Well it’s been a rough week for the X-Men, with a number of big names dying this week.
Of course, we all know that mutant heaven has revolving doors, but I doubt some of the smaller names will be given the same grace as the more major stars.
It’s a been a bad week to be a teleporter (without giving away any spoilers). Magik disabled by some invocation summoning some unspeakable evil. I know Bastion is partly a futuristic super computer, but still! Tactically brilliant but somehow a little out of place.
Still, Illyana has been in worse scrapes, and we must recall that this is not Illyana, merely the DarkChylde.
One character I doubt will be receiving a resurrection is that of Ariel, incinerated as a missle hit the car in which she was travelling. Of course Wolverine and X-23 manage to walk out of the wreckage, but Ariel was not so lucky.
Her fifteen minutes of fame arrived with her first appearance in the Fallen Angels back in the late Eighties. Not technically a mutant but an extra-terrestrial from the curiously named world of Coconut Grove, she came to earth on a mission to recruit mutants for research by her race, hoping to create mutations in themselves. Considering that it was implied all of her race had the ability to bend space as she did, this was more than a little greedy.
Ariel switched loyalties when her homeworlders realised that her ability to influence peoples decisions was a mutant power in and of itself, and she returned her allies to Earth. But like the New Mutants supporting character Gossamyr, she vanished into obscurity until recently. How and why she was now part of the X-tribe was never explained, although her return was celebrated here with sentiments close to mine. Was she on the run from Coconut Grove, that hell second only to Hollywood? Or on yet another mission?
Will her death have repercussions? Will the Grovers (ooo, bad name, visions of Sesame Street) pursue her, or want revenge for her passing? How would the Earth fight off an invasion of space-benders? Who will the X-Men now rely upon for cutting edge fashion advice (even if it is by way of Dame Edna).
It is a crying shame that Ariel’s return to the spotlight has been so very brief. I hope this is not the end we have heard of Coconut Grove.
