SKIN: Page 3 of 3

BIOGRAPHY - Page 3

After a severe loss in funding, Emma was forced to ask her older sister, Adrienne, for money and the school started to accept human students to pay for the bills. All of a sudden, the members of Generation X had to be careful about their secret identities. Whereas Chamber had to pass as a mute burn victim, Angelo’s appearance was explained as him having a rare pigmentation disorder. [Generation X (1st series) #50] While the explanations convinced the other students, at least for the time being, Angelo and Jono still had to deal with much unwanted attention.

However, they at least were allowed to move around on the Academy estate, unlike Artie, Leech and Penance, who had to remain hidden in their rooms all the time. The presence of the human students reminded Angelo of his life before his mutant powers kicked in, when he was quite handsome and together with a hot looking girl. Due to his appearance, he feared he’d never feel like that again. However, Artie and Leech arranged for Monet St. Croix, the most beautiful girl at the Academy, to be his date for the school dance and every male student envied Angelo. He later tried to thank Monet, but she quickly brushed it off - it hadn’t been her intention to cheer him up. Quite on the contrary, she only went to the dance with Angelo because nobody else had asked her, as all the boys thought she was out of their league. [Generation X (1st series) #57]

A few weeks later, Angelo intervened when a few bullies were harassing another student. The argument almost turned in a fight and, when one of the guys grabbed Angelo’s wrist, he found out that his skin was not just gray, but also elastic. Suspecting Angelo to be a mutant, the bully alerted his parents. Emma Frost did her best to convince them that it was just part of Angelo’s supposed skin disease, but the shadow of doubt remained. Not much later, in an attempt to get back at her sister, Adrienne Frost fully outed the school’s secret, causing a riot. She also hid a number of bombs in the school, and Skin’s teammate, Synch, paid the ultimate price when he sacrificed his own life while trying to disarm a bomb. [Generation X (1st series) #67-70]

Their home in ruins, Generation X decided that the time for learning was over and that they needed to use their powers to help others. In order to do that, Banshee pointed out that they needed to improve in their performance and they trained like they never had before. [Generation X (1st series) #63] Angelo especially came up with several new moves and uses for his skin powers. This came in quite handy, when Banshee was kidnapped by some old contacts from his life of crime and espionage. Skin single-handedly defeated the four criminals and took his injured teacher to a hospital. [Generation X (1st series) #73]

When both their mentors started to behave strangely - Sean turning to alcohol after his lover, Moira MacTaggert, was killed and Emma trying to avoid questioning by the police regarding Adrienne’s whereabouts - Generation X began to doubt their effectiveