Generation X was a young mutant superhero team lead and tutored by Banshee and Emma Frost.
History
Professor X decided to form a school for mutants away from the base of the X-Men. Banshee and Emma Frost trained the students to properly use their powers at Emma's school, the Massachusetts Academy], which was located in Boston, Massachusetts. The Generation X students frequently clashed with M's brother, a villain named Emplate. Eventually, Emma Frost's motives came in question, and Banshee became depressed due to the death of his former lover Moira MacTaggert. Matters worsened when Emma Frost murdered her sister Adrienne Frost after Adrienne had planted a bomb in Generation X's headquarters. The bomb killed a mutant codenamed Synch. These unfortunate circumstances led to the disbanding of Generation X.
The Team
A superhero team consisting of teenage mutants was nothing new in 1994. The original X-Men of the 1960s had been teenagers and another group of teens, the New Mutants, existed from 1983 until 1991.
Unlike the X-Men and New Mutants, however, Generation X did not attend Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters in upstate New York or learn from Professor Xavier himself. Instead, they trained at the Massachusetts Academy, located in Boston, Massachusetts, and were mentored by Banshee, an Irish X-Man who possessed a "sonic scream," and the former villain White Queen, a sexy, aristocratic telepath.
Furthermore, the team's creators intentionally avoided the trend in X-Books and other comics in which each superhero team includes a "Wolverine character" (rebellious loner), a "Cyclops character" (stoic leader), a "Colossus character" (soft-hearted strongman), etc. They also avoided a criticism often leveled at X-Books, particularly the New Mutants, that the characters were stereotypes, by creating characters that purposely were the exact opposite of their ethnic stereotypes, e.g. the girl from the Appalachians was the class brain, the Asian girl was the class rebel, the Latino gang member was a nice guy, the girl of African descent was from a wealthy home, etc.[citation needed]
Generation X consisted of:
- Husk (Paige Guthrie), who could shed her skin, revealing a different substance each time; she was the younger sister of The New Mutants' Cannonball, and elder sister of Icarus.
- Skin (Angelo Espinosa), a former reluctant teenage gang member on the streets of Los Angeles who possessed six feet of extra skin. He could stretch his extremities, but mostly considered his mutation, which caused him to have sagging gray skin and painful headaches, a curse.
- M (Monet St. Croix), a "perfect" young woman born into a rich family from Monaco who could fly, possessed super strength and had telepathic abilities. Her arrogant manner was an annoyance to her teammates and her habit of going into deep trances was a mystery to her teachers. Mysteries surrounding the St. Croix family would play a big part in the series.
- Jubilee (Jubilation Lee), a Chinese-American "mall rat" who could produce explosive energy. Jubilee had been a junior member of the X-Men in the early 1990s.
- Chamber (Jonothon "Jono" Starsmore), a British mutant who produced huge blasts of energy from his upper chest. When his powers first manifested, they destroyed the lower half of his face and chest, leaving him with only his limited telepathic powers with which to communicate, and releasing him from any necessity to eat, drink, or breathe. Because of this, he is characteristically sullen and bitter.
- Synch (Everett Thomas), an African-American teenager, known for his pleasant, supportive temperament, who could copy the powers of other mutants/superhumans within close, physical proximity.
- Blink (Clarice Ferguson)
- Maggott (Japheth)
- Vincente (Vincente Cimetta)
- M-Twins (Claudette & Nicole St. Croix)
- Penance, a silent, childlike and mysterious mutant who possessed diamond hard, red skin and razor-sharp claws. Penance appeared mysteriously at the Massachusetts Academy and at first, little was known about her. According to the Generation X Ashcan, the writers originally intended her to be a girl named Yvette from Yugoslavia. A hint of this can be seen when her mind is read by Emma Frost, revealing Eastern European tanks on the march in her memories.[citation needed] This background was later changed by the following creative team.
- Mondo, a laidback Samoan mutant who could take on the texture of objects he touched. Mondo was apparently killed in Generation X #25 (1997). It was later revealed that the Mondo who died was a clone and the real Mondo appeared two years after the clone's death.
- Gaia