Professor X - Strong telepath, overall mentor but not a leader in the field, the only one on my team that can operate Cerebro, other X-Men can rub his bald head for good luck. The team wouldn't be X-Men without him

Wolverine - Team leader when he feels like it. Strong, durable, overall great brawler, tough to beat, good tracker (the nose knows)

Gambit - Every RPG party needs a thief. Ability to turn anything into a weapon or blow up any solid object is a plus

Nightcrawler - Teleportation very useful in combat and crossing inhospitable environments, especially when transporting others/objects. Also, acrobatic

Bishop - Great defensive X-Man at absorbing energy blasts. Also, probably has a bunch of funny future jokes and will always keep the X-Men slightly ahead of the latest fashion trends

Morph - Basically the good, male version of Mystique. Shapeshifting extremely useful during infiltration scenarios and manipulation, also his laugh is infectious

Psylocke - Telepathic, telekinetic, stealth, martial artist, ninja... what else?

Iceman - Classic power, durable with ice armor, can put out fires. Ice powers very useful in stopping physical objects and helping the team cross hostile terrain

Beast - The brains of the team in the field and helps the team see multiple options, good climber and ability to cross rough terrain, tank

Shadowcat - Ability to pass through walls very useful, especially when infiltrating and escaping with others/objects. Also, pet dragon

Rogue (post - Ms. Marvel contact) - Super strength, flight, and can charm and seduce men

Lol i think if the Fraction Era taught us anything, its that 11 mutants (or anything more then 6 really) aren't a team....their an army.

more than 6 is an army? that's like virtually every X-men team since Rogue joined. I mean, there were like 15 X-men during the blue/gold era and they weren't like an army then..

@oldnightcrawler said:

@koays said:

Lol i think if the Fraction Era taught us anything, its that 11 mutants (or anything more then 6 really) aren't a team....their an army.

more than 6 is an army? that's like virtually every X-men team since Rogue joined. I mean, there were like 15 X-men during the blue/gold era and they weren't like an army then..

Eh, I'll stand by it. The Blue and Gold teams were essentially two different units, but imagine if say in Fatal Attractions the whole roster went into space to face Magneto(despite whatever the logic behind not doing it was..?)....they could've taken down Magneto without casualty just by overwhelming him and his forces.

Maybe 7 on a team might be more correct, but i think SF proved that their just aren't enough villains to pose a credible threat to the full X-Men roster...short of bringing an a army at least, and they beat like three of those.

@koays: i can agree with most of that. Though i would say maybe 8-9 is feasible with one of those constantly at the base or in the black bird. But the huge teams suffer when it comes to stories and character focus and development.

I guess though if it were only 7 team members we'd need quite a few books to get most the Xmen some exposure. And Im a proponent of cutting down on the number of the books. Unless all of them are different in focus.

But yeah 11 is just too many

see, that's what I'm thinking, between 8 and 10.

for me that's as regular a size team as many of the best X-men lineups were. That was the standard size between '83 and and '91, the classic team, the outback team, the TAS team, etc..

And even when the team was big enough to split into two squads of 6, members of both teams appeared in each other's books as supporting characters, meaning neither book had a cast of only 6. Even when writers like Morrison or Whedon scale the team back to 5 or 6 members, they still introduce lots of supporting cast members to inject new blood into their group dynamics.

I mean, I agree that beyond half a dozen or so characters, each are less likely to be central in any given story, but classically an 8-10 member team has still stood up by having enough central characters to shift the focus between over time without the dynamic getting stale (as it sometimes does for 4-6 member teams, I mean, the FF's supporting cast are more interesting than they are).

I'm not saying every team needs 8 or more members, I'm just saying I don't feel like 11 is really such a big team if you consider that most teams have supporting casts and satellite members anyway.

Why isn't Kitty on the list?

Not having Kitty, Magneto, Psylocke, or Jubilee to work with is a big restriction, but it just changes who I would choose, so that's neat. And having it be an 11 member cast gives quite a bit of wiggle room.

I guess I'd go with a core team of 8 members, Storm and Cyclops sharing leadership, with 6 of the members being main characters and Beast and Wolverine coming and going as the story called for.

Gallery

since I've got 11 slots to work with, from the characters presented here I would choose Mystique as a reoccurring antagonist, Sunspot as a connection to the Hellfire Club and the Avengers, and Warpath as a free agent that works for Storm but not the X-men.

