Previously, it was summer break so Julian decided to take the rest of the Hellions to his family's mansion in Los Angeles. But they'd gotten in trouble with airport security and Julian used his parents' lawyer to get them out of it which irritated his parents and caused them to disinherit him. In retribution, he went poking around and found a way to contact someone his parents knew called the Kingmaker, a man who came to the Hellions and offered them each one wish. Rockslide got to be a pro wrestler, Wither was cured of his powers, Dust got to see her mother, Mercury's family accepted her, Tag got to be support for his friends and Hellion got the fame he yearned for. But it was all temporary and to keep it going the Kingmaker recruited the Hellions into stealing a bioweapon that it turned out SHIELD was also after.The Hellions were able to do so, defeating Paladin and Diamondback in the process, but demanded to be let out of their contract with the Kingmaker in return for giving it to him. He agreed but the Hellions renegged, not wanting to give a weapon to a villain. They were able to beat him and destroy the bioweapon (much to Nick Fury's chagrin). Back at the school, Julian promised Emma he'd take his duties as a student more seriously and the new school year seemed bright for the Hellions. Of course, thanks to the Scarlet Witch, things were about to change for the students of Xavier's...Today will be New X-Men: Academy X #16-19 as well as the Yearbook Special.Previous >>154403963
Being an alternate reality meant you could do things like have Synch be alive. Although I don't think he does all that much during this story.
The goggles guy and Big Anole here are HoM versions of two obscure mutants named Lightning Rod and Caiman from the post-Morrison Genoshan based Excalibur series. I assume this was just Lopresti throwing in two characters he drew in that series here.
This arc will actually have consequences beyond it (ignoring the larger HoM stuff) because Illyana being alive in this story is what's later on going to literally be used as the basis for her resurrection in the main universe. So Magik being around in the comics today is directly due to this story.
Turns out that Laurie being raised by her father would have been a very bad thing. But I wish someone would do this to 616 Quire too, I fucking hate him.
Issue 17
Good ol' portal powers.
I should mention that this is the HoM version of Cameron Hodge.
>Heal me to death?Well, that's kind of what his powers will evolve into.
You know, Tag strikes me as the black dude from this generation who would have been gay way more than David.
The HoM version of Donald Pierce.
>>154417575>>154417652Interesting to note that Wolfsbane appears on the cover of this issue, but only plays a (minor) role in the fantastic four part, for some reason.Another factoid is that it brings up the age thing. Like what's everyone is ages relative the everyone else? It gets quite messy with time-travel (like Yana in the main timeline) & slidening timeline (looking at you jubilee from New Mutants generation in the 80's to the same one as the academy x kids)
>>154418390The cuckoos always bother me when they show up. Mostly because I always they had no backstory for such a long time (thanks Morrison, your run sucks so much) but they were basically treated as normal & their interactions with Emma made no sense if someone bothered to check Frost' character.
Issue 18
>>154418619Edited:The cuckoos always bother me when they show up. Mostly because they had no backstory for such a long time (thanks Morrison, your run sucks so much) but they were basically treated as normal & their interactions with Emma made no sense if someone bothered to check Frost' character.
>>154418428Even if it's an alt universe I do enjoy Quentin in pain whenever I see him
>>154417575Dani my beloved
>>154418760Quire just sucks and it seems like every writer since Aaron brought him back to prominence has missed the point of the original story which is that Quire was an entitled little twat throwing a giant tantrum because he thought Sophie would think he was cool only for it to make him look like an even bigger loser in her eyes
>>154418842They've turned him into Guy Gardner lite, which is funny because Guy started as a normal person before becoming a major asshole, then going through character development.Quire was a jackass remained a jackass but recent writers have toned that down, without giving him an arc or making him suffer like Guy did when he was an asshole.
>>154418887Yeah, the problem is that it's clear Aaron just liked his aesthetic and wanted his team to have a snarky rebellious punk guy on the team and like usual with a lot of bad writers he didn't really give a shit how much it had fit with previous stories or characterization.
>>154419035I wonder how much of these plot points were planned (somewhat altered of course) to appear in the main timeline.Because I can see an issue where Laurie's father uses his powers to make the NM & Hellions fight each other (and he was also suppose to be school councilar for a while)
Issue 19>>154419140I'd bet some of these are likely heavily modified versions of things they'd had planned. Like I could see Garrison trying to corrupt Laurie and manipulate the school for his own ends if things had continued so why not use a version of that here if you've already got it?
I'll give the writers credit too, in this arc they at least found generally creative uses for some of the powers. I think they were good about that in general like Sofia using her wind abilities to pick up distant noise.
