Psycho Loves Jerkass: Laura and Julian

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Part 1 of a series revisiting the story of the relationship between X-23 and Hellion from New X-Men.

X-23/Laura Kinney has spent most of her time in the Marvel Universe under the authorship of Craig Kyle and Chris Yost, the writers who originally created her on X-Men: Evolution.  So when said duo took over New X-Men with #20, Laura tagged along.  Post M-Day, when most mutants lost their powers, this prompted a major realignment of how the school was organized.  Wolverine decided to bring Laura there.

He introduces her to her new classmates when they're watching a pissing contest between Surge/Nori (blue-haired chick) and Hellion/Julian (guy in the red jacket); in the earlier incarnation of the series, Julian was the jerkass leader of the Slytherin-equivalents.




Off to a good start, then.

Anyway, they head off to the "Danger Cave" (this being after Whedon's "Danger" arc, so the Room is out of commission) to cosplay through some simulations of the X-Men's past missions.  First up is "Fall of the Mutants" ("Who names their missions?"):




Next issue, the bad-80s-fashion tour continues as they switch over to the X-Men's first confrontation with NIMROD, who is ruthlessly mocked for being pink.





You'll be seeing a lot of this back-and-forth rescuing over the course of this story.



The X-cosplay session breaks up, as they head to off to further angsty stuff relating to the reshuffling of the status quo.

The series originally focussed primarily on a group of students mentored by Dani Moonstar, but K & Y were aiming to shift the focus more to the Emma Frost-mentored ones, because they were, honestly, a lot more interesting (with a few of the old main characters, like Surge and Elixir, still sticking around).  Emma decides that the new "New X-Men" squad will be chosen by pitting all the remaining mutant students against each other in a melee, with those left standing as the winners.



Hellion dutifully goes after X-23, but is sidelined by Surge, who is looking to finally beat him up.  He eventually gets rid of her, and returns to his priority.  Though Emma's got her hand on the scales...





Regarding Emma's characterization here, there's a whole other plot going on through the first few arcs here about Emma, having yet again failed to protect her students (from M-Day), reacting very negatively towards bringing X-23 into the school, since she's, well, a trained assassin of dubious mental health; by the end, she comes to realize that X-23 is ultimately another kid who needs her protection (which she does by reprogramming an assassin sent to kill X-23 and pitting her against the people who hired her).  Anyhoo, right now, Emma is forced to put Laura on the group, but takes her anger out at her disloyal minion.



Don't fuck with Frost.

The next arc, "Crusade", doesn't have a whole lot to do with Laura and Julian, though they get a cool cover:



This is a cover that gets homaged a lot, but I really like this one.

And, when Reverend Stryker's Purifiers invade the Mansion, Laura saves everybody again.




We'll leave off there for now.

Next time:  More saving each other!  The stalking begins in earnest!

Comments

[arilou_skiff.insanejournal.com]

*headdesk*

I just realized something. Keller is Jean Grey.

Seriously.

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

... oh gods, I see it too.

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

Oh shit.

The correctness! It burns us!

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

This relationship always seemed incredibly forced to me.

[taggerung301.insanejournal.com]

yeah
I'm not really sure how Julian is appealing at all, really . . .
I mean, I haven't read New X-men for a while, but wasn't he consistently an ass?

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

Ooooh yes.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Considering it's Laura, her views on the ideal guy are probably somewhat warped. Also, he gets more heroic as this goes on (one of the things I really liked about this is how it role-reverses Julian from the 'edgy' guy into the 'moral' one, since Laura's so casual about lethal force).

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

Excelent point, I didn't even consider that position on their development.

[wingsonwater.insanejournal.com]

Yep. Though 'was' would imply past tense, but writers kept forcing him on readers as opposed to the likeable folks.

[rorge.insanejournal.com]

He was still an ass at this point, but he very quickly developed under Kyle & Yost. Especially after the bus explosion.

[taggerung301.insanejournal.com]

yay Laura! :D
boo Julian >:(

you'd think based on her genes that she would at least go for a redhead . . .

