This Is Me Being A Comics Geek

My hands weren't killing me this morning (not until I flew into a violent rage and started punching my scanner/printer/copier when the stupid thing wouldn't scan this picture), so I drew some X-Men -- my own hand-picked, somewhat redesigned team of X-Men that I'd use were I writing one or the other of the comics and was given carte blanche to put the team together. You know, like we don't have a Grant Morrison or a Joss Wheadon writing one of the other books picking all the good X-Men.

Here's how the team breaks down:

Cyclops (Scott Summers) - Every X-Men team needs a leader, and I don't want Storm. I guess I could have used Cyke's little brother Havok, but he's basically grown into Cyclops lite, and why the hell should I take Cyclops lite when I can just have Cyclops? Plus, if you look at the lineup, this is an awfully "B team" X-Men group. Scott hasn't really ever had to lead one of those. I think it'd be fun to have him deal with that kind of misery. I love writing characters into misery. It's fun.

Archangel (Warren Worthington III) - Blue and razor winged again, because he's more interesting and useful that way. Much in the same way that making him not blue was the first thing on Chuck Austen's agenda when he took over the book a few years back, making Warren blue and razor-winged again would be the first thing on my agenda. I do recall making him feather-winged again was just sort of an out-of-the-blue kind of thing, and then when he stopped being blue it was a rather sudden jolt as well, so it could easily be explained away as some sort of plan of Apocalypse's to have him return to the fold, only for him to suddenly revert back to the silver-winged beast to do something for Apocalypse, carry out some sort of plan. But of course, he's stronger now, and he fights it off, but is stuck in this form again. Yeah, something like that.

X-23 - Currently with the younger class of New X-Men, I'd yank X-23 out and stick her with the big leagues. She's a teenage female clone of Wolverine -- literally -- so she can take his slot in the team. Honestly, I think she'd just be a fun character to bounce off the rest of the team since she hasn't been around for that long and still has some of that edge that's been worn off of Wolverine due to his ridiculous overuse ever since he became really, really popular in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Besides, having her instead of Wolverine really gives us that B-team vibe.

Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner) - One of my most favorite X-Men, period. Notice that he's A) smiling, and B) has a sword. That's the way I like him. Also, while he has experience as a team leader, I'd prefer not to use him that way. Every time he's been a team leader, he's gotten all mopey. Scott can do all the leader crap. He's good at it. Kurt needs to be bouncing about being dashing and waving a sword around and loosening up. Certainly some of these characters won't help matters in this department, but that's why I've also got people on the team like ...

Strong Guy (Guido Carosella) - I needed a big guy, and always liked Guido in his Peter David-written X-Factor days. A cheerful presence, and also someone who really hasn't dealt with a lot of these characters before for any extended period of time, so I think that'd be interesting. I also have this hilarious mental picture in my head of him grabbing poor X-23 against her will and chucking her at bad guys in an emulation of the Wolverine-Colossus "fastball special." That would definitely be a good laugh the first time it happened.

White Queen (Emma Frost) - I dunno if she'll still be an X-Man or be with Scott Summers at the end of the current arc of the Astonishing X-Men comic series, but even if she's still with the team and not with Scott, I think she'd still be the best telepath for this team, and y'know, tension can be good, too. Psylocke is too goddamn confusing (is she even a telepath right now?), Rachel "Marvel Girl" Summers would add the wrong kind of tension to the team (an alternate reality Cyclops is her dad), and while I guess I could have used Cable (ACTUAL Cyclops is his dad), he's usually better in a leadership role and has his own special kind of baggage. Plus I wanted to use a female telepath. So, Emma it is.

Husk (Paige Guthre) - I really stressed over this last slot, because I knew I wanted another female X-Man, but I needed one that didn't overlap too heavily with any of the characters here. I finally settled on Paige because during Chuck Austen's run on Uncanny X-Men she and Archangel had a relationship and I thought it'd just be neat to have someone who so recently was so close to him also dealing with his transformation back into the blue-skinned razor-winged creation of Apocalypse. Plus, she does have that neat visual power -- ripping her skin away and turning into another substance. Mind you, I'd totally blanked on the fact that Emma Frost has that secondary mutation of turning into diamond when I picked Paige, so there is some overlap anyway, but Paige is definitely more versitile in that department. Plus as a bonus I get the feeling she and X-23 wouldn't get along one bit -- there something in the way she was originally characterized in Generation X all those years ago, or at least some perception I have of that time, that makes me think this -- so that could be fun.

So, there's my team. Certainly there's room to grow there -- the girls really do need a guy their own age, but I'm not really up on the New X-Men roster these days, and I kept thinking I might also want to toss Polaris in there, but I just couldn't draw her worth a damn -- but I find that I kind of like the dynamic of this particular roster. I think they'd be fun to put through their paces. In fact, while it's something I'd very much consider a road to hell, I almost want to start writing stories about 'em right now ... yikes!