X-Men/Characters/90s Members

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Jubilation Lee/Jubilee

Actually introduced in 1989, Jubilee was intended to do for the new fans of the 1990s what Shadowcat did in the 1980s -- serve as a viewpoint character for teenagers. As such, she became Wolverine's scrappy kid sidekick, and spent several years following him around, swinging between sarcastic mockery of his Nineties Anti-Hero excesses and mortal terror expressed through Totally Radical dialogue. Then she got transferred to the junior team, Generation X, where she spent some time as the annoying one who won't shut up and then some more time as the Genius Ditz team strategist.

When Generation X got cancelled, it all went a bit south for Jubilee; after her own series failed to attract a significant readership and was swiftly retooled into a limited series (in fairness, Nightcrawler and Gambit had series at the same time; neither made it past a dozen issues), she was sidelined, then depowered. She returned for a spell in the (non X-Men) New Warriors reboot with Powered Armor, an enormous rack, and her first proper Code Name (Wondra).

After New Warriors got cancelled, Jubilee drifted back towards the X-books and now appears to have been turned into a vampire. Given her previous characterization as sunshine and sparkles, fandom in general seems to have come to the conclusion that Vampire Jubilee is potential comedy gold.

  • All Love Is Unrequited: Jubilee wanted Synch in Generation X, he wanted Monet (and thinks of Jubilee as a friend).
  • Anti-Hero: Type I
  • Asian Airhead: Jubilee, a Chinese valley girl is personified as a flighty, vain mallrat, who also happens to be gorgeous.
    • Of course, she herself has a very low opinion of her appearance.
  • Bifauxnen: In her very early appearances, she had short hair and a flat chest that she could be mistaken as an effeminate boy depending on the art.
    • On at least two occasions she was required to go undercover as a delivery boy. Since the other two women on the team were undercover as hot women in slinky dresses, she found this rather annoying.
    • In a side-story in Wolverine, she's fully mistaken for a boy by a tribe in the Savage Land and engaged to one of their princesses.
  • Betty: For Synch's Affections.
  • Book Dumb
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Comes with the Vampire thing.
  • Bratty Half-Pint
  • Captain Ethnic: Only this because of her powers.
  • Casting couch: Jubilee briefly tried her hand at an acting career. That is until her agent attempted to invoke this trope. It did not end well for the guy.
  • Cool Big Sis: To X-23 particularly. Although many of the new mutants look up to her. Except for Surge
  • Cursed with Awesome: She no longer has any mutant powers, but she's now a vampire which includes the typical powers of super strength, super speed, Healing Factor, the ability to turn into vapor, and is eternally 19. Of course she now has a thirst for human blood and may potentially lose control one day and kill everyone around her. Plus all those silly vampire weaknesses.
  • Cute Monster Girl: Since being turned into a vampire. Her appearances in X-23's solo title under artist Sana Takeda have placed extra emphasis on the "cute".
  • Embarrassing First Name: She prefers to be called Jubilee.
  • Friendly Neighborhood Vampire
  • Genius Ditz: A lazy academic underachiever who serves as the team strategist.
    • "They probably know we're coming, right? So we gotta do what they think we won't do. They know we know where they are. We know they know we know that. So since they know we know what they probably know, we know what to do."
  • Genre Savvy
  • Glory Days: Did you know she was an X-Man? She'll never let you forget it.
  • Healing Factor: A part of her Vampire powers.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: (with Wolverine)
  • Kid Appeal Character: In the '90s cartoon (and the '90s comics, for that matter), she was basically Wolverine's latest sidekick.
  • Kid Sidekick: She started out as a sidekick of Wolverine, before joining Generation X.
  • L Is for Dyslexia: but with math
  • The Lancer: To Night Thrasher, after she joined the New Warriors.
  • Les Yay: With X-23. Especially thanks to scenes like this.
  • Lethal Harmless Powers: She could have done so much more with her power, but she was afraid of killing someone.
  • Little Miss Snarker / Deadpan Snarker
  • Made of Iron
  • Naive Newcomer
  • Outdated Outfit: Jubilee is the most extreme example of this. Although it's semi-possible as an outfit that a young girl would think is "cool" in the 1980s, the bright yellow trench coat and wrap around sunglasses became just plain painful as the 90s continued.
    • Particulary in the 90s cartoon series.
  • Pettanko: Served for some years as the X-Men's only notable aversion of the Most Common Superpower.
    • In the most current New Warriors series, she filled out and became Ms. Fanservice.
  • Powered Armor: She seems to have picked up a suit since losing her powers.
  • The Prankster
  • Rollerblade Good
  • Sarcastic Devotee: Towards Wolverine, for a while in the '90s.
  • Shout-Out: She originally wore the yellow trenchcoat with a red shirt and green shorts. Anyone who didn't think "Robin" never read classic Batman.
    • This was taken to the logical conclusion in the Amalgam Universe: she becomes Sparrow, side kick to Dark Claw (Batman and Wolverine merged).
  • The Munchausen: "When I was with the X-Men..."
  • Totally Radical
  • Walking Techbane: Happens in the '90s X-Men cartoon.

