New Warriors #31

[iamrman]

Firestar accompanies Cannonball and Warpath of X-Force to Brazil to notify Magma and Empath of the passing of the Hellions.

Empath continues to be the worst person in any room.

Good job Sam's nigh-invulnerable while blastin’.

Of course, future writers totally ignored the retcon.

Comments

[icon_uk]

SOME writers ignored the retcon, others made use of it. I think it better to say it was right up there with Armin Tamzarian, as an introduced plot point which was never referred to again... as soon as was convenient.

In the MU, a lost Roman colony is a much easier sell than the complicated mish-mash this required and, given it was another plot point which A) just made NO sense, and B) required both Selene and Empath to have mind control powers they just plain don't have, it being quietly buried in the back yard is probably just as well.

[dan_ingram]

I think Selene having mass mind control powers would be easy. She is a Claremont creation, after all ;)

Does seem to be more effort than her usual schemes, though

[icon_uk]

True, but I think if she had mass mind control powers, Claremont would have given them to her when he created her and she would have used them a LOT more.

Beyond being a life force vampire, telekinesis is her primary power, and is a low level telepath at best.

She's perhaps unusual in that Claremont powered her DOWN after her first appearance.

She could use the life energy she stole to give her superstrength, speed AND apparent teleportation, but she was quickly modified so that her appearing to vanish was her using her telpathy to confuse peoples perceptions whilst she ran very fast from where people thought she was. So she actually lost a power.

[cainofdreaming]

I dunno about low level, she mind blasted Xavier's astral form straight back to his body after all. I'd say it's more like she's unrefined, lots of power but no fine control. Mind control too, but nowhere else did she exhibit memory manipulation.

[thanekos]

Empath crying real tears about how bad he'll feel if he stops manipulating people is on brand for his type.

[beyondthefringe]

Several things are true:
1) Empath really IS the fucking worst at any given time. Right from the start, he's been complete and utter trash and I wouldn't mourn him if he fell into a volcano. His entire history is him being genuinely and irredeemably awful, a sexual and emotional predator. I get why some writers like to use him as an antagonist, but he gives me the extreme ick. There's a scene in New Mutants where he "greets" the female members of the team when they transfer to the Massachusetts Academy following their death-by-Beyonder and resurrection, and watching him work his way through the locker room while trying to influence half-dressed teen girls is just... So fuck Empath. He's one character where I won't accept redemption arcs.

2) This was a stupid, pointless retcon and deserved to be thrown onto the trash heap of forgotten/ignored retcons. Lost Roman cities in the depths of the Amazon is MUCH cooler than "everyone was brainwashed." I dunno what anyone was thinking.

3) The slaughter of the original Hellions was, and remains, a storyline I hated with the passion of a thousand burning Jean Greys. I liked them as a concept and as foils for the New Mutants, and thought their murders were a terrible waste. And as I've noted before, it was that event which inspired me to write my own X-Men-style fanfic in high school and college (which led to its own little shared corner of the universe with half a dozen other worthies, including Jeremy "Brothers in Arms" and "Go West" Bottroff. Never discount the power of rage in inspiring fanficcers...

It's nice that this story tried to recognize/honor the passing of the Hellions though, and allow for some crossover between X-Force and New Warriors as the youthful hero teams of the '90s. (For more of course, see the Child's Play crossover later.) Even though Firestar was basically only a Hellion by brief association (X-Men 193 and her own limited series are about it).

[zachbeacon]

"2) This was a stupid, pointless retcon and deserved to be thrown onto the trash heap of forgotten/ignored retcons. Lost Roman cities in the depths of the Amazon is MUCH cooler than "everyone was brainwashed." I dunno what anyone was thinking."

That Selene sees people as props?

[icon_uk]

New Mutants Forever (Claremonts return to an alt version of the kids which picks up where he left them back in the 80's) had an interesting take on Selene that, yes, she was a monster, but she was a monster who genuinely cared for Nova Roma in her way.

As the leader of the Cult of Selene she had loyal followers, who knew they might be used as a power supply (or even just lunch) in her service, but that she would use their lives to protect Nova Roma from any threats (such as the Red Skull invading) and would honour their memories.

She seemed sincere in that, and like much of the miniseries it didn't hang together too well if looked at too closely, but it was interesting.

[mastermahan]

2) I imagine they were thinking "how the hell did a bunch of Romans live in the Amazon for thousands of years and end up paler than Italians? Did Claremont really have Magma disguise herself with brownface?"

3) Terrible storyline. Let's kill off a bunch of long-running, well established characters who fill an niche as teen villains. That way we can get heat for, umm, Fitzroy. And the Upstarts. Not a great trade.

[icon_uk]

What I liked about the Hellions is that they weren't even particularly villainous, they were rivals for the New Mutants, like an ordinary school might have a rivalry with a competing schools basketball team or something.

Most of them could have easily fit into the New Mutants, with the obvious exception of Empath of course, who should be allowed no nearer a team than an isolation bubble... on an asteroid... orbiting a dead star... somewhere in the Horsehead Nebula.

When Amara left the NM's to join the Hellions I did wonder if we might have seen a trade-off, perhaps Tarot joining the NM's.

[beyondthefringe]

Yeah, apart from Empath, the Hellions were all decent enough. Jerks at times (Roulette especially) but Tarot, Catseye, Jetstream, Thunderbird, all had potential for good in them. Heck, their ties to Emma were more those of honor, family, perceived obligation than “we wanna be villains.” (Latecomers Beef and Bevatron regrettably didn’t get the same depth of exploration.)

They were such a good mirror to the New Mutants.

[mastermahan]

Point, they were antagonists, not villains. Except you, Empath, you suck.

At least Marvel didn't make the same mistake with the New X-Men-era Hellions. They lost less people following M-Day than the actual New X-Men, and most of them did quite well as characters.

[scorntx]

Marvel didn't make the same mistake with the Hellions, but instead decided to make entirely different ones.
Yay?

[scorntx]

So Empath's weakness is... microwaves? Angelica could've been blasting him with rads all this time and we wouldn't have had to put up with all his crap?
(Think I might've stated my opinion on the little creep before. Dun like him.)

Oh, the Nova Roma retcon.
It's kind of a John Byrne sort of move, huh.
I mean, I do kind of think the whole concept of Nova Roma is ridiculous (yes, apparently more ridiculous than the Savage Land, Attilan, Wakanda, those bird people, the Skull People, etc, etc)...
But that said, if you're going to have it, might as well play the whole thing straight (ignoring the fact this lost colony still look pretty *****ing white and have also apparently experienced no change whatsoever technology, society or even linguistics-wise in all that time) rather than saying they're all a bunch of brainwashed cosplayers.

"Jimmy's pretty bummed."
Sam Guthrie - nigh-invulnerable when he's blastin', right darn master of the understatement.
(Good thing Rahne's not there, she'd probably be trying to smack him over the head for being such a clod.)

[sabertoothlotus]

Best use of Empath I've ever encountered was in an Age of Apocalypse story where he was the power source for one of Apocalypse's super-weapons, being used as nothing more than a resource, the same way he saw/used other people.