Summary
There was once a concern fromX-Men’swriters that two key heroes would be ruined by the Avengers. The on-panel feud between the X-Men and The Avengers that spawnedits own heartbreaking Marvel eventhas been well documented. However, one feud that some fans may not know about is that between the writers ofX-Menand the writers ofAvengers.
In an interview withAIPT Comics,X-Meneditor Jordan D. White discusses theFall of the House of X.White expresses the concerns writers had when they wanted to use Firestar and Justice during the Krakoan era, but worried if how they were being used in the Avengers creatively may affect how they’re viewed in theX-Menbooks.
This article seeks to focus on breaking down White’s words bit by bit to get to the root of the writers' concerns, if they were valid, and on the complicated nature of characters being used in different books where they are depicted differently each time.
Who are Justice and Firestar?
Understanding the Mutants That theX-MenBooks Forgot
To better understand the characters at the center of Jordan D. White’s interview, readers must first understand who Justice and Firestar are.Firestar may be the more familiar of the two, having debuted onscreen as part of the cast of the popular Saturday morning cartoon,Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. She first appeared in the show’s 1981 premiere episode before being officially introduced into Marvel canon in 1985’sUncanny X-Men#193. Firestar is a mutant with the power to produce flames that are the equivalent of microwave radiation.
Angelica Jones has made her mark in teams like Avengers, X-Men, and the New Warriors. In the latter, she spent significant time with Vance Astrovik, a.k.a. Justice, another mutant with the power of telekinesis. Justice is a staple of the New Warriors and has been a member of the Avengers as well. Yet,he doesn’t have much of a relationship with the X-Men, despite his mutant status. Meanwhile, Firestar was recently tasked to work undercover within Orchis as a mole, feeding information to the X-Men andbecoming their most trusted member.
How Firestar and Justice’s Avenger Status ImpactedX-MenBooks
Some Writers Were Reluctant to Use the Two Heroes
At the time the interview dropped,Fall of the House of X#3 had just been released. As such, much of the interview is geared toward talking aboutthe end of Krakoaas home to the X-Men and the end ofthe Krakoan era ofX-Menas a whole. In pointing out how Firestar played a role inthe brutal murder of Dr. Stasisin that issue,AIPT wanted to touch on Firestar’s journey during the Krakoan era, namely going from an Avenger who X-fans (and Gerry Duggan) called a cop, to a heroic sleeper agent. This was White’s response:
…But I had hoped to use her and I had hoped to use Justice as well, because they both are interesting mutant characters. So when we did House of X, I was very much like, “Oh yeah, let’s get both of them on Krakoa.” But none of the writers gravitated toward using them, so they just didn’t get picked for the teams. So they sulked back off to the U.S. No, that’s not true, obviously, but because they just never got picked, we never quite used them. I think maybe Firestar appeared in the background of a scene one time in a group shot or something like that.
This would explain why Justice doesn’t seem to appear at all during the X-books during the Krakoan age, despite his mutanthood. Justice was always one of the few mutants in the Marvel Universe to be fairly distanced from Krakoa. Most readers would assume that it was his New Warriors duties keeping him busy, but there was a creative disinterest in using him that kept him away. Meanwhile, despite how much of an active presence and large role that Firestar holds during the final year of Krakoa, she’s more or less a background character in the Krakoa storylines that precede the “Fall of X” arc.
Marvel Wanted to Keep Firestar and Justice Busy Elsewhere
The RevampedNew WarriorsSeries and “Outlawed” Kept Them Away from Krakoa
As important as it is to talk about Krakoa’s final era, it’s just as important to discuss a different event entirely: Marvel’s “Outlawed” storyline. “Outlawed” was a comic event whereteen heroes were literally outlawed. Because ofa sacrifice made by Kamala Khan, the government was encouraged to put into law - aptly named Kamala’s Law - that superheroes needed to be 21 or older.It was a storyline that demanded the presence of all the New Warriors, including Justice and Firestar. According to White, that was another cause for tension between the writers.