Remy LeBeau/Gambit

A charming Cajun thief and highly acrobatic fighter, rumor has it that Gambit was initially intended to be a villain, but fan reaction was so positive he was swiftly re-tooled and became a mainstay of the 1990s X-Men. Has a long on-again off-again romance with Rogue, which, like the character himself, is hugely divisive.

He's been evil a few times, but he always seems to get over it...

  • Anti-Hero: Type III-IV
  • The Atoner: He joined the X-Men due to unwittingly helping the Marauders commit genocide on the Morlocks. Admittedly, Gambit never intentionally took part in said genocide and continues to be a much loved thief with a heart of gold to (some) fans, but still...
  • Badass Longcoat
  • Big Brother Mentor: Gambit used to be protective of the de-aged Storm and both of them became thieving partners before she had turned back to normal. Nowadays, he becomes a mentor of Laura Kinney (X-23) in X-23 solo series.
  • Butt Monkey: Not only that Gambit had a dark past, he also has bad luck with his love life - his first childhood friend Belladonna is crazy, his French girlfriend was murdered by Sabretooth and he is suffering in a Masochism Tango relationship with Rogue. He is also shunned by his own teammates after learning his small involvement in the Morlock Massacre. Now he is a character that hardly appears in comics as most writers either dislike him or don't know what to do with him.
  • The Charmer
  • Combat Pragmatist: Gambit fights dirty or he doesn't fight at all.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Death Dealer: One of the most iconic examples.
  • Depending on the Artist: Some artists and/or colorists cannot get his eye colors right.
  • Everything Sounds Sexier in French
  • Evil Costume Switch: When Gambit was made into Death by Apocalypse, not only does his hair turn white and his skin blue-black, but he finally gets the memo that black cloaks are cooler and wears a black bondage cloak instead of his usual, shabby trenchcoat.
  • Fake Defector
  • Fingerless Gloves: Gambit wears gloves that are missing fingers, perhaps as a nod to his past as a thief. Also a necessity for his powers, since his mutant ability to kinetically charge (i.e. blow up) objects depends on him touching the object. If he wore full gloves, he would only be able to blow up his gloves.
  • Flight, Strength, Heart: Gambit used to have a power which had no practical applications but meant he could touch Rogue. Though this was useful as the two were lovers. He lost it, of course.
    • He also had a "charm" power, which everyone except Chris Claremont completely ignored.
      • It might have helped if he used it more than a couple times a year.
  • The Gambler
  • Gentleman Thief / Lovable Rogue
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom
  • Having a Blast
  • Improbable Weapon User: The exploding playing cards, not the bo staff.
  • Insane Forgiveness: Toward his father, the Thieves and Assassins Guilds, the X-Men and, depending on your opinion, Rogue.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Tied with Wolverine and Iceman for the title of Fandom Slut.
  • Long Lost Sibling: In some continuities, he's the third Summers brother.
  • The Masochism Tango: With Rogue.
  • Perma-Stubble
  • Person of Mass Destruction: If Gambit had not gone to Mister Sinister for surgery to remove a portion of brain tissue to control his powers, he would have been too dangerous to live. On the other hand, an alternative version of Gambit aptly called New Sun was a very destructive force.
  • Progressively Prettier: He wasn't all that good-looking in his first appearances, but became steadily more attractive from artist to artist.
  • Psychic Static: Gambit has been known to employ the intentional version, at one point revealing to several Xavier Academy students that he pictures the Blob naked in order to make sure that telepaths like Rachel Summers and Emma Frost aren't eavesdropping on his thoughts.
    • At one point, he could also block telepaths simply by keeping a charged object with him, but this ability seems to have been dropped.
  • Ragin Cajun
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Under his trenchcoat, he wears a magenta vest as well as lots of magenta stripes on the sleeves and pants.
  • Simple Staff: The Bo staff.
  • Southern Gentleman: Especially towards Rogue... who often appreciates this.
  • Stepford Snarker: Usually Gambit doesn't like to talk about his past or anything personal. Instead, he hides his negative feelings by using snark and charm that he could pass himself off as laid-back and charming to others.
  • Street Smart
  • Technicolor Ninjas: Look up at Real Men Wear Pink's description. Now bear in mind that the character is a thief.
    • Hey, you try seeing a goddamn thing on the bayou.
  • Third Person Person: In the '90s X-Men cartoon.
  • Trickster Archetype
  • Twang! "Hello.": And then it explodes.
  • Wimpification: His usual fate in the Slash Fic for the fandom.
  • Your Cheating Heart: He'd been hitting on Rogue for half-a-dozen issues before his wife Belladonna suddenly turned up - although in fairness, he did have good reason to treat the marriage as effectively over.

