CHENEY, LILA: Page 2 of 3

Publication Date: 22nd Mar 2022
Written By: sixhoursoflucy and Monolith.
Image Work: sixhoursoflucy.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - Page 2

Lila returned to her beach-house in Malibu after her extended absence, only to discover Guido had taken in her old friend, Alison Blaire. Alison, however, had amnesia and remembered nothing of her past life with the X-Men. Lila allowed Dazzler to continue staying with her, but remained perplexed about her condition. One day, while they were lounging around her house, Alison's former lover, the X-Man Longshot, teleported into the room and said he needed Alison's help in his homeworld, the Mojoverse. Mere moments after Longshot arrived, the time-twisting sorceress Spiral arrived in pursuit of him, compelling Lila to teleport them all to safety. As their luck would have it, however, Major Domo, a henchman of Mojo's, had tampered with Lila's teleportation power, and tricked her into transporting all three of them into Mojo's lair in the Mojoverse. Their quick thinking and battle prowess helped the three of them escape and reconvene with the Mojoverse rebels. Despite the ambition of the rebels, however, their uprising failed. Mojo slaughtered most of the rebel troops and took both Longshot and Lila Cheney captive. Dazzler eluded capture and reached out to the X-Men for assistance, only to ensnare all of them in another one of Mojo's traps. [X-Men (2nd series) #5-7, 10]

With Lila Cheney and all the X-Men now captives of Mojo, the maniacal overlord of the Mojoverse conditioned them to perform in a twisted version of The Wizard of Oz he creatively dubbed "The Wizard of X." In this live, ratings-grabbing television performance, Lila Cheney was outfitted with wings and played a flying monkey in pursuit of the show's star, Longshot. Thankfully, Dazzler had slipped Mojo's grip once again and ambushed him in his studio, breaking his hold over the X-Men. Longshot finally killed the overlord, freeing the Mojoverse from his rule (and transferring it to Mojo II: The Sequel instead). With the Mojoverse supposedly free, Lila suggested that the X-Men hang around for a bit and celebrate before returning home to deal with the next mess that undoubtedly awaited them. [X-Men (2nd series) #10-11]

Apparently, the album Lila recorded in Los Angeles turned out to be a tremendous flop, both with critics and the public, and lost her record company huge sums of money. Lila's career continued nonetheless. [X-Force (1st series) #19] It was at one of Lila Cheney's concerts in New York’s Central Park that a man who appeared to be X-Force's leader, Cable, emerged from the crowd and shot the concert's guest speaker Professor Xavier in the chest. The X-Men took Xavier home to recover and then began the hunt for Cable, starting with the team he led, X-Force. For Lila, this was conflicting, as her former lover Cannonball was presently a member of X-Force—as was his current sweetheart, Boom-Boom. The entire team was taken captive and detained at Xavier 's School until the X-Men had found enough evidence to exonerate them of any wrongdoing. [X-Cutioner’s Song crossover]

Lila stuck around the X-Mansion for a while after the mystery surrounding the Cable lookalike and the assassination attempt on Xavier was resolved. During her stay, Lila encountered Boom-Boom tinkering with some equipment in the mansion. Understandably, Boom-Boom felt defensive around Cannonball’s former, much more accomplished lover, but Lila informed Boom-Boom that she and Sam were not together anymore; they had split up because he was too young and she was too busy. She gave Boom-Boom her blessing on her relationship with Sam, and while this eased Boom-Boom's fears, Lila still had to endure the teenager's jabs about her latest dud of an album and dated look. [X-Force (1st series) #19]

After X-Force was officially released, Lila transported the exonerated team back to their new base at the Apache Reservation in Camp Verde, Arizona. She procured an advanced comm-array for them from a black market dealer in Alpha Centauri and helped them install it. Upon finishing the installation, however, they discovered that the recently deceased Cable's orbiting headquarters, Graymalkin, had appeared in the space above Earth. X-Force wanted to salvage as much as they could from it before it fell into the wrong hands, and they needed Lila's help to do it. Lila transported a strike team up to the space station and joined them on the salvage mission, only to encounter opposition from S.H.I.E.L.D. and War Machine. In the heat of the battle, Lila, putting her own self-interest over those of her allies, fled. However, she returned shortly thereafter to retrieve the rest of them—although she had to pass on a great card game elsewhere in the galaxy to do so. She took most of the strike team home while Cannonball and Sunspot remained behind to jettison as much of Cable's cargo on Graymalkin as they could. Back on the ground, Lila was on hand when the cargo loads came falling to Earth. She helped X-Force fix up the mess they made, and departed shortly thereafter, reminding Cannonball that she was never one to stick around for too long. Besides, as she reminded him, she was now on the lam from her record company. [X-Force (1st series) #20-22]

After leaving X-Force, Lila paid a visit to her old friend Guido, who was now a member of the government-sponsored mutant team X-Factor. Lila surprised him in the shower and whisked him away with her to another planet in the galaxy, where her adoring fans greeted her and her naked friend with enthusiasm. Lila pleaded with Guido to return as her bodyguard for her upcoming interstellar tour, but Guido repeatedly refused her offer, saying he had other friends and responsibilities to worry about now. Lila became annoyed with him for being such a downer and a bore and sent him on his way home—although she admitted to herself she was going to miss him. [X-Factor (1st series) #93] Lila returned home to Earth for a brief stay weeks later, when she and her band played at the wedding of Scott Summers and Jean Grey. [X-Men (2nd series) #30]