Gallery

@oldnightcrawler: Nice team. It seems like this book would be the ultimate main book. Just curious, how many teams/books ideally do you think there should be? Interesting that you put Cyclops and Storm together along with Wolverine. I take it the Schism has become stale with you too?

coz Kitty sucks...

also some Make-up obsessed character named Rouge appears on this list... i don't know a mutant with the awesome power of the Make-Over... hmmm maybe Mystique... lol...

it's stale with everyone dude. it was a stupid move, and yet another attempt to give more spotlight to Wolverine - and frankly unnecessary spotlight, since he already hogs it in every second book marvel publishes.

My Team of 11 X-Men would be....

1. Psylocke- She is my favorite and she can use her martial arts and telepathy to help.

2.Colossus- Every team needs a powerhouse and Colossus is my favorite.

3.Cyclops- The team would need a leader and Cyclops is the best.

4. Storm- She is powerful as all hell, and a personal favorite of mine.

5. Kitty Pryde- Her Phasing would be incredibly useful and would take people out.

6. Rachel Summers- Her phoenix powers are very powerful and she the best there is since Jean is dead.

7. Angel- I would definitely want someone that can fly. I may be biased because i really like Angel.

8. Rogue- Rogue is the ultimate secret weapon. She could take anyone's power and turn the tide of the battle.

9. Dazzler- Although very underrated, Dazzler is a very powerful mutant and I would put my money on her and put her in my team.

10. Namor- Namor is very cool and powerful. He is the first mutant and will show you why hes the original.

11. Polaris- Polaris is very powerful. I was going to pick Magneto but, Polaris would be more trustworthy.

@devilsgrin81: Oh i agree. And Im glad someone else feels that it was a stupid move from the jump. Ive been screaming this forever on these forums

mostly I was going with what characters were available vs. what characters I like. I like Storm and Cyclops; to me they're the main characters in my favorite mythology. While they aren't always complimentary (in fact, rarely), I feel solid characters can overcome that in the service of the story; and they are two of the most solid.

Wolverine may be over-played, but he's a good foil for virtually any X-man, and especially Storm and Cyclops. I just couldn't make a team (with both of them) without including him.

Schism, to me, is a story that had to happen eventually; certainly it could have been better (most X-men stories could), but it was still an adequate culmination of decades of characterization, and in ultimately still made sense, despite it's execution.

I disagree entirely.

Wolverine standing up to Cyclops in a way that most of the X-men would agree with is really just the most organic development for either of their characters; it had to happen eventually, and the X-men's world really is more interesting because of it.

@oldnightcrawler: Ehhh. Sorry bro I cant agree with you there. Execution has alot to do with it and the execution was just off badly. Imo the more natural schism would have been when Storm found out about Xforce and her and Beast could have done something then. Just because Wolverine has served at times as a foil to Cyclops doesnt mean that he should have featured and highlighted in this instance as the main opposition. I have to say it seemed like a blatant attempt to further elevate Wolverine as evidenced by the title WATX that sprang out of the Schism. While diversity in the books is much needed, Aaron's Schism was certainly not the way to go. Again thats just my opinion but for me its not always about the destination or end result but the journey or how we get there matters.

@gothic798: NICE TEAM.

@oldnightcrawler: The way I see it, the setting and focus are a big part of how a large team works. You have a book set at the school where you bounce from character to character it can work...but if your telling the story of say 10 X-men, brought down to maybe four plots and whatever the villains ares doing.....characters will go long periods of just being back up. And if they do show up with the full force it's a event size roster of just good guys, unless it's like Avengers World/Batman Eternal style with team members from different books floating.

...................

Also agree with your statement about Schism.....it needed to happen when it did. They may have fallen short on the follow through (not committing to either concept) but Wolverine had a true to character moment when he challenged Cyclops. ...though I don't think him leading a team or a school is as natural a progression considering everyone else available for the spot.

no, but it's not like they didn't make a point to show that he's not really someone who should be in that position; like, literally the first thing he does is put Kitty and Beast in charge, then he spends the next 40-something issues explaining why he doesn't think he's good enough for the job. In my mind it was never about him being in charge and always about him (and the rest of the team) disagreeing with Cyclops.

The point of Schism was entirely logical and consequential as I could totally see how people would consider Cyclops becoming an extremist, but for God's sake they gave this complicated issue to be handled by an absolutely ignorant (in X-world) writer that couldn't even give back up his reasons for schism without using, oh dam, Jean Grey as a stumbling block of, let's be honest, the real reason of Schism.

