity was shrugged away as he rejoined the X-Men.
However, his young sister, the only living member of his family other than himself (or so he thought at the time) perished from the Legacy Virus. This put Colossus in a bad mood, so he was willing to join Magneto's side after Magneto showed up at his sister's funeral, talking all sorts of trash about the X-Men.
Colossus quickly realized this was pretty stupid, so he left the Acolytes, and found his way to joining Excalibur. When that team broke up, he rejoined the X-Men.
Eventually, he "died" helping Beast find a cure for the disease that killed his sister.
However, a little while later, we learned his death was faked by some alien bad guy for some super logical reason that made perfect sense.
He re-joined the X-Men and while sadly, his former flame, Kitty Pryde, was now no longer an adolescent, he still mustered up/faked the interest to date her again.
Sadly, like everyone else in his life, Kitty was taken from him.
After a short stint with the Defenders, Piotr is back with the X-Men in some capacity.
And he is most likely hanging out outside a Hot Topic and/or Spencer's Gifts.
Say, I wonder what Pixie and/or Armor are doing tonight?
12. Cannonball - 357 (6 first place votes)
Sam Guthrie was just a Kentucky coal mining lad, helping to support his family after his father's death before he discovered his mutant powers. Sam could fly, and, while flying, he was "nigh invulnerable" while he was "blastin" (that's what Sam would call his flying, because his propulsion was generally in the form of stuff that looked like flames and also because he liked to remind people that he was just a Kentucy coal mining lad...incessently...we GET it, Sam!).
Sam was part of the first group of New Mutants, and stayed with the team for years. Ulimately, when Magneto was put in charge of the team, Sam and the others went off on their own, eventually hooking up with Cable, who turned them into X-Force.
After awhile on X-Force, the group ended up going back to Xavier, at which point Sam "graduated" to the X-Men. He stayed with them for awhile.
At one of the typical team shuffling, Sam ended up rejoining X-Force. Then, after that broke off, he ended up joining the X-Treme X-Men.
He stayed with the X-Treme X-Men until they became affiliated with Xavier's again. Sam stayed there until Cable needed him, so Sam went back to X-Force, but has since returned.
He then became a member of Rogue's team of X-Men.
But now he is sort of unaffiliated.
Recently, in an elaborate hoax, Sam pretended to be a dumb angry redneck while visiting his sister. It is unknown what his motives were behind this clever, yet odd, ruse.
11. Gambit - 431 points (19 first place votes)
Remy was abandoned as a child. He was raised by a group of thieves, and when trying to steal from the head of the Thieves Guild in New Orleans, Remy was caught, but the man, Jean-Luc Lebau, decided, instead, to raise Remy as his own son. Later on, Remy married Bella Donna Boudreaux, of the Assassins Guild, in an attempt to merge the two Guilds. Sadly, her brother challenged Remy to a duel - and Remy killed him. This caused things to be kinda uneasy for Remy in New Orleans, so he headed off.
Remy then became a pretty darn good thief, until his powers got to the point where he could not contain all the energy being released. The evil scientist Mr. Sinister fixed Remy's problems, but in exchange, he had Remy put together a team of mercenaries for Sinister. Remy did not know at the time, but the team of mercenaries he put together were responsible for the Mutant Massacre. When Remy realized what was going on, he saved the only Morlock he could (a girl who would later grow up to be the X-Man Marrow).
Remy kept up his thieving ways, until he came across a teen girl named Ororo.
The two became traveling companions, and Ororo convinced Remy to use his mutant powers for good, as a member of the X-Men. Remy agreed (and Ororo eventually re-aged to her regular age as Storm, leader of the X-Men). While with the X-Men, he began a romance with his teammate Rogue.
Everything was hunky-dory until everyone found out about him forming the Marauders.
People were quite pissed.
However, eventually people forgave him, and he rejoined the X-Men, even LEADING a squad for awhile! Then, after one of many team reshufflings, he headed off on his own.
Again, though, he found himself hooking up with the X-Men, this time the X-Treme X-Men. After fighting some bad dude named Vargas, who is super memorable and will long live on in X-Men history, he and Rogue both lost their powers. Now powerless, they finally had a chance to live a normal life. Eventually, though, both regained their powers and rejoined the X-Men.
