It’s Time to Vote for Another (Impossibly Minor) X-Men Member Again

While the actual world goes to hell, there’s a consolation—a really small, chilly consolation—in realizing that democracy continues to be holding robust someplace, particularly over at Marvel Comics. Well, not likely Marvel Comics, simply the X-Men… and even then, that’s sort of overselling it. Look, you simply get to elect the staff’s new extremely minor mutant once more, all proper?

Yes, it seems Marvel goes to make final yr’s fan election to decide on a member of the X-Men an annual occasion, because the writer has launched a brand new slew of characters that folks can vote to affix the mutant huge leagues, together with Armor, Avalanche, Bling!, Firestar, Gentle, Gorgon, Micromax, Penance, Siryn, and Surge. There are a number of issues to notice right here, the primary being that the choice is maybe much more obscure, comparatively talking, than final yr’s pool of candidates—even when characters like Armor and Penance have gone on to have bigger roles on Krakoa in collection like New Mutants and the short-lived X-Corp. The solely character to have had any form of popular culture significance exterior of the comics this time round is Firestar—who’s defining reality right here is that she has but to say Krakoan citizenship, which, impolite—and that’s solely as a result of she was one of many leads of the very early ‘80s cartoon Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, alongside fellow mutant Ice-Man.

This is presumably because of last year’s controversy over the election, the place many followers thought that Polaris’ votes had been boosted by individuals who weren’t studying the comics, however had been followers of the live-action character as seen within the latest TV collection The Gifted. It is unlikely any such related marketing campaign will occur for Firestar, as anybody who has that a lot nostalgia for a cartoon that actually premiered over 40 years is unquestionably nonetheless studying X-Men comics anyway, however you by no means know.

Finally, it’s additionally price mentioning that Armor is the one candidate to have been featured in final yr’s election, which suggests that Marvel has some concept for one thing to do with the hero past her present position as a part of New Mutants, however doesn’t care about it sufficient to only make her a member of the staff, as an alternative of hoping followers will get round to it. I don’t know. It’s simply bizarre: let Hisako step up with out fan intervention!

Voting opened early this morning and can stay open till January 13, 2022, at 11:59 pm EST—head here to solid yours.

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