Mister Sensitive

Summary

  Guy loads a gun every morning, in case he wants to suicide that night.

  Most of the team didn't survive, but Coach isn't sentimental. Edie and Tike horribly killed the attackers, and now both want to be team leader. Coach says the team is owned by a software trillionaire, Freeman, and he has already reorganized it.

  Mickey was the vigilante Rainbow in San Francisco and became a gay mercenary, with chameleon skin that turns pink when angry. Myles was a bookish student at Harvard; picked on once too often, he became a werewolf. Billy Bob was trailer trash and a street hustler, but now he can control his body's mass. Anna is the natural daughter of an Irish girl and an Argentinian priest; she is a telekinetic and can heal. Guy has always had white hair and antennae; he became hypersensitive to stimuli, so Xavier designed a suit for him.

  Billy Bob, Myles, and Mickey bicker while waiting to be announced. Coach says their next assignment is to retrieve a mutant child who was returned to Bastrona by the U.S. (think Elian Gonzales and Cuba) and has made a crater there.

  At the press conference, Guy takes the name Orphan; the real X-Force breaks in, furious that their name has been co-opted by these pop-star poseurs. Fighting ensues, and a court case is threatened.

  Coach announces Guy as team leader, and Edie teleports away, furious. Guy goes home, and a reporter hears gunfire.

  Note: on the letters page: "Quesada wants creators to contribute independent visions to the X-Universe—for each book to say something different."

  "As for your concern that the new team is a ‘Junior-Justice-League-Of-Wrong-Headed-Miscreants,' understand: this comic book is about heroes. It's just that sometimes you have to look hard to find heroes, and when you find them they have flaws—like anyone else."

  Rant: Gin Genie and Siryn drank too much. U-Go Girl and Bedlam took pills. Anarchist and Sunspot had bad tempers. Phat and Meltdown lived on the street. But having a super-power and a bad habit doesn't make you a hero, and we haven't seen an instance of decency, loyalty, or self-sacrifice from any of the new team members. These characters are defined by their misdeeds, and sales are up. What "something different" does that say?