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

I remember at the time how negatively these issues were recieved back in the day. I mean, I liked it, but...

Considering what's happened to them in the interrum, it's rather hilarious in heinsight.

[freezer818.insanejournal.com]

Nice to see the New X-Men carrying on the New Mutants' traditoin of immaturity, infighting and getting their asses kicked on a regular basis.

[mxlm.myopenid.com (from insanejournal.com)]

Oh, they start a whole new tradition. A tradition of being massacred. By the end of the series literally every student has PTSD.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Except the original New Mutants (and New X-Men) mostly WERE immature, with members as young as 13 and 14. They certainly had a better excuse than the older, if not more mature, X-Men.

They were also not a trained combat force, they were being trained to control their powers, not trained to be X-Men.

[squirle.insanejournal.com]

Hihihi... Dust as Destiny and Tag as Storm :P

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

Tag as Storm is one of the most awesome things EVER.

[long_silence.insanejournal.com]

I thought Dust was Dazzler who had Destiny's mask stuck on her face by Spiral's magic.

[mugiwara.insanejournal.com]

The hilarity if it was not Cessily, but Sooraya or Santo were dressed as Selene!

I like the Julian/Laura couple. It made the two of them evolve in a good way. Especially during Mercury Falling where Julian realized he was not so much a badass, after all.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Wolverine's introduction has to be one of the most... appalling in even X-history. Way to make everyone more comfortable with the twitchy former assassin Logan!

[rorge.insanejournal.com]

Wolverine was pretty much a jackass whenever he appeared throughout this run. And yes, telling a bunch of scared, besieged kids that the new girl can kill them easily is pretty much the peak of dickishness.

Julian went through a pretty big arc of character development, from M-Day through the Nimrod and Mercury Falling arcs. One of the most developed characters in the book.

It's a shame that he's virtually disappeared, since. Hopefully Kyle and Yost will keep him in X-Force for a little while, it might make the book worth checking out.

[silverzeo.insanejournal.com]

Hellion should not hate clones, after all, he does look like Superboy from Young Justice. Basically a clone design from a clone character. Maybe that's why he hates clones....

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

Thank diety it's not just me who thought that. I mean, he Kon, just recolored a bit. And he even has telekinesis!

I need to read a New X-Men/Young Justice crossover.

[silverzeo.insanejournal.com]

Oh yeah. They should do this. Driving all the X-Teachers nuts. Kon and Hell showing off, Tim and Scott trying to retain control. Just imagine Bart with Logan.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

How was that Spyboy crossover?

[morgana006.insanejournal.com]

Oddly enough, seeing the cover for #26 was the exact point I decided to drop the title. :/ I wasn't well-versed in X-lore enough yet to get the reference, and I had quite enough dead and depowered characters, thankyewverymuch.

Oh New X-men, you jumped the shark so hard after M-day, and got canceled right around the time you were getting good again.

Also, was I the only one that thought X-23 and Mercury had 10x more chemistry than X-23 and Julian?

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

My favourite slash pairing with Laura was with Sooraya.

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

Heck, Laura should change her mutant name to Slash.

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

So that would be Mercury/Slash and Dust/Slash?

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

Yes, although for her clones it would just be /// or ////////////ad infinitum.

[datcord.insanejournal.com]

You know, I still totally dislike Emma, and her actions during this entire series pretty much just reinforced that opinion.

Spiteful and mean-spirited.

[angelophile.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, Emma was REALLY badly handled in this book right up to the point where she took on Carol. Suddenly something then clicked. But there was a lot of stuff before where, even as an Emma fan, I felt uncomfortable.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

K & Y's portrayal in the early issues was a bit erratic; they were clearly trying to strike a balance between "well-intentioned" and "antagonist", which occasionally came down too far on the side of "Ms. Trunchbull".

[tzipwich (from insanejournal.com)]

Hahaha, this. Emma as Ms. Trunchbull is a hilarious image.

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

I'm sorry for those who liked these characters. But I think the writing was terrible. I can't regret dropping the book or the massacre (except in that that prevented other writers from salvaging them).