Lucas Bishop/Bishop

A time-traveling cop from the future. There's... actually not much more to say about Bishop than that. He's big, he's stoic, he's black (and at least part native Australian), and he operates on a slightly different ethical code to most of the X-Men.

Recently underwent a rather messy Face Heel Turn, losing an arm along the way, and now divides his time between time travel, scheming, and attempting to shoot Cable with very large guns. And global scale genocide.

  • Anti-Hero: Type V in recent appearances, but started out more as type IV, and softened to type III over the years.
  • Anticlimax: For years he was convinced Gambit would betray and destroy the X-Men. As it turns out, the culprit in Bishop's future was Onslaught. The two patched things up with a simple apology from Bishop.
  • Artificial Limbs: Recently, he has a mechanical arm after he lost his left arm to the mutant-eating monster Predator X.
  • Bad Future
  • But Not Too Black: Bishop has a long, straight hair that doesn't seem right for an African American. However, it was revealed that Bishop isn't of African descent but Australian Aboriginal, most of whom do have straight hair (if different facial structure).
    • To be precise, it was revealed that Gateway is his grandfather; in all likelihood Bishop is only part Australian Aborigine.
  • Cowboy Cop: As he comes from the dystopian future, he started off as a brash mutant cop who had difficulty with adjusting the X-Men before finally settling down until recently, he went on a Face Heel Turn.
  • Dead Little Sister: Shard
  • Energy Absorption
  • Facial Markings: As he comes from the Bad Future, he has an 'M' (for Mutant) branded on his left face.
  • Face Heel Turn
  • Future Badass
  • Nineties Anti-Hero: To a lesser degree than Cable. To contrast, Bishop was a hardcore police officer, whereas Cable was a professional warzone survivor, but he never quite went into outright Heroic Sociopath territory.
  • Put on a Bus: When Cable and Hope had enough of him chasing them through different timelines, Cable managed to scramble Bishop's time-traveling teleportation device which made him stranded to a very deserted distant future.
  • No Name Given: Over the years, Bishop doesn't have a real name until in one X-Treme X-Men issue, his first name was revealed to be Lucas.
  • Phlebotinum Overload: Bishop can be overloaded given enough time and fuel... this usually results in a fairly splashy explosion, though he himself is rarely injured from it... well, except maybe his uniform.
  • Scary Black Man: Currently when he turned into a baby-hunting villain in recent 'Cable' series. His artificial left arm doesn't seem to help either.

