History

The Stepford Cuckoos are the cloned daughters of Emma Frost, made by the Weapon Plus program from Emma's ova cells whilst she lay in a coma after her Hellions were killed by Trevor Fitzroy. The difference in natural hair color must be from that of their unknown 'father', or, more accurately, gene donor. Upon arrival at the World (a bubble of accelerated spacetime used by Weapon X to rapidly grow experienced adult operatives), it was found that there were a thousand more daughters of Emma Frost, who had been created by John Sublime for the purpose of destroying all mutant life by focusing their telepathic hivemind on every mutant. They were Weapon XIV in the Weapons Plus program. The other hundreds of Cuckoos were destroyed by the Phoenix possessing Celeste body.

Sophie

New X-Men

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There were originally five of them - Celeste, Esme, Mindee, Phoebe, and Sophie, and they called themselves the Five-in-One. They were Emma Frost's prize pupils, Emma often calling them "her girls." Emma often mentored the girls, not only in their telepathic abilities, but also in life, shaping them to be cold and calculated to stay one step ahead. The Cuckoos, in turn, viewed Emma as their favorite teacher.

Open Day

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During the student riot on opening day headed by Quentin Quire, a student, powerful telepath, and the Cuckoos chief rival who held an unrequited love for Sophie, Emma offhandedly chastised the girls for hiding during the riot rather than assisting to end it as she felt true heroes should. Inspired by Emma's words, Sophie used Kick to increase the Cuckoos' abilities and used Cerebra to stop Quentin. Although Quentin was defeated, the overexertion and her sister Esme's unknown telepathic suggestion resulted in Sophie's death.

The remaining Cuckoos were later awarded for their bravery and outstanding use of telepathy in line with the ideals of the Institute. After Sophie's untimely death, they began calling themselves the Four-In-One. The Cuckoos blamed Emma Frost for Sophie's death and separated themselves from her. This hurt Emma greatly. The Stepford Cuckoos then telepathically communicated with Jean Grey while at a gathering not only to test the new limits on their reduced powers and to tell her about Emma's telepathic affair with Scott. Jean furiously confronts Emma and tramples through Emma's mind, humiliating her. Emma managed to barely hold out against this endeavor in her diamond form until Scott willingly showed Jean that nothing had happened. Emma was later discovered in her diamond form, shattered and in pieces, having been shot by a diamond bullet in diamond body's one flaw. To help find the murder Sage and Bishop come. They find out Angel Salvador killed Emma but was being mind controlled by Esme, who was working for Xorn (Magneto). Fleeing, Esme states to the other Cuckoos that she desired individuality and that Emma Frost did not care about them and only wanted make them like her. Bishop and Sage confront Esme as she leaves, being escorted by a taxi cab with no driver. Esme telepathically defeats both of them joining Xorn/Magneto.

Esme as allied with Xorn

Xorn, believing himself to be Magneto, began destroying New York, planning to reverse the magnetic poles and leading a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which Esme as one of his team. Esme believed that Xorn/Magneto reciprocated her feelings of love, but this was a surprise to him, and he rejected her feelings. During the chaos, the X-Men joined to stop him as did the students. Celeste, Phoebe, and Mindee used their telepathy to safely guide civilians to safety.

Hurt by his rejection and his slowly derailing sanity, Esme and the others turned against him. Esme used her telepathy to destory Xorn's mind, causing him to lash out and kill her by magnetically ripping out her earrings and forcing them into her brain. Esme died in Emma Frost's arms, Emma stating, "...you turned into such a wonderful little femme fatale in the end, didn't you? I’m ever so proud of all my girls but you ... I think I’m most especially proud of you, dear." Despite this, Esme's last words to Emma were "...Nothing like you..."

With Esme's death, the girls resolved their differences with Emma and called themselves the Three-in-One.

The three remaining Stepford Cuckoos were members of the Corsairs up until they disbanded following M-Day. The Stepford Cuckoos were instrumental to defeating Blob, whose few vulnerabilities included telepathy. They are also seen going to the dance with Hellion. The three survived the depowering caused by Decimation and remained as students at the school.

Phoenix

The Phoenix

During X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong, Quentin Quire awoke from his deep sleep when the Phoenix manifested itself on Earth again and revived the recently deceased Jean Grey. Realizing that the Phoenix could revive Sophie, he unearthed her body and confronted the Phoenix, stating that he would give it whatever it wanted. The Phoenix Force revived Sophie, who took one look at Quentin as he professed his love to her, and responded, "Eww." Sophie then reverted to a corpse again, preferring death to being with Quentin. The other Cuckoos assisted the X-Men as they fought the Phoenix Force by using Cerebra to contact all of the X-Men and collecting them to channel positive thoughts and love to Jean Grey. Jean Grey was then able to rest control from the Phoenix Force and spiritually move onward to the White Hot Room, dying again. Quentin realized that Sophie would never love him and returned to deep sleep. Meanwhile, a shard of the Phoenix communicated with one of the Cuckoos, who responded "I thought you'd never ask."

