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History (WIP)
Quentin Quire was introduced in 2001, has appeared in over 240 individual issues, and is a main character or featured heavily in a particular storyline in 14 books, give or take.
A NOTE REGARDING TIME: As stated, the Marvel universe has been running for 60+ real world years. Scott Summers and Peter Parker, two of the earliest characters introduced, are not 75+ years old, nor will they probably ever be. Thus the sliding timescale, where the in-universe time becomes increasingly compressed the more real world time passes. Based on the most recent official timeline, the Genosha massacre and the formation of the Krakoan nation were three (very busy) years apart, despite contextual clues in earlier books (characters saying “last year”, narrative text saying “8 months later”,etc) suggesting a larger span of time. To summarize: time doesn’t matter, don’t ask how old characters are, and don’t try to figure out how long it’s been since anything happened.
THE STORY SO FAR
Once upon a time there was a man named Charles Xavier who was born with a wonderful gift, a mutated gene that in his childhood made him suddenly gain the ability to read minds. He met another mutant with the ability to control magnetic fields, and the two men developed a friendship, but they disagreed on how to interact with regular humans. Xavier had a dream of a peaceful coexistence with humans, while Magneto believed humans would never accept mutants, and therefore mutants should wipe out humans and take their rightful place as the higher evolved species. They parted ways, and Xavier, having lost the use of his legs, adopted five mutant children to train as superheroes to further his goal of mutants living in harmony with humanity. Those five children were Scott Summers (given the codename Cyclops), Hank McCoy (Beast), Bobby Drake (Iceman), Warren Worthington III (Angel), and Jean Grey (Marvel Girl). The so-called “X-Men”, named for their “x-factor” (and also because Xavier is kind of an egomaniac) fought Magneto and a motley crew of other supervillains, while Charles fought for mutant rights in the political sphere under the guise of a kindly human man with a fondness for “Gifted Youngsters.” Several notable things happened during this era. In no particular order:
- A cosmic godlike entity of life and death taking the form of a fiery bird, predictably call the Phoenix Force, possessed Jean. An underground BDSM cult of shady rich people was involved.
Governments and various companies funded the creation of giant robots specifically designed to detect and kill mutants. This is where your tax money goes in the Marvel universe, people. - Many recognizable new faces joined the team: James “Logan” Howlett (Wolverine), Ororo Monroe (Storm), Kurt Wagner (Night-crawler), Katherine “Kitty” Pryde (various codenames, none of which stuck for very long), Anna Marie (Rogue), Remy LeBeau (Gambit), and Jubilation “Jubilee” Lee (Wondra).
- A five-thousand-year-old mutant named En Sabah Nur, also called Apocalypse, became a recurring villain due to his belief in “survival of the fittest,” by which he meant “all the humans should die or be enslaved because they suck”.
- A (fictional) island off of the coast of Madagascar became a thriving metropolis due to the use of mutants as slaves. Magneto freed the slaves and took over the island, claiming it as a mutant utopia. That island was called Genosha.
NEW X-MEN (2001) Morrison
The population of mutants on Genosha skyrocketed, and it became home to 16 million of the 17 million mutants living on earth at the time. One day, Charles Xavier’s evil twin (yes, really) Cassandra Nova concocted a plan to unleash a giant sentinel on the thriving utopia of Genosha, and within an hour all 16 million mutants were slaughtered. Cassandra then possessed Xavier's body and publicly announced that he and every student at his school was a mutant. (No, I don't know how he got away with telling everyone that he's a regular human guy with a regular school for both human and mutant students that also just happens to be an “expert” on mutants and have an entirely mutant superhero team on staff.) Hate crimes against mutants skyrocketed, and anti-mutant protesters formed angry mobs outside the gates of the Xavier estate.
Enter Quentin Quire. As a student of Xavier’s school, Quentin was one of the surviving mutants after the attack on Genosha, as well as one of the students outed as a mutant after Cassandra's announcement. Quentin was a favorite of Xavier’s, likely due to their shared gifts of telepathy and high intelligence, though he struggled to be as well-liked by his peers. While he was by no means antisocial–in his first appearance he built a mobility device for a fellow telepathic student who had been mutilated by anti-mutant scientists–he was often surly and abrasive to his classmates, particularly the “popular” kids. He did, however, appear to have a strong relationship with his parents, both of whom were human, enough that he communicated with them telepathically in lieu of owning a cell phone.