So, because we never used them, when Marvel started cooking the “Outlawed” story, they wanted the New Warriors to be a big part of it. The Avengers Office decided to use all the New Warriors, including Vance and Angie for that. And I’ll be honest with you, I was kind of scandalized by it, not because I thought those were my characters, but because they positioned both of them against vigilante heroes, I think making them really come off badly a bit, in the sense that it was trying to duplicate a little bit of the debate in things likeCivil War.
But even withCivil War, pretty much all the readers came down on Captain America’s side, right? And I think something similar happened here. The way that I like to phrase it for why that is, is that most readers are not going to side with the side that thinks the comic they’re reading shouldn’t happen. They want to read the comic. So if the other side is saying, “No comic,” they’re going to go, “Well, I like the version where Idoget to read the comic.” So the fact that the readers all sided against them was really sad for them.
It appears thatMarvel needed Justice and Firestar to be a part of the “Outlawed” storyline, as well as theNew Warriorsseries.Because of this, the duo couldn’t be featured in any other books or storylines, includingX-Menbooks. This further prolonged their distance from the rest of the mutants on Krakoa. As White discusses, this is when things became a point of frustration for the X-Men editor, namely because of the duo’s depiction. It’s not just that their presence in “Outlawed” orNew Warriorsmight clash with any plans that White and co. might have had for them. “Outlawed” painted the two in a light that made it difficult to root for them.
The Complexities of Different Comics Using the Same Heroes
A Character’s Presence in One Comic May Prevent Them from Appearing in Another
Firestar and Justice being featured in the rebrandedNew Warriorsseries, on top of having a presence in the “Outlawed” storyline, stilted their push to Krakoa. Butconflicting plans between different comics and different creative teams is nothing new. It’s not a Marvel problem, it’s a comic book industry-wide problemthat many creative teams have dealt with. Take DC Comics, for example. Superman starred in four separate series in the 1990s, but theDeath of Supermanevent temporarily halted production on every otherSupermantitle released congruently at the time.
More recently, in some cases at least, creative teams are given more free-range to ignore overarching storylines without sacrificing their material. It’s why Batman can continue his Dynamic Duo adventures in Joshua Williamson’sBatman and Robinwhile he’s still held captive by Failsafe in his main title series. However, White speaks to how it remains an ongoing issue.A character’s presence in one book not only prolongs potential plans elsewhere, but it can destroy plans completely if higher powers are adamant about certain characters not being used elsewhere.
“Fall of X” Gave Her New Life
While Justice wasn’t fortunate enough to be featured prominently during the “Fall of X” arc (although he isfeatured briefly as an Orchis target),the storyline happily re-branded Firestar as a fan-favorite hero. Whatever damage that White was worried that “Outlawed” and the revampedNew Warriorsseries had done to Firestar, it was effectively undone by the time “Fall of X” was over. In that same vein, White also talks about how, rather than ignore the last time readers saw her,X’screative staff opted to bring it up and make it an"interesting"part of her character.
And so when the idea came up of her being in the second X-Men Election, we all immediately did bring up that the last time we saw her, she was anti-superhero in some ways. So that whole cop thing came up and I think it was interesting. But I think if you look atFall of the House of X, it’s also interesting that all three of the election winners are important. Firestar both for helping tip them off to what’s going on in Orchis at the beginning of the series and then here she shows up, they save her, and she kills Stasis. He’s already dead, but she double-kills him. She kills him better. [Laughs]
TheX-books proceeded to lean into Firestar’s “cop” reputation and make it a facet of her character that even she is trying to undo,especially as she tries to be a mole for the X-Men, while some of the X-Men aren’t even aware she’s a mole. It’s practically a self-aware means of storytelling in retrospect, one that pays off. Readers watch as she helps save theX-Menduring a dire time in significant ways throughout her journey, repairing her reputation with fans and within the Marvel Universe because it’s so easy to be endeared by a hero trying to do the right thing.