To this day, JGC represents everything that is wrong with the X-mythos. I don't thing even K/Y would be helpful, their first issues of Amazing were nothing but your generic X-story when there's lots of mess that needs to resolved.

True we get acknowledgement of how out of place he is in the role, no doubt. But that's like him putting on Psylocke's leotard(excuse the lazy example) and everyone saying "look at how out of place he is" before turning around and saying "your making a difference by wearing this". We get acknowledgement of it, but we don't see the question of why it's so important that it be Wolverine and no one else explored. You can argue that WatX-Men is about him coming to the realization that he's actually good at this and everyone else knew it already...but you have to dig deep to find even that since it's hard to see how his specific contributions, changed Idie and Quire(JGS' success stories) more then their own development was already heading that way.

Which is really the negative about Schism's follow through across the board, since we never get to see exploration of the motives behind the characters choices and have to sort of string together things to make sense of it: Rachel Grey joins the school, we string together that it's because that's where they were before she left for space; Wolverine doesn't even want to send Scott a warning about Exodus, we string together it's because he wants to prove their independence; Half(the majority really) of the X-Men join Wolverine, we string together it's because they don't like where Scott is leading them, but really we don't know what choices the characters disagreed with enough to split their forces. We have an idea why people post Schism do things, but there would be less "Why are the X-Men fighting" threads if they had been more on the nose with it and told us.

to me it just seemed obvious. Firstly because he was one of the only senior X-men who had actually been around the whole time leading up to Schism; Storm had let the other X-men take her duties, Kitty, Rachel, and Havok had all been in space for most of it, Beast had already left, and Nightcrawler was dead, so in a way he was the only one who had the authority? or the responsibility, whatever.

And that's the other thing: it was basically the role that Wolverine was born for, playing to both of his defining roles with the team. Before Wolverine was anything else, noble samurai, team uncle, whatever, he was Cyclop's foil, which Schism is just the most obvious example of. And beyond that he was always the guy who would do anything to keep the other X-men safe, he was their self appointed protector, which is really his whole motivation here. Even when Wolverine learned to respect the loud-mouthed teenager that barked orders at him had grown into a genuinely good leader, these were still his roles, his function on the team, to protect the team even from their own leadership.

I totally agree that the follow through was pretty weak across the board. Regenesis is actually what got me back into comics after a five year break, the premises and casts of all of the books just seemed really cool. I loved the idea of Wolverine's school, loved the epicness of the Extinction team, Storm's recon team was pretty cool, etc.. actually Storm's book was the best of the three, and a lot of that was really letting the effects of the Schism play out in a more organic way, so there you go.

That said, even as someone who wasn't very up to date with recent events, the placement of most of the characters kind of did just make sense to me based on each book's premise and my prior understanding of the characters. So, while I wouldn't have minded more exploration into more o the characters reasons, I didn't see it as necessary either.

to me it just seemed obvious. Firstly because he was one of the only senior X-men who had actually been around the whole time leading up to Schism; Storm had let the other X-men take her duties, Kitty, Rachel, and Havok had all been in space for most of it, Beast had already left, and Nightcrawler was dead, so in a way he was the only one who had the authority? or the responsibility, whatever.

And that's the other thing: it was basically the role that Wolverine was born for, playing to both of his defining roles with the team. Before Wolverine was anything else, noble samurai, team uncle, whatever, he was Cyclop's foil, which Schism is just the most obvious example of. And beyond that he was always the guy who would do anything to keep the other X-men safe, he was their self appointed protector, which is really his whole motivation here. Even when Wolverine learned to respect the loud-mouthed teenager that barked orders at him had grown into a genuinely good leader, these were still his roles, his function on the team, to protect the team even from their own leadership.

I totally agree that the follow through was pretty weak across the board. Regenesis is actually what got me back into comics after a five year break, the premises and casts of all of the books just seemed really cool. I loved the idea of Wolverine's school, loved the epicness of the Extinction team, Storm's recon team was pretty cool, etc.. actually Storm's book was the best of the three, and a lot of that was really letting the effects of the Schism play out in a more organic way, so there you go.

That said, even as someone who wasn't very up to date with recent events, the placement of most of the characters kind of did just make sense to me based on each book's premise and my prior understanding of the characters. So, while I wouldn't have minded more exploration into more o the characters reasons, I didn't see it as necessary either.

Why Psylocke is not on the list?

it's only become interesting again post AvX with Uncanny in particular being a great book, and Storm's XX-Men book being brilliant.

