New Mutants / Characters

WARNING: There may be unmarked spoilers on these sheets for all but the most recent comics, and spoiler tagging on this page is not always consistent. Proceed with care.

Characters from New Mutants Vol. 1, 3 and 4

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Main Cast

In General

Badass Teacher: As a group, they decided to take the reins of teaching and guiding the youth of Krakoa as there hadn’t been a school since it’s inception.
True Companions: Unlike most of the main adult X-Men roster, they notably lack their older counterpart's Dysfunction Junction in their interactions with each other and their Family of Choice relationship is considerably stronger and much more visible than most X-Team, with them at their prickliest with each other still being relatively friendly Vitriolic Best Buds. While individually they might have strained relationship with their fellow X Men members from time to time, the New Mutants as a whole are always portrayed as being "ride or die" for each other and a lot more relaxed with each other. The fact that they are notably a much better Morality Chain for Illyana Rasputin than even her older and former best friend just shows how powerful their friendship is.

Mirage

Danielle "Dani" Moonstar / Mirage

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cef60028_2977_44ec_a3a2_e813fcf30e79.jpeg

Nationality: Cheyenne Native-American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (November, 1982)

A tribal Cheyenne girl raised by her grandfather after her parents were apparently killed by a giant demonic bear (though what really happened to them turned out to be much more complicated). Was taken in by Xavier after her grandfather's death. Initially, her powers were creating illusions (often using a person's greatest fears or desires as a template, but not always) and animal telepathy. These and other abilities have fluctuated over the years, as Dani has served as a Valkyrie of Asgard at times.

Dani eventually became a teacher at the Xavier Institute, but was kicked out when she lost her mutant powers on M-Day. She eventually rejoined the X-Men as part of the New Mutants squad on Utopia and became a Valkyrie once more. After several years Dani regained her mutant powers and shortly thereafter joined the rest of mutantkind on Krakoa. In the new mutant nation Dani and many of her fellow New Mutants decided to help guide the younger generations on the island who were aimless without a traditional school and experimenting with the new reality of mutant immortality.

Action Girl: Due to her training at Xavier's and her time as a Valkyrie in Asgard, and her natural athleticism growing up in the Rocky Mountains, Dani is physically fit and an excellent hand-to-hand combatant. In addition, she is experienced in the use of several primitive weapons, especially the bow and arrow, spear, knife and sword, which she carried as a Valkyrie. She is a skilled equestrian and swimmer, a good marksman with a rifle, and an excellent archer.
The Aloner: When first introduced, Dani is living alone on a mountainside with only her grandfather for human contact, thanks to her powers being out of her control.
Ambiguously Evil: Despite being a member of the MLF the worst crime she commits is knocking out Sunspot with a psionic arrow. Outside of her reveal most scenes that feature her, have her as a background character.
Badass Normal: Ever since she was depowered.
Bad Powers, Good People: Her initial mutant power was to create illusions based on people's fears, but she was depicted as a hero. Later, this expanded into a wider variety of Psychic Powers included illusions based on wishes and desires as well as fears.
Blessed with Suck: Side-effect of being a Valkyrie is she can see when people are about to die.
Braids, Beads and Buckskins: In the early days of her appearances, she tended to wear "traditional" Native American clothing. She mostly grew out of this over time, but still wears her hair in braids quite often in modern comics.
Brought Down to Badass: Even without her powers, she's a Badass Normal.
Captain Ersatz: During her initial depictions she's essentially a younger, female version of Thunderbird I; both are Jerkass Native American mutants with an anti-White streak, a vengeful attitude, and an inflated sense of themselves. Unlike the doomed John Proudstar, though, she grew out of her bigger character flaws, and their different sets of powers help obscure the similarities.
Character Development: Early depictions show her as vehemently prejudiced against white men and vengeful in general. Over time she slowly grew more mature and responsible, proving herself to be a natural leader for the team after Karma's disappearance and pointing out that they needed to learn to work as a unit rather that constantly attacking enemies one at a time.
Cool Horse: Specifically, the winged steed of an Asgardian Valkyrie. His name is Brightwind and they bonded when she found him caught in a snare and released him. She didn't realize this also came with one or two other things as well.
De-power: Moonstar is one of the many mutants who lose their powers at the end of House of M. These were restored after she contracted and then was cured of the transmode virus.
Deal with the Devil: With Hela during "Utopia", granting her Valkyrie powers. Later she arrives for the final battle with her powers as a Valkyrie fully restored and she takes on Ares, defeating him after a brutal battle.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
- In a straight fight, Selene would annihilate her, and she knows that as well as Selene does. Nonetheless, she managed to trigger Selene into having a panic attack that completely took her out of commission by preying on her deep-seated fear of eventually losing her ability to stave off aging and projecting an image of her as a withered old hag.
- Shortly after becoming a Valkyrie, she drives Death away when she comes for a sort-of friend of Dani's who'd been in a car accident, but she returns shortly thereafter and tells Dani much as she might try, she can't save her friend. All Death is doing is allowing him to pass with a minimum of fuss.
The Dreaded: To inhabitants of Asgard, who can recognize her as a Valkyrie on sight.
Face–Heel Turn: Twice, first when she's possessed by Hela and second for much of the X-Force series Dani is a member of the MLF (averted as she was undercover for S.H.I.E.L.D.)
The Hero: Despite being an ensemble book and Karma being the team's original leader, Dani was the one who more often worked to get the team to actually behave like a team and fight for a cause greater than themselves. She got most of the book's focus even before she became the leader, as her more worldly nature gave her a better perspective on events to relate to an audience, as opposed to her teammates' more introspective narration.
Hide Your Gays: Zigzagged. Under Claremont, she and Rahne were all but outright confirmed as in love with one another, regularly referring to one another as "soul mates" and one instance of an Aborted Declaration of Love. Once Claremont was gone, Dani and Rahne's feelings for one another "magically" disappeared. But, on the other hand, even under Claremont, both girls were shown as very attracted to the opposite sex as well. Dani in particular was quite the boy-chaser, being very aggressive in flaunting herself to guys and getting offended at their lack of interest.
The Leader: Became the leader of the team after Karma went missing. This led to a lot of stress.
Magical Native American: Played with. On the one hand, yes, she's a Native American who can use magic. On the other hand, it's Norse magic that comes from being stuck on Asgard and joining the Valkyries.
Master of Illusion: By using her illusion power in conjunction with her basic telepathy, she can cast images based on someone's greatest fears or desires.
The Mentor: During her time as a member of the Xavier Institute's faculty she mentored the New Mutants Squad, which included Elixir, Icarus, Wallflower, Surge, Wind Dancer, and Prodigy. She was also initially Wither's mentor, but their relationship quickly fell apart and he sought the guidance of Emma Frost instead.
Odd Friendship: With Hela, the Asgardian Goddess of Death, treating each other as a Friendly Enemy who work together more often than against each other. Hela trusts Dani enough to send her soul to her for safeguarding and granted her Valkyrie powers back in exchange for a boon at a later date, which compared to most other deals she offers to mortals was both fair and without strings attached.
Older Than They Look: In her first appearances she was drawn as a pre-teen despite being sixteen. When Bill Sienkiewicz took over her appearance was brought up to date.
Power Incontinence: In the beginning, she had no control over her powers, which would sometimes go off on their own and show people their worst fears, sometimes showing everyone else in the vicinity as well.
Put on a Bus: After M-Day, she was unceremoniously kicked out of the mansion by Emma Frost, who claimed it was for Dani's own good as it was too dangerous to remain without powers, but everyone knew it was because she hated Dani.
Psychic Link: When communicating with Wolfsbane in her wolf form.
Shipper on Deck: Tried to set Karma up with coffee shop barista Luna DePaula. While the two were friendly, Luna was much more interested in Dani while Karma was pissed that Dani thought they'd hook up simply because they're both lesbians.
Speaks Fluent Animal: Apart from (originally) manifesting people's worst fears holographically, she could communicate psychically with animals. This comes in handy being on a team with Rahne, a mutant who can shapeshift into a wolf, so when Rahne transforms, they can communicate over long distances.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: During New X-Men: Academy X, she and Emma Frost make no attempt to hide their hatred for one another.
Terror Hero: Sometimes. This isn't necessarily her favorite tactic, but it is reasonably common and often very effective. She certainly has proven to be good enough at it to reduce Selene to a barely-composed wreck, which is definitely not a feat to be taken lightly given Selene's extreme arrogance and narcissism.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: She's the Tomboy to Rahne's and Karma's Girly Girl, being an assertive, aggressive, sexually-forward girl with traditionally "masculine" skills, such as hunting and fighting.
What Happened to the Mouse?: In the second New Mutants Series, Dani becomes Elixir's guardian and acts maternal towards him. At the end of this series this is dropped and never mentioned again.
Younger Than They Look: In the second New Mutants series Dani becomes a teacher and is drawn and acts like she is in her late twenties despite the book stating she is twenty-one.
Your Heart's Desire: Rare heroic example: she could create a mental illusion of your worst fear, or your heart's desire. She could choose which one, but even she couldn't know what her victim would see until it showed up.
Your Mind Makes It Real: The earliest days always implied this was an aspect of Dani's powers she'd just never tapped. For a while, she could conjure solid objects with her illusion powers, depending on how strongly she or her target wanted or feared said object.

Cannonball

Samuel "Sam" Zachary Guthrie / Cannonball

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sam_88.jpg

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (November, 1982)

The son of a coal miner from rural Kentucky, and felt obliged to take his place at the mine himself after his father died. After his powers emerged during a cave in his employer Donald Pierce gave him a new job as a bodyguard, but left and joined the New Mutants after it became clear the man was a murderer. Despite being a salt-of-the-earth and often naïve young man he is quite intelligent and well-read by ordinary standards. Comes from a large farm family, and all of his many siblings are also mutants. Cannonball releases extremely powerful blasts of chemical energy from his feet and arms that allow him temporary flight and invulnerability and energy blasts.

Alongside his best friend Roberto, Sam served as a member of The Avengers, during which he met Isabel Kane and ended up marrying her. They had a son together named Josiah, who inherited Sam's mutant powers, and moved together to the Shi'ar homeworld of Chandilar due to Izzy becoming the new Smasher of the Imperial Guard. Following the ascension of Xavier and Lilandra's daughter Xandra to the position of Majestrix, Sam became a key member of the Shi'ar court as an advisor to the young mutant.

