Chapter 29
Chamber has to be one of the best designed mutants in Marvel history. Jono Starsmore was a teenage mutant whose powers emerged and blew off his lower jaw and upper chest cavity. Starsmore was presented as a being with a chest full of psionic energy that eliminated his ability to speak and his need to eat, drink or breathe. Chamber used that psionic energy to talk to others telepathically, but he hid a lot of things about his past. When his powers first appeared, he accidentally crippled his girlfriend. Eventually, he would grow despondent after seeing that Synch learned to use his abilities better than him. After Synch died, Chamber bounced around a bit between the X-Men and X Corps. Then, the best work was done with the character that nobody read.
Chamber’s great-grandparents were part of Clan Akkaba. That’s right, Chamber’s family and their wealth comes from their direct ties to Apocalypse. His ancestor’s ability was fire breathing and he used it to fight Dracula, as the Lord of Vampires tried to destroy the last vestiges of Apocalypse’s influences. Thankfully, the Starsmores allowed Clan Akkaba to continue with the few lives they managed to save from Dracula’s wrath. In the present era, Clan Akkaba would try to force Chamber to join but he rejected them. Currently, he’s functioning as an extreme change instructor/counselor for new mutants at the Jean Grey School.
Synch is a teenager from St. Louis that doesn’t realize he’s a mutant until Banshee tries to save him from the Phalanx. Synching with Banshee for the first time, he screams so loudly that he blows out all of the windows in Downtown St. Louis and draws the attention of the police. The duo escapes with some side help and they undergo the events of the Phalanx Covenant. During that first year, Synch learns a lot about his powers and what they can do. Basically, the kid can open an aura field that allows him to duplicate and perfect powers of those around him. For modern era fans, think of him as an urban Hope Summers. Synch pals around the Massachusetts Academy for awhile until he dies saving human kids from an anti-mutant terrorist group.
Skin was a former gang member from East Los Angeles, whose powers activated and gave him six extra feet of skin. The skeleton remained the same, so there was no use for Mr. Fantastic style theatrics. Skin spent most of his time trying to find a way to pass for normal, but the efforts usually failed. He saved by the time by getting his former girlfriend help them to trick the Prime Sentinels during Operation: Zero Tolerance. Then, things went quiet for a long time. Unfortunately, Chuck Austen happened and Skin was one of several mutants left crucified on the front lawn of the X-Mansion. Skin didn’t survive his crucifixion by the hands of the Church of Humanity. The last major story involving Skin was Husk and Jubilee’s efforts to have him buried in his hometown after they found out he was a mutant.
Husk was the second oldest Guthrie kid after Cannonball. During many of Sam Guthrie’s early trips back home, Paige Guthrie appeared as the older sister willing to do anything. Then, her skin started peeling off. Husk couldn’t change her shape, just her body’s composition. This allowed her to take on new forms and overcome injuries to her old body. After Husk ended her time with Generation X, she joined the X Corps and the X-Men. That’s when she started hooking up with Angel and in one of the worst moments of the 00s, she had aerial sex with Warren over her family’s farm. At the time, the full Guthrie clan was watching from below, as they had no idea what was going on. This too was another Peter/Kitty relationship, but it was grosser since Paige had just become legal while Warren was well into his 30s. Husk later joined the Jean Grey School and begin a flirtation with Toad.
M is so damn complicated, that I’m going to have to break this down into chunks. Her older brother Marius was dark and brooding. Marius also was indirectly responsible for their mother’s death. M’s father kicked him out of the house, but Marius made M an offer first to conquer another dimension. She rejected it and Marius turned her into the red skinned being known as Penance. M’s younger twin sisters found out about what happened, as Penance jumped into the other dimension to go after Marius. The younger twin girls decided to use their powers to merge into a copy of M. Unfortunately, one of the twins was autistic and made the newly merged M clone into an arrogant being that was prone to go catatonic at the worst times.
Penance was always the key to figuring out the mystery of M. I can vividly remember the huge commotion caused by comic nerds trying to figure out who Penance was, it wouldn’t be until the dawn of 2000 when we found out that Penance was the real M and the St. Croix twins were posing as their sister. After a retcon of a previous Emplate (that’s Marius’s villain name) explanation, the complicated truth became known. Adult M took over and eventually became part of Madrox’s X-Factor Investigations. Monet remained arrogant as ever, but she possessed a quiet rage after being victimized by Emplate for so long. The St. Croix twins would later reform as Penance, but an unfortunate blast separated them from the Penance body. Now, Penance functions as an independent agent named Hollow and hangs out with the Avengers Academy.
There are other characters that hung around with Generation X for a period of time. Howard the Duck, Tana Nile, Man-Thing, Gaia, Adrienne Frost and many others come to mind. However, they aren’t essential to telling the story of what was “Generation X”. However, there is one person we’re leaving out. I didn’t want to include him, as the nature of his appearance in the comic was merely a setup for a Black Tom Cassidy attack.
Mondo is a giant Samoan who was quickly replaced with a plant bio-mass duplicated before officially joining the team. Nobody cares about Mondo.