Perhaps Schism had to happen... perhaps not. But it's execution was appalling. Regenesis was actually a great read, but the rationale's for so many of the x-men were incredibly weak. And actually really disrespectful to all the students who died at the Xavier institute. "oooh lets re-open the school where all your friends died, coz it's SOOO much safer than an island fortress.

I will never agree that Wolverine was the obvious choice - true he is often Cyclops' foil, but we give Scott hell for being a good soldier boy, but Logan always seemed to ultimately fall in line himself. i think it stank of absolute hypocrisy on his part to make the issue "kids in war." If it HAD been about Cyclops' extremism... perhaps... but it was the kids as soldiers part that was used as the rationale. And that, is not the evolution and development of Wolverine's character. He is a murderer first and foremost, . I think we give him too much latitude because we've seen his character romanticised as a failed samurai, and his love for Jean, and his senior role amongst the x-men becoming something of an instructor (note i didn't use the word Teacher). Kitty, Jubilee and Laura (to a lesser extent) benefited from his mentoring sure, but only because they were Kids Going To War... or at least children entering the extremely dangerous world of super-heroics. How is the school therefore any different than Utopia was?

I would enroll my kids in any school being taught by Emma Frost. I would never send them the Wolverine School of Killing Skills.

1. agreed, actually.

2. agreed, sort of. The X-men being a school just doesn't seem disrespectful to me because that's what the premise of the X-men is. Actual killings have happened at schools, it doesn't mean we stop having schools.

3. Cyclops was trained to be a child soldier, to lead children into battle, so he sees it as necessary; Wolverine was used as a weapon because he's a mutant and doesn't want that to happen to anyone else, which is why he sees it as his duty to be the X-men's protector: it makes perfect sense with the roles the characters have always had. I really don't get how people don't see this.

4. That's your prerogative, but Emma's lost at least 4 classes of kids while none of the students taught by Wolverine have died (other than by heroically sacrificing themselves); so what does that say?

Emma's awesome, but based on their track records, I'd go with Wolverine every time.

@oldnightcrawler:

Wolverine was used as a weapon because he's a mutant and doesn't want that to happen to anyone else, which is why he sees it as his duty to be the X-men's protector: it makes perfect sense with the roles the characters have always had. I really don't get how people don't see this.

I hadn't thought of Wolverine in that light before to be honest. He does take on that protective role fairly often. Still... it's a fine line for him to walk... since even at the school, the students are still being trained as soldier...

Wolverine vs. Emma... interesting note you mentioned classes for Emma... and therein lies the distinction. Emma has trained many children, she is first and foremost a teacher, Wolverine - first and foremost a soldier/murderer/warrior -... what five? (Kitty, Jubilee, Quire, ... hmmm can't think of anymore...perhaps Laura)

1. They're all being taught how to survive, Wolverine just knows more about that than the other X-men. I mean he's mastered more than 28 forms of martial arts as well as having been trained as a soldier, spy, ninja, and as an X-man himself. What were Emma's qualifications for teaching kids to survive again?

2. Wolverine doesn't -and never has- simply trained every kid to be an X-man; you're only thinking of the kids that he personally hand-picked as being especially suited to the task like Kitty, Rogue, Jubilee, Quire, and Armor. He also trained a class of New X-men in general combat after the decimation in Astonishing X-Men, all of whom are still alive, and has yet to lose any students from his new school.

@oldnightcrawler: Premise wise, i think Wolverine and the X-Men makes sense for his character, because in a way he is the X-Men's moral compass despite not being the best one for himself. You can look at him challenging Scott in the same vein as him stopping Rachel from killing Selene, in that he would protect the team from its self. Him looking after the kids at the school is arguably even what he has been doing since he joined the team. I just don't think it fits with his character to lead a school....or a faction in this situation. He may be able to fit in the role, but it's leap to go from "I question the use of child soldiers" to "Lets go open a school and split the teams forces then do the same hero thing we would've done in SF anyway". It seems more like he did it to spite Cyclops, then because he thought it was best that the kids (and not even all of them) got away from Scott.