Ascended Fanboy: Likes science fiction, ends up living on Chandilar with his wife, a senior member of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. Also applies to him joining The Avengers.
Barrier Warrior: The energy Sam creates can manifest as an impenetrable and virtually indestructible "blast field." He can use this blast field to function as a personal shield for himself, extend it to encompass others, shape it around another person to imprison them, or absorb outside kinetic impact into his own energy supply and then re-channel it to increase the bludgeoning power of his blows or create explosive shock waves upon impact. Sam is also capable of generating the blast field without actually having to blast off, though it takes him extreme concentration to prevent himself from propelling into the air.
Berserk Button: Do not EVER insult his heritage or imply he's a dumb hick. Not only is the second bit not true in the slightest, but both REALLY piss him off.
Beware the Nice Ones: Sam is normally one of the nicest, sweetest people you could ever meet. But as Serafine of the Children of the Vault learned, pissing off someone who's nigh-invulnerable when he's blasting is a bad move.
Big Brother Instinct: When Cypher is killed during The Fall of the Mutants, Sam blames himself as he's the oldest of the team and knew that Doug's powers were of no use in combat. He feels he should have looked out for Doug the way he used to keep an eye on his siblings back home.
Bumbling Dad: After the Time Skip in Time Runs Out.
Canon Discontinuity: The whole "External" thing is near-entirely in the discontinuity bin, though there has been the odd nod to it here and there, such as during Stryker's attack on the mansion during New X-Men. Sam is shot up, but it's noted he's somehow able to heal (though the concept of him being immortal is immediately dismissed).
The Cape: He stands out as one of the sincerely nicest and most heroic members of the New Mutants.
Character Catchphrase: "Ah'm nigh-invulnerable when ah'm blastin'", and any possible linguistic variation thereupon.
Commuting on a Bus: Due to living with Izzy and his son Josiah on Chandilar, Sam tends to only appear in X-Men stories that involve space.
Country Mouse: The fact that he comes from a rural background and is now living in a more urban environment is often played up.
Curb-Stomp Battle:
- With Gladiator. Sam was not on the receiving end.
- With X-Man. Unfortunately, Sam was on the receiving end.
Dating What Daddy Hates: Played with several ways to Sunday when he began dating Lila Cheney, and was terrified about what Mama Guthrie would think of her, not just because she was a Mutant, and a punker rocker but also because she was English. Actually, Sam's mother was far more chill about the whole thing than Sam.
Deadpan Snarker: Leaning more to the deadpan side of this Trope, having friends like Roberto and Dani have transformed him into a full-fledged snarker of epic proportions.
Deceased Parents Are the Best: Mr. Guthrie was a coal miner who died of black lung.
Deep South: If Kentucky counts.
Depending on the Writer: How pronounced his accent is depends on the writer.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He managed to beat Gladiator in a fight. Yes, that Gladiator, the Marvel equivalent of Superman. And he did it with very little effort.
Flying Brick: He's nigh-invulnerable and can pack a serious punch, but only when flying. Which is just as well, since he steers like a brick, too. He can't hover at all and has very little control over his speed or direction.
Funetik Aksent: Occasionally dipped into it during the Claremont days, though mercifully never too far.
Genius Bruiser: He is far more cunning and intelligent than he looks and he is constantly using the application of momentum and physics in his powers to maximum effect. Not only that, but he is actually quite skilled at the use of both Xanatos Speed Chess and he has shown the ability to actually pinpoint The Plan of others.
Goggles Do Nothing: He frequently wears goggles, though whether he actually keeps them over his eyes in flight varies.
Good Ol' Boy: He comes from rural Kentucky, so he acts a lot like this.
Having a Blast: Sam can release thermo-chemical energy from his skin. He mainly uses it for flight but can release it from any part of his body.
Happily Married: During Jonathan Hickman's Avengers, he married fellow teammate Smasher, even having a son with her.
Hot-Blooded: Though he mellows with age and becomes much more level-headed, in earlier issues Sam is ruled almost entirely by emotion and instinct, acting before thinking almost as often as Roberto. This led to several Nice Job Breaking It, Hero moments, such as when he flew into a rage and attacked Illyana, thinking she had killed Amara, when she was actually freeing her from the Demon Bear's spell. This distraction allowed the Bear to regroup and nearly cost the team their lives.
- Also, in X-Men: Disassembled, he attacks Nate Grey head on. This quickly turns out to be a very bad idea.
I Believe I Can Fly: Among all the many, many methods through which flight is possible in the Marvel Universe, igniting chemical blasts around your lower body and propelling yourself forward with an invincible force field is still pretty unique.
Interspecies Romance: During the time that the New Mutants were in Asgard, he fell in love with the dwarf princess Kindra after he was injured saving her and she tended to him whilst he was wounded. They were separated when the New Mutants were forced to leave Asgard as part of Loki's terms, though in What If? vol.2 #12 an alternate universe where he stayed in Asgard depicted him wedding her, fathering at least one child, and becoming the new King of the Dwarves.
The Lancer: Headstrong and brash compared to Dani's levelheaded and tactical Hero. After they grow up and particularly after Dani loses her powers and becomes desperate to prove herself, the dynamic is reversed.
Lightning Bruiser: Can fly at astounding speeds, and his secondary powers allow him to both hit like a truck and be immensely difficult to harm.
Likes Older Women: His first relationship was with Lila Cheney, a rock star in her 20s while he was still a teenager. Later, he develops feelings for Rogue (who originally wasn't that much older than the New Mutants, but Vague Age and all that).
Massive Numbered Siblings: Sam has 11 siblings, all of whom are mutants. After M-Day, however, only he, Paige (Husk) and Jay (Icarus) avoid being de-powered by Wanda.
Megaton Punch: Sometimes he’s shown to channel his blast field into his fists.
Messianic Archetype: He was destined to lead the Mutant race by combining Magneto, Xavier and Cable's dreams into something better. It didn't take once the "External/High Lord" thing ran its course and got tired during a change in the creative team.
Morality Chain: He's one of the few people who function as one for Cable, not that Nathan would ever admit it.
Mr. Exposition: Early on, not a single issue can pass by without him reminding the reader that "I'm nigh-invulnerable while I'm blastin'!", either out loud or in his thought bubbles. He became infamous for it.
Mr. Fanservice: Spent rather a lot of his downtime at the mansion not wearing a shirt, and several issues made it quite clear that Sam preferred to sleep only in his underwear. In his younger days, his tendency to leap into action without thinking led to many instances of him flying off after bad guys without stopping to get properly dressed and on one occasion he went blasting off wearing nothing but a Modesty Towel that, inevitably, blew away, to the delight of female onlookers below.
Nice Guy: Above all things, Sam is a kind, chivalrous and warm-hearted man who just wants to do the right thing.
Nigh-Invulnerability: When he's blasting, he's enveloped in a protective force field, which he uses for both defense and offense (hence his moniker). It's also one of the most powerful force fields seen in the entire MU, as it was strong enough to completely No-Sell Gladiator's blows and redirect them back at him. Gladiator, whose power levels depend on his confidence level, was so thoroughly shocked that he was almost completely depowered and was subsequently beaten with virtually no effort on Sam's part. Unfortunately, this has its limits, as X-Man demonstrated with a brutal Offhand Backhand in X-Men: Disassembled.
Old Hero, New Pals: When the team officially became X-Force, Sam was the only original New Mutant left for readers to hang onto, going off into new adventures with several new teammates like Shatterstar and Feral and being led by Cable.
One Head Taller: Emphasizing his original gawky teenager look, Sam was drawn to be considerably taller than the rest of the New Mutants, who were all quite diminutive to begin with. Used as a gag for a Team Shot photograph of the original gang that shows up several times, where Sam is so tall that the top half of his head is cropped out of the picture and "Sorry, Sam!" has been written on top of it.
Only Sane Man: Among the X-Men as a whole he is one of the most down to earth and often the most pragmatic of the group, especially as a member of the New Mutants or X–Force.
Progressively Prettier: During his New Mutants days, Sam was pretty lanky (and had very prominent ears, so much so Spider-Man could recognize him from them alone at a moment's glance in the middle of a pitched fight). Since then, he's filled out an awful lot, and become more ruggedly good-looking.
Required Secondary Powers: An aversion, in one instance. He could direct the blasts out of his arms instead of his legs, but the recoil would just send him flying, unless there was someone around with super-strength to help hold him down (as U.S.Avengers reveals).
Southern-Fried Genius: Contrary to what his background would have you think, he's very, very smart, highly intuitive, and incredibly clever and creative when it comes to using his abilities.
10-Minute Retirement: During the Time Skip in Avengers, Sam gets Izzy and their child to leave Earth and takes their child to live in the Shi'ar Empire before Sunspot comes around to bring him back in the "Time Runs Out" arc.
Token Flyer: Sam was the only flyer on the team before Sunspot's powerset was enhanced to include flight.
Took a Level in Dumbass: When he joined the X-Men after Age of Apocalypse he started being written as a wide-eyed rookie, and only got his brains back once he eventually rejoined X-Force. Later, his depiction in The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman) had him portrayed as essentially a frat boy, utterly at odds with his previous decades of behavior.
Tragic Dropout: He started out a promising student who abandoned his scholastic dreams to work the coal mines after his father died of black lung in order to provide for his numerous siblings. Then a cave-in happened on his first day and his powers kicked in.
Undying Loyalty: To Cable, whom he views as his most significant mentor during his time on the original X-Force. The two did often clash on when to use lethal force, but Sam is always ready to jump at any call for assistance that Cable puts out.
Unskilled, but Strong: For the first few years of New Mutants, Sam struggled with controlling his power, which gave him a huge amount of speed and forward momentum but very little ability to maneuver while blasting, forcing him to fly in a straight line until he crashed into something, as landing was also difficult. Quite a lot of Claremont-written angst was wrung out of Sam's frustration with being one of the oldest on the team but also the slowest to master his power. As time went by he became much more adept and is now a highly-skilled flier.

Karma

Xuân/Xi'an/Shan Coy Manh / Karma

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d6b480bc_bd89_4e13_b042_de8dbe44d8c4.jpeg

Nationality: Vietnamese

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Team-Up #100 (December, 1980)

A Vietnamese refugee forced to raise her twin siblings after her parents were killed in the war. Joined Xavier's school to provide for her siblings. She's also a French-speaking Catholic. Her Mutant ability is the power to take control of other people's bodies and manipulate them at will.

All Love Is Unrequited: According to Xuân, she had tried to speak to Kitty Pride about her feelings, but desisted when she felt that Kitty could not reciprocate her feelings.
The Artifact: Her backstory is heavily tied into the Vietnam War, yet she still appears to be in her early 30s in stories written more than four decades later.
Artificial Limbs: Lost most of her left leg to an attack by Cameron Hodge. Soon after, she had it replaced with a mechanical prosthetic.
As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Xi'an isn't a real Vietnamese name and doesn't work grammatically in Vietnamese. Karma's 2023 arc in the Love Unlimited Infinity Comic states that she's actually Xuân (pronounced 'Swun'), but long ago stopped correcting people. Galura gently calls her out on this.
The Assimilator: Only once, in her first appearance, when she had to kill her evil brother by overloading his mind and absorbing his life-force into her own. Whether she was able to do this specifically because they had the same powers or not is never explained and she never attempts to do anything like this ever again.
Badass Bookworm: Was made the school's head librarian during the New X-Men era.
Cain and Abel: Her evil twin brother. Later on her evil estranged sister.
Dark and Troubled Past: She was orphaned during the Vietnam war, raped by pirates and subsequently had to bring up her little siblings by herself in a foreign country. Her siblings are later kidnapped by her criminal uncle and twin brother in an attempt to blackmail her into using her powers to help their criminal enterprise.
Demonic Possession: She gets a nasty taste of what possession feels like when the Shadow King takes over her body and uses her to run his criminal empire for some months.
Driven to Suicide: Seriously considered just letting herself die after spending months under the Shadow King's control.
Early-Installment Weirdness: The first time she appears she uses her power to absorb her brother's body and soul and her dialogue makes it seem like she knew she was capable of doing so, she just didn't want to unless it were absolutely necessary. It's possible she could only do it because she and her brother shared the same power and she turned it back on him, but this is never confirmed and this ability is never displayed again.
Formerly Fit: When she's possessed by the Shadow King, during the time she was initially thought dead, he engaged in his favorite physical pastime—eating—and becomes morbidly obese as a result. Xuân is not happy when she gets her body back.
Good Is Not Soft: Xuân once used her powers to massacre an entire room full of The Right's goons.
Grand Theft Me: Anyone Shan successfully possesses has their mind dominated by hers. Early on, Professor Xavier notes that her targets' higher brain functions completely flatline for as long as Karma has control, effectively making that person cease to exist for as long as she is in their minds.
Hoist by Her Own Petard: Her power is to possess others, and she herself ended up possessed by the Shadow King, an older and more experienced possessor who would go on to become one of the X-Men's deadliest recurring villains.
Keeping the Handicap: After joining Krakoa, Shan decides to undergo the Crucible in order to separate from her brother and give him a new start. This involves getting killed in ritual combat and being resurrected by the Five. Theoretically this would mean she would be revived with two legs. She however decides to keep her amputation and own and embrace her role as a member of the disabled community.
The Leader: At the first, officially Xuân was the leader, being the oldest and most sensible of the team. So bad luck for them that she went missing a few issues in.
Let's You and Him Fight: When she is first introduced, Shan takes over Spider-Man's body to use him to rescue her siblings. She uses him to fight the Fantastic Four when they get in the way, and Thing continues to beat him up even when she stops possessing him.
Lipstick Lesbian: Other than a brief moment in X-Force, tends to prefer a quiet and conventionally-feminine mode of dress, before and after she came out.
Meaningful Name: Whereas most superhero codenames are a reflection of their powers or abilities, Shan chose the name Karma - the sum of all good and bad deeds - after she absorbed her evil brother's life force, to both honour their relationship and to remind herself that all actions have consequences.
My God, What Have I Done?: In her first appearance, Shan believes Spider-Man to be a criminal thanks to her being too recent an immigrant to question all those "Spider-Man is a Menace!" headlines. She possesses his body to rescue her siblings from capture, reasoning that there is nothing wrong with using a criminal to fight another criminal. When she realizes Spider-Man is actually a hero, she is so horrified by her actions that she breaks down in tears and delivers her Tragic Backstory to Peter and the Fantastic Four.
New Powers as the Plot Demands: As a way of skirting around Xuân's potential Story-Breaker Power as detailed below, she is occasionally depicted as having more general telepathic powers instead, though this has never been portrayed consistently.
Only in It for the Money: Initially. Karma had been working a full-time job to support herself and her siblings, and so agrees to work as Xavier's secretary to help him run the school in return for a generous salary.
Out-of-Character Moment: After some time spent out of regular comics, the usually-demure and conservatively-dressed Shan popped back up in X-Force at a desert rave, having dyed her hair pink, acquired some body piercings and wearing a skimpy top and pants unbuttoned so much that her thong was visible. This was also the first time she had been strongly implied to be a lesbian. The next time Shan appeared she had gone back to her normal manner of hair and dress, but her homosexuality was explicitly confirmed and has remained that way ever since.
People Puppets: She has the ability to take possession of the minds of other people or animals. She projects a psionic energy surge that overwhelms the consciousness of another; this renders the victim unconscious while placing her own mind in command. It allows her to alter the victim's perceptions and memories, command people to fall asleep or divulge information, and operate their bodies as if they were an extension of her own.
Poirot Speak: Claremont has her occasionally pepper her phrases with French. Curiously, never any Vietnamese.
Promotion to Parent: She is the legal guardian of her siblings from a young age.
Put on a Bus: She was thought dead for a long time and after returning briefly she left again to look for her siblings. Out of the whole original team, Karma had the least amount of exposure in the book, as no creative team knew how to use her.
Rags to Riches: When first introduced she was barely scraping by enough money to support herself and her young siblings. Now she is a billionare after inheriting her half-sister's company.
Rape as Backstory: When her refugee boat was boarded by pirates, Xuân and her mother were raped and her mother died shortly thereafter.
Xuân: I saw my father, and all the men aboard, slain. The fate of the women was... worse than death.
Refusal of the Call: Ultimately, Xuân just isn’t that interested in being a superhero. She openly states that she finds her power too immoral to use most of the time and she’s only convinced to join so that she can support her family. Out of any teammate to get Put on a Bus, her motives to leave generally outweigh her motives to stay.
Sibling Yin-Yang: With her brother, Tran, who is ruthless and sadistic where Xuân is compassionate and virtuous. It's played very literally in her first appearance, where the two of them are wearing tunics each bearing one half of the yin-yang symbol, which becomes whole on Shan's tunic once she absorbs her brother's body and power. Somehow. Why two siblings who had been apart for years would be wearing matching uniforms with magically transferring symbols on them is never explained.
Story-Breaker Power: Her potential for this often leads to her being either conveniently absent when the bad guys attack or not even trying to take them over for no stated reason, until she was eventually written out because the writers just couldn't figure out how to make proper use of her. If there's a single villain, Karma would have to fail to take them over, because that ends the plot, but it makes her useless. The only thing she can be allowed to do is take over mooks, who would then be useless in attacking their own boss, because they're mooks.
Telepathy: Karma had also begun developing other telepathic abilities that were either latent or triggered by her possession by the Shadow King. By possessing others remotely, she can mentally "see" through their eyes. She is also able to use her power to disrupt other psi-signatures, protecting her from all manner of psychic assault.
Token Good Teammate: For much of her extended family, who tend towards being criminal and psychotic.
Twofer Token Minority: Vietnamese and a lesbian. Later becomes a Threefer as an amputee.
Voices Are Mental: Anyone Shan possesses speaks with her voice for as long as she controls their body.
Weight Woe: Xuân spends months having her body possessed by the Shadow King, during which time he eats so much that her body becomes morbidly obese, and she feels horrified and ashamed once she is back in control, refusing to leave the house for some time. A teleportation accident and a months-long trek across a desert cause her to lose all the excess weight, though how she got rid of all the extra skin is a mystery. At the end of this, despite the Reset Button being pushed for everyone else, Xuân gets to keep the weight loss with no strings attached.

