Worst. X-Man. Ever.

[protogarrett]

The cover of this makes me chuckle. Greatest foe?

Suggested tags: char: Japeth / Maggot, title: Uncanny X-Men

Greatest foe? As opposed to say Apocalypse, Magneto, or anyone whose power isn't to turn super strong after slugs eat through his body to devour various junk, slowly, and then eat their way back in? Oh yes, a total threat.

Mostly gone now after a very short run as an X-Man. Since his death he got one panel in Necrosha that's it. But also, doesn't Sinister still have one of the slugs in a jar? Anyways... myep... just felt like sharing my opinion on this guy.

 

Comments

[halloweenjack]

I'd say that the worst X-Man ever would be just about any of them under Chuck Austen's regime. I sort of liked the idea of Maggot because, like Marrow or even Nightcrawler before he became d'awww-fuzzy-cute-guy, he scores on sheer weirdness of concept, which is really what you want to do with the whole idea of mutants. (Whatever else you think of his run, Grant Morrison really got this.) He's just being oversold here.

[protogarrett]

Examples under Chuck Austen's run?

[halloweenjack]

Plenty in that section of his Wikipedia article. I can't cite or post the pages themselves because that was long after I stopped buying X-Men. Others have posted examples in the various iterations of s_d.

[kamino_neko]

The one that was most hilariously bad, IMO is Holy War... From the Wikipedia article halloweenjack mentioned:

"Holy War" featured religious zealots Church of Humanity who crucify several junior X-Men and abduct demonic-looking X-Man Nightcrawler. They want to install him pope of the Catholic Church to discredit this religion.

Details that are missing from that synopsis: their plan involved evil communion wafers, which disintegrated those that took them, in order to create a false Rapture.

I have no idea where to start with the problems with that....

OTOH, that article mentions one I'm not familiar with:

In addition, a stand-alone story featured the teenage X-Girls Jubilee and Husk visiting a grave: instead of mourning, they exchange sex fantasies.

To which I can only say...WAT?!?

[naebler]

yeah it starts with Jubs talking over Angelo's grave about how she should have let him go out with her and showing regret. Then add in Paige talking about her and Angel if I remember. Then there is a subplot with how the cemetery staff is going to dig up Angelo because people had an issue with a mutant buried with "Good folk". And the girls fight the grave diggers off and then go to the guy in the office.

Save the sex fantasies I thought the subplot actually made sense in the Marvel U. Homo Sapiens having issues with mutants buried with their loved ones. IT also shows why Xavier kept his dead Xmen in the cemetary on school grounds. (I reference a characters comment about how he trained the new generation in the shadows of the dead)

[sherkahn]

Of the two slugs only one is alive and in sinister's care, last I recall. Don't know if that was before or after his bases got blown up by Domina of the Neo.

[icon_uk]

The survive slug should get together with the one remaining cybernetic lobster that Gomi of the Fallen Angels had, and have whacky cephalopod adventures together...

[grimmbear]

Pet X-men?
Lockheed
Maggot slug
Lobster
Danni Moonstar's Winger Horse

who else?

[auggie18]

Does that giant talking ship X-Factor had for a while count? Or Widget?

[icon_uk]

Widget was revealed to be the mind of Kate Pryde from "Days of Future Past" stuck in a sort of biomechanical head thingie... so probably not.

[auggie18]

Really? Weird.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, it was not Alan Davis' finest plotting moment, though the bodies Widget built for him/herself were kind of cool.

[grazzt]

One of those space whales that the Brood would ride.

[bruinsfan]

Danni Moonstar's Winger Horse

Brightwind! Did he escape Asgard going kaplooey a few years ago?

[sir_mikael]

I don't know, but Dani has shown up on a winged horse since getting powers from Hela recently. Though this one is black and I believe Brightwind is white?

[protogarrett]

Personally I cam eback into comics during that run. I liked it a lot. Nurse Annie was awesome.

[halloweenjack]

YMMV, of course.

[northstarfan]

Chuck Austen's run was also where I cam back to Marvel, after a hiatus of several years. It's also what convinced me it was a mistake to give them a second chance.

[stig]

Motto on that Chuck Austen thing. I was in an epiphany of joy when they killed off Icarus, as it would prevent anyone from having to look up the Austen-penned, cup-of-diarrhoea-equivalent, what-do-you-mean-this-is-an-adaptation-of-Shakespeare, non-story named "She Lies With Angels".

I read a copy in the library in fifteen minutes after seeing that it was meant to be an X-Men adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet, and came this close to buying a cheese grate and taking it to the pages in order to prevent anyone else from reading the damned thing ever again.

[proteus_lives]

I hated that fucking storyline!

Husk/Angel, barf!

[auggie18]

See, I liked Icarus in Academy X, when he was getting all flirt-y with Dust.

[elsewhere7.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the 'epiphany of joy' mentioned above when he was killed off isn't too compassionate. He was one of my favorite characters in Academy X.

[kaileighblue]

This. Just because one writer shits on them doesn't mean they are a bad character. Nightcrawler came though O.K. Husk on the other hand... I haven't heard much from her.

[northstarfan]

Still with the team, looks like. Currently making a guest-appearance in X-Men Legacy.

[theanswer]

Maggot wasn't the worst. The worst is Slipstream.

[protogarrett]

I would rule him as the biggest douche. Ditching his sister like that was totally douchy.

Power wise? Not bad, able to teleport across the universe? This makes him one of the best teleporters in the MU.

[theanswer]

That would be cool if not for the surfboard.

[icon_uk]

It would have irked me more if it hadn't already been established that he WAS a surfer, he was adapting his new powers to a mindset and skillset he already had.