And honestly the weird thing is even if we accept his motivation, and that the characters who side with him appear to be on the up and up at first (I mean i can see Iceman at a school rather then a Mutant Island), but aside from Rogue, which of the X-Men left because of the kids like Logan? Supposedly they all preferred the JGS idea to Utopia, but why? We all accept that it was because of Cyclops, but it almost seems like their was a rule post Schism to not come out an say why Utopia or the JGS was a bad idea in concept...and because of that, what started out as Wolverine vs Cyclops and X-Men picking sides pretty much never evolved beyond Wolverine vs Cyclops because no one else from either side gave a reason why their way was better or worse.

that's pretty much exactly what he was doing, at least from his perspective. Why else would someone ditch the chance to lead Alpha Flight? He could have been the Canadian Captain America, but instead got bossed around by a loud-mouthed kid.

It fits with his character to do whatever it takes to get the job done. And even as Headmaster, the first thing he does is recruit Beast and Kitty to run the school (and, technically, he is a master of more things than most of the faculty, especially if you consider the title of master in the dojo sense). At any rate, even if the job's only purpose was to give the X-men an option to not follow Cyclops, well he still got the job done.

I never found it weird that most of the X-men who had gone to the school wanted to go with Wolverine. It was like, well Cyclops is getting weird and Utopia actually kind of sucks, let's just go home. That perspective just seemed so unanimous among the senior X-men who had grown up there. It may have been a new school, but it was still a school, and that's as much what the X-men are as anything.

Characters who had been gone from the school for while before it closed (or the ones who had never gone there), like Storm, Psylocke, and the New Mutants seemed more willing to give Cyclops a chance, but even they didn't seem to want to be on Utopia; the 'Mutants moved to SF and Storm just started living in an airplane. From everything I read, Utopia just seemed like a crappy place to live, and just got less welcoming as Cyclops became increasingly militant.

Again Schism was badly executed as was most stuff by Aaron. It was sorely lacking no matter how many or how much fans try to justify it. It doesn't make you less of a fan if you dont gobble up and love everything Marvel chooses to do. Dont get me wrong whether the Schism needed o happen or not is debatable. I do think that different directions and premises is a good thing but all the angst and bitching about what the other side is doing is ridiculous and stale. The OGN No More Humans while not the absolute best story, and I say this mostly because of the inclusion of the silly BOTA Raze in company, felt good having some of the cast back together again.

Cyclops = Main Leader

Storm = Back up Leader

Colossus = Tank

Rachel Summers = Main Telepath

Psylocke = Scrapper

Iceman = Comic Relief

Angel and Quicksilver = Speedsters

Don't get me wrong, i got that feeling alot during the early issues of Utopia as well. They always seemed to be facing some sort of crisis of food, water, supplies, or even that one time when they were sinking. But it just seemed like the goal of Utopia was to make it habitable, not for the X-Men but for the 195 (or whatever) mutants plus refugees that had came with them to Utopia. They were the last of their kind and were depending on each other for support in order to make it work. While Cyclops personal goal was to make sure that the voices of these small remaining mutants were heard and respected by the whole world. I can see the nobility in that idea. And while i can see the nobility of not wanting children to be tools for this agenda, i just don't like the idea that so many of them decided "Yea I know were protecting the last members of the mutant race and all...but the water smells funny and Deadpool keeps sneaking into my bathroom, lets go back to the school".

I would respect it more if they came out and said "Hey this isn't the way to go about protecting the mutants" or "i think we shouldgo back to our roots and give the school another chance" or even "This task is too much for the X-Men and it will fail because Cyclops is overreaching". But they don't say that or anything to justify so many turning around and reestablishing a school system that they abandoned because it failed so badly the last time they had it.

This is sort of my point. It's so stale now because you don't even know what they don't like about the other side. Pre-AvX we hear alot of talk about not working with the other side and staying out of eachothers way, but other then Logan and Cyke we don't know why the other members of their teams would have an issue working together or what they don't like about one another's methods. They literally have a conflict that they keep reminding us exist without telling us what it's about.

Post AvX the things that SHOULD cause conflict, (Fault in Xavier's death, betrayals to the Avengers, Abandoning the X-Men's cause) aren't even brought up. And instead we get "Look at them saving mutants from police who are attacking mutants....shame on them lets go get their 16yo self from the 60's and make them feel bad" It's like their grasping at straws to keep it going. No More Humans was a breath of fresh air because it showed that there's a conflict between Wolverine and Scott that's worth mentioning, but otherwise the two teams don't have anything against each other except one of them is filled with outlaws.