When the alien race known as the K'Lanti became embroiled in a civil war, Lila, fearing an invaluable music box native to their planet might be destroyed in the fighting, took it upon herself to take this item, the Harmonium, for safekeeping. After the K'Lanti civil war subsided and the aliens discovered the Harmonium had been stolen, Lila became their next target. Lila would have been happy to return the Harmonium to them—if she had still had it. However, an alien bandit named Jornik had looted her treasure vault while she was on tour. With both her life and potentially the fate of Earth on the line, Lila began scouring the galaxy, trying to find Jornik. She scoured four different solar systems chasing after Jornik, and finally found him on her home planet of Earth—only to discover, to her surprise, that he had taken her friend Guido as a hostage. Lila freed Guido and learned Jornik had sold the Harmonium to a scrap dealer on Cygnus Prime. She and Guido rendezvoused with X-Factor and requested their help in recovering the Harmoniun—just as the K'Lanti arrived. [X-Factor (1st series) #110]

Lila begged X-Factor not to get involved in her ordeal with the K'Lanti, as it was a situation purely of her own making. She tried to escape and lead them away from Earth, but they captured her and threatened to detonate bombs all over the city of Madripoor if she didn't return the Harmonium. Lila explained that she needed time to retrieve it for them, and asked to go free. The K'Lanti complied, but detonated a bomb over Madripoor as a demonstration of their power, and dispersed six additional bombs throughout the city that would detonate if Lila didn't return with their music box within the hour. After apologizing profusely to X-Factor for endangering the people of Earth, Lila, Guido and Polaris teleported to Cygnus Prime, where Lila bullied the junk dealer into returning the Harmonium to her. They returned to Earth with time to spare, and Lila presented the K'Lanti with their cherished music box. Without a word, they took the box and vanished, leaving behind a token of their "appreciation": one final bomb. Without understanding what it was, Lila picked up the bomb, arming it. The ensuing blast would have killed her, had Guido not pushed her out of the way and thrown himself on top of the bomb. He survived the initial detonation, but his body couldn't handle the amount of kinetic energy it absorbed, and he suffered a heart attack and collapsed, much to Lila’s dismay. [X-Factor (1st series) #111]

After Guido awoke from his coma and had his heart strengthened, Lila took him with her on the final legs of her intergalactic tour. As the tour neared its end, she begged Guido to stay on with her crew. Guido was reluctant to stay, but Lila, after being temporarily kidnapped by an incompetent alien race, reminded Guido she was always in danger, and stole him away so he could lead her security team. While on tour, Lila became embroiled in a war between two alien races, the Jorken and the Kront, over a barren moon called Yordel. For once, the conflict wasn't of Lila's making; both races just wanted to use her teleportation ability to blow up the other's home planet. When the aliens realized they couldn't hold Lila captive, they attempted to kidnap Guido to use him as a hostage. Lila and Guido eventually concocted a plan wherein they tricked both races to fire all their missiles on Yordel, destroying the source of their conflict and hopefully ending it. Afterward, Lila made a tearful plea to Guido to stay with her, confessing that she loved him and didn’t know what she would do without him. To her surprise, Guido agreed to remain with her throughout her adventures. Immediately after Lila's final show of her tour, however, she came under siege from the combined forces of the Jorkel and the Kront, who had put their differences aside and teamed up to punish Lila, their new mutual enemy, for destroying their cherished moon. She and Guido fled in a panic. [Strong Guy Reborn #1]

Sometime after fleeing their pursuers, Lila and Guido had a falling out, the details of which they refused to discuss. [Madrox #1] Lila scaled down her act and resumed spending time on Earth. When her old flame Cannonball attended one of her shows in Paris, they rekindled their dormant romance. Life was so good for them that Lila begged Sam to stay out of the affairs of the X-Men and instead spend his time with her. As such, she was understandably upset when Sam agreed to join Storm's offshoot X-Men team. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #24]

Lila was playing a show in the mutant haven Valle Solleada when an anti-mutant fanatic entered the club and tried to detonate a suicide bomb. Thankfully, Cannonball and Rogue were both on hand to dispel the threat by flying the bomber into the air and detonating the device away from innocent bystanders. Lila feared for Cannonball's safety during the incident, however, and when he returned she teleported him and herself far away from Earth. They returned a while later after Lila had time to decompress. They continued their relationship despite Sam's involvement with the X-Men and all the risk it entailed. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #31-33, X-Men (2nd series) #165]

At some point, for reasons unknown, Lila and Sam stopped seeing each other (again) and she excused herself from the affairs of the X-Men. Fortunately for Lila, she managed to retain her teleportation ability after M-Day eradicated the powers of most of the world's mutants. She reappeared a long time later in London, when the nigh-omnipotent mutant Legion arrived in town and requested the help of some noteworthy British mutants in aiding him with a mission to "wipe mutophobic Britain off the map." MI13 agent Pete Wisdom assumed they were up to no good, but Legion proved him wrong by coordinating a publicity campaign showcasing how British mutants could use their powers for the betterment of the United Kingdom. Among other things, various British mutants used their powers to purge traumatic wartime memories from members of their armed forces, provide clean energy, pacify potentially violent sports fans, convert brownfields into suitable corridors for highspeed rail and prevent political assassinations—all of which Lila recorded and broadcast to the whole of Great Britain. [X-Men: Legacy (2nd series) #13-14]