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One of the X-Men’s most famous dead members is still missing, and Marvel just made his continued absence much more mysterious.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for X-Men #1 by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz, Marte Gracia & VC’s Clayton Cowles, on sale now
Thanks to the advancements of Krakoa, Marvel’s mutant race has discovered the key to quick and easy resurrection. But despite their ability to effectively restore any dead mutant to a new body, there’s one major former X-Man who’s been left behind.
As X-Men #1 makes it clear that to the world, the original Thunderbird, John Proudstar, is still apparently dead. However, that raises the question of why he hasn’t been resurrected by the life-restoring powers of the Five.
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John Proudstar first appeared in Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum. Blessed with enhanced strength, speed, and endurance thanks to his mutation, Proudstar was one of the mutants approached by Charles Xavier to join his new team of young mutant heroes so they could save the original X-Men — who’d been captured by Krakoa. The brash and bold Thunderbird agreed and took the name Thunderbird. He remained as a part of the team following their successful mission, but his time on the team was tragically short-lived. On their next mission, the X-Men confronted Count Nefaria. And in X-Men #95 by Chris Claremont, Len Wein, and Dave Cockrum, Thunderbird ignored the warnings of his teammates and jumped atop Nefaria’s fleeing jet.
When the jet exploded, Thunderbird was killed. His death has long hung over the X-Men, with his younger brother eventually joining Emma Frost’s Hellions and later X-Force as Warpath. Like other dead mutants, Thunderbird was briefly restored by the events of Necrosha and Chaos War, where the later event made John crucial in Hercules’ fight against an angry god.
Thunderbird has long been one of Marvel’s most notable mutant deaths. Despite the common nature of X-Men being restored to life after death, Thunderbird never made a full return to the world. Even in the age of resurrection introduced by the nation of Krakoa, Thunderbird seemingly remains unrestored. It raises a number of questions, especially considering the scope of the others who have been restored to life — including Changeling, who died before Thunderbird. Beyond that, Marvel has confirmed that Xavier’s Cerebro created back-ups of the many mutants who were revived during Necrosha.
Despite his heroic legacy, there doesn’t seem to be a rallying cry to bring him back to life, even from his brother James, who has found a home as one of the teachers of the next generation of mutants on Krakoa. In X-Men #1, it’s revealed that the X-Men have erected public memorials to Thunderbird, ranging from wanting to name the next X-Jet after him to placing a memorial to him near their Seneca Garden base.
With Krakoa doing its best to hide the truth about its resurrection protocols from the rest of the world, it may have been decided that Thunderbird needed to remain deceased to retain the illusion of normalcy, especially since he was one of the more public deaths in the mutant community. His only confirmed appearance so far has seemingly been a psionic vision shown to Nightcrawler in Giant-Size X-Men: Nightcrawler, but even that was just an illusion.
His ability to be restored may be complicated by his actions during Chaos War, where he briefly used the powers of a god known as the Thunderbird. There’s also the off chance that he even has been restored to life but remained in hiding, unbeknownst to the X-Men. However, there’s one other element that could play a factor with Thunderbird’s lack of presence on Krakoa: when Mister Sinister remade himself to become a part of Krakoa in House of X/Powers of X, he spliced himself with Thunderbird’s DNA.
Perhaps to hide this and keep Thunderbird from being restored, Siniser has done his best to keep the rest of the X-Men from realizing he even has Thunderbird’s DNA on file, potentially preventing the Five from even having the chance to bring him back to the world. Still, this all adds up to a mystery about why Thunderbird is being left out of the great era of mutant resurrection, and Marvel is only shining a spotlight on his absence.
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