Wolverine 50% Cyclops (Your vote) 64% Iceman (Your vote) 64% Storm (Your vote) 64% Gambit (Your vote) 64% Emma Frost (Your vote) 50% Namor (Your vote) 50%

Wow out of at least reaching 50% of votes which is still an F grade %, the only ones to make it are:

Logan

Slim

Iceman

Oro

Cajun

Frost

and Namor

DAMN!

At least we know who are the favorites now. (+)

but by opening the school they were also protecting the "last generation of mutants", just not the same way Cyclops was trying to.

It literally was that they just rebuilt/reopened the school, which the X-men have done dozens of times; the only reason this time would need more of an explanation than any other is because Cyclops had his own separate team of X-men doing something else at the time. Though we get mainly the perspectives of Wolverine, Storm, and Beast, maybe most of them don't even have strong feelings about Cyclops' approach; it's not like they have to to want to do something else.

I mean, prior to AvsX, really only Wolverine and Beast seemed to have a real problem with Cyclops' leadership enough to want to leave, but that doesn't mean that the others felt as strongly about it. When Wolverine invited the team to come with him, it's just a matter of choice; were they on Utopia because that's what the X-men do, or because that's where the Cyclops has told them the X-men should be. One wouldn't even need to have a specific problem with Cyclops or Utopia to simply want to go back to being a school again.

oh, it didn't fail so badly.

If it failed so badly, why did like everyone who had gone to the school follow Cyclops to SF and Utopia? If it was such a failure, why was there still any faith in Cyclops' leadership? I mean, he had been in charge at the school, too. Obviously everyone who went to that school thought being with the X-men was where they belonged. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't also feel like the school was where the X-men belonged, at least once they were given the option.

But that's the thing. If the choice isn't about Logan or Scott or their ideals then why go? I don't think it can be simplified down to a general 'they just felt like leaving' because they weren't just leaving Cyclops or Utopia they were leaving the majority of their people. You don't just move without a reason. And it doesn't seem like the X-Men thing to do to just up and leave the last pocket of mutants the week after a giant sentinel came to annihilate them.

Now i can see if they all had different individual reasons that led them all to the same conclusion, i mean Gambit didn't like being a big floating target and Cannonball was hit with PTSD from a mission but they both ended up at the JGS. But if that's the case then it needs to be spoken about. Hell, whatever the reason is it needs to spoken about because it's not like saying "I don't want to be on X-Force/Factor/Terminators" it's saying that they would rather be at the JGS then Utopia with the last few remaining mutants, protecting them from threats that they just saw were real.

I disagree. The school got blown up 3 times in very quick succession. It was overrun by the Purifiers and the Acolytes. It failed to keep the students safe and when mutants began to flock to the school for protection following the Decemation they were ill equipped to handle it. The school idea no longer worked post M-Day and after Messiah Complex the choice was to rebuild the school like they did the last two times or to close it down and look for a better way to carry out their mission. Which they did once Cyclops, Angel and Emma started Greymalkin Industries. And when Greymalkin failed they began Utopia.

The school was no longer the system in which they could do the most good, especially post M-Day. So to come back to it, when nothing has really changed about the situation since it's previous incarnation is a step backwards the way i see it.

But they didn't just leave the last remaining mutants, because they also were the last remaining mutants, just as much as Cyclops and anyone else on Utopia. And they were still trying to protect mutants, everyone on Utopia was welcomed to come to the new school.

And the threats they saw as being real were no more or less real at the school than on Utopia; they had/have a target on them where ever they are.

I just don't see any reason to see it that way; I'm sure you're probably aware that actual tragedies have occurred at schools in the real world, it doesn't mean that we stop having schools.

The school may not have been the best place for the Decimation era survivors, but that doesn't make it's original function obsolete. It's always been a haven, and it's always been a target, and so was being on Utopia.

If you see it as them taking their own safety into their hands then sure i can kinda see where your coming from. But for me, it's like the super heroes decided to move away from the city that was in constant peril because it's a bad neighborhood. I just expect the X-Men to be more selfless when it comes to that. And if not then just give us a reason for why the characters decided to do it.

And I think there's a big thing to be said about dividing your forces when you have that big target on your back. Utopia is the bigger target, and even with everyone together Second Coming was brutal. As was Necrosha and Fear Itself and First to Last and all the other big threats that came for them, and now they've got to get ready for the same fight with less strength behind them. Or even worse what if the threats came to the less defended school instead?

NO school has that much tragedy. No school has a target on it as big as the X-Men's does. But if there was as big a threat or consistent a threat to student's at one particular school as there is to the X-Men's, it would be closed down.