Samuel Zachary Guthrie/Cannonball

See New Mutants

Joseph

A younger clone of Magneto, whom everyone thought WAS Magneto (this had happened before). Turns out he was just a pawn in a bigger plan, and was subsequently killed, but not before trying to get into Rogue's pants (also had happened before).

  • Betty and Veronica: During that time when Joseph was introduced, there was a Betty and Veronica love triangle with Rogue as the center figure, Joseph as the Betty, and Gambit as the Veronica.
  • Cloning Blues
  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: The Christmas story where Joseph's present for Rogue was a machine that enabled her to touch people skin to skin. He used it to give her a chaste kiss on the forehead. Of course the device was never mentioned ever again.
  • Evil Twin: Joseph was a much younger 'copy' of Magneto. Since at the time Magneto was villainous and Joseph was an X-Man, he counts as a Good Twin.
  • Relationship Sue
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy

Sarah/Marrow

A former mutant terrorist. Originally created by a writer with the intention to die in a one on one fight with Storm, it was after some executive meddling and other factors that she was revealed to be still alive. Later she was picked up again as one of three new and unusual recruits to join the X-Men after a crossover (the others were Cecilia Reyes and Maggot).

At first a troublemaker for the other X-Men, she managed to become a stable and accepted part of the team. However, after some failed attempts by writers and artist to make her more appealing, she mysteriously disappeared from one issue to another, without any explanation ever given.

Afterwards it went even more downhill for her. She reappeared in a mediocre one-shot, was part of an ill-fated series and finally got depowered on M-Day while keeping her mutated appearance. She is currently not being featured.

  • Anti-Hero: Type V originally. She was the loose cannon on a team with Wolverine, but eventually healed and reformed during Alan Davis' run, at the end of which, she probably didn't qualify for more than Type I. After that she turned to downright villain and finally back to her original form.
  • Bare Your Midriff: Her default costume, which she often wears all the time.
  • Blood Knight: Before Davis' got a hold on her. Back again after she disappeared.
  • Body Horror: Her power, by the by, was to grow bones out of her body, usually in the form of outward jutting spines or claws.
  • Broken Bird
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Mixed with being Put on a Bus. She disappeared two issues without explanation and has only reappeared in satellite titles, she was never shown or mentioned again in the core titles.
  • Dark Age of Supernames: Subverted, for someone who comes from the 90's, has the power to grow knives out of the body and was more anti than hero, she has a surprising soft and normal codename.
    • This was almost played straight, as her codename was originally "Sheath," but this was rejected by the editors for sounding too sexual.
  • Dark and Troubled Past
  • Demoted to Extra: She was in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, then she fell off the radar in a big way. In universe, S.H.I.E.L.D. once rewrote her mind to let her think she was a normal teenager. She turned out to be smart enough to attend university, then her mind started resisting the process.
  • Dual-Wielding
  • Executive Meddling: The reason she is still alive and why someone like her joined the X-Men in the first place.
  • Freudian Excuse: Well, if you'd been born with bones sticking out all over your body and had the only people who ever cared for you massacred before your eyes as a child, how well-adjusted would you be?
  • Healing Factor: The other reason why she survived the heart removal, and how she can remove the bones from her body without bleeding to death. Strangely not official part of her powerset.
  • Heroic Sociopath
  • Knife Nut: Marrow almost always uses bone knives which grow from her own body as weapons. She is drawn with them on nearly each cover she appears on. Despite being made from a fragile material like bone, they are sturdy and sharp enough to cut through or into metal.
    • Recently, she started using literal knives when she was depowered.
  • Les Yay: The fact that Marrow used to look at Kitty while she slept is sort of suspect, but by her own account, she's jealous of how pretty she is.
  • Lighter and Softer: Her development under Davis.
  • Lovecraftian Superpower: Her Body Horror powers also give her some serious advantages like superhuman endurance, pain resistance, healing and strength.
  • Nineties Anti-Hero
  • No Social Skills: Marrow is extremely confrontational and has difficulty connecting to people emotionally -- or even understanding herself. Of course, living in the sewers for most of your early childhood with a bunch of other maladjusted freaks and spending your teenage years fighting for your survival in a horrible pocket dimension does that to you.
  • Slasher Smile: Can pull that off towards civilians and mooks, doesn't work on actual heroes or villains though.
  • Spike Shooter
  • Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Her first appearance was as a bald little girl before this happened to her.
  • Progressively Prettier: Prime example of the trope.
  • Smarter Than You Look: She was able to memorize the entire subway and sewer tunnel system under New York as a 5 or 6 year old child. Likewise, having the time table of all subway trains in her mind. Also her short stint as sleeper agent showed that she is capable of learning and understanding scientific theories. It seems only her violent upbringing and resulting personality stops her from showing/using her intelligence openly.
  • Unskilled but Strong: Her combat style is simply to overpower the enemy with strength and/or speed, as she learned during her childhood. However, missing any kind of formal training she is all but useless against people who can balance this out with skill as Storm quickly demonstrated.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Some colorists make it brown, red or orange, but her default hair color is actually pink.
  • Wolverine Claws: With enough control over her powers, she can produce these in bone form.

