We’ve had threads like this before, but not in a little while. But you know the drill: you’re in charge of assembling a new X-Men lineup, Earth-616. Any mutant will qualify, as long as they’re not completely puppy-eating evil, or have been dead for more than a decade.
To make this more interesting, I’m considering allowing members from alternate universes/timelines. But I don’t want this to get over complicated, or make teams of nothing but twenty different iterations of Wolverine, so let’s say…no more than 1/5th of team members can come from outside Earth-616. And no duplicates.
I’m groggy right now, and a little out of the loop comics-wise, so I’ll post my own lineup later on. Anyone else want to go first?
Let’s see…gotta cover the usual power bases: brick, psi, speedster, stealth, energy projector, mystic and leave a couple of slots open just for flavor. Also, I think it’s a law somewhere that no mutant team is allowed to have fewer than six members.
Anyway, my first choices for mix of personalities and powers would be: Rogue (brick/brawler), Northstar and Aurora (speedsters), Cyclops (energy projector), and Nightcrawler for stealth.
Psi is a little harder because there are virtually no major telepaths in the X-Books whom I don’t outright loathe at this point – Xavier, Cable, Psylocke and the White Queen can all go DIAF, and that goes double (or more) for Jean Grey. Just for weirdness’ sake, I’d probably resurrect the ticking timebomb emo-fest that was Nate Grey for the psi slot.
I’d probably bring in a B-list or below character for the mystic slot, as the general rule seems to be that the better known a magically-powered character is, the more stupidly over-powered they are. I’d probably bring in Amanda Sefton, as the Winding Way thing used to kick her legs out from under her at just the wrong time. Plus the X-Men usually had a token human hanging around anyway.
For the flavor slots, I’d add Beast and Iceman. I like the buddy dynamic, every team should have a Smart Guy, and Iceman is pretty useful when he’s not slacking.
So:
Cyclops
Rogue
Northstar
Aurora
Nightcrawler
X-Man
Daytripper
Beast
Iceman
Well, I’ll try, but a few caveats first: I am a DC man when I read comics at all, and so this list is going to be just the ones I’ve come across that sound cool. As such I haven’t given any thought to how they would work together or anything, nor do I know if they have been in current comics or not. Also, it turns out I’ve just made an all-female team. Here are their names and what my interpretation of their powers are:
M (Monet Yvette Clarisse Maria Therese St. Croix) – perfection
Domino – luck
Callisto – tactical genius
Dazzler – syneshtesia
Meggan – elemental empath
Psylocke – various psychic abilities
My geeky comic book-reading adolescence took place in the early 80s, in which Kitty Pryde was the junior X-person, and there was a whole team of novice proto-X-Men called"the New Mutants", whom I began to be even more interested in as Chris Claremont’s writing on the original “X-Men” became increasingly over-the-top archly ludicrous (culminating in the awful depowered, mohawked Storm being ‘romanced’ by Forge.)
Anyway, for ‘my’ team of X-Men, I would simply revert to early-mid 80s era teams, have all the X-Men from that time period (save Kitty) retire or move onto being second-string Avengers, and have Kitty & the New Mutants become the new team.
Prof. X would also retire from the school to go live in the Shi’ar galaxy with Lilindra, leaving the school in the capable hands of Dr. Hank “the Beast” McCoy.
The team would be:
Beast (as mentor figure)
Kitty Pryde (as team leader)
Wolfsbane
Karma
Dani Moonstar (they could never settle on a codename for her - I’d call her ‘Dreamcatcher’)
Sunspot
Cannonball
Magma
Doug Ramsey / Warlock (A merged entity of the two characters, with Doug’s likeable personality, but 'Lock’s useful powers.)
Illyana Rasputin would be a 'Dark Phoenix" adversary - finally, irredeemably corrupted by Belasco’s magic and a threat the team has to contend with.
I’d also like to add Northstar from “Alpha Flight” too - a cool character that could fill the ‘angry outsider rebel’ slot that every Marvel superhero team requires.
Storm - Weather Goddess
Colossus - Raw Power
Magneto - Force of Nature, he and Colossus one hell of a fastball special
ArchAngel - Silent Death from Above
Psylocke - Cause well …
Iceman (leader, he deserves a shot)
Warpath (he’s normally a brick, but I like him better as the skilled fighter type and he fulfills the speed power set too )
Erg (old school Morlock with eye-beam power)
Gambit (I think he and Iceman would have a good dynamic)
Rockslide (literally, the brick)
Hellion (tk)
Anole (fills the Nightcrawler ‘lovable creature’ model)
Admittedly, I’m a little out of the loop comics-wise, and some of my choices might just lean towards the aesthetic. But I’ll give it a shot.
In no particular order:
•Rogue. Gotta have Rogue. Might be interesting to have her as a team leader, even.
•Elixir. (Healing) To quote Optimus Prime, “he can stay and guard the base!” Seriously though, I think he’d be good both as a source of operating revenue when the team’s strapped for cash (or it’s richer members and benefactors are dead, on the lamb, or blew everything on coke), and for a pro-mutant “hearts and minds” campaign. How many dead celebrities could this guy alone have saved, in the last year? In which case, he’d better have a bodyguard. And maybe Tony Stark would be willing to sell some older model armor with the offensive systems stripped out.
•Strong Guy. (Muscle) I always liked this guy’s look. Maybe Richard Epcar could play him, if he ever makes it to the screen.
•Mercury. (T-1000-ey stuff)
•Psylocke. (Telepathic/kinetic powers, fanservice, mobile continuity snarling)
•Nocturne. Anyone on board with this one? If not, maybe I’ll try the cartoon version of Morph. I think it’s the jacket that sells him.