[icon_uk]

I quite liked Slipstream, it was interesting to see someone whose life pretty much WAS devastated by being a part of the X-Team, and whilst his reaction to Lifeguards alien form was over the top, I can understand him being REALLY freaked out about it and needing some time to sort things out, the fact we never saw him again wasn't exactly his fault.

[elsewhere7.livejournal.com]

That was the fans' fault, I think. The whole 'OMG new hate hate rarr' mindset. :)

[bj_l]

No way. That honour goes to Sunder.

Slipstream at least had an interesting power, and props for being Australian even if he was a surfie bum. At least he adapted his powers to something he knew rather than freaking the hell out or struggling to master them.

[angelophile]

Yeah, I concur on Slipstream being worse. Or Darwin or Lifeguard, who I dislike equally. A mutation that's "whatever the plot requires" bugs me muchly.

See, I liked Scott Lobdell's attempts to do new things with mutants. Maggot's character, not so much, but the powerset - well, his mutation being a digestive system that's semi-sentient and eats its way out of his stomach and goes crawling off on its own? You can't say that isn't unique. Or look at Marrow, Chamber, Husk... lots of characters he created which were original in terms of power sets. I'd much rather that than yet another telepath, feral, elemental, telekinetic, whatever.

[icon_uk]

See, I view Chamber and Husk as being in the "Whatever the plot requires" powersets.

Chambers thermokinetic psychic fusion chest thingie was NEVER adequately explained in terms of what his powers actually were, and Husk was pulling new powers out of the air as the plot needed them (And even then that differed from the power she was originally shown as having when introduced in "Child's Play", she was a metamorph who shed her skin so reveal a new form (rather than substance) underneath, the first time she describes using her powers she's annoyed that the form she got was that of a small bird.

[auggie18]

Yeah, didn't she become a bug or something early on?

[angelophile]

I think you're referring to an issue of Fabian Nicieza's X-Force with Paige in well before she was in Generation X, where she said she transformed into a bird? I don't think the skin part was mentioned then, she was a plain metamorph, which was promptly forgotten about and she had the much more limited skin powers when she appeared under Lobdell's pen. Chamber's powers were basically blowing shit up and Husk's just changing into different materials, so I don't think I'd describe either as unlimited powersets.

[icon_uk]

I never said unlimited, I said "Whatever the plot requires", that's not quite the same thing.

Yes, I'm thinking of the Fabian Nicieza story that introduced her as a mutant in the X-verse and established what her powers were (until Lobdell and Bacchalo decided to change them for the Phalanx Covenant which led to Generation X's team forming)

She was never a classic metamorph and she does mention shedding her skin, or husking in that story, in order to become something which could be useful in saving Sam and Boom-Boom from IIRC Fenris or the Upstarts, but she's frustrated because she can't control what she'll become and ends up as a small bird.

Chamber's powers were blowing stuff up... and being able to survive without air...or food... or most of his torso's internal organs... and being telepathic... and constant hints that he was actually much more powerful (Since he was able to actually use his powers to replace his physiology, he could theoretically either be pure psionic energy, or recreate his missing body parts, and in fact did in an tie in novel IIRC, though he promptly blew them out again). The original plan was that he'd get a gizmo that would channel some of his energy so he could fly too, but that seemed to have been dropped.

[protogarrett]

I was to understand that after the transformation that Lifeguards powers were going to be set to strength, flight, armor, and being gold skinned. Still, her powers were a bit much - yet I liked her for some reason or another and thought that if they locked her powers down to a strict set or explored her Shi-ar heritage it might have been interesting.

Chamber... I really wish they hadn't changed him with that blood of Apocalypse crap. Ugh...

[cf105]

Odd that you mention that, I actually enjoyed reading the Apocalypse vs Dracula miniseries where that came from

[sir_mikael]

Ooh I liked that too. Of course there's a difference between exploring/having fun with the origins of certain peoples mutant genes and then repower Chamber with presumably more traditional apocalyptic powers and those sonic powers or whatever the hell it was he had in New warriors did not read that).

That series was good and had a logical premise, sicce Poccy has been around and has had followers. I really liked that they reused the armor Wolvie wore as Death. And anything where evil mutants fights Dracula is fine by me.

[sir_mikael]

I totally agreed with everything you just said.
Mutations should be freakier and unfortunate more of the time.
Being a mutant doesnt guarantee you a usable superpower or one that doesn't hurt or damage you.

Although I kinda liked Maggots character, or at least liked what he could have been :P

[icon_uk]

There were always the Morlocks, though I agree that, as an example, the original New Mutants were too normal looking, since none of them had visible mutations until they started using their powers. They could all walk down the street unnoticed. It's a shame that of the two really un-normal looking ones, Chamber had the aforementioned "What???" powers and the Skin's power made Cypher's look useful, until they apparently decided to alter his originally stated powers so his stretchy skin was a LOT more durable than normal skin.

[sir_mikael]

The Morlocks were a great creation that yeah I forgot there. Although I would still maintain there's a difference between the role they play and the role new freaky characters that actually become x-men play.
Focus on the indivual was unusual for the Morlocks so it was rare that we got to know them as actual characters and not just "that creepy ass freaky group who didn't want to join the pretty x-men".

Skin originally seemed like the kind of character who's power could only be useful in a very specific scenario and what do you know, that's the plot of the week.
I blame Chambers power ambiguity on the 90s (and its writers). Vague energy powers were all the rage back then.

[dorksidefiker]

Wise man once said, there are no bad characters, only god-awful handling.

[sir_mikael]

Was it Jesus?






:P

[cmdr_zoom]

I just want to express love for the OP's icon.