Reopening the school is something i could see making sense after mutants are returning. I can even see a Schism over doing that or using Utopia as a mutant Capital. But if they really thought the school was so necessary then rebuild the school on or near Utopia...they probably would've gotten more students that way. But Utopia only existed because the school wasn't going to work as a haven in the current climate of the world....it just wasn't safe enough. So what's the reason to go back to it when nothing has changed, and your actually weakening the current haven of Utopia?

but that logic doesn't hold up at all if you think the school was a less safe place than Utopia was, right? I mean, that's why you consider it a failure, yeah?

And if the school was actually a safer place, then they were doing a better job of protecting mutants by being there. But really it wasn't any more or less safe, it simply served a different function.

so if Utopia was a bigger target, why would it make more sense to have all of the remaining mutants there? or in any one place, for that matter? If nothing else, being in more than one location has only made the mutants a harder target, especially given that anywhere they all congregate will be a target for that reason.

Or Utopia itself weakened the chances of mutant survival, depending on how you look at it.

You've already pointed out how it was a target, so how was it really any more of a haven? are you forgetting the sentinels, the nimrods, and the quarantine? how about sinking into the ocean? Given all this, I just don't see how the school was any more or less safe than Utopia, or than having all the mutants together in any one location. I mean, this wasn't even a point that Wolverine and Cyclops disagreed on, ultimately, as both at least saw the validity of the other's approach.

And, really, there have been A LOT of rampages at actual schools that have claimed more lives than the total amount of X-men students killed in total. Not only do most of those schools not close down, but the X-men are a unique kind of school that serves mutants especially, making their continued existence as such all the more meaningful to what both teams were fighting for.

1. Storm - Leader;Tactics & Strategy; Powerhouse & Long range combat specialist
2. Nightcrawler - Co-Leader; Teleportation; Stealth; Moral Center
3. Bishop - Weapons Specialist; Tactics & Strategy; and fill-in leadership as needed
4. Psylocke - Team Telepath;Powerhouse; Recon & Stealth
5. Frenzy - Team Brick; Brawler
6. Polaris - Elemental Powerhouse & Long range combat specialist ; Defense
7. Wolverine - H2H Combat Master; Tracker; Recon
8. Northstar - Speedster; Recon
9. Forge - Intelligence; Team Tinkerer
10. Rogue - Power Mimic; Permanent Ms.Marvel powers again
11. Dr.Nemesis - Intelligence; Team Medic

1. My point is Utopia serves to protect the mutants, give them shelter and a place to call home. The X-Men were it's only protection and half of them decided to leave. The protectors left Utopia, and assuming they felt their own safety wasn't going to be an issue, they still left Utopia and it's problems as well as it's people behind for a place they thought was better. It looks bad to me, and its never addressed.

2. In no way do i feel the school was a safer place. Not at that point in time, but if they felt that way they should say what it was about Utopia that wasn't.

3. I don't disagree with the idea that being in one location puts a bullseye on the map for anyone with a Anti-mutant/X-men agenda. It's been an issue they brought up since day one. But as much as their concentrated numbers attracted enemies their concentrated power helped to repel it. Saying their going to split that power in two doesn't help Utopia, because it's still attracting more enemies but now has less power to deal with them.

4. I don't disagree. All it takes is one instance where someone overpowers them and Utopia and all the mutants could be gone. The trick is Utopia had a lot of power so it wasn't anywhere near that easy to accomplish the feat of overpowering them.

5. Utopia isn't more of a haven then the school was its a different kind. It's a haven built to withstand what the world was currently throwing at them. Mutants were getting picked off after Decimation, Utopia is designed for safety in numbers. You don't need to resurrect and undead army, send time traveling sentinels, or create a mutant kill virus to kill one mutant, these are the lengths you have to go to if you want to go after something as strong as Utopia. I don't think the school is safer then Utopia because if say... Nimrod came back, Utopia has alot better chance against him then the school. The characters apparently feel differently, or accept this fact, I'd like to know why.

6. This is one school. One school that is targeted by hate crimes, supervillains and aliens repeatedly. No school gets blown up three times by people who hate everything the staff stand for. There may be acts with greater death counts, but only schools in third world countries can compare to what the Purifiers tried to do when they got in. 40 something student's died in a attack after they were dismissed from the school, that's something that happens in Middle Eastern countries when zealots commit acts of terrorism. This is one school in upstate New York, and it's facing all this... plus government supplied sentinels and villains trying to get at the heroes who teach math class. And it's happening at the worst time in mutant history....the school wasn't the place it needed to be at that moment and when it was destroyed rebuilding it wouldn't have changed that.