Sunspot

Roberto "Bobby" Da Costa / Sunspot

Nationality: Brazilian American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (September, 1982)

The son of a very rich man from Brazil, Sunspot was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. Unbeknownst to him, his father was actually a corrupt member of the Hellfire Club (essentially the Mutant Mafia in Regency clothing). His powers manifested during a soccer game after which he was targeted for assassination by Donald Pierce, and his girlfriend Juliana was killed. After graduating from Xavier's he took over his father's position in the Hellfire Club in an attempt to legitimize its criminal activities. Roberto absorbs solar radiation to give him flight, superstrength, invulnerability, and energy blasts for short amounts of time.

For tropes regarding Sunspot, see his page.

Wolfsbane

Rahne Sinclair / Wolfsbane

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ff553a9c_0709_4135_a2ff_9f5bb58f57b4.jpeg

Nationality: Scottish

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (November, 1982)

The self-hating illegitimate daughter of a bigoted and abusive Presbyterian minister. Rahne was raised in a strict and abusive environment and mostly convinced she was damned to hell by the time she was 13. So she didn't exactly adapt very well when she found out she could turn into a wolf. Saved from a religious mob by Moira MacTaggart and taken to Xavier's where she became best friends with Mirage.

Abusive Parents: Her father, Reverend Craig, not only emotionally abused her from childhood, but led a mob to try and burn her at the stake when her mutant powers surfaced. He then became a villain involved in the Purifiers, an anti-mutant religious hate group. His Karmic Death was well-deserved, though unfortunately it screwed poor Rahne up even more.
Accent Relapse: According to 2005's Madrox, Rahne's Funetik Aksent crops up whenever she's aggravated. That for the rest of the series and the following volume of X-Factor her accent is always present suggests Rahne's always tetchy (which, given what she goes through, isn't surprising).
Animal-Themed Superbeing: She started off turning into a wolf before going full-fledged werewolf.
Antiquated Linguistics: Sometimes uses the word "yon", and refers to Moira as "milady", even against Moira's explicit requests.
The Baby of the Bunch: During the original run of the New Mutants, Rahne was the youngest member of the team, showing both in appearance (the tiniest) but in her reactions to the horrible things that happened to them.
Belief Makes You Stupid: Subverted; Rahne may be a very religious woman, but neither her religious beliefs nor the self-inflicted grief they sometimes cause her are ever depicted as inherently wrong. The one time she does fall into something approaching this trope, her initial display of religiously motivated homophobia as a result of learning Rictor had come out of the closet, she ultimately gets called out on her attitude and admits that it's wrong before stopping it.
Big, Screwed-Up Family:
- Her own mother was a prostitute who died when she was young, and the corrupt priest who fathered her, Reverend Craig, took her in and abused her throughout her early years. She ended up eating him alive during a stint of being Brainwashed and Crazy. Her on-off lover, Hrimhari, is a son to the Fenris Wolf — which, by extension, makes her related to Loki (Fenris' father), Thor (Loki's half/adoptive brother) and Odin. Then there's her son, Tier...
- And for added craziness, there's Vanora Sinclaire; a murderous godwolf/mutant hybrid from an alternate dimension in which, amongst other things, Rahne gave birth to Hrimhari's daughter instead of his son. She hates her mother in both universes and wants to kill her, although she vanished off the radar after her last appearance in X-Factor (2006) #242.
Boyish Short Hair: Rahne is something of a tomboy and has the short hair to go with it. In the original run, it wasn't by choice - her hair just naturally stays short.
Brainwashed and Crazy:
- Her time in Genosha as a Mutate. It took several years for it to wear off.
- In X-Force, to rip off Angel's wings. Which backfired when Reverend Craig - responsible for it in the first place - stood in front of said wings in a way that inadvertently triggered her programming and made her kill and eat him.
Break the Cutie: Her life is basically just one horrific event after another.
Butt-Monkey: And how. From what happened to her on Genosha to finding love and losing it to what Strong Guy did to her son, to the humiliating and degrading way Matt Rosenberg killed her off (she got better, but COME ON), few X-Men characters have been made into a Butt-Monkey as harshly as Rahne has.
Christianity is Catholic: Averted; she's a Presbyterian. Of course, a lot of readers see a religious character and assume she must be a Catholic. So do one or two of the writers. The writer of the New Mutants movie didn't bother to fact-check it either, and depicted the nightmare-version of her father as a Catholic Monsignor.
Cure Your Gays: Briefly held this view, regarding Rictor. After he confronts her on it, she stops and admits that it was pretty stupid of her. Rahne, herself, might be an Armoured Closet Gay (or at least Bi), given all the implied attraction between her and Dani during the Claremont era.
Depower: During the "Dream's End" storyline, Mystique zapped her with a depowering gun For the Evulz. A few years later, Elixir used his powers to restore her.
Deus Angst Machina: She finally gets her head and life together, then she gets brainwashed into eating her estranged father... And then someone messes around with her head so she actually remembers doing so...
Did Not Get the Girl: Gender-inverted, but none of Rahne's relationships have ever seemed to work out. Cypher? They just couldn't make it work. Havok? She had to come to terms with the fact that he would always love Polaris over her. Rictor? They broke up over personality issues, and then he came out as gay. Hrimhari? He was stuck in Asgard, where Rahne couldn't go, and after he was brought to Midgard, he ended up performing a Heroic Sacrifice to make a Deal with the Devil to Hela in order to save both Rahne and their unborn child, Tier.
Dropped a Bridge on Him: Her death in Rosenberg's Uncanny X-Men has Rahne overpowered and killed by a bunch of ordinary humans she could easily out-muscle or drive off. Mercifully, it didn't last too long.
Enfant Terrible: Subverted with her son, Tier Sinclaire, who just wants to be a normal kid once he matures to the equivalent of a 12-year-old. Played straight with Vanora Sinclair, her daughter from a parallel universe, who hates her and wants her dead.
Express Delivery: Since she's a wolf-like mutant (and we've seen mutant biology affecting pregnancy before; see Angel and Beak), and the father is a divine wolf from Asgard, it's understandable that her pregnancy advances a lot faster than a human one. That she ends up giving birth to her son through her mouth is something that can only be attributed to his divine lineage.
Fetus Terrible: Her son, Tier Sinclair, was one by accident. Being half Asgardian Wolf, he was so strong that his motions inside of her womb were tearing Rahne apart. Rahne had to get herself imbued with similar durability and strength to Asgardians in order to avoid being kicked open by her own unborn son. He also came into the world by inducing his mother to vomit him out of her mouth. Despite this inauspicious start, though, Tier wasn't a villain, but just an ordinary child... well, as much as that term can be applied here.
Fiery Redhead: She's red-headed and has the typical Scottish temper.
Fish out of Water: A little bit, in the early days, as comes of living under the roof of Reverend "fun is sinful" Craig on Muir Island. Rahne's actually taken aback by the cinema.
The Fundamentalist: Averted. Having suffered at the hands of one in her childhood, although Rahne is a devout believer and so can struggle with accepting what the letter of the Bible says over what her morals say, she always chooses to embrace the ideals of tolerance and compassion. She has even been willing to concede the point when others have, in passing, pointed out that at least some of her emotional turmoil stems from her choice of religion and her faith, although she does not feel that means she should abandon her faith.
Happily Adopted: By Moira MacTaggert, in all but name. She'd even call her "mom" when panicked.
Hated Hometown: What with the association with Reverend Craig. When it looked like one of Legion's less pleasant personalities was going to blow the place sky high, Rahne — normally the most moral person around — had a reaction of "go ahead."
Healing Factor: Right there from the early days, she could take wounds that for most people would be fatal, and be up and about in a week. Most writers tend to forget about it.
Hide Your Gays: Zigzagged. Under Claremont, it was pretty clear she and Dani were in love with one another. And after Claremont was gone, every single relationship Rahne's ever been in has been with guys, with no mention made of Dani ever again. Mind you, Claremont himself frequently portrayed Rahne as attracted to men, and given her upbringing and her faith, it's doubtful that she ever would have acted on any attraction to Dani if she did feel that way.
Hot for Student: With Elixir. To be fair, they were only three years apart and she was just a student teacher, but it still got her to quit from Xavier's (read: Put on a Bus so Peter David could have her).
I'm a Humanitarian: In one particularly horrifying example, her father hypnotized her into attacking Archangel but accidentally triggered her programming himself. When the rest of her team found them, all that was left of her father was "some torn clothes and a lot of blood".
Imperiled in Pregnancy: Having a demi-god baby who has a special destiny lures the attention of several mystical threats, including gods.
In a Single Bound: In her transitional state, she can leap incredibly high.
Interspecies Romance: Her longest-standing relationship has been an on-and-off affair with Hrimhari, an Asgardian entity who is a shapeshifting, magical, sapient wolf and one of the sons of Fenris himself. Eventually, she became pregnant by him and gave birth to his son, Tier Sinclair.
Irony: On two levels; Rahne has always be been consistently depicted as terrified of her wolf-shifting powers, at least until Character Development helped her get over that, and a devout Christian. But her deepest love is a magical Asgardian wolf who can take on human form and who is related to Loki and Thor through his father Fenris — meaning her boyfriend/baby-daddy is both a creature she feared becoming for a long time and a being from pagan mythology.
- For added irony, during a trip into Hel, when the New Mutants encountered the Hell Hound Grarm, Rahne even mentions that Grarm is basically a living embodiment of everything she fears her powers might turn her into.
Jerkass Ball: Is initially pretty sour towards Magma for her Obfuscating Stupidity, since Rahne let slip a few personal details in her presence thinking Amara couldn't understand her.
Love at First Sight: Crushed hard on Hrimhari the minute she laid eyes on him.
Love Triangle: For a time, she was in love with Havok, who was in love with Polaris. It ultimately ended with her realizing she couldn't compete with Polaris and coming to terms with that. The two women even joke about it during their time together in X-Factor (2006).
Made a Slave:
- Momentarily, during the stay in Asgard. Thankfully Sam had a magic sword to hand.
- During X-Tinction Agenda she's caught in Genosha and turned into a Mutate. That takes several years to break out of.
The Mentor: During her brief stint as a member of the faculty at the Xavier Institute she was the mentor for the Paragons Squad, which consisted of Pixie, Trance, Match, DJ, Preview, and Wolf Cub. She was quite the effective mentor to them and they were all deeply upset when she was forced to resign and leave the school after her inappropriate relationship with Elixir.
Me's a Crowd: She can now turn into a wolf pack of 5 thanks to the Mothervine.
Morphic Resonance: Early on, there were still traces of her hairstyle in her wolf form, an artistic detail that isn't used so much anymore.
My Instincts Are Showing: Side-effect of being a wolf is that when wolf-y she acts like... y'know, a wolf. A wolf with some human intelligence in the driver's seat, but a wolf nonetheless. When she and Hrimhari reunite, they scamper around like playful puppies (and little love hearts bubbling around them), much to Rahne's extreme mortification.
Nice Girl: Usually, hang-ups related to her harsh upbringing aside, Rahne tends to be the least temperamental of the original team. She was the only one to object to watching a John Wayne movie, on the grounds that it had a racist depiction of Native Americans and that this was a horrible thing even if Dani wasn't right there.
Nigh-Invulnerability: Her power-set expands to include this after her augmentation to survive her pregnancy with Tier. It hasn't shown any sign of leaving her yet.
Our Werewolves Are Different: She's a genetic mutant who can shapeshift from human to wolf. Eventually, she gained the ability to take on a variety of "transitional" half & half states, and during the 90s she spent some time unable to change fully back to humans. Eventually, she was retconned as having a Healing Factor, and after her pregnancy with Tier, she gained Nigh-Invulnerability and Super-Strength.
Parental Title Characterization: Generally tended to address Moira as "Lady Moira". If startled or sufficiently emotional, she'd work up to "mom", if really concerned she'd go up to "mommy".
Partial Transformation: She could change into a wolf or a transitional state between human and wolf. She once had to stay like this for a time, after being brainwashed in Genosha. She can and does also alter portions of her body, such as concealing 'transitional' legs under a long skirt for discreet mobility boosts or using a lupine head as a Game Face to run off harassers on a nighttime walk.
Pregnant Badass: A variant; being pregnant actually resulted in her needing to get a powerboost so that she could survive the strain of being pregnant with her half-Asgardian son.
Religious Bruiser: Rahne is a devout Presbyterian and doesn't look like much, but when she transforms into her werewolf form, she's very dangerous.
Scotireland: She's canonically from Scotland, so, as a Marvel Universe character, this comes with the territory. On occasion, if she'd actually curse, she'd use the Irish curse "spaleen".
Self-Made Orphan: Not voluntarily, but few shed any tears. Ironically, she took it hard when she found out he was dead, and harder still when she found out she was the one who killed him.
Stripperiffic: Some of her outfits are little more than sleeveless bathing suits, surprisingly revealing outfits for such a conservative woman, though there is the justification that all-covering outfits and a body covered in thick fur aren't a good mix^note.
Supernaturally Young Parent: She has a son by an Asgardian God and came to term in very short order.
Super-Senses: She has some (not to, say, Wolverine's level, but she's got them).
Super-Strength: Her power-set expands to include this after her augmentation to survive her pregnancy with Tier. It hasn't shown any sign of leaving her yet. Before that, her transitional states did boost her strength, but not to superhuman levels.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: When she kills and eats her father in X-Force.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Girly Girl to Dani's Tomboy.
Took a Level in Badass: Although your mileage may vary, she did this over the years. Most notable was her power-up after becoming pregnant with Tier, where she was given Super-Strength and Super-Toughness to cope with Tier's own super-strong kicks.
Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: Briefly, but after she found out that Rictor had realized he was gay and hooked up with Shatterstar, she displayed some distinctly homophobic attitudes. When she was called out over this, she admitted it was hard for her to understand, as her faith preaches homosexuality is wrong, but she was unwilling to condemn Rictor as evil for following his heart, and has since tried not to act in that manner.
Wife-Basher Basher: She once killed a fatally-abusive husband during her time in the government X-Factor. Of course, being Rahne her reaction to doing this was an emotional breakdown.
Wolf Man: Her basic form is usually some feminine variant of this.
Wolverine Wannabe: Wolfsbane is a mutant with the power to shift into a werewolf form. However she possesses a transitional state which is half human half wolf, whereby she possesses Absurdly Sharp Claws and bestial strength.
Woman Were-Woes: Wolfsbane's werewolf-like abilities are due to being a mutant rather than a supernatural gift/curse. As such, when a Norse wolf-god bred her the resulting pregnancy seriously endangered her until she got a power upgrade because she did not have the supernatural constitution to handle it. Plus, having been raised a strict Scots-Presbyterian, she would normally have been repulsed by a pagan deity, but her female wolf instincts kicked in.
You Don't Look Like You: For whatever reason in the Krakoa era she, and she alone, shrinks down to the height she was in the 80s, with no explanation.

