The X-Men‘s Rachel Summers, daughter of Cyclops and Phoenix from an alternate timeline, finally has the awesome costume she deserves. Cyclops’ family tree is one of the craziest in comics. He has a forgotten half-brother, a son who’s older than his father because of time travel, and a daughter who originates from an averted dystopian timeline. The last of these, Rachel Summers, is a long-standing X-Man in her own right.
Unfortunately, poor Rachel has never had great luck when it comes to costumes. For years she dressed in an S&M-style outfit that was a homage to her history as a “Hound,” a mutant who was enslaved and forced to hunt others of her kind. When Rachel went under the alias of Marvel Girl, she adopted a rather impractical miniskirt – especially awkward given she tends to spend a lot of the time levitating. But now, at last, she’s been given the costume she deserves.
Tini Howard and Bob Quinn’s Knights of X has given the X-Men a Medieval makeover, stranding a group of them in the mystical realm of Otherworld and giving several of them striking new costumes. Rachel now dons a cool armor, complemented by a sweeping scarlet robe that’s designed to look spectacular when she’s levitating. Most striking of all, though, Otherworld has amplified the fiery effect that typically accompanies Rachel’s power, a nod to the years she spent as a Phoenix host and her time as a member of the first Excalibur team. Fire blazes from both her hair and hands, sweeping behind her like a comet’s tail when she launches herself through the air.
Rachel Summers’ new look is an impressive one, presenting her as a combination of a knight and a mage – an approach that seems entirely appropriate for the mutant powerhouse, who’s a lot tougher than she looks and who’s fought on the front lines of intergalactic wars in the past. The stakes are high in Otherworld, of course; any mutant who dies in that mystic realm will be changed forever when they are resurrected back on Krakoa. So Rachel may well have reason to be glad for the armor.
The current range of X-Men books hasn’t always been kind to Rachel. She was technically the X-Men’s first Omega mutant, and yet the relaunch depowered her. Rachel spent some time in her father’s shadow, before finally stepping up for an interesting role in the X-Factor book, and now she’s entered Otherworld for a completely different adventure. There have been hints at possible relationships between Rachel and some of her fellow X-Men, notably Betsy Braddock (formerly Psylocke, now Captain Britain); those haven’t been developed, though, leading to some accusations of queerbaiting. Hopefully, Knights of X will officially Cyclops’ daughter Rachel Summers and Betsy an item, given they’re working together in the X-Men’s Otherworld team.
Knights of X #1 is available now from Marvel Comics!