Sadly, though, after listening to a few too many Cure and Smiths albums, Remy got too depressed, so he was easy fodder for Apocalypse to convince Remy to become a Horseman - for the good of the X-Men. Remy agreed (always figuring he'd just betray Apocalypse), but the transformation into a Horseman messed his head up - not to mention gave him special flatulance powers...or something like that.
After a battle, Remy headed off with Sunfire, who also was a Horseman. The two surely had a number of hilarious adventures as they were quite the odd couple, "Sunfire! Did you drink de milk and put de almost empty carton back in de fridge??!"
Eventually, they showed up working with the Marauders, but Remy was only involved because he wanted to protect Rogue. He also was back to looking normal.
After a big battle, he hit the road and recently helped out Professor X.
10. Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat/Ariel/Jailbait/Sprite - 432 points (9 first place votes)
Kitty Pryde was the first addition to the X-Men after the All-New, All-Different X-Men team. It was kinda weird, though, as she was basically the only student at the school ("You got the best grade on the test!" "Woohoo!" "Sadly, you also got the worst grade on the test." "Awww."
Kitty had her first trial of fire as an X-Man when she defeated an evil demon on Christmas.
Kitty was a solid member of the X-Men, and grew close to all her teammates, but most especially, her teammate Colossus. Colossus apparently goes by the "if there is grass on the field, then play on!" rule, when it comes to relationships with women.
At one point, while the X-Men were in space and presumed dead, Professor X put together a new team of students - the New Mutants. They were all contemporaries, age-wise, of Kitty, so Professor X considered putting Kitty (who had gone by two codenames, Sprite and Ariel, by this time) on the new squad. This got her mad, and eventually, he relented.
Soon after, Kitty found out about Colossus' particular bad habit, which is that if you strand him anywhere (Savage Land, Battleworld, Walmart), he WILL end up having sex with one of the natives. So they broke up. Also, she became really good friends with Colossus' little sister, Illyana.
Some time later, Kitty and Nightcrawler were injured during the Mutant Massacre, and while they were in England recuperating, the X-Men seemingly were killed. So Kitty and Kurt helped form a NEW team in England - Excalibur.
Kitty (as Shadowcat) was a long-time member of Excalibur, until the team disbanded and Kitty, Kurt and Colossus (who had joined Excalibur at one point) rejoined the X-Men.
Kitty eventually quit the X-Men after Colossus died, to have a "normal" life.
Recently, Cyclops asked her to re-join the X-Men because she could set a good example for mutants. She said yes.
Soon after, Colossus returned from the "dead." Making up for lost time, the two got together.
Sadly, Kitty recently appeared to die when she jumped from a tower to close a portal.
Hopefully, she returns when the X-Men move to UPN.
9. Emma Frost - 445 points (7 first place votes, 3 less than Rachel Grey)
Emma Frost first met the X-Men when she was a member of the Hellfire Club, which was a group of rich mutants who got high one night watching the old English television series The Avengers, and decided to dress up like characters on the show. This was also how Emma Frost first began talking like a British person.
The Hellfire Club had a Black and White King and Queen, and Emma was the White Queen. The Hellfire Club captured the X-Men during the lead-up to the Dark Phoenix Saga.
Later, Emma showed up again, having "convinced" Kitty Pryde's parents (using her considerable telepathic abilities) to send her to Emma's school of mutants. Luckily, the X-Men were able to force her to change her mind by threatening her with being stuck in Storm's body via a mind-swap.
This same school of mutants often clashed with Xavier's young students, the New Mutants. It was around this time period that Emma totally messed with Angelica Jones' mind, in an attempt to use Angelica to kill a rival to Emma in the Hellfire Club. That plan did not work out so well, and Angelica went off to become the hero known as Firestar.
Later, in an attack by some bad guy named Fitzroy, most of Emma's prized students were slaughtered, and she was put into a coma. When she awoke, she possessed the body of Iceman. She was eventually coaxed back to her own body. Shortly afterwards, she helped Banshee save some young mutants.