Magma

Amara Juliana Olivians Aquilla / Magma

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/3007bcbf_62a9_4577_ba1e_47f85dea920d.jpeg

Nationality: Nova Roman

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: New Mutants #8 (October, 1983)

The daughter of a Roman senator of a lost city of Romans/Incans lost deep within the Amazon jungle. The New Mutants discovered the city while on an archaeological dig with Roberto's mother. Amara was targeted for sacrifice by the mutant witch Selene, but when she was tossed into a volcano her mutant powers manifested as the ability to control earth and fire and transform into a living volcano. Her father sent her to Westchester to learn how to control her volatile powers and she became a member of the New Mutants, replacing the recently vanished Karma.

The Ace: In early issues. Despite only recently coming into her powers and being from a primitive society, Amara adjusts to modern life and using her mutant powers incredibly quickly, outperforming her classmates in several areas despite their experience, causing a bit of angst and jealousy, particularly for Rahne and Sam. This part of the character was eventually forgotten about.
Action Girl: She is a skilled swordswoman.
All Girls Want Bad Boys: First she's in love with Empath, a Hellion (although she eventually accuses him of manipulating her into it, and given that it's Empath, she's almost certainly right.) Then she goes on a date with Mephisto—yes, that one—in exchange for him sending the team to the right Hel (one L makes all the difference), and genuinely enjoys herself.
Brown Face: In her first appearance. To protect her from Selene's life-draining magic, Amara's father sent her to live with a tribe of local Incas, who put dark makeup and a black wig on her to disguise her appearance against onlookers. She and the New Mutants fall into a river soon after meeting and the disguise is washed away.
Came Back Strong: Amara's powers as Magma don't manifest until Selene throws her into lava as a sacrifice. (Strangely enough this is never tied in to the Externals, even though it appears to be a textbook case, and would provide a decade-old precedent to justify the storyline.)
Continuity Snarl: Her background has been subject to more than one Retcon trying to explain away the previous version as an increasingly complex plot. Nova Roman, British, New Yorker... whatever. Compounding this, because she spent most of the '90s and early 2000s drifting in and out of X-books every few years, her personality often changed drastically from writer to writer, including one instance of being an out-and-out villain that was never really explained or mentioned again.
Convection, Schmonvection: Her combat form is made of magma. No matter how close they stand, her friends never get burned, and her attacks only burn what they hit.
Convenient Replacement Character: The New Mutants meet her one issue after Karma's disappearance and she joins them soon after in order to keep the team as a Five-Man Band.
Daddy's Girl: Partly on account of mom having been kind of eaten by Selene, but she adored her dad. Before the Continuity Snarl set in, they'd send letters to one another frequently.
Despair Event Horizon: Due to the events of House of M and the mass depowering of mutants, Magma loses her boyfriend while the two are exploring the inside of a volcano at the exact moment that the depowering wave of the Scarlet Witch runs across Earth. His death temporarily drives her insane, causing her to make the volcano erupt and attack a nearby town.
Dishing Out Dirt / Magma Man: Amara's geothermal powers grant her the ability to control the movement of earth and tectonic plates, even to the extent of causing seismic upheaval. She can also call forth molten rock from the Earth's core, producing projectiles composed of lava, or miniature volcanoes. Professor X once noted that training her is extremely difficult due to the inevitable property damage her powers cause. Although Magma has triggered small earth tremors without taking on her energized form, she has never been seen to use her power to control lava while in her ordinary human appearance.
Drunk On Power: After her powers are activated by Selene tossing her into a volcano, the scared, fragile girl suddenly becomes a flaming Large Ham declaring her ultimate power over earth and lava. She calms down soon after, but it's still jarring.
Elemental Shapeshifter: She can transform into a molten form with a corona of fire where her hair should be.
Fish out of Temporal Water: Due to being raised in a society modeled on the Roman Empire, Amara initially struggles to adjust to modern life after moving to Westchester. She is fearful of cars and wary of electricity, but eventually learns to adjust.
Healing Factor: Amara possesses certain regenerative powers when in contact with the ground. Even when she was affected by Selene's life-draining touch, she recovered quickly enough to aid the New Mutants in battle.
In Name Only: Magma's appearance in the X-Men Legends video game as essentially a Naïve Newcomer average girl from New York. She was intended to be a Relationship Sue for Bobby Drake and an expy of Kitty Pryde (who they couldn't work into the game because walking through walls would have been a Game-Breaker power in a dungeon crawler). Treated similarly, and more extensively, in X-Men: Evolution, where she is an ordinary Brazilian girl — who talks like she's from upstate New York.
Most Common Super Power: As an adult, she’s now on par with the likes of Storm, Jean, and Rogue.
Obfuscating Stupidity: The first time she met the others, she pretended not to speak a word of English. It soon turned out she could.
Ojou: The daughter of a senator in an old-fashioned Roman society, she was brought up as a noblewoman, and in the beginning is very prim and unused to physical exertion and seldom seen wearing modern clothes like the rest of the team. She's completely mellowed out by adulthood, however.
Oh, My Gods!: What with the "Ancient Rome" thing, pre-retcons Magma would swear by the many gods of Rome.
Out of Focus: Despite early hints to her genius level intellect, her fish-out-of-water experience in the modern world, a friendship with fellow outcast Rachel Summers, a personal vendetta against Selene, and a possible attraction between her and Sam, Amara ended up being the member of the original New Mutants who was the least focused on and who received the least character development. Once Louise Simonson took over as writer of New Mutants Amara was quickly written off the team and spent the next decades drifting in and out of character limbo.
Playing with Fire: Though she can't create fire outright, her lava abilities cover a lot of the same territory and she is occasionally drawn to be blasting fire from her hands.
Power Incontinence: At first. Not a good thing when a girl can cause volcanoes to burst out of the ground when she's upset or scared, and definitely not when she gets heatstroke from the Brazilian sunshine.

Magik / Darkchylde

Illyana Nikolievna Rasputina / Magik / Darkchylde

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/illyana.jpg

Nationality: Russian, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May, 1975) ^noteAs Illyana Rasputina; Magik (Storm and Illyana) #1 (December, 1983) ^noteAs Magik

"Long have you tormented me, you ancient embodiments of evil. My soul was torn from me to purchase your freedom. I have prevented your release many times...but banishment will no longer sate me. You hunger for human fear...human suffering. Today you understand that we are not human. We are superior. Today you cease to be."

—Magik

Illyana is the baby sister of Piotr Rasputin a.k.a. Colossus and Mikhail Rasputin, and just like her brothers, she is Russian. Illyana was an adorable little girl whose innocence drew the attention of the evil sorcerer Belasco. During a time when she was living with the X-Men, Belasco kidnapped her and made her his apprentice so that she might free his Eldritch Abomination patrons. She spent 7 years in a realm of Hell known as Limbo while only seconds passed on Earth, during which she learned sorcery and discovered her mutant teleportation power. She joined the New Mutants as Magik and served as a member for some time, though the nature of her abilities and Anti-Hero attitude unnerved her more religious teammates. Then, during Inferno (1988) she was de-aged back into a 7 year old and was later killed by the Legacy Virus. Then she later came back as a demon. It's very confusing.