On his birthday (most likely 16th), Quentin’s parents called him on the school’s public phone, and in the conversation he learned he was adopted. It’s unclear if he was told or if he discovered this information using telepathy, but it can be gleaned from context that they were likely concerned about being targeted by anti-mutant hate groups for having a recently “outed” mutant child. Regardless, Quentin took the news poorly and started lashing out at anyone he considered to be “fake,” first against a classmate whose powers allowed him to project a more attractive appearance than his true body and later Xavier himself. With the additional influence of a teacher who was secretly evil, Quentin started using a drug called Kick, which both amplified his powers and pushed him to violence. (Kick was later revealed to be an aerosolized form of a sentient mind-controlling bacteria.) He formed a “gang” of other students that attacked some anti-mutant hoodlums in an alley and later attempted to take over the Xavier Institute to terrorize a group of humans who were peacefully touring the school as an outreach event. Quentin and his gang were stopped, but his use of Kick destabilized his molecules, and he died. Sophie Cuckoo, a girl Quentin had long been obsessed with and tried unsuccessfully to impress, also died while trying to stop Quentin’s riot.
The secretly evil teacher later became less secretly evil and tried to kill New York. He was defeated and killed, but not before he murdered Jean Grey. Dismayed by what he perceived to be his own failures, Charles Xavier left the school to do some soul-searching. Scott Summers then became the de-facto leader of the X-Men
Enter Quentin Quire. As a student of Xavier’s school, Quentin was one of the surviving mutants after the attack on Genosha, as well as one of the students outed as a mutant after Cassandra's announcement. Quentin was a favorite of Xavier’s, likely due to their shared gifts of telepathy and high intelligence, though he struggled to be as well-liked by his peers. While he was by no means antisocial–in his first appearance he built a mobility device for a fellow telepathic student who had been mutilated by anti-mutant scientists–he was often surly and abrasive to his classmates, particularly the “popular” kids. He did, however, appear to have a strong relationship with his parents, both of whom were human, enough that he communicated with them telepathically in lieu of owning a cell phone.
On his birthday (most likely 16th), Quentin’s parents called him on the school’s public phone, and in the conversation he learned he was adopted. It’s unclear if he was told or if he discovered this information using telepathy, but it can be gleaned from context that they were likely concerned about being targeted by anti-mutant hate groups for having a recently “outed” mutant child. Regardless, Quentin took the news poorly and started lashing out at anyone he considered to be “fake,” first against a classmate whose powers allowed him to project a more attractive appearance than his true body and later Xavier himself. With the additional influence of a teacher who was secretly evil, Quentin started using a drug called Kick, which both amplified his powers and pushed him to violence. (Kick was later revealed to be an aerosolized form of a sentient mind-controlling bacteria.) He formed a “gang” of other students that attacked some anti-mutant hoodlums in an alley and later attempted to take over the Xavier Institute to terrorize a group of humans who were peacefully touring the school as an outreach event. Quentin and his gang were stopped, but his use of Kick destabilized his molecules, and he died. Sophie Cuckoo, a girl Quentin had long been obsessed with and tried unsuccessfully to impress, also died while trying to stop Quentin’s riot.
The secretly evil teacher later became less secretly evil and tried to kill New York. He was defeated and killed, but not before he murdered Jean Grey. Dismayed by what he perceived to be his own failures, Charles Xavier left the school to do some soul-searching. Scott Summers then became the de-facto leader of the X-Men
PHOENIX:
ENDSONG
(2005)
Greg Pak
ENDSONG
(2005)
Greg Pak
You know how I said Quentin died? Okay, well, he actually just became disembodied astral plane goo that was kept in a jar in Hank McCoy’s office. The Phoenix Force, having been temporarily destroyed previously, reformed itself and went looking for Jean Grey, intending to revive its favorite host. On its search, it found Quentin due to the similarity of his powers to Jean’s, but it dismissed him as “broken.” In an attempt to prove otherwise, Quentin reformed a physical body for himself and set out to claim the Phoenix’s power for himself in order to revive Sophie Cuckoo. He failed to impress both the Phoenix and Sophie, who rejected resurrection, presumably because Quentin was a borderline incel weirdo. Dismayed, Quentin returned to his incorporeal form.
MEANWHILE...