It was decided that Banshee and Emma would run a NEW school for young mutants. Eventually, through various screw-ups, the students (known as Generation X) left the school, leaving Emma without students once again.
So she headed off to the mutant island of Genosha, and began teaching mutants there. However, Emma must have a black cloud following her around, because not long after she began teaching there, Sentinels annihilated most of the mutant population of Genosha (Emma survived via her secondary mutation - the ability to turn into a diamond-like subtance).
Once again, Emma lost her students.
This time, the X-Men brought her into their school to teach and become a member of the X-Men. During this time period, she started having an illicit relationship with her married teammate, Scott Summers (it was all done telepathically).
As it turned out, Emma really cared for Scott, so when his wife died, they started shacking up together.
Emma and Scott ended up becoming the co-heads of the school, but then M-Day hit, and suddenly, there were very few students left who WERE mutants.
Then this bad dude named Rev. Stryker showed up, and he killed most of the former mutant kids (and a couple of the still mutant ones).
So Emma lost MORE students.
At this point, you would figure they would start considering having Emma tutor the Masters of Evil and the Sinister Six or something like that, and actually use her death powers for good, but instead, she remained the co-head of the X-Men.
Now based in San Francisco, Emma continues to lead the X-Men with Cyclops.
And by "lead," I of course mean they spend half of every issue having sex.
8. Storm - 531 points (18 first place votes)
Ororo Monroe was born in New York, the daughter of a black photographer and an African princess. The couple moved to Egypt when Ororo was but a child, and her parents were killed when their house was destroyed during an armed conflict. Being trapped in the rubble gave Ororo a life-long case of claustrophobia.
Now an orphan, Ororo grew up on the streets of Egypt, becoming a master pickpocket. This is where she first encountered Professor X, stealing his wallet.
As she grew into a young adult, she met T'Challa, prince of Wakanda. The two fell in love, but ultimately, the two were going in different directions at the time.
Ororo then ended up back in Africa at the land where her mother came from. The people there treated her as a goddess, and that was her state when Professor X recruited her into the All-New, All-Different X-Men.
Storm was a stalwart for the X-Men, eventually becoming the leader of the team when Cyclops left the group. Storm went through a lot of character changes over the years, at one point drastically changing her look - and then when she lost her powers for a considerable amount of time.
Eventually, with her powers back, she once again remained a stalwart on the X-Men, whether it be Uncanny, X-Treme, XSE or whatever, she was there for the team as one of its main leaders.
She was quite an X-Man (although there are some who wish to differ on the X point).
Storm has been romantically linked with a number of characters, with Forge being a main beau - at times, there has even been significant hints that Storm was bi-sexu....excuse me, I made a mistake! Throughout her time with the X-Men, Ororo was in love with T'Challa and T'Challa only - her thoughts never strayed from him, and she certainly never even considered the warm embrace of another woman - even if that woman had tentacles!!
After the effects of M-Day, though, Ororo decided to help out the many African ex-mutants, feeling as though they were not given the same amount of treatment ex-mutants in America were.
It was at this point that she rekindled her romance with T'Challa, now the King of Wakanda and the Black Panther. He needed to have a queen, so he proposed, and Ororo accepted.
She is now the Queen of Wakanda.
She has recently begin popping up in the X-Books again, so perhaps her marriage may be going through some problems in the future.
7. Wolverine - 545 points (6 first place votes)
Logan (or James Howlett, if you must go by that name) has lived a long life since being born in the late 19th Century. He has fought in wars, loved many women, killed lots of folks and SEEN lots of folks killed.
At one point, a secret organization named Weapon X laced Logan's body with adamantium, an almost unbreakable metal. It was only his mutant healing power that allowed him to survive this.
Eventually, Logan went to work for Canada's Department H, where he debuted as "Wolverine," fighting the Hulk.
Soon afterward, Professor X had Wolverine join the All-New, All-Different X-Men to save the original X-Men from Krakoa. Wolverine joined the team full-time, and stayed a member for pretty much ever since.
There were some trouble spots, but for the most part, Wolverine had a pretty steady ride as an X-Man, except for the time Magneto yanked the adamantium out of his body - that was messed up. Apocalypse later gave him the metal back.
