Chaos War: X-Men dissuades me in just four pages

Okay, I’ll admit it.  I have absolutely no idea what Chaos War is, nor what has gone down thus far in it.  I do know that the X-Men are getting a tie-in book called Chaos War: X-Men, advertised as dead X-Men returning from the grave for some purpose.  This might have come off as exciting had the exact same thing not just happened in Necrosha, which actually took place in the main X-Men titles.  That was the first bell that went off in my head against the book.  Then I saw that the co-writers of it are Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson.  While undoubtedly two of the most important writers in X-History, both are currently better suited to the out-of-continutiy stuff of the Forever titles.

So prospects weren’t looking too good for me picking up the book.  Then, I spotted CBR’s four page preview of the first issue.  And I have to hand it to Claremont and Simonson – they only needed four pages to prevent me from buying this book.  Just four pages.  That’s impressive.  I’ll go into the why’s after the jump, since there will be four pages of SPOILERS.

Top 100 X-Men Characters: 91-100

Surfer with surfing powers. Convenient!

#100: Slipstream
X-Treme X-Men 
Davis Cameron was determined to save his kidnapped sister (Lifeguard) so he had Sage jumpstart his latent mutant abilities and became a surfer who just happened to have surfing-based teleportation powers.  Convenient.  Slipstream only served as an X-Man for a single storyline and promptly left the team when he learned that his sister had transformed due to her Shi’ar heritage.  His reasoning?  His sister had been beautiful and now she was a freak.  Not exactly the type of attitude that will get you very far on a team like the X-Men.  Since his departure he has not reappeared, though it seems that he lost his powers on M-Day, so it seems that we will never be forced to see him again.  Which is a good thing.

Just like Wolfsbane, but a cat!

#99: Feral
X-Force, X-Corporation
Sure, Feral was a founding member of X-Force, but really she only joined because she wanted protection from the rather insane Morlocks who wanted her back for no particular reason.  She accomplished two major feats on the team – gutting Cannonball during a training exercise and defecting to the Mutant Liberation Front.  You can understand why she didn’t rank higher on this list.  She showed back up inexplicably as a member of the X-Corporation along with her sister Thornn (whom she hated) and all seemed to be forgiven.  That is, until she got depowered and killed during a god-awful Jeph Loeb Wolverine run.  But that’s a story for another day.

Being a mutant whore makes me so EMOtional.

#98: Stacy X
X-Men, New Warriors
Nothing screams X-Man quite like ‘mutant prostitute with scales’.  Stacy X didn’t get much spotlight outside of hitting on Archangel, telling off Husk and getting naked for Nightcrawler.  Oh, what could have been.  She actually had a useful set of powers (pheromone control) and would have had a fitting name with X-Stacy had editorial not screwed it up.  She was gone as soon as the writer who created her left.  After being depowered, she showed up in the post-Civil War New Warriors and was killed off.  She didn’t even pop back up in Necrosha.  Crying shame.

I got nothing.

#97: Tag
New X-Men (Hellions Squad)
One of the most obscure powers ever, Brian Cruz could leave a psychic imprint on people, making them ‘It’ and having everyone run away from them.  Seriously.  He was the weak link in an otherwise awesome squad of Hellions, and was the only member of the squad de-powered…and then blown up real good by a missile in the post-M-Day blood bath of New X-Men.  We miss him.

Dude, nice shades.

#96: Mimic
X-Men, Dark X-Men
True, Mimic was the first new member of the X-Men, but he really only did it because he wanted their powers.  He died a heroic death helping Beast, except that he later turned up alive and helped Onslaught for a while.  Mimic is the definition of a damaged character, which is actually part of his character now as a member of the ‘Dark’ X-Men.  No explanation was given as to why he still has the original X-Men’s powers.

This kid will f'ing kill you.

#95: Wither
New X-Men (New Mutants, Hellions Squads)
No one has gotten quite the raw deal that Wither got during his time at the Xavier Institute.  With his death touch, he got yelled at by Dani Moonstar and ran away, then was recruited to come back only to be alienated from his friends and eventually run off by Emma Frost for carelessly harming Wallflower.  His path to redemption got sidetracked when he was seduced by Selene and became one of her top agents.  He killed Onyxx and then got himself killed by Elixir.  And that’s that.

Big. Glowing. X.