In Avengers vs. X-Men, Illyana is chosen as one of the "Phoenix Five", a group of X-Men granted additional powers by the Phoenix Force. After Ms. Marvel is defeated by Rogue, Magik appears and gags the Avenger before teleporting her into Limbo, trapping her and terrifying Rogue. Following the defeat of Cyclops, she and Emma Frost have gone on the run (other members of Phoenix Five, Colossus has rejoined Wolverine's team, and Namor has gone home to Atlantis). She joined Cyclops' team of X-Men at the New Xavier School. In their quest to recruit new mutants to their cause, Illyana continued to aid Magneto and Cyclops. As a result of the Phoenix Force being used in conjunction with the Scarlet Witch's powers to bring back the mutants, she began experiencing changes to her powers. Unlike the others, she gained more power than she had prior to the Phoenix force, and she was now able to conjure energies directly from Limbo. Eventually, she came to realize that her power was broken as well, as she inadvertently brought her teammates to Limbo where they were forced to fight the demon Dormammu. She defeated him, but realized she needed help with her powers and teleported back in time to find a past version of Doctor Strange to teach her a greater understanding of magic as her mutant powers were linked to magic.

Her former teammate Karma organized another New Mutants team, and placed her in charge of it. A new team has since been formed, of which she is a mainstay, and leads it depending on the situation.

Illyana appeared in 2020's The New Mutants, played there by Anya Taylor-Joy.

For tropes regarding Magik, see her page.

Cypher

Douglas Aaron Ramsey / Cypher

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/49f29a71_16fd_4a29_a74d_c7f60eadf012.jpeg

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: New Mutants #13 (March, 1984)

With the cerebral ability to understand all languages, Cypher was considered to be one of the weakest New Mutants. He was best friends with Warlock, but was killed while defending Wolfsbane in battle. He was eventually resurrected by Selene during Necrosha, but was freed from her control thanks to the New Mutants. With the foundation of the mutant nation of Krakoa, Cypher became a key member of the new nation by helping craft a new mutant language and serving as an unofficial member of the Quiet Council as Krakoa's translator.

Ascended Fanboy: He and Sam got on well due to their shared love of science fiction. During the team's first encounter with Legion and a Journey to the Center of the Mind, Doug being able to recall a similar plot from an episode of Star Trek gave Professor X the "Eureka!" Moment he needed to get them out of there.
And I Must Scream: So your power is language-related and you think you can beat Doug at his own game? Bad idea.
Back from the Dead: After twenty years (possibly an X-Books record). He was forcibly resurrected during Necrosha, and soon returned to the X-Men as a powerful strategist.
Beware the Nice Ones: Since coming back from the dead, he's convinced a futuristic mecha to kill its pilot, and used a literal spell-machine to remove an enemy's mouth so she couldn't use her hypnotic voice.
Big Good: Shaping up to be this for Krakoa along with Warlock and the island itself. They've been spying on Xavier, Magneto and Moira from the start and know all their secrets, they've since shown such acts of undermining the Quiet Council as exiling a recently depowered Moira from the island after stopping Mystique and Destiny from killing her, giving the pit inmates their own simulated reality, and informing Legion about Moira's secret undetectable No-Space's.
Cloudcuckoolander: Even after being brought back properly, it's pretty clear not all of Doug's social skills made the return trip.
Chick Magnet: Sunspot likes to think he's a ladies' man, but Doug has had the most love interests of anyone on the team. He dated pre-bodyswap Psylocke as well as teammate Wolfsbane, but has also managed to earn himself quite the following of female villains, including one of Legion's female personalities, Cyndi.
- In Peter David's All-New X-Factor, Doug had a wild night with Danger, and he acquitted himself well enough that everyone's favorite control-freak jail-bot offered him another go. Unfortunately, self/friend made the mistake of getting with the, er, girl his best friend Warlock was into. Warlock forgave him instantly but still knocked the taste out of his mouth.
A Day in the Limelight:
- The 2019 one-shot "New Mutants: War Children", set during the heyday of the '80s team (written and drawn by Claremont and Sienkiewicz, even) puts a lot of focus on Doug, who is the only member of the team not to be infected by Warlock gone rogue. Special attention is given to his bravery despite knowing his powers aren't up to much and his relationships with Warlock and Rahne. Ultimately, he manages to save the day.
- Even before, in the 1980s, he gets the focus of an annual: his teammates fall to Mojo's control, save for Magma; Captain Britain is deaged and weakened, and Mojo and Spyral have kidnapped Psylocke (back then, still a British woman before her bodyswap). It is up to Doug and Warlock to save the day: despite being afraid, he braves on, connects with Psylocke's mind, and releases his teammates, Captain Britain, and finally Psylocke herself. This allows for her to break Spyral's hold over her and return everyone to the real world.
Fourth-Date Marriage: More like No Date Marriage, since Saturnyne arranges Doug and Bei's wedding within hours of knowing each other.
Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Blond-haired and he's a pretty nice guy and a good friend.
Heart Is an Awesome Power: "Ability to understand any language" seems like a pretty lame super-power until you get into the very broad range of what exactly qualifies as language.
Hollywood Hacking: Before he was revealed as a mutant, Doug was introduced as a highly tech-savvy boy whom Kitty Pryde turned to when she needed some hacking done she couldn't do on her own. His skill with computers was arguably more useful to the team than his actual mutant power most of the time and, since his resurrection in a time where computers are ubiquitous, Doug has learned to combine his hacking skills with his language abilities to become a serious threat to national security, if he so chooses.
Likes Older Women: Dated a pre-bodyswap Psylocke for a while. The same with Bei the Blood Moon, who is at least over 50 while Doug looks to be in his twenties.
Love at First Sight: Most doubts about marrying Bei the Blood Moon dissipate when he sees her without her helmet for the first time.
Naïve Newcomer: Doug is thrilled to find out he's a mutant and is very pleased to get immediately swept up in a madcap scheme by the Hellfire Club. His first few stories have him constantly expressing his excitement and wonderment of the adventures the team get themselves into without noting any of the dangers. He mostly knocks it off once Dani finally has enough and tells him to can it.
Non-Action Guy: Kitty met him in dance class. In the original stories, he only has the physical strength typical for a young man of his age, so he is not useful in a fight, most often keeping to the back of the fray or helping out with his computer expertise. After his resurrection and subsequent level up, this no longer applies.
Obliviously Superpowered: Didn't realize that his linguistic skills were due to being a mutant until the New Mutants had to recruit him in the middle of the night so they could talk to an alien life form they'd encountered.
Odd Friendship: His ability to understand literally anything capable of communicating makes him an odd friendship machine. Notably he's Heterosexual Life-Partners with Warlock and recently has developed a close bond with Krakoa, the Genius Loci that tried to psychically drain the original X-Men, oh so many years ago. Also the first sentient being he encountered that he couldn't communicate with, he married.
Omniglot: Cypher is a hyper-linguist and has a superhuman facility for translating any languages, spoken or written, human or alien in origin. His superhuman skill also extends to his great facility in deciphering codes and computer languages as well as understanding hidden intentions and body language. Cypher's skills are such that he was once able to make great headway in translating the written language of an extraterrestrial race in a matter of minutes.
Opposites Attract: The reason behind his attraction for Bei the Blood Moon. She's the very first person he can't understand since she communicates with something other than language. This causes an infatuation between both.
Perfectly Arranged Marriage: He and Bei seem to be genuinely interested in making their surprise marriage work.
Speaks Fluent Animal: Not often shown, but Doug really can speak every language, including understanding animal communications. He is the only one who can understand what Rahne is saying in her wolf form (apart from Dani, who can read her thoughts).
Taking the Bullet: Doug died doing this for Rahne (who didn't even realize what had happened until the fight was over).
Teen Genius: Downplayed, but he does have remarkable intelligence. He was first introduced as a friend of Kitty Pryde (herself a teen genius) who could easily match her skill with computers.
This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: The few times his powers were truly useful came across as this, likely to try and justify Doug's being there in the first place. He saved the day in the first "New Mutants Annual" by being able to read an alien language and reprogram a supercomputer and when Legion first showed up, Doug was the only one who could understand one of David's multiple personalities, who spoke Arabic.
- He ended up scoring two points for Krakoa during the X of Swords event. One for the marriage thing and the other through a dance competition.
Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: He's at least a head shorter than his new wife Bei.
Took a Level in Badass: Cypher underwent some severe level-up after coming Back from the Dead. Originally, his mutant power was "read and understand any language", meaning he was simply an Omniglot when he died in the 80s. Revived in the 2000s, we learn that "language" includes "body language", meaning he can predict his opponents' moves and actually held off all his old teammates single-handedly. It also includes computer language, making him an imminently skilled hacker and programmer, as well as letting him "read" the structure of a building and discover the easiest way to destroy it. Plus, he is capable of performing spells, too.
- Again in the Krakoan Era, when he reveals himself to be a much better strategist than he previously showed any signs of, outwitting, among others, Moira, Mystique, Destiny and Charles.
What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: A major source of angst for Doug in the early days, since being able to instantly understand any language isn't as flashy as anyone else's. Eventually remedied somewhat in Excalibur, where he and Warlock were combined to form Douglock. Further remedied by Zeb Wells in the third series, extending his powers to cover all manner of communication — spanning the fields of linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, and art (to name a few). If there's a message or intention, he can potentially analyze and translate it. To say this has left him a bit....off is putting it lightly.

Warlock

Nationality: Technarch

Species: Technarch mutant

First Appearance: New Mutants #18 (August, 1984)

Warlock is a member of the Technarchy race of aliens. He is considered a mutant because he can experience emotions, something forbidden to his cold, ruthless species. See his series that takes place after Warlock's death and reanimation as Douglock (originally thought to be the combination of previously killed New Mutant Douglas Ramsey and Warlock) and after his departure from Excalibur.

Abusive Alien Parents: Magus/siredam keeps trying to kill him.
Beware the Nice Ones: A generally good-natured and friendly alien, with a truly horrific power. He once nearly killed Selene using his race's traits.
Big Good: Shaping up to be this for Krakoa along with Cypher and the island itself. They've been spying on Xavier, Magneto and Moira from the start and know all there secrets, they've since shown such acts of undermining the Quiet Council as exiling a recently depowered Moira from the island after stopping Mystique and Destiny from killing her, giving the pit inmates there own simulated reality, and informing Legion about Moira's secret undetectable No-Space's.
Heroic Sacrifice: He gave his life to help cure Richard Rider of his Phalanx infection. Fortunately, he got better a few pages later.
Life Drain: An ability all Technarx have. Warlock's just too nice to use it on the scale most of his species do.
Literal-Minded: Being from a species that outlaws emotions and has no time for sarcasm or figures of speech, Warlock can have some troubles reading between the lines with the things his friends say.
Dani: Warlock! You, pal, are the proverbial sight for sore eyes!
Warlock: Concern! Are Selfriend's primary ocular receptors dysfunctional?
Dani: *sigh* Never mind, Locke. We're just real glad to see you.
Living Ship: Often used to transform into helicopters to cart the New Mutants around.
Offing the Offspring: Standard practice for his race is for a progenitor and its offspring to battle to the death shortly after birth.
One-Steve Limit: He has no relationship to Adam Warlock, but they have met once.
Perpetually Protean: In the habit of changing his form quite frequently, warping his body to fit the occasion.
Robot Buddy: He was technically a "techno-organic" alien, but his cable hair fits this trope in spirit. His own series saw his appearance change to a more humanoid form.
Spanner in the Works: Twice in Uncanny X-Men Vol 1 191 - first, as the only being able to understand Spider-Man's language (other than Spidey and Kulan Gath, that is), he is able to translate what needs to be done to Ororo; and second, when Selene attempts to cast her spell to Take Over the World, he merges his dying body with Ororo^notedon't worry, he gets better to enable her to defeat Selene.
Verbal Tic: Several; he prefaces every sentence with a descriptor like "Query:" or "Imperative:" and refers to all of his teammates as "Self-friend (name)".
What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: A very literal example; his official "mutant power" is the ability to experience emotions, something denied to the rest of the Technarchy.

Warpath

James Proudstar / Warpath

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/f407b69c_6050_48fa_84f5_3f6049779cf1.jpeg

Notable Aliases: Pridewalker, Running Sun, Thunderbird

Nationality: American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: New Mutants #16 (June, 1984)

James Proudstar, known as Warpath, is a mutant of Apache descent who has been affiliated with many X-Teams over the years starting with the Hellions.