Also, psycho brat puppetmaster Laurie makes for a good villain.
The one thing Synch does in this arc: die in a reference to his death in Generation X. I kind of wonder if that's the entire reason he was used.
Now that I think about it, have Jubilee and Dust ever actually interacted outside of this arc? Although I feel like not having vapid bimbo Sooraya wouldn't make it as fun.
>>154419407I don't think so, they might have been a background came o or two together but that's it.
Of course the big moment ends with Wanda's "No More Mutants" undoing this reality. Personally I think this is a pretty good story and I think shows that DeFilippis and Weir probably could have done just fine on the post-HoM. But HoM was still permanently damaging to the X-Men and it would have ultimately been a bad way for their run to go out on this story. So thankfully they get to have an actual send off.
>>154419574I honestly liked Decimation metaplot, even when re-reading with a critical lense I noticed it's massive flaws.Funnily enough Academy X is the one that got my interested, watching the x-men go from the height of their success to the lowest point possibly ever was interesting.I also think the fact that I disliked both the era immediatly after (i.e post 2011-2013ish) & just before decimation (2001-2005) might have coloured my opinion.
New X-Men: Academy X Yearbook Special
>>154419931I wonder how that visit went. Like how would they bury the hatchet? Because at this point Dani is not only upset at Rahne for getting involved with Josh but also running away.
>>154419970Unfortunately we'll never know.
>>154420055Y'know I wonder what would have happened if PAD got Moonstar for X-factor isntead/alongside Rictor.
And the squad pages which is where most of the other characters had their names, powers and bits of personality revealed.
>>154420071I feel like she probably would have been a better fit for post-HoM X-Factor but I guess that meme page of her shooting a bow with her foot would have never happened.
I kind of wonder what Specter's deal was. It seems like his original spot got usurped by the decision to bring back Wither and they didn't really know what to do with him after that. Also Dryad would have been a way better choice for that (shitty) X-Men Green story than Nature Girl. Plant control, liking the outdoors, hating corporations? That's basically set up perfectly for that. At the very least I'd like to see more of her at some point.
Network's another character who feels easy to slot into any team but it never came to anything. Rubbermaid was from X-Treme X-Men and had a crush on Jeffrey Garrett. Loa's probably my favorite criminally underused X-Men character.
>>154420134Probably would have fought with Josh over Laurie too?I only remember him from his chimp out in issue 20. TBF everyone kinda chimped out from losing their powers.
Wolf Cub was in the shitty Young X-Men series and died there. Match basically is crowd shot filler, DJ was killed in the bus explosion, Pixie was a major character for a while. Preview explicitly wasn't on the bus so survived despite being depowered but hasn't been mentioned since, not even getting customarily repowered on Krakoa when her sister got brought back.Anyway, that finishes up the DeFilippis/Weir run for these characters. Unfortunately it doesn't look like they did much after this besides some indie comics and a few guest stints at DC on various things Rucka was working on.It'll be a little bit before we pick up with the post-HoM stuff though because next time is going to be Gravity #1-5.
>>154418842Dude was a nazi school shooter before that was a common thing now he's a wholesome slightly racist chungus and he still fucking sucks
>>154418231I like that the art for this part has her hair be subtly blue (outside of the first and third panels, where it's too much) while it's still technically black. It's a good use of the classic shading.
>>154418975God House of M shouldn't have ended with "No More Mutants" it should have ended with Magneto and his entire line getting beat to death
>>154420410Yeah that's the thing Aaron and every writer since him missed. Quire was not supposed to be cool, he was not supposed to be witty rebel and stereotypical classic British punk. He was the fucking Supreme Gentleman.
>>154420491I'll shit on Morrison's run but there was one thing he got right and that was Magneto and the types of people drawn to him
>>154420179The "most likely to marry a baseline" thing makes me think you could do, or could have done, a story where he has a flatscan girlfriend and starts getting funny looks like he's a race traitor.
>>154420218Pixie is Jamaican?
>>154422496What makes you say that? She's Welsh and is the daughter of Mastermind and a literal fairy though I think all of that is from Pixie Strikes Back which is one of the most unreadable ADHD pieces of shit I've ever tried to read and I wish would be treated as non-canon. Kathryn Immonen is a wretched writer and I'm glad we're no longer subjected to it since her husband doesn't get anymore work from Marvel. Good thing you'll get to experience it when I get to Runaways v3.
>>154422814>the daughter of Mastermindthat sounds retarded
>>154423805Nothing is ever done with it either. I don't think she's ever actually met Mastermind or her half-sisters.