Okay, so Quentin was goo for approximately 10 real world years. During that time a lot of things happened, and the world he woke up in was very different than when he “died.” Here’s a rough summary of the major events:
- M-Day: Wanda Maximoff lost control of her powers. Who is Wanda Maximoff? Magneto’s daughter (except that got retconned). What are her powers? Reality-warping magic. Uh oh! She had a mental breakdown and created a new reality where Magneto ruled the world, mutants were the dominant species, and humans were second-class citizens. The main characters realized their reality was fake, got mad, and yelled at Wanda. Wanda put reality back to normal, but since she was really upset with mutants at the time (mostly Magneto and her brother Pietro, which admittedly both suck as people) she said “no more mutants” and instantly depowered all but about 200-300 of Earth’s mutants.
- Decimation: Everyone except for the main characters remembered nothing about the reality Wanda created, so for the vast majority of the population, there was a white flash, and then mutants were suddenly depowered. Lots of former mutants died, either because they were now easy targets for anti-mutant groups or because they lost the ability to survive physical mutations, and no new mutants were being born. With the number of mutant children in existence reduced to about 20, the school closed down, and the remaining mutant population gathered in San Francisco.
- Civil War: Meanwhile, the rest of the world was playing a fun game, and that game was called “Should we let randoms with superpowers form superhero teams and do whatever the hell they want without any kind of oversight?” Probably not, said the world. “Okay, how do we fix it?” By making everybody with superpowers register their identities with a shady government intelligence agency, where their confidential information will definitely not get immediately leaked by some crazy hacker supervillain. “This is the worst idea ever,” said Captain America. “I’ve heard worse ideas,” said Iron Man. Then everybody punched each other until they decided to stop punching each other. Who won? Nobody. Well, technically Norman Osborn, but don’t worry about it. The X-Men were largely uninvolved because there were like 200 of them in the US at the time, and nobody really wanted to bother them.
- Secret Invasion: Shape-shifting superpowered aliens called Skrulls secretly invaded Earth by pretending to be various superheroes. There was lots of drama because “how do I know how to trust” blah blah blah. Then the Skrulls not-so-secretly invaded Earth. The X-Men were like “hm, shame” for most of it except for one time when Skrulls tried to invade San Francisco, and the X-Men pretty easily defeated them.
- Utopia: After Civil War and Secret Invasion, the general population were justifiably pretty fed up with superheroes. They hired a guy to be the new leader of the Avengers, except he was a terrible person and made a new team of Avengers who were all terrible people. They bullied the mutants for a bit, but little did they know that Scott had a plan to pull Magneto’s old stupid asteroid supervillain base out of the ocean (yes, really) and make it an island that he called Utopia. For those keeping score, this is Mutant Island #2.
- Second Coming: Some unspecified-but-narratively-significant amount of time later, a miracle happened: a new mutant child was finally born! This was of interest to many different groups, and a lot of punching happened, but ultimately the decision was made to send the baby girl away with Scott’s time-traveling cyborg son from the future, known as Cable.
- Generation Hope: The child, now appropriately named Hope, returned some time later as a 16 year old girl, and with her return, a small number of mutants began to activate in the world again. One of these new mutants was Idie Okonkwo, a 13 year old girl from Nigera with the power to manipulate temperatures. Having been raised by a time-traveling cyborg soldier and taught to fight for her life from a young age, Hope arrived to the present time with an almost cult-like following of mutants who believed her to be their savior. As a result, she felt a deep sense of responsibility for the handful of new mutants who appeared, and she took it upon herself to train them to fight. Scott Summers encouraged her, believing that with so few mutants left in the world, it was prudent for all of them to do whatever it took to survive. Wolverine, however, became increasingly resentful of Scott’s willingness to put children in harm’s way.
SCHISM (2011) Aaron
It had been a difficult [insert hand-wavey number between 1 and 3] of years since M-Day, but a recent handful of incidents wherein the mutant population of Utopia defended and helped rebuild San Francisco meant that things were finally starting to look up for mutants. Their messiah had arrived, and she brought with her (heh) hope for the future. In a major forward step for progress, Scott Summers was called to speak to the United Nations about decommissioning Sentinel programs across the globe once and for all.
Enter Quentin Quire. Again.
Enter Quentin Quire. Again.
NEW X-MEN (2001) Morrison
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NEW X-MEN (2001) Morrison
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