Anti-Hero: Type III-IV
Anti-Villain: Way back when he was a Hellion, he was one of the nicer ones. Also, his reason for staying on the team after deciding not to avenge his brother by killing the X-Men was that he wanted to be there for his friends, rather than any villainous inclinations.
Big Little Brother: When John is finally resurrected it is shown that James towers over him.
Blood Knight
Combat Pragmatist: His first two teachers were Emma Frost and Cable. Comes with the territory.
Depending on the Writer: The powers he has, and how powerful each one is, vary wildly over time.
Dual Wielding: From the Decimation-era, he had a pair of extremely big knives as weapons, given to him by Storm. Which are made of Vibranium.
Genius Bruiser: Warpath is a very intelligent fighter. He once found out a way to incapacitate Wolverine, sneak by the rest of the X-Men, and could have killed Professor Xavier if he hadn't had a change of heart.
Hair-Trigger Temper: Also like his brother, he's very easily aggravated; They don't call him "Warpath" for nothing.
The Heart: Unusual, given that he's also a Blood Knight with a Hair-Trigger Temper, but when he was a part of X-Force, he was described as a physical and emotional rock for the team. Indeed, during the periods where he's not out for revenge on someone, he's a Nice Guy.
Legacy Character: Like his brother, the above-mentioned Thunderbird, he has the same powers and wears the identical-looking costume after him during his early appearances. He still wears a nearly identical outfit to this day.
The Quiet One: One thing that makes Warpath so dangerous is that he doesn't always lead the charge in fights, despite being an ideal point man. Occasionally, he sneaks around, looking for a chance to ambush his targets.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Not, perhaps, in any individual case you find, but Warpath's motivation for joining every super-powered group he's joined has been revenge:
- Hellions: His brother died fighting for the X-Men.
- X-Force: Stryfe wiped out his entire tribe.
- New X-Force: Some idiot killed Caliban.
- The one exception is when he joined Xavier's X-Men to fly out into space. That time, it was sheer undiluted boredom that got him to go.
Scarily Competent Tracker: It comes from his youth. Only got better once he picked up his Super-Senses.
Superpower Lottery: Won it big:
- Super-Strength: Once fought directly with Juggernaut, managing to stand up and not give ground for several minutes.
  - Super-Toughness
- Super-Speed: Not at the "telescoping time" level, but Warpath can run down vehicles on the road, and has time to watch a dart fired from a rifle come toward him, smirk at the shooter, catch the dart, and return it.
- Super-Senses: Implied to be above the level of most feral mutants, like Wolfsbane. Mimic, who has copied ferals before before, tried to copy Warpath's powers and was overwhelmed by sheer sensory input. May also extend to a sixth sense of sorts, as when he was on X-Force, Warpath had a tendency to wander off during fights he wasn't needed for and find things.
- Super-Reflexes: Has been shown evading weapons fire.
- Superhuman Flexibility and Agility: Despite being seven feet and 350 pounds, Warpath has been described as moving like an Olympic gymnast.
- Healing Factor: Though not as strong as usual for this trope, it's there. Though during the events of Predator H he was stated to heal faster than Wolverine and Sabretooth.
- Flight: Depending on the Writer, though the general consensus seems to be that he can, but does not prefer to, as he finds the motion unnatural–feeling (not unsurprising, considering his general athleticism).
- Magical Native American: Ghost Rider unlocked shamanistic powers within Warpath so they could fight the Demon Bear and win. He used these powers to stop Selene in the Necrosis storyline. These powers seemed to be temporary, but alternate universe versions of Warpath have shown him having mystical powers as well, implying that his mutation has the potential for it.
Talk to the Fist: After the Hellions rescued Empath from the New Mutants and promised to punish him for what he did, Empath immediately began planning his revenge for being captured. Jimmy then informed him that he intended to keep his word to the New Mutants, and immediately decked him before he could try to use his powers to get out of the situation.
Token Good Teammate: Relatively. James joined the Hellions because he wanted revenge on the X-Men. He treated the New Mutants in a neutral-to-friendly manner, and otherwise did what he was asked without malicious intent or excessive force. It was enough that, as much as the New Mutants wanted vengeance on Empath, they trusted Thunderbird enough to let him deal with the problem.
The Worf Effect: Feral and Shatterstar both got one over on Warpath in their introductions during the original X-Force series. Neither of these two are remotely in Warpath's league.

Firefist

Russell "Rusty" Collins / Firefist

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #1 (February, 1986)

Russell "Rusty" Collins was a mutant who could create and manipulate heat and flame. He joined with many of the big mutant teams, however he didn't stay with any of them for too long. He shared a long-term relationship with fellow mutant Skids before his untimely death.

Brainwashed and Crazy: When he was part of the MLF.
The Cape: Originally Cyclops' protégé, and stated to have to potential to become a significant leader/figure for mutantkind. He went to prison as part of a protest over the treatment of mutants... and then he got put on the first of many buses.
Heel–Face Revolving Door
Playing with Fire: Rusty is a pyrokinetic. Rusty is able to ignite oxygen in the air and direct it as pyrotechnic blasts. He can also start fires anywhere in his line-of-sight up to 20 feet. Rusty can also erect shields completely of fire. The intensity of heat in the shield is strong enough to melt most physical attacks and disperse many energy attacks.
Required Secondary Powers
We Hardly Knew Ye: Poor Rusty was killed by the time-displaced Holocaust.

Skids

Sally Blevins / Skids

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sally_blevins_007.jpg

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #7 (August, 1986)

Skids is a mutant who has the power to form force fields and has been romantically involved with the mutant Rusty Collins. She eventually ended up as an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. sometime after M-Day.

Abusive Parents: This is the reason why her mutant powers had first activated. Her father had beaten her mother severely for letting Sally wear pearls and had turned his rage on Sally. It was at this time that she developed her ability to form a force field around herself, which protected her from her father and allowed her to scare him off.
Barrier Warrior: Skids possesses the mutant superhuman ability to create force fields around herself and others, totaling an area of approximately 30 cubic feet (after a long training), with her being in the center. The field covers all of her body, so she never has any actual physical contact with anything touching any part of her body, as long as it is activated.
- What makes Skids' force fields unique (and explains her name) is that her fields negate friction - when she has them up, it's impossible to hold on to her, and she can move by "skating" along the ground.
Brainwashed and Crazy: When she was part of the MLF.
Heel–Face Revolving Door: Originally with the Morlocks, she then joined became a member of X-Factor, X-terminators, and the New Mutants before being brainwashed into joining the Mutant Liberation Front. Magneto helped undo that brainwashing, so she joined his Acolytes, but after the destruction of Avalon she went to college and eventually joined X-Corporation. After M-Day she was briefly aligned with Apocalypse and then Masque's radical Morlock faction, but then turned out to be undercover as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, albeit with some loyalty leftover to Magneto.

Boom-Boom

Tabitha Smith / Boom-Boom

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Secret Wars II #5 (November, 1985)

"Hey, English girl, I used to do business with Cable and X-Force, you know what I'm saying? I've had to handle worse things than robots with big swords. Tick tick tick BOOM."

Tabitha is a mutant with the ability to create energy bombs of various sizes and intensity which explode upon impact. She ran away from home when her powers manifested and her abusive father tried to beat them out of her. Tabitha happened upon the Beyonder in his human form and bonded with him, and eventually wound up as a ward of X-Factor. She later joined the New Mutants and would go on to become a founding member of X-Force.

Abusive Parents: Her father began to beat her soon after powers manifested, forcing her to run away from home.
Action Girl: In Cable and X-Force. Even if she is in a situation where she can't use her powers, Tabitha is an expert martial artist who has been serving in mutant special forces units since she was a teenager and can easily handle most people in a fight.
Badass Longcoat: She has taken to wearing a longcoat with many of her recent uniforms.
Beware the Silly Ones: She may be irreverent and drunk most of the time, but Tabitha is amongst the X-Men who have the least issue with using lethal force thanks to her time with Cable and X-Force.
Cool Shades: Recently she's been shown with sunglasses all the time, even at night.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: She may be lazy, inattentive, and usually at least a little buzzed, but Tabitha's power and skills can turn her into one of the hardest hitting X-Men very quickly.
The Ditz: Is consistently presented as not particularly book smart or attentive on missions, sometimes missing missions entirely. Nextwave pushes her into full-on Dumb Blonde territory.
Hard-Drinking Party Girl: When not on missions (and sometimes while on them), Tabitha will have at least one drink in hand and be partying. She really embraces the party atmosphere of Krakoa after its founding.
Having a Blast: Tabitha can create energy bombs of varying size which explode after a time delay.
I Have Many Names: Time Bomb, Boom Boom, Boomer and Meltdown. She's currently using Boom-Boom. This is even lampshaded by Sage, who mentions she changes codenames more often than she changes underwear. After they all get listed at one point, Tabitha is left trying to recall when she went by "Doctor Madame McSplode".
Jerkass: In Nextwave, which may or may not be in continuity. At one point, she starts beating up a policeman for no reason other than that she hates cops. (Of course, everyone on that team was a jerkass.)
Lower-Class Lout: Her family was white trash to the core, and while she isn't quite as bad as her parents, Tabitha herself is still a consistently rude, coarse, obnoxious, and generally trashy person. This subsided with the 2000s and she's instead now a valley girl more than anything — though this is when she's on her own.
Progressively Prettier: Started out with a very unflattering hair cut and pretty daggy clothes, but over time artists had her look go from "white trash" to "valley girl", complete with prettier hair and clothes.
Sticky Fingers: She is depicted as a kleptomaniac in Nextwave.
Totally Radical: Writers love making her use lots of slang. This was most prevalent in the 90s when she was just... the embodiment of the 90s. In the 2010s, it's not so much her slang but her lifestyle which has turned her from "superhero but a 90s teenager" into "superhero but a lazy millennial", such as using ride-sharing to get to her superhero duties and sleeping in.
Valley Girl: What she eventually becomes, complete with excessive slang, obsession with looks and lots of partying.
Vitriolic Best Buds: She and Jubilee did NOT get along when they had to work together in X-Tinction Agenda, barely being able to put their animosity aside. This was partly due to their similar powersets causing them to try and one-up the other. This has mellowed considerably and with the two becoming this. They now hang out as friends but still mock each other even when they are out in danger and fighting vampires in X-Terminators.

Rictor

Julio Esteban Richter / Rictor

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/6692073_julio_richter_earth_616_from_shatterstar_vol_1_2_001.jpg

Nationality: Mexican

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #17 (June, 1987)

A mutant with the power to create seismic vibrations, Rictor was a member of the New Mutants and X-Force. He attempted suicide after he lost his powers on M-Day, but joined X-Factor Investigations. He has since been repowered by Scarlet Witch and is romantically involved with fellow teammate, Shatterstar.

Following the foundation of the mutant nation of Krakoa, Rictor was recruited by Apocalypse into the newly reformed Excalibur after the ancient mutant saw the potential in him to grow stronger. Embracing this role and exploring more of his connection to the world and nature with the help of a group of druids who lived near the Braddock Lighthouse, Rictor became embroiled in the growing conflict within Otherworld.