I dunno...what is there really to say? He's Wolverine. He's the most commercially successful X-Men. He's a member of the X-Men AND the Avengers. He appears in any given month in about six-seven comic books.
Not much else to say about the guy.
He likes gutting people but letting them live, but I dunno if that is really on purpose or not - he might just be really inept at finishing people, except when the other person is his beloved Mariko.
6. Nightcrawler - 582 points (10 first place votes)Logan (or James Howlett, if you must go by that name) has lived a long life since being born in the late 19th Century. He has fought in wars, loved many women, killed lots of folks and SEEN lots of folks killed.
At one point, a secret organization named Weapon X laced Logan's body with adamantium, an almost unbreakable metal. It was only his mutant healing power that allowed him to survive this.
Eventually, Logan went to work for Canada's Department H, where he debuted as "Wolverine," fighting the Hulk.
Soon afterward, Professor X had Wolverine join the All-New, All-Different X-Men to save the original X-Men from Krakoa. Wolverine joined the team full-time, and stayed a member for pretty much ever since.
There were some trouble spots, but for the most part, Wolverine had a pretty steady ride as an X-Man, except for the time Magneto yanked the adamantium out of his body - that was messed up. Apocalypse later gave him the metal back.
I dunno...what is there really to say? He's Wolverine. He's the most commercially successful X-Men. He's a member of the X-Men AND the Avengers. He appears in any given month in about six-seven comic books.
Not much else to say about the guy.
He likes gutting people but letting them live, but I dunno if that is really on purpose or not - he might just be really inept at finishing people, except when the other person is his beloved Mariko.
Kurt Wagner was orphaned by his mother as an infant. Taken in by Margali Szardos, a witch, Kurt is raised as a gypsy. He eventually becomes a popular circus performer, but when he is forced to kill his adopted brother, Stefan, Kurt is hunted by the village people, who only see a monster killing a human. Saved by Professor Xavier, Kurt gladly takes Xavier up on his offer to come to America and join the X-Men.
Kurt becomes a stalwart member of the X-Men after that, staying with the team for quite some time, on many adventures, using his agility and teleportation powers to help the team in many fights.
What was notable about Kurt was that, despite his monsterous appearance, he was pretty happy-go-lucky, but even he often had problems, mostly ones about his own competence, which he doubted frequently ("Am I good enough?" etc.).
In fact, it was his feelings of inadequacy that, during the Mutant Massacre, caused him to use his powers beyond their limits, leaving him open for a brutal assault by one of the Marauders.
Kurt and Kitty Pryde (who as also injured) ended up joining a new team, Excalibur, when they thought that the X-Men had been killed. Kurt's confidence grew a lot as a member of Excalibur.
Eventually, though, the team broke up, and Kurt re-joined the X-Men, where he has stayed ever since.
After a time on the loser squad (where Kurt also began to question his confidence, especially due to his involvement in one of the stupidest evil plans ever, involving the Raptu...no, I won't even dignify it with a recap - same thing with Racoday)...
Kurt joined the XSE, who were basically X-Men who were sanctioned to work anywhere in the world as superheroes.
Kurt stayed on this team (even becoming the default leader) until Professor Xavier asked him to go on a mission into outer space. When the man who saved you from a pack of murderous villagers asks you for a favor, it's kinda hard to turn down, so Kurt gladly accepted.
While half of the team that went into outer space were Lost in Space (tm), Kurt returned to Earth with Xavier.
Professor X and Cyclops were not in a good place in their relationship at this point in time, so Professor X needed someone else to help him go look for Magneto, and, let's face it, Kurt had no other plans, so he helped Professor X search for Magneto.
Then Messiah Complex hit, and Kurt is, well, I dunno, a member of the X-Men, I suppose.
And he's religious.
Not really much going on in the House of Wagner.
5. Beast - 586 points (8 first place votes)
Hank McCoy was an original member of Professor X's X-Men.
