10. Omega Sentinel
Karima Shapandar
Omega was awesome when Claremont wrote her in his Excalibur v3 run, but her first appearance was in X-Men Unlimited (1993) #27 in 2000, years after Bastion's Operation Zero Tolerance, though that is the setting. It tells the story of how Neal Shaara's brother and Karima became prime sentinels, while Neal's powers prevented the transformation. Neal and Karima fell in love, but Karima warned him of her transformation and told him to leave. Thus begins her journey of struggling to keeping her humanity. Magneto and Professor X reassembled her and programmed humanity into her on Genosha. Again she was deconstructed and abused by Pandemic in Carey's X-Men run. She was reassembled and corrected herself. She proved herself a valuable X-Man as a resource, weapon, intelligence, and friend. In a recent arc of X-Men Legacy called Fables of Reconstruction, we find that the virus created by Cypher also effected her, but due to the layers of humanity, it had a delayed effect. She became violent, hunting her teammates, and Hellion took violent action against her, more than he should have, leaving her a vegetable. We don't know what the future holds for the lovely lady, but we do know we love her. And she has quite a following.
Favorite Costume(s): Excalibur (pictured), X-Men
9. M
Monet St. Croix
M is delicious. Her family is messed up, even with the confusing matter of who is Penance and who M is. Her brother is Emplate, the vampiric mutant, after all, one of the nastiest X-villains. From her Lobdellian origins, she has remained at heart a stone-cold, snooty, rich bitch. She's upper-class and spoiled. She'd make a great fit on Gossip Girl. Despite the confusing matters of her familial composition, she is a favorite for a reason. She's one of the very few non-white X-Men, let alone superheroes, and her powers are beyond awesome. To temper her ultra-superior powers of invulnerability, flight, superstrength, and telepathy, she has a personality to go with it and a mild case of what was suspected to be Autism. This makes for am much more complex character than someone with a shit-ton of powers and no personality, like, say, Superman, whose only weakness is a green radioactive rock from his home planet? How does that even make sense? It's even more ridiculous than a radioactive spider biting somebody. Superman sucks. Enough about Superman...Monet in her time with X-Factor has experienced making friends, especially with Siryn, and even expressing romantic interests with Jamie Madrox and Darwin. Of course, she could do better, but she knows she's better than this lot of losers, so she still hangs out with them, or so I'm assuming.
Favorite costume(s): Any in X-Factor
8. Cecilia Reyes
Cecilia first appeared in X-Men during Operation Zero Tolerance as a closeted mutant, expressing racism of mutants with her fellow workers at the hospital. She is attacked by prime sentinels, due to her having of the X-gene. And Iceman comes to her rescue, as if her badass needed it. What's really interesting about her shield powers, is that it automatically forms when she's about to be hit but it also hurts her. She is no Susan Storm or Hisako Ichiki (Armor). She's also of mixed race, partly Puerto Rican. She stubbornly refused to be a part of the mutant world and simply wanted to live her own life. She wanted nothing to do with the X-Men but continually found herself mixed in with the X-Men or the superhero world. She eventually came to develop her powers when she was in dire situations with Nightcrawler and Charlotte Jones. As a last desperate attempt at saving their lives, Cecilia took the drug Rave and enhanced her powers' abilities. She eventually became addicted to Rave. Her powers became sporadic and dangerous while she detoxified. She was also captured and sent to the mutant death camp called Neverland. She somehow escaped and sought refuge in New York and quietly practiced medicine. She has recently returned to help the X-Men on Utopia, and I'm glad to have this complicated, strong-willed character back. She's gotta be pissed that Dr. Rao is taking her spotlight and duties as medicinal doctor.
Favorite costume(s): classic uniform, used during Neo/Revolution issues
7. X-23
Laura Kinney
So she's a Wolverine clone...so what? That doesn't mean a darn thing. Rather than Wolverine's past being erased, she was raised from birth to be a killer. It's quite different, when you're raised to be something and surrounded by what you know. She didn't know how else people would act. And despite her conscience fighting it at first, she was forced to kill. She was used for prostitution at one point, and then she ran away to become a part of the group of runaways we know as NYX. From there, she joined the ranks of the X-Men, shadowing Wolverine and Psylocke, and being moved to the New X-Men where she would be better suited to adapt to a normal teenage life. She continued to have difficulties understanding and adapting to the social norms and emotions that came along with them, as she's been repressed and hardened. I find her character haunting and complex, even more complex than Wolverine. His only complexities are in his past, not so much in his personality as his adopted daughter and clone.
Favorite costume(s): Purple New X-Men
6. Dust
Sooraya Qadir
Sooraya's past has not been delved into, and it's something I hope a writer will do some day. She's a step closer to non-stereotypical Muslims. And to make it even better, she's a hero. That's something Americans don't like to think about. The fact that she refuses to no wear her niqab and abaya and has even corrected a character on their incorrect usage (or ignorance) or her garb as a burqa. Her Sunni Muslim background should give her an interesting backstory when it comes time. Perhaps my interest in that is what ranks her so high. I do find her character appealing, sad, and admirable. And Icarus thought she was beautiful without having seen her physically. That's a testament to her lovely character. She is against violence whenever possible, but sometimes it must be resorted to. Each time she feels guilt. I do wish Grant Morrison had done his research on his own character, rather than basing her off stereotypes. She would not speak Arabic. It's highly unlikely if she's from Afghanistan. But I love her anyway. More diversity is needed!
Favorite costume(s): It's always the same, except in Age of X, where she's mummified.
Who could be next? Cyclops, Emma Frost, Colossus, Wolverine? Ha!
No comments:
Post a Comment