The Apprentice: He became Apoclaypse's student in studying magic after joining Excalibur and was given his mentor's grimoire after Apocalypse went to Amenth with his family.
Badass Bookworm: Rictor has displayed an affinity for computers and can hack into various high-security systems.
Badass Normal: Even though he has been depowered, he still earns his place as a member of X-Factor.
Battle Couple: With Shatterstar after the two began seeing each other.
Big, Screwed-Up Family: The family business is selling weapons (and drugs) on the black market. He's less than proud of this and once worked to try to dismantle his family's business.
Brought Down to Badass: Even when he was depowered, he still earned his place as a member of X-Factor.
Coldblooded Torture: By the Right.
Color Motifs: Green and brown, which represent his seismic-related powers.
The Cracker: While not malicious, he does break into things like government servers to obtain information needed by X-Factor, which is definitely illegal.
Deadpan Snarker: Par the course for anyone written by Peter David, but with Rictor it seems to have stuck.
Dishing Out Dirt: He used to have seismic powers until he got depowered on M-day. In Avengers: Children's Crusade #6, he's the first mutant to have his powers restored by Wanda. He has since learned to remotely terraform the ground around him in a more tactile manner.
Distressed Dude: He has a tendency to get kidnapped, tortured, and/or held hostage a lot. Mostly before he lost his powers. He actually isn't this as much after losing them.
Druid: In Excalibur he began to explore more of his connection to the Earth beyond just geology and has discovered that he can manipulate plant life as well to a certain degree, utilizing vines to entangle his foes. A group of druids living near the Braddock Lighthouse identify him as one of them thanks to his connection to the Earth and even dub him their king when he calls upon them for aid. Rictor subsequently modified his uniform to look more druidic, including face paint.
Electric Torture: One of the few details given about his torture by the Right.
Family Business: The Richter family business? Selling weapons illegally, or "selling death", as he explains it.
Foreign Cuss Word: Prone to this, especially during the 90s.
Gratuitous Spanish: Again, guilty of this during the 90s.
Green Thumb: After working with Apocalypse and gaining a power upgrade through the trials the External put him through Rictor has become able to control plants.
Innocently Insensitive: When he becomes Apocalypse's apprentice, he becomes pretty sycophantic and admonishes other mutants for not believing in his vision. He's preaching this to people that Apocalypse had terrorized in the past, including brainwashing into being his Horsemen with still lingering consequences that the man himself justifies to them when called out, while also ''currently" manipulating them to his ends. Needless to say, Rictor's words fall on deaf ears at best.
Interrupted Suicide: Three so far — in the original X-Factor (#22), and in X-Factor Vol 3 (#1 and #38).
In the Hood: His uniform with Excalibur includes a green cloak with a hood that he wears up most of the time.
Mirror Character: How Rictor became Apocalypse's apprentice is very much like Angel became his Horseman of Death. Both were suffering depression over their powers, were approached by Apocalypse and offered a way to salvation. Angel was brainwashed with a split personality that still haunts him to this day and resents an unapologetic Apocalypse for it. Rictor by contrast and showing off Apocalypse's Heel–Face Turn was instead merely mentored, and gives his loyalty of sound mind.
Last-Name Basis: Nobody calls him Julio. Even his closest friends just call him Ric.
Magma Man: After working with Apocalypse and gaining a power upgrade through the trials the External put him through Rictor has become able to control lava.
Meaningful Name: His surname is Richter. He has once again earthquake powers. You do the math.
Mundane Utility: At one point, he uses his powers to earn some scratch as a one-man demolition team.
Person of Mass Destruction: His ability to control seismic waves and create earthquakes gives Rictor to the potential to wipe out entire cities if he loses control.
Power Loss Depression: The very first issue of X-Factor Volume 3 opens with Rictor needing to be talked out of committing suicide after losing his powers. During a therapy session with Doc Samson, he admits that he still has his "bad days" where he feels depressed over loss of his powers.
Power Loss Makes You Strong: After M-Day, he had to learn to put more emphasis on his regular skills and was actually quite successful.
Relationship Upgrade: He and Shatterstar were Heterosexual Life-Partners; eventually he chucked the 'heterosexual' bit.
Repower: After losing his powers on M-Day, he was repowered by Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Children's Crusade. In fact, due to a mix of circumstances, he was the only person she managed to repower.
Sense Loss Sadness: Part of his depression over losing his powers was a previously unmentioned empathic connection with the Earth that's now gone.
Smug Snake: The Ageof Apocalypse version is this in spades.
Straight Gay: It's been revealed that Rictor is not bi as previously assumed, but full-on gay, having found no fulfillment in his relationships with Rahne and Tabitha.
Suicide by Cop: Attempted in X-Factor vol 3 #38, and later called on this trope by Guido.
You Killed My Father: Held a grudge against Cable because of this, even after the truth (his father was killed by Cable's clone Stryfe) came out.

X-Man

Nathaniel "Nate" Grey / X-Man

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/new_mutants_vol_3_25_molina_variant_textless.jpg

Nationality: American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Man #1 (March, 1995)

X-Man is an Omega-level mutant genetically created by Mr. Sinister from the Age of Apocalypse timeline. He is somewhat an alternate-reality counterpart to Cable, although Nate was made from the DNA of Jean Grey and Scott Summers whereas Cable was born naturally to Scott and Madelyne Pryor (Jean's clone). After returning from the dead and being captured by first HAMMER then Sugar Man after a run-in with Norman Osborn's X-Men, Nate joined the New Mutants and started a relationship with Dani Moonstar.

For tropes regarding X-Man, see his page.

Galura

Gabrielle Diwa

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1cf027ef_a18d_4bb8_b63b_da22a070aeec.jpeg

Nationality: Filipino, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Voices: Pride (June, 2021)

A mutant woman who joined the New Mutants staff in educating the youth of Krakoa.

For tropes regarding Galura, see her entry on the X-Men: Krakoans page.

Magneto

Erik Magnus Lehnsherr / Max Eisenhardt / Eric Magnus / Magneto

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/c2bdb02d2df45ff1ed7c562638a8fbb1.jpg

Notable Aliases: Magnus, Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, Master of Magnetism, Auschwitz I.D. #24005 (retcon from #214782), Michael Xavier, "The Creator", Erik the Red, "Red," Grey King, White Pilgrim, King Erik Magnus, Eric Lensher, Mr. Sullivan, White King, Miraculous Magneto, Phantom Saboteur, the Leader, Master (by Toad), Merciless Magneto

Nationality: German, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Men #1 (September, 1963)

During his reformed period, Magneto started teaching the New Mutants and fought alongside the X-Men. This, at first was very difficult for many of the team-members, since they had done battle against Magneto more then once.

For tropes regarding Magneto, see his page.

Maxime and Manon

Nationality: French

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Extermination #1 (October, 2018)

Mutant twins who have the power to manipulate people's emotions (Maxime) and rewrite their memories (Manon). They were sweet kids before they were kidnapped from the Xavier Institute in the future by Ahab. He turned them into sleeper agents for when he was on his quest to kill the time-displaced original X-Men, using them to quickly turn mutants into Hounds. After he is defeated, they remained in the present day, with the X-Men promising Cable that they would look after the two and help them unlearn what Ahab had taught them.

After the founding of Krakoa, the two joined Armor's makeshift New Mutants team.

And I Must Scream: What Ahab used them for. Because making a Hound took years of torture, Ahab's workaround was to have Maxime and Manon manipulate emotions and memories, respectively, so that the victim felt like they had undergone years of torture, with the memories to boot.
Enfant Terrible: They usually aren't malicious but their use of their powers is abusive at best. They had Beak forget how his parents were killed by terrorists to "help" him get past his grief, instead giving him the memory of them dying in their sleep peacefully.
Manipulative Bitch: Both of them are keen on using their powers to solve any situation, rather than allowing people to naturally work through their emotions and painful experiences.
More than Mind Control: Their power is usually used like some form of mind control, but they don't actually control people's minds. Maxime and Manon manipulate people's memories so that they will be more compliant with what the twins want them to do. For example, planting the memory of a man's wife having cheated on him with his terrorist friend and giving him increased anger, so that they can egg him into shooting his friend. Jean Grey mentions that it is very hard to undo, and she was only able to do so because they told her how to undo it.
Used to Be a Sweet Kid: When Jean meets them from before they were turned to Ahab's side, they are helpful, friendly and all-around adorable. She herself, even after they'd turned against the X-Men, lamented what happened to them. Once Krakoa is founded, they do act more sweet and innocent... but are morally twisted despite this.

Glob Herman

Robert Herman / Glob Herman

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/robert_herman_earth_616_from_age_of_x_man_nextgen_vol_1_2_cover_001.jpg

Nationality: American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: New X-Men #117 (October, 2001)

Glob was a student at Xavier's mansion and a member of the Omega Gang under the leadership of Quentin Quire.

For tropes regarding Glob, see his entry on the X-Men: 2000s Members page.

The Hellions

Other Villains

Donald Pierce

Donald Pierce / White Bishop

Nationality: American

Species: Human cyborg

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #132 (January, 1980)

One of the X-Men's most loathsome foes, an evil racist cyborg who wants to exterminate all mutants - usually starting with the babies and children and working his way up. Totally repugnant and insane. Ironically, was a former member of the Hellfire Club until his political views drove him to become an all-out anti-mutant terrorist.

For tropes regarding Pierce, see his entry on the X-Men: Hellfire Club page.

Magus

Nationality: Technarchy

Species: Technarch

First Appearance: New Mutants #18 (August, 1984)

Warlock's brutal father, who chased him across galaxies to battle his son to the death, as is their tradition. Magus is a cosmic-level threat capable of destroying stars and crushing planets in his rage. He also indirectly caused the events of Inferno by following the New Mutants to Limbo and turning the demons there into techno-organic beings like himself, allowing them to overthrow Magik.

Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The kids actually defeated him, albeit with Professor X's guidance.

Other Characters

Legion

David Charles Haller / Legion

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2730892_new_mutants_vol_3_21_textless.jpg

Nationality: Israeli, British

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: New Mutants #26 (April, 1985)

The son of Charles Xavier and Gabrielle Haller, David Haller is the powerful Omega-level mutant known as Legion.

After becoming the Sole Survivor of a terrorist attack, the intense trauma sustained by David ultimately led to the manifestation of his mutant abilities — namely, the ability to absorb and cycle between distinct personalities in his head, allowing him to spontaneously develop their own mutations for himself to use.

Though initially introduced as an antagonist in New Mutants, David is often portrayed as an anti-hero more than anything else, and his moral compass isn't as easily defined as his father's — though Xavier himself is also prone to doing some seriously shady stuff.

In 2017, Legion became the subject of an eponymous television series on FX, portrayed by Dan Stevens. The TV version of the character is somewhat different from his comic book counterpart because he was born in America as David Xavier, the legitimate son of Charles Xavier and his wife Gabrielle. ^note David was given up for adoption while he was still a baby and was taken in by the Haller family. His struggle with mental illness is emphasized, and plays a major role in the series.