#94: Jesse Bedlam
X-Force
Jesse Aaronson was a character created for the Age of Apocalypse, so it was only a matter of time before he was brought into the real world.  He showed up with X-Force when they moved to California and hung around because he had nowhere else to go, but eventually got into their way of thinking and stuck around until the end of the series.  He reappeared to get killed off in an issue of Uncanny X-Men, so no huge loss there.  He was a cool character while he lasted.

Easter hat.

#93: Changeling
X-Men
Sure, Changeling only had one storyline appearance as a villain and then killed off to retcon the death of Professor X, but if you ignore that, he goes down as the first X-Man to die in battle.  Sure, if this was Morph – the character that this one ended up being in an alternate universe – he would have ranked a lot higher, but Changeling sort of holds a treasured spot in X-Men mythos…except not at all, really.  How he used telepathy while disguised as Professor X is something we had all better just not think about.

That's hot. Get it?

#92: Sunfire
X-Men, X-Corporation
Originally debuting as a one-issue villain, Sunfire was recruited on the second team of X-Men but only lasted an issue and three pages, quitting twice in that span.  He has since popped back up as a supporting cast member, turning the douchebag factor down as he went before getting his legs chopped off and handing his powers over to Rogue before not-really dying and going all evil with Apocalypse.  But so did Gambit, who ranks high, so I suppose I can’t count that against him in all fairness.

Buffalo!

#91: Thunderbird (John Proudstar)
X-Men
Thunderbird has actually been a long lasting legacy character despite only making it three issues before being killed off, mainly thanks to the fact that the character of Warpath is basically a clone of him.  Thunderbird’s story of proving himself through sacrifice doesn’t really work since his death was completely pointless…and the point was yelled to him while he was doing it.  He is still fondly remembered by the X-Men, despite being a hot-headed jerk in his three live appearances with the team.

Check back on Friday for #81-90!

Rant: Return of…

Death in comics has become an almost laughed-about topic. What used to be an incredibly important event that often changed the course of a title, death has become an overly used and mainly ignored regular in today’s comics. The reason is that characters don’t stay dead. Sure, in comics anything can happen.

A very long time ago, I made a list of deceased characters who established by belief that death was still somewhat important in comics. As long as these characters stayed dead, I was a believer. They were:

• Gwen Stacy – Spider-Man’s first love, killed when a save by Spidey went awry, snapping her neck.
• Robin (Jason Todd) – Hot-headed replacement for Dick Grayson, he was blown up by the Joker after fans voted for his death.
• Ben Parker – Spider-Man’s beloved Uncle Ben’s death at the hands of a robber he could have stopped is the focal point of Spidey’s origin.
• Bucky – Captain America’s WWII sidekick was blowed up real good during the same mission that Cap was frozen in a block of ice.
• Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell) – In one of Marvel Comics’ most touching stories ever, this hero was diagnosed with cancer and died surrounded by friends and enemies alike.
• Thunderbird – One of the second wave of X-Men, he was the first ever killed in action, when he detonated a plane he was on in mid-air.

Some notable deaths were left off my list for various reasons. For example, Barry Allen, the longtime Flash didn’t make it because he was pretty much exactly replaced by the former Kid Flash, Wally West. If you didn’t know that there were two of them, you’d never have guessed. In fact, that’s why there is only one DC character to five Marvel characters. DC will recreate it’s characters, almost identically, just with a new origin. With little difference in the characters, there’s little reason to bring them back. Jason Todd was the exception because his death still affects Batman’s character, even after almost two decades later.

Gwen Stacy was eliminated early when I learned there had been a clone of her made. Sure, it’s not exactly her, but it’s really close…and the clone’s still alive. Jason Todd’s return was hinted during the acclaimed Hush storyline (it was actually Clayface in disguise), but then he was brought back for real as the mysterious Red Hood. Bucky, it turns out, never really died, but was instead captured by the Soviets and transformed into Winter Soldier. Captain Marvel was inexplicably brought back during the Civil War story with no reason other than…because.

And with Marvel’s return, the list passed the halfway point and my faith was gone. Sure when a big name hero like Thor or Colossus dies, you expect their return. However, these deaths were all important parts of the big picture, and being done away with, it’s like what they had achieved in death (legacies and whatnot) were utter rubbish. It really takes the fun out of death…or something.

So next time I see a character die, even in a major way (like Goliath in Civil War), I’m not going to think another thing of it. No doubt they’ll be back in a matter of time.