After being on the team for quite some time, Hank was the first X-Man to leave the team, choosing to take a job at the Brand Corporation as a research scientist. For some weird reason, he decided to use a formula he had been working on that could make anyone a mutant for a short period of time to disguise himself while he investigated who was trying to steal his research. Why he didn't just try, like, a big coat, is beyond me. In any event, it ended up turning him into a blue-furred guy, with sharp teeth and pointy ears, while maintaining his strength and agility mutant powers.
He joined the Avengers soon after, and was a member of that team for awhile. Then he became the leader of the Defenders. Upon the break-up of that team, he joined X-Factor. When THAT team broke up, he joined the X-Men.
Hank took some time off to cure the Legacy virus, which, with the help of Destiny's Diaries, he eventually DID cure.
Soon after, though, Hank was severely beaten by the super-cool-will-never -be-forgotten villain Vargas. In order to save his life, Sage jump-started Hank's secondary mutation, making him more of a cat-like creature, losing a lot of the still human characteristics he had (like his hands).
After most of the world's mutants lost their X-Gene, Beast spent what felt like years searching for a way to find new mutants, but was stymied at every step of the way - until a new mutant showed up right after he finished determining that there could not be any more new mutants.
Boy, is he purple in the face!!
Even MORE recently, Beast recovered the use of his hands, which is quite useful in his everyday membership of the X-Men.
4. Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/Mind-Witch/Phoenix - 587 points (14 first place votes)
Charles Xavier met Jean Grey when she was a young teen, as her powers had manifested themselves when her friend was hit by a car - Jean linked minds with her dying friend, and her friend's death almost killed Jean - sending her into a coma. Xavier put blocks upon her powers and eventually got her back to the waking world. Ultimately, as Marvel Girl, Jean would become one of the original five X-Men (and if only it weren't for that blasted wheelchair, Xavier would be all over that young, nubile girl).
Jean stayed with the team for quite some time, until the All-New, All-Different X-Men showed up. She took a break from the X-Men, but when all the X-Men were kidnapped by Stephen Lang, who is ready to unleash a whole pile of Sentinels from space, Jean found herself along for the ride.
As the X-Men were escaping from Lang's space station, they found that their space shuttle was damaged. Someone had to pilot the ship, but that someone would almost certainly be killed by radiation. Jean decided to do it, and when the shuttle landed, Jean emerged as a NEW being called the Phoenix!
The Phoenix was pretty damn powerful, but after being messed with by the Hellfire Club, the Phoenix's powers got out of hand, and went on a murderous rampage in outer space.
The Shi'ar Empire tried to stop it, but ultimately, Jean Grey decided to sacrifice herself rather than become the evil Dark Phoenix again.
However, years later, it turned out that, ever since that space shuttle crash, the REAL Jean Grey had been healing in an energy cocoon where the shuttle crashed! The Phoenix only was a COPY of Jean, which makes the fact that it was STILL willing to sacrifice itself pretty damn impressive.
Jean became a founding member of X-Factor, where she was too distracted by all the changes since she was away ("What is this fascinating show about the two cousins? Why, one of them is naive and kind and the other one keeps trying out hilarious schemes - oho - the scheme failed!! Haha!") to notice that her former flame was married with a kid - that caused some issues.
However, she stayed with X-Factor until the team merged with the X-Men to form a BIG X-Men squad. Initially assigned to the Gold (i.e. the "loser squad"), Jean soon took a bigger role at the school, especially when she married her teammate Cyclops and the two became co-heads of the X-Men's school for mutants. Their marriage was almost as filled with passion as Bill and Hillary's. I'm surprised they didn't sleep in separate beds like Lucy and Desi.
Awhile later, we learned that Jean is still connected to the Phoenix Force, through whatever means, I dunno, to be honest.
Sadly, Jean discovered her husband was cheating on her with Emma Frost, and soon after, a defeated Magneto added injury to insult as he lashed out one last time - killing Jean Grey.
The Phoenix Force has shown up a few times since then, so never say never for Jean coming back!
Although she is never coming back.
3. Iceman - 608 points (7 first place votes)
Bobby Drake was a member of the very first team of X-Men (the youngest, to be precise). He used his ice powers to help the team on many adventures.
Eventually, the original X-Men left, to be replaced by the All-New, All-Different X-Men. Bobby went to college, presumably to become an accountant.