Not to be confused with L.E.G.I.O.N. (DC Comics), a modern day predecessor to the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Acid Attack: His 762nd personality can breathe out a cloud of acidic green fog.
Always Someone Better: Nate Grey a.k.a. X-Man is depicted as this to David in Uncanny X-Men (2018) - he's saner (albeit possibly Crazy Sane), a more skilled Telepath, a better planner, and ultimately, a more powerful Reality Warper. This leads to an absolutely brutal curbstomping when David finally gathers up the courage to confront him - Nate delivers a cold Breaking Speech and effortlessly body-jacks him.
Animal Motifs: In his solo, various superorganisms representing his mental state like bee colonies.
Anime Hair: His iconic look gives him an Eraserhead-like tower of hair.
Antagonistic Offspring: Towards Xavier at first. After Xavier's death, David decided he wants to realize his dream, but using his own methods.
The Atoner: One of his personalities, telepath Jemail Karami, was actually the psychic ghost of one of the terrorists who tried to kill him to begin with. After a while in the kid's mind, Jemail decided he'd been wrong and dedicated his existence to restoring David's sanity.
Badass Boast: In Uncanny X-Men (2018), he gives a rather good one to Nate Grey, who he'd trapped inside his head. Unfortunately, Nate being a monstrously powerful telepath (and arguably the strongest telepath in the Marvel Universe at the time), it didn't quite work.
I think you'll find that my mind is a little more complicated than what you're used to, big man. Do you really think you're the first super-powered child to throw a tantrum in here? I have ways of dealing with you. We all do... we are Legion.
Bed Trick: During the Legion Quest story that'd lead to Age of Apocalypse, an amnesiac Legion used his powers to go back in time and pose as his own father and then sexually assault his own mother, Gabrielle Haller.
Berserk Button: Extremely sensitive to even the barest implication that he's unreliable, or that his instability somehow waives all the good he's done and is trying to do.
Big Ol' Eyebrows: A feature he's inherited from his dad is a pair of eyebrows that seem to go past his head.
Blessed with Suck: Legion sure won the Superpower Lottery... Except that David, the core personality, can't use the powers that belong to his splinter personalities, and that several of the personalities are nasty customers indeed.
Breaking Speech: Receives a brutal one from Nate Grey when the two square off in issue 8 of Uncanny X-Men (2018).
Nate: Your father failed you. To soothe your broken mind he told you that there is a real you buried in there. He told you that the mind is the self. What you are. I know the mind is but a tool. And tools can be taken away. This is my mind now.
Breath Weapon: His 762nd personality can breathe out a cloud of acidic green fog.
The Bus Came Back: After being missing from the end of Age of Apocalypse, David eventually returned during the Utopia era.
Catchphrase: "Mine is the power of [insert personality/ power name he is currently using here]" in Legacy. His other one is "I rule me", which also serves as the Arc Words.
Children Are Innocent: David's core personality is usually depicted like this.
Combat Pragmatist: Sees no problem in cheating his way to victory.
Combo Platter Powers: In a way, this is his superpower; he can create any superhuman power he can think of, at the drawback of having to create a secondary personality to control it. When he learns to take control of multiple personas for his own use, naturally, he can combine his individual powers in whatever way he pleases. Some of those personalities play the trope straight themselves by having distinct combinations of powers; examples include Absence (can siphon off heat and love), Kirbax the Kraklar (flight and electricity generation), and K-Zek the Conduit (wireless energy transfer and electricity absorption).
Curb-Stomp Battle: He doles these out to enemies like paper flyers simply by the multitude of powers he possesses and his ability to use them when focused.
- He ends up on the receiving end of one of these when he tries trapping X-Man in a simulated version of the Age of Apocalypse inside his head, without his powers. All this ultimately results in is a very angry Nate, who - once he figures it out - crushes Legion in the five seconds it takes to deliver a brutal Breaking Speech and pulls a Grand Theft Me.
Cursed with Awesome: Being mentally ill often helps him in his plans and enables him to concoct incredibly convoluted schemes.
Deconstruction: His solo in X-Men: Legacy has a number of jabs at usual X-Men conventions. The fact that they only find mutants with "flashy" powers, filling their ranks with combat capable mutations, the fact that they're so ineffective the X-Men still need to be soldiers, and that none of them seem to work on human-mutant relationships anymore like how mutants can not only coexist but also aid society.
Defeat Means Friendship:
- After his defeat from the "New Mutants", Legion became their supporting character and unofficial member of the team.
- Apparently, in Age of X-Man, with Nate Grey, with Legion finally getting some peace and quiet in the titular reality.
The Dreaded: Anyone who knows about a fraction of what he can do is terrified of him and the X-Men in general give him a wide berth whenever possible.
Enemy Without: In the first volume of X-Men: Legacy he seeks help of his father, Rogue, Magneto, Frenzy and Gambit, after several of his personalities escape. In the second volume, an evil personality modeled after his old man escapes and tries to destroy the world
Embarrassing Nickname: David hates being called Legion. He says it's incredibly insensitive and tantamount to calling an epileptic superhero, "Spasmo".
Empty Shell: Spent several years effectively comatose after the terrorist attack that killed his stepdad. Then the Jack and Cyndi alters started acting out.
Fatal Flaw:
- In his solo series it's lack of trust. David is unable trust anybody but himself, so he manipulates people around him. As it turns out he is unable to trust even himself - this is why he personalized parts of his mind as alien beings and needs to fight to control them.
- It recurs in the run up to Age of X-Man, leading to his convoluted plan to stop Nate Grey. Unfortunately, it has the exact opposite of the desired effect, and he's comfortably Out-Gambitted by Nate.
A God I Am Not: In finale of Legacy, David merges with Weaver, becoming basically a god and starts fixing damage done by evil Xavier and himself. But then he realizes if he doesn't stop, he'll have to take control of the world and change it in his image. Which would go against all he believes in.
Gondor Calls for Aid: Losing his final fight with Evil Xavier, David realizes his manipulative behavior alienated people from him so there is no one he can call for help now. Then it turns out he subconsciously sent his cries for forgiveness to all those people. And in response they came to help him.
Gone Horribly Right: It's revealed in Hickman's X-Men run that David was purposefully conceived as part of Xavier and Moira's plan to breed a powerful mutant. They certainly got what they wanted.
Grand Theft Me: On the receiving end from Nate Grey in Uncanny X-Men (2018) after he made the horrible mistake of a) trapping Nate, probably the most powerful telepath in the Marvel Universe, in his head, and b) subjecting him to his worst nightmare for what felt like months.
Guile Hero: In X-Men: Legacy vol. 2, David picked a habit of manipulating people for the greater good. Sometimes, might take it straight into Magnificent Bastard territory. Later deconstructed - the series makes it clear the people he manipulates either see him as just a dangerous, unstable individual or an outright Manipulative Bastard, so while he gets the job done, he utterly fails at making any friends.
- He tries this in Uncanny X-Men (2018) as part of trying to stop X-Man, but his desperation, lack of communication/lack of trust, and just being too late mean that he fails miserably. He then tries it on Nate himself, with a bit of telepathic trickery. It works for five minutes of real time, and only succeeds in absolutely enraging the more powerful and more skilled telepath.
Implied Rape: During Legion Quest (the prologue to Age of Apocalypse), an amnesiac Legion tried to use his own psychic powers to pull a Bed Trick on Gabrielle Haller (his own mother) and by the time Charles and Erik got to her, her clothes are ripped up and she's crying.
Many Spirits Inside of One: He had multiple personalities with different superpowers. Then he went better, but as a whole was so powerful that he caused the Age of Apocalypse. He later came back, now having hundreds of personalities, each with its own unique power. Some of them are minds of dead people he drained, making him a combination of this trope and Mind Hive.
Mental Affair: Has one with Ruth at the end of his solo series.
Motormouth: In the early days, David tended to talk a mile a minute, sometimes coherently, sometimes not.
Odd Couple: With Blindfold in Legacy.
Papa Wolf: In Legacy David becomes protective of children and firmly believes the fact young mutants still have to learn to defend themselves proves X-Men failed to accomplish anything.
Physical God: At his full potential, he becomes one of these and has been called a God and a God-Mutant when he has his full wits about him. Best summed up by his own mother when he awoke from his coma with a more collected mind.
Danielle Haller: Even untrained, he's ten times the Psi his father is. He can do anything he puts his mind to. Anything. In short, X-Men, my son is a God.
Playing with Fire: One of his earliest demonstrated powers was pyrokinesis. The alter in control of that was the short-tempered and cynical Cyndi.
Plot-Relevant Age-Up: In his solo series his core personality grew to his actual age.
Power Parasite: Played with. In his solo series he learned to have his core personality drain the powers of his other personalities, allowing him to use them himself without having to cede his body over to that personality, and to combine powers from different personalities.
Psychoactive Powers: However, how strength his core personality depends on his own confidence or determination - if he allows himself to be consumed by doubt, he barely can drain weakest personalities. When he really gets his head set on something, he can get the strongest ones. after David learns to merge with his personalities, high confidence allows him to do this with the strongest ones
Punny Name: Cyndi (cinder), the pyrokinetic personality.
Put on a Bus: He erased himself from existence, thus retconning any memory of it except for in Blindfold's mind. Then he's suddenly back for a second mini, then in Incoming! knowledge of him is back but according to Sinister no one knows where he is.
Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: As noted under "Bed Trick", it's implied during Legion Quest that an amnesiac David used his powers to pose as Charles and then sexually assault his own mother.
Reality Warper: The most powerful of Legion's personalities, including the ones that are more or less cohesive amalgamations of his shattered psyche, have the ability to change reality itself in wide-sweeping ways, to the point of creating an entire alternate universe during Age of X storyline. Indeed, it turns out that he was conceived for this very reason. However, as he finds out to his cost, there's Always Someone Better - Nate Grey.
Ret-Gone: In the end of Legacy he wiped himself from existence in the 616-world, the sole person remembering him being Blindfold.
Split Mind, Split Powers: All of his personalities have their own powers.
Split Personality: Varying in number; originally it was just three plus Jemail, but things have gotten... complicated.
Strong Family Resemblance: On first seeing him, Dani Moonstar quips that he looks a lot like Charles.
Superpower Lottery: It’s his super power. No, really. His power designation in Hickman's X-Men run is Omega level Power Manifestation and according to Rogue new powers are being birthed with new personalities constantly. Some of the the big ones he’s manifested are Telekinesis, Telepathy, and the ability to create an entire universe.
Superpowered Evil Side: Jack Wayne, among others (Jack was not the only malicious personality, but he did take over several of the others' powers at times, making him the most dangerous).
Tomato in the Mirror: All his personalities are aware they're in his head, but most of them believe they're real (which given David's abilities, might be true). At the climax of his solo, his most powerful personality, the Great Weaver, reveals it has his face and its dialogue implies that David is the errant ego running around with his body.
- This is exploited and developed by Nate Grey in his Breaking Speech when the two face off in a Battle in the Center of the Mind, coldly deconstructing the idea that there is an original David at all. Cue Grand Theft Me. Given Nate's track record, this could have just been psychological warfare (and if it was, it worked like a charm), but it has a disturbing plausibility.
Unexplained Recovery: Was given a second series where he was inexplicably unerased from existence and desperately seeking the help of a psychotherapist to quell the uprising of a malevolent personality.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: During the 90s, Legion travelled back in time to kill Magneto, reasoning that his father would have a better life if Magneto hadn't been there. Unfortunately, Charles took the fatal blow for Erik, and the brawl itself woke up Apocalypse several decades early, creating the Age of Apocalypse.
- This later drives his actions in the run up to Age of X-Man, as he blames himself for the titular reality's creation and, thereby, Nate Grey (who terrifies him).
Villains Act, Heroes React: In his solo series he becomes critical of this approach and tries to be more proactive kind of hero by removing enemies before they become more dangerous.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Jemail Karami seems to have vanished entirely.
What the Hell, Hero?: Oh so very often in his solo series. Pretty much everyone from Blindfold to Pete Wisdom to Aarkus calls him out on his manipulative ways. Except for Pixie, Chamber and Frenzy, who skipped that part and just beat the living shit out of him.

Lila Cheney

Nationality: British

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: New Mutants Annual #1 (November, 1984)

Lila Cheney is an interstellar rock star mutant who can teleport between planets.

Amicable Exes: With Cannonball.
Blessed with Suck: She is a teleporter capable of traveling interstellar distance in an eyeblink. Where the suck comes in is that she can only travel interstellar distances. If she wants to zap herself from the east side of Cleveland to the west, she'd have to use Alpha Centauri as a halfway point.
Dark and Troubled Past: Which she initially refuses to give, save piecemeal hints to Sam, but seem to include at least one instance of being enslaved.
Idol Singer
Most Common Super Power: Jubilee makes reference to it on panel.
Secret Test of Character: Pulls a quick on on Sam when he tries introducing her to his mother, after they'd already had some nasty arguments. She shows up in a very revealing outfit, and when Sam is unresponsive teleports away only to reappear in a more conservative one, telling Sam that had been the test (if he'd made a fuss of it, she wouldn't have come back. Lila just doesn't learn Sam wasn't paying full attention in the moment).
Sticky Fingers: On occasion, has had the tendency to take things without asking, which caused Sam no end of concern in their dating. Especially since the first time they met the "thing" she tried to take was the Earth.
Teleportation: Lila has the ability to teleport across great interstellar distances. Her powers do not allow her to teleport any distances under a light year so she must use her Dyson Sphere as a midway point on shorter travels. It also only teleports her to places she feels home, as the New Mutants learn when a jaunt strands them in London with no money or passports.
Too Fast to Stop: The reason she can only travel interstellar distances. When she teleports she generates a FTL field of tachyons that take her light-years before she can stop it, so technically she's only capable of overshooting shorter distances.

Characters / New Mutants

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Characters from New Mutants Vol. 1, 3 and 4

Main Cast

Danielle "Dani" Moonstar / Mirage

Nationality: Cheyenne Native-American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (November, 1982)

Samuel "Sam" Zachary Guthrie / Cannonball

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (November, 1982)

Xuân/Xi'an/Shan Coy Manh / Karma

Nationality: Vietnamese

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Team-Up #100 (December, 1980)

Roberto "Bobby" Da Costa / Sunspot

Nationality: Brazilian American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (September, 1982)

Rahne Sinclair / Wolfsbane

Nationality: Scottish

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel #4 (November, 1982)

Amara Juliana Olivians Aquilla / Magma

Nationality: Nova Roman

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: New Mutants #8 (October, 1983)

Illyana Nikolievna Rasputina / Magik / Darkchylde

Nationality: Russian, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May, 1975) note As Illyana Rasputina; Magik (Storm and Illyana) #1 (December, 1983) note As Magik

Douglas Aaron Ramsey / Cypher

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: New Mutants #13 (March, 1984)

Warlock

Nationality: Technarch

Species: Technarch mutant

First Appearance: New Mutants #18 (August, 1984)

James Proudstar / Warpath

Notable Aliases: Pridewalker, Running Sun, Thunderbird

Nationality: American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: New Mutants #16 (June, 1984)

Russell "Rusty" Collins / Firefist

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #1 (February, 1986)

Sally Blevins / Skids

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #7 (August, 1986)

Tabitha Smith / Boom-Boom

Nationality: American

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Secret Wars II #5 (November, 1985)

Julio Esteban Richter / Rictor

Nationality: Mexican

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Factor #17 (June, 1987)

Nathaniel "Nate" Grey / X-Man

Nationality: American, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Man #1 (March, 1995)

Gabrielle Diwa

Nationality: Filipino, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Marvel Voices: Pride (June, 2021)

Erik Magnus Lehnsherr / Max Eisenhardt / Eric Magnus / Magneto

Nationality: German, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: X-Men #1 (September, 1963)

Maxime and Manon

Nationality: French

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Extermination #1 (October, 2018)

Robert Herman / Glob Herman

Nationality: American, Krakoan

First Appearance: Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May, 1975) ^noteAs Illyana Rasputina; Magik (Storm and Illyana) #1 (December, 1983) ^noteAs Magik