In the follow-up series, X-Men: Phoenix - Warsong, the Cuckoos origin was revealed and the Cuckoos, having been contacted by the Phoenix, begin manifesting new powers, such as telekinesis and the ability to generate fire. The three Cuckoos each handle the Pheonix's influence differently. Celeste feared the power of the Phoenix, remembering how it drove Jean Grey insane while Phoebe embraced its destructive powers. They go to different staff separately to try to work out their feelings and their growing identities, free of their sisters. However, before the X-Men can effectively intervene, the Phoenix takes over and the Cuckoos return to The World. Meanwhile, Esme and Sophie mysteriously revive, albeit in their dead forms and speak of collecting information and realizing their true mission.

The X-Men follow the Cuckoos and learn that as creations of The World, the Cuckoos have implanted nano-technology that causes them to unknowingly transmit the information they encountered in the real world back to The World. Thus, Esme and Sophie did not actually return to life, but were rather piloted by their nano-technological systems. In addition, Emma learns that the Cuckoos are truly her daughters, having been cloned from her eggs, which were harvested by Dr. Sublime when she was in a coma following a Sentinel attack years before. Sublime cloned a thousand Cuckoos in tanks hooked up to machinery. The original five were released to infiltrate the school and transmit information. Their origins were never questioned due to a strong telepathic block placed in everyone's minds which would cause their thoughts to redirect whenever they questioned where the Cuckoos came from.

Weapon XIV

Dr. Sublime intended the remaining Cuckoos to return and join their "sisters." The true purpose of the Thousand-In-One (called Weapon XIV) was to combine their minds into one immense psychic power and telepathic kill every mutant on the planet. By assimilating the original Cuckoos into the one, Sublime would then be able to control the power of the Phoenix through his control of the Thousand-In-One. It was then revealed that every Cuckoo could also turn into a diamond form, but unlike Emma, their diamond forms were flawless. He could then use the Thousand to split the Phoenix between all of them and trap it within their diamond bodies, thus giving him control. Mindee willing chose to reassimilate, while Phoebe attempted to fight her way out while the X-Men attempted to destroy Sublime. When the X-Men destroyed Sublime's control of the Thousand and deactivated all the Cuckoos nanotech (including the original three), they each awoke with their own consciouses and reached out to their sisters and mother.

It was then revealed that Celeste was chosen as the primary host for the Phoenix because it heard Celeste "call" for her, as Celeste longed to feel, to live, and to burn with life. Emma reached out to an afraid Celeste, telling her that her methods of teaching, trying to make the girls cold and emotionless as a means of protecting them, was flawed and that she hoped the girls would live with passion. She then gave Celeste the confidence to do "what was right" with the Phoenix force and for her sisters.

However, to Emma's horror, the Phoenix used Celeste to destroy every "sister" of the Weapon XIV and the revived Sophie and Esme in order to end their threat against mutant-kind. The only ones spared were Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe. During the aftermath, Celeste begged the Phoenix to leave her as what it had forced her to do was too much. The Phoenix decided it wanted to stay with Celeste, so to stop it, Celeste divided her into three and each remaining Cuckoo turned her heart into flawless organic diamond permanently. Doing so trapped the Phoenix within them so that it could no longer wreak havoc. Unfortunately, doing so also caused the Cuckoos to lose their emotions forever. Thus, the Cuckoos--especially Celeste--who longed to truly live, grow, and love sacrificed their ability to ever do so for the sake of maintaining peace. In truth, the Phoenix was merely a shard of the true Phoenix, having been shattered into billions of pieces at the end of X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong. Despite this, that shard remains divide in three and sealed within Celeste, Mindee, and Phoebe.

This devastated Emma along with the death of her thousands of cloned daughters who had each begun reaching out with their minds when the Phoenix chose to destroy them. Emma then vowed that the Phoenix would have to contend with her if it ever returned, be it cosmic entity or in the form of Jean Grey.

Civil War and the Quest for Magik

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The Cuckoos have been registered to be potential recruits. They helped Elixir master biological manipulation by taking all biological and medical information from Beast's head and duplicating it in Elixir's mind. Along with the other students, they were captured by Belasco and sent to Limbo as he searched for Illyana Rasputin. There they had mental helmets forced on their heads that blocked their telepathy. X-23 and Prodigy managed to remove them, allowing them to help defeat Belasco. In doing so, they learned that Belasco loved Illyana, but was only able to revive her soulless body, Darkchild, her soul lost and unreachable. After his defeat by Pixie and Darkchild, the Cuckoos and the other students returned to the Institute, which reverted as if nothing had occurred.

Messiah Complex

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The Cuckoos helped the X-Men find the Baby Mutant, the first (and so far, only) post-Decimation mutant child ever born. Using the newly fixed Cerebra, the three help them find the Mauraders.