Cecilia Reyes

A hard-working New York doctor who definitely did not want to be a superhero, at all, ever. Unfortunately for her, the bad guys didn't care. She quit as soon as possible, but not before having a neat love triangle with Beast and Iceman.

Japheth/Maggott

A South African teenager from a poor family. As a child, his family thought he was dying from stomach cancer because his abdomen constantly bulged and he was constantly hungry. Actually, he was going through a mutation in which his stomach turned into a pair of semi-autonomous slugs. To feed, Japheth had to have the slugs burst out of his stomach, feed on any substance, then return, giving him a burst of superstrength. Japheth joined the X-Men for only a short time before vanishing and reappearing years later to be killed in a Canadian concentration camp for mutants.

Nate Grey/X-Man

Uh... the cloned offspring of Cyclops and Jean Grey from an alternate reality where everyone was evil and he was raised by Mr Sinister to kill Apocalypse and came to our world by accident. You with me so far? Okay, so then it got really complicated...

  • Anti-Hero: Type II in his original appearances, but apparently grew out of it.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence
  • Badass in Distress: Poor Nate grey became a prisoner of Norman Osborn at the end of Dark X-Men mini-series. Then, he was transferred to Sugar Man who used him as a living battery in order to open up the portals to go back to Age of Apocalypse universe. Fortunately, the New Mutants defeated Sugar Man and saved Nate before he could die.
  • Brought Down to Normal: As said in the above, after months of imprisonment and torture, Nate Grey was reduced to using low-level telekinesis as his only remaining power.
  • Divided We Fall: The first encounter with Professor Xavier (who had been long dead in his universe) going bad led Nate to keep his distance from the X-Men for a long time.
  • Fish Out of Water: After Nate Grey had landed in the mainstream Marvel Universe while fighting in the battle in Age of Apocalypse universe, the results of him adjusting to the new world are rather overwhelming.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom
  • Goo-Goo Godlike
  • Incest Is Relative: Once he got into the main reality, he used his powers to sort-of-resurrect his genetic mother's evil clone. The exact nature of their relationship was uncertain but... worrying.
  • Iron Woobie
  • Kid From the Future: Or rather, from an alternate dimension.
  • Let's You and Him Fight: Nate's acquaintance with characters from the main Marvel Universe usually started from trading blows.
  • Odd Friendship: With Spider-Man.
  • Parental Incest: Although combined with Fridge Logic. Nate had a relationship with Madelyne Pryor who is a clone of Jean Grey, an alternate version of the woman whose DNA he was created from, making her essentially his genetic mother. And it got worse when she was killed and impersonated by Jean Grey from yet another alternate universe.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Nate was considered to be the most powerful mutant in the world with Phoenix-level power. Justified that he was originally created as a weapon by Age of Apocalypse's Mister Sinister to kill Apocalypse.
  • Power Degeneration: Nate's power put a huge strain on his body and would kill him before he turned 21.
    • Though he vaguely got better
  • Psychic Nosebleed
  • Psychic Powers
  • Skunk Stripe
  • Younger Than They Look: Despite being for all intents and purposes in his late teens Nate actually is only a few years old due an accelerated aging by Mr. Sinister.
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