Here are our picks for the X-Men who most deserve their own comic book series. Jonathan Hickman's X-Men relaunch is proving to be a phenomenal success, with October 2019 delivering the best month in three years for the Direct Market. Marvel is currently preparing for the second wave of ongoing X-Men titles.
These include some pretty strange choices, most notably a new Cable series starring the younger version of the time traveling warrior. It's being written by Gerry Duggan and with art by Phil Noto, so it stands a fair chance of success, even if Kid Cable is a relatively undeveloped character to this point. Still, there are undoubtedly a lot more X-Men who could star in their own titles.
There's an odd sense in which the Hickman era may prove problematic for solo titles, though. One of the most common mistakes is to center the book on the starring hero's relationships with other X-Men, rather than giving them their own unique world in which to operate. Given all the mutants are currently segregated on the living island of Krakoa, that will prove pretty difficult right now, and there's a real risk the X-books could become rather homogenized. In this list, we'll try to choose characters whose stories could spin out of Krakoa, or who could offer a unique window into the X-Men's current status quo.
Probably no other X-Man has more wasted potential than Illyana Rasputin, aka Magik. Kidnapped by the demonic Belasco as an infant, she was brought up in the Hellish realm of Limbo, where she was trained in dark magic. During the Brian Bendis run, Magik's sorcery began to go out of control, and she was forced to apprentice herself to Doctor Strange for a time; he even allowed her to borrow the Eye of Agamotto in one arc. Alternate future timelines and What If? comics have shown that Magik has the potential to become a Sorceress Supreme in her own right. So far, though, this has yet to be realized in the mainstream Marvel Comics universe, and her link to Doctor Strange has largely been forgotten.
Making matters even more curious, the Rosenberg run ended with Magik's mutant powers deactivated. Her demonic Darkchylde persona took charge, and is presumably still out there; it's reasonable to assume that the Magik living on Krakoa is a clone, with Xavier using Cerebro technology to implant all of her memories in the body. It would be fascinating to see Magik forced to develop her sorcerous powers in order to deal with the threat of Darkchylde, perhaps fighting for the soul of Limbo itself.
Next up is Kurt Wagner, aka the amazing Nightcrawler. It's been quite some time since Nightcrawler last starred in his own ongoing, and the last one saw him earn the eternal enmity of the demonic Mephisto. Mephisto appears to be having something of a resurgence in the comics right now, so a Nightcrawler book could easily serve as connective tissue to link the X-titles to the wider Marvel Universe. Meanwhile, as a committed Catholic, Kurt would be the first X-Man to ask some pretty thorny questions about the new status quo. He'd no doubt be particularly interested in the debate over whether or not clones have their own souls.
It's time for Havok to get out of Cyclops' shadow. Scott Summers' younger brother Alex is actually a skilled leader in his own right; he spent months leading a resistance movement in the alien Shi'ar Empire, opposing the tyrannic mutant warlord Vulcan. As such, Havok is every bit as much a natural fit for a Captain of Krakoa as Cyclops. Alternatively, the X-Men are actively working to institute regime change in governments who aren't willing to work with Krakoa; perhaps he could lead a cell assigned to overthrow a hostile government.
Interestingly, the new mutant nation of Krakoa may well leave Havok with divided loyalties. He's no mutant supremacist; in fact, he still retains memories of a timeline in which he married Janet Van Dyne, and their daughter is currently in the hands of Kang the Conqueror. This plot has largely been forgotten, but it could be developed in some pretty cool ways.
Another member of the Summers family, Rachel Grey has traditionally been portrayed as an Omega mutant; in fact, she was the first, even though Jonathan Hickman seems to have forgotten that. Rachel is the daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey from an alternate future timeline, and she's strongly associated with the Phoenix Force. In fact, Rachel is the only Phoenix Host who's been possessed by this cosmic power and not wound up going Dark Phoenix. Rachel played a prominent role in the unforgettable arc The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire, but hasn't really had much of a chance to shine since then.
Hope Summers should really be a lot more of a big deal. The first mutant born after the Decimation, she was billed as the Mutant Messiah, and yet has been sidelined by recent comics. Hickman is the first writer to find a use for Hope in several years, making her one of the Five, the mutants who are responsible for Krakoa's cloning. Interestingly, the Five appear to have some sort of communion, which sounds very similar to the one Hope used to share as the Five Lights. It's possible that Hope has the ability to bond with pretty much any mutant - and potentially even manipulate them. In Bishop's timeline, these abilities led Hope to destroy any chance of peace between man and mutant. Just what is going on inside her mind?
Now classified as an Omega mutant, Storm has taken on the role of High Priestess of Krakoa. She also appears to be the X-Man who's most bought into the idea of mutant supremacy - which would place her at odds with her old lover, Black Panther. It would be fascinating to explore Storm's divided loyalties in detail, especially given Wakanda is one of the nations refusing to deal in mutant drugs, meaning the X-Men will be pursuing a policy of regime change there. As with some of the other suggestions, Storm would help connect the X-books to the rest of the Marvel Universe.
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