Polite Dissent

5 Responses to “ PSA Monday: Spider-Man and the New Mutants featuring Skids ”

1. JD
   November 22nd, 2005 at 7:07 am
   

   Rusty died when Holocaust destroyed Avalon in X-Men v2 #42 (Skids and him had joined the Acolytes some time ago). Skids was saved (along with most of the Acolytes) by Cyclops in the following issues.
   After that, she left the Acolytes and went back to a normal life, attending university and all that. She was not seen again until X-Force #78, which was part of their roadtrip storyline (if I’m not mistaken, X-Force make a halt at her house).

2. Rex
   November 22nd, 2005 at 8:51 am
   

   I was quite upset when they killed Rusty off in an effort to make Holocaust into a credible threat. He and Skids were interesting background characters the sort I think are good to keep around for future writers to spin something out of rather than throw away like that. Skids, too, was pretty much forgotten about until that later X-Force storyline and then again until she showed up as part of the X-Corps but, then, so did a lot of forgotten mutants. Granted, nothing much had been done with him for years, the whole Acolyte situation needed shaking up, and the aftermath was actually a decent story but I liked Rusty, darn it, and he deserved better.

   They were both in the New Mutants, though. It was a brief stay but they joined in New Mutants #76 along with the other older members of the X-Terminators (Rictor, who bounced in and out of the title, and Boom-Boom, who went on to become a mainstay of the team through its X-Force days) shortly before Liefeld took the title over. This was right after Inferno and Magneto, when the New Mutants were crashing with the original X-Factor at the Ship. Since the X-Terminators were X-Factor’s young mutant hangers-on the two teams were swiftly merged.

   I don’t believe they were ever Xavier’s students and they only lasted about two issues before the rest of the team blasted off to Asgard and X-Factor blasted off to outer space so you can argue whether or not they were “official” but they appeared in the New Mutants as members of the team and that’s good enough for me. Rusty and Skids went on to a lengthy subplot with the Vulture of all people for a while but that was it for them as far as the team went. Eventually they wound up being captured by Freedom Force and then being rescued by the MLF, which they subsequently signed up with, just as Cable showed up. Later on it was revealed they were brainwashed into becoming mutant terrorists and they were freed by Magneto so, of course, they signed up with the Acolytes and that’s how they got to Avalon and the long slide into obscurity.

3. M
   November 22nd, 2005 at 9:17 am
   

   “Long time X-Factor readers (both of you) will remember that Skids herself was an abused child…”

   Hey! I resemble that remark.

4. Mike Loughlin
   November 23rd, 2005 at 8:11 am
   

   In the last New Mutants Annual (1991), there was a timeline showing who joined the New Mutants and when. Rusty & Skids were included.

5. Christopher J. Arndt
   November 23rd, 2005 at 9:53 am
   

   The X-Terminators were not Xavier’s students as one of the rifts between the New Mutants and X-Factor’s kid-sidekicks was that Rictor, Boom-Boom, Skids, etc were not students of Xavier, and thus were (very) slight philosophical differences. The largest difference being that Rictor, (especially) Boom-Boom, etc refused to share in the reverance for the man, due to the fact that they’re exposure to Professor X’s teachings were all second-hand.

   Yes, Skids joined the New Mutants and then were kidnapped by the MLF. Then they joined. They they joined the Acolytes and then Rusty was murdered by Holocaust.

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