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Guest appearance.

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Technically the flowers should probably be hidden by the image-inducer, too, but I couldn't resist the "bit".

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I expect Jack Kirby would have chided me for having them just standing there, instead of making a dramatic entrance such as he gave the original team in X-MEN 1!

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With all due respect to The King, I must admit to getting a chill when the Professor introduced the Evans family to the team! I don't remember my teachers being that cool! ;)

Which makes me curious about Xavier's intro of the X-Men as Willy's new instructors. Here, he has embraced the idea that the X-Men are no longer students, whereas in your original run on Uncanny, Xavier was treating them as students as late as the beginning of the Hellfire Club storyline (Xavier punishing Wolverine with demerits for walking out of a Danger Room session and the resulting debate between X and Scott).

Will there be more exploration of this attitude shift of the Professor's? I find it a very intriguing new dynamic...

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I am using this project to address more than just what might have happened "next". The whole point of introducing Kitty was to be the first of a new second team, to fulfill the "students of Charles Xavier" line in the old splash page top copy, which Shooter's Whim of Iron one day decided was the defining characteristic of the book.*

Chris and I insisted that the defining characteristic was "feared and hated by the world they are sworn to protect," but Shooter was having none of it.

So, here, a pyrrhic victory of sorts, as I restore our original intent, albeit not as a major theme. Too many other things to address!

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* That (with the possible exception of Colossus) NONE of the all-new, all-different X-Men were in need of "training" was of no concern to the Whim.