Powers

The Stepford Cuckoos are powerful telepaths, who can combine and therefore multiply their telepathic abilities to create a large and even more powerful hivemind. Their telepathic powers include broadcasting/receiving thoughts, mind control, planting illusions, force blasts of pure psionic energy, seeing through another person's eyes and also are so powerful that they are one of the few people able to operate Cerebra. The Stepford Cuckoos are also considered to be near-Omega level mutants, though they have never been classified as such and since the deaths of their two sisters, have reduced in power.

In X-Men: Phoenix - Warsong, they were the avatars of the Phoenix. During possession, they displayed new powers related to the Phoenix, such as Phoenix-granted telekinesis and fire generation. It is unlikely that they still possess these abilities at will, though the potential may still be there given the sealed Phoenix shard in their organic diamond hearts. While typically, an effective avatar can only be Omega-level, the Phoenix in question was merely a shard and other criteria for an avatar also include those who passionately yearn to live. Thus, though the Stepford Cuckoos could control the Phoenix instead of burning out, it may not actually mean they are Omega-level.

Regardless, they still remain uniquely powerful telepaths and essential to the X-Men. Often, they maintain telepathic communication for the teams via Cerebra when Emma is occupied with other missions.

The Cuckoos have also inherited the ability to turn into organic diamond like their mother, Emma Frost. However, unlike Emma, their diamond forms are flawless. Currently, only their hearts are organic diamond. Despite this ability, the Cuckoos have never utilized it outside of the events of Warsong. Whether they also have telepathic immunity and unaccessible telepathy in their diamond forms is unknown, though they have been shown to telepathically communicate while in diamond form.

Alternate versions of the Cuckoos have also demonstrated the power of precognition, a power that some telepaths, such as Psylocke and Emma Frost, also have. This may or may not be true for the Earth 616 Cuckoos.

Creators

Created by Grant Morrison and Ethan Van Sciver.

Status

Phoebe

Celeste

Mindee

Characteristics

Alternate Realities

House of M

Here Comes Tomorrow

Earth-15104

The Stepford Cuckoos also exists on Earth-15104, also known as Here Comes Tomorrow. In this reality there were only three of them left--Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe, and they called themselves the Three-in-One. They also seem to have a self-destruct sequence within their consciousness and this is the first reference of the sisters being Weapon XIV. The Three-In-One assist the new team of X-Men in this apocalyptic future. When the Sublime-controlled Beast reawakens and controls Jean Grey as the Phoenix, they alert the others. Sensing that the crazed Phoenix will burn away their minds, they initiate a self-destruct sequence, committing suicide.

Earth-58163

On Earth-58163, House of M, all five Cuckoos were alive and well. Sophie still seemed to be the more dominant cuckoo and still had the urge to be a heroine. When she found out that David and Nori were going to Japan to find Nori's father (who was labeled as a human terrorist by S.H.I.E.L.D, who were also looking for him, but to put an end to him), Sophie decided that she wanted to help them and left her sisters to go to Japan.

Sophie proved to be quite an asset to the team that went to Japan (which included Prodigy, Surge, Jubilee, Dust, Wallflower and Mercury). Even though most of the human terrorists were shielded from psionic attacks, Sophie still had enough power to manipulate some of their thoughts, and make them do as she commanded. She also helped the New Mutants in a premature face-off with the Hellions, when Quill attacked Prodigy, she commanded Quill to surrender to her, which he did. She also was able to scan minds, which is how she learned that Wallflower was really working with the people of an experiment known as 'Project Genesis' which is what the New Mutants and the human terrorists wanted to shut down.

Wallflower quickly used her pheromones to make all the parties involved (New Mutants, Hellions and the human terrorists) hate each other so much that they would fight to the death. This brawl was ended by Mercury, who was immune to Wallflower's pheromone manipulation, when she killed Wallflower. Wind Dancer of the Hellions, cleared the pheromones in the air with her wind-manipulating powers, and Sophie, knowing that the pheromones only fueled hatred that was already there, started to use her psionics to strip the hatred so there would be no more fighting. Tragically, Sophie was gunned down by a human terrorist who was immune to her psionic manipulation, as she was trying to make peace, but the gunman refused to be at peace with mutant-kind and wanted to fight them.

X-Men: The End

Earth-91172

On Earth-91172, a world ravaged by the Hulk, three of the cuckoos are alive. Mindee and Esme are the Two-in-one and Sophie has broken away and developed precognitive abilities. They are members of the Next Wave of Heroes - the last heroes of Earth led by Quentin Quire. Other members are Patriot, Wiccan, Lightspeed and Speedball. Sophie dreams of a team of dimension-hopping heroes who can help them (the Exiles), which leads to Quentin trying to reach them and create a new team, the New Exiles. In this reality, Quentin and Sophie are a couple.

X-Men: The End

In X-Men: The End, an possible alternate future, Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe, call themselves the Spikes. They all have individual appearances, such as curly blonde hair or a shaved head and golden glowing eyes, instead of blue or white as they are usually depicted. The girls assist the X-Men, working with Martha the Mutant Brain to keep the team informed and also assist during the battle against Cassandra Nova.