Along the way, however, Bobby ended up joining TWO other superhero teams. In the first team, the Champions, Bobby romanced his teammate, the Russian mutant Darkstar.
Later on, Bobby joined the Defenders, who had been reformed by his friend and former teammate, Hank McCoy (the Beast).
Shortly after the Defenders broke up, Bobby found himself back together with the original five X-Men in a new group called X-Factor.
Ultimately, X-Factor merged with the X-Men to form one big team of X-Men, split into two squads. Bobby was on the Gold team, otherwise known as the "loser team".
Eventually, Bobby took a leave of absence from the X-Men to take care of his father, who used to be an anti-mutant bigot, but had since changed his ways. Bobby also was dealing with the weird effects of what happened when Emma Frost possessed his body and used his mutant powers in ways he never could even IMAGINE using.
Bobby returned to the X-Men when the evil dude Bastion was hunting down mutants. Bobby rounded up a couple of mutants to oppose Bastion, but once Bastion was defeated (not due to Bobby), Bobby returned back to take care of his dad.
After one of the many team reshufflings, Bobby once again joined the X-Men, and once again, Bobby was assigned to the loser squad. Other team members of the loser squad came and went (Nightcrawler was bumped up to one of the cool squads, Archangel quit the X-Men, Chamber quit the X-Men, Havok and Polaris switched squads, Gambit became a Horseman), but Bobby remained a stalwart member of the loser squad.
Subsequently, fellow loser squad member Rogue was given control of a NEW team of X-Men, designed to be sorta like X-Force. She was allowed to chose any X-Men she wanted (the hidden proviso was "so long as they weren't busy on a cooler team") and she chose Bobby as one of her team members.
He served with Rogue's team for awhile, forming a twisted relationship with Mystique that led to her screwing him over big-time.
Recently, while Bobby is not actively on any X-Men team, Mystique returned to screw with him some more.
In addition, the following line will be written in a comic at least ten more times in the next 10 years to Bobby - "You don't even realize how powerful you are!" By now, you'd think he'd get it....
2. Cyclops - 612 points (22 first place votes)
When Scott Summers was a young boy, he was in a small plane with his parents and his younger, cooler brother Alex. Aliens attacked the plane and in an attempt to save their best chance at having a happy son, the parents sent Alex down in a parachute. Scott saw his opportunity to live, and hitched a ride - the weight of the two boys, though, was too much, and Scott hit his head pretty bad, giving him severe brain damage and a predilection for telepathic women (you would think such a fetish would have left Scott fairly lonely - not so, as it turns out).
He spent much of his youth in an orphanage, as Alex, being the younger, cooler brother, was adopted quickly. As it turned out, the greatest, coolest and not at all lame character of them all, Mister Sinister, was in control of the orphanage, as he wanted to take advantage of Scott's new-found attraction to telepathic women to create the perfect child!!
Later on, Scott was a member of the first team of X-Men (technically, I believe he is the FIRST "X-Man" - Storm MAY have beaten him to that particular punch).
Scott was the leader of the team, and served with everyone until they broke up when the All-New, All-Different X-Men showed up.
Scott, however, hung around to be the leader of the NEW team (unlike the others, Scott really did not have much going on outside the X-Men).
Scott left the X-Men for a time after Jean Grey, the love of his life, seemingly killed herself rather than become the Dark Phoenix. Scott ultimately returned to the X-Men afterwards, and even ended up meeting (and MARRYING) another women, Maddie Pryor, who looked just like his dead girlfriend (Scott does not always make the healthiest life choices).
When Jean Grey returned (as it turned out that the Phoenix was the being that died, not Jean) though, Scott was quick to run to her side and form a new team, X-Factor with her - he heroically gave his wife and child a few moments of thought before doing so, which was nice.
Things were nicely resolved when Scott's wife Maddie turned out to be a clone of Jean, and Maddie turned evil anyways, so Scott had smooth sailing to getting with Jean (most of Inferno was made up of Scott saying, "This is awesome - this is awesome - this is awesome").