Now i'm not bashing the entire school concept. I just don't think that it would've been as effective as we got (with Utopia/Greymalkin)had they rebuilt it right after the destruction by sentinels AND that if they felt that after all they've been through since it's destruction they should go back to the school, then they should better explain why they would go back, rather then leave it in the air for us to debate.

which was a theme that they constantly touched on when they were all there. It isn't hard to see why any of them would see Utopia as hanging all their hopes as X-men, mutants, and individuals, on one shaky pillar, or why they would see it as a measure that realistically couldn't be permanent.

Moving to SF was a better move than just rebuilding the school right away, and even Utopia was a major accomplishment, but were all of the mutants just supposed to stay stuck on that one island against the world forever? To me that isn't really the point of the X-men, because it totally rules out the ideal of peaceful coexistence with the rest of humanity. Whereas them being a school, where they can also protect mutants and still teach and train them the way students at any other school should be entitled to.

Cyclops may have been doing what was pragmatic politically, but Utopia as a place mutants had to be for the sake of their own survival was never the goal of Xavier's dream or the ideals of the X-men in general.

Like I say, I do think moving to SF when they did, and even the founding of Utopia as a strategic political statement, were both better ideas (both more pragmatic and more interesting) than if they had just rebuilt the school right away, it just seemed obvious to me that both of those things would lead back to the idea of the school at some point, and Schism, despite it's execution, just happened to be that point.

And besides, having all of the X-men in one place, on one huge team, just got boring pretty fast. Personally, I was more interested in the idea of Utopia when the Extinction team were established, simply because it had the autonomy to be the more distinct political message Cyclops wanted it to be without having to adhere to the ideals, of the X-men specifically, that the rest of the team had come to expect of Cyclops' leadership.

@oldnightcrawler said:

Not having Kitty, Magneto, Psylocke, or Jubilee to work with is a big restriction, but it just changes who I would choose, so that's neat. And having it be an 11 member cast gives quite a bit of wiggle room.

I guess I'd go with a core team of 8 members, Storm and Cyclops sharing leadership, with 6 of the members being main characters and Beast and Wolverine coming and going as the story called for.

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since I've got 11 slots to work with, from the characters presented here I would choose Mystique as a reoccurring antagonist, Sunspot as a connection to the Hellfire Club and the Avengers, and Warpath as a free agent that works for Storm but not the X-men.

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I like this one

@veitha: thanks :v

I like how it's got the three most senior characters from both schools, as well as having like our members who've been Avengers; it gives them a lot of clout, anyway.

it seems like it could be a good team if they wanted to make there be a singular flagship book (like with the other books just focusing on the different schools), but still has enough wild-card characters to keep the story moving in different directions.

Also it's kind of bringing the blue team back together but with more members :v

@oldnightcrawler: I think this team would be the perfect way to resurrect Astonishing Xmen. It could be done somewhat like Uncanny Avengers. This team could deal with issues to big for either school or smaller teams to handle, almost in similar way to what the Extinction team was. The issues the team could deal with would be awesome as well. Almost like that nostalgic feeling I got reading Mike Carey's recent OGN. In fact this team should just handle the big yearly events while not disturbing the flow of the other books lol.

that could be pretty cool if it was done right, like an X-men team-up book, or like what Whedon's Astonishing' was.

and, like you say, it could be where the teams crossover so they wouldn't need to be always guest-starring in each other's books, which could then develop their own stories and voices without intrusion.

I'd check it out.

Magneto's Brotherhood of Force lol X-Force:

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Frenzy : Warpath : Unuscione : Elixir : Omega Sentinel : Sage

@oldnightcrawler: Yeah i'd definitely be checking that one out. Im suprised you had Magik there instead of Nightcrawler

@hawk2916: Nightcrawler is the most awesome (as well as my own personal favorite), but that doesn't mean that his strengths as a character would necessarily play to the strengths of every team. On this team, with so many strong personalities, I could easily see him not standing out or adding enough of a distinct perspective to really serve the group dynamic.

@adamtrmm said:

Magneto's Brotherhood of Force lol X-Force:

Gallery

Frenzy : Warpath : Unuscione : Elixir : Omega Sentinel : Sage

like the team... but there's no chance in hell Omega Sentinel would be on a team lead by Magneto...