Surprisingly, even with Maddie out of the picture, Jean wasn't giving it up - it seemed she might have a problem with the whole kid thing. So Scott quickly decided to send his son into the future, so he would have a clear path to Cupid's Grove with Jean.
And it worked!
Of course, later his son came back as the mutant soldier Cable, but Cyclops can't think of EVERYthing, can he?
X-Factor ended up merging with the X-Men, and during their time as X-Men, Scott and Jean got married. Sadly, though, in an attempt to stop Apocaylpse, Scott ended up MERGING with the dude! They were ultimately separated, but Scott was quite changed afterwards (how much brain damage can one dude have?).
Scott and Jean grew apart, and Scott began a psychic affair with his new teammate, the former villain, Emma Frost.
Yes, there are, like, four hot women who are telepaths, and Scott has attracted TWO of them!
After Jean was killed by Magneto, Scott and Emma (with telepathic urging by Jean) got together as an official couple.
Scott then decided that the X-Men should be seen more often as superheroes, to help mutant public relations.
Recently, after the destruction of the X-Men's mansion, Scott broke up the X-Men, then re-formed them in San Francisco, in a more militaristic state (again, this is the brain damage talking here). He also thought it would be a good idea to use X-23 and Wolverine's psychoses for his benefit by forming a murder squad called X-Force.
In addition, every few months, Cyclops tells Professor X how much Professor X screwed up - it's a thing they do.
1. Rogue - 711 points (13 first place votes)
The mutant named Rogue (I know she has a real name now, but I don't like it) had a tough childhood. First, she lost her parents, but then later, when she kissed a boy named Cody, her powers kicked in - and she put Cody into a coma!
You can imagine how traumatizing that must be, from a romantic state of mind, which is why from then on out, Rogue has only been attracted to sleazy guys, like Gambit, Magneto, Magneto Jr. (Joseph to his friends) and sorta kinda Colossus ("You're fourteen? I'm for teens, too!").
Still, can you imagine how messed up it must be to absorb someone's personality with a single touch? Messed up!! She can't even give people hi-fives without getting their personalities! Think of how much that messes up celebrations!!
So yeah, she was messed up pretty good, leaving her pretty easy prey for her foster mother, the mutant terrorist, Mystique, to twist into becoming a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Mystique also used a special chemical treatment to make Rogue look like a 50 year old (do you have a better explanation?).
As a member of the Brotherhood, Rogue tussled with the X-Men a few times, but her most notable moment was when she permanently absorbed Ms. Marvel's powers - AND personality!
Ultimately, it was having Ms. Marvel's personality stuck in her head constantly that led Rogue to Professor X to ask for help. He granted it, and made her a member of the team.
The other members of the team did not take kindly to this.
Ultimately, though, they welcomed the Southern Belle into their open arms as she routinely proved herself to the team (they didn't even make fun of the way she talked like Foghorn Leghorn). In addition, she soon got really good looking, due to the subtle genetic experiments Xavier does to all his students to make them all, no matter what they looked like BEFORE they were X-Men, hot-looking by the time they leave.
After serving with the team for quite some time, Rogue went through the Siege Perilous, and when she came out, she was able to FINALLY get rid of Carol Danvers' personality.
Eventually, Rogue returned to the team, and stayed a member for a real long time, during this time, she began a relationship with her teammate, Gambit. It was kinda rocky.
She was one of a group of X-Men who followed Storm to find these diaries that a precognitive wrote, as the info in the diaries were pretty important. Along the way, Rogue and Gambit lost their powers and "retired" to live a normal life together.
This was not to last, as they both ended up returning to the X-Men, and both were assigned to the loser squad. Sadly, Gambit ended up becoming a Horseman of Apocalypse, which messed Rogue up pretty bad.
Cyclops then decided to give Rogue her OWN team of X-Men to lead, in the style of a quick response unit.
Then the X-Men figured Rogue was best suited for being in a coma and barely appearing in the comic book, which is what has happened the past year or so.
But that makes sense, it's not like she's popular or anything, right?
Komentar dan masukkan anda sangat saya harapkan. Leave comment please for my post.. Thx a lot
TRANSLATE TO ENGLISH
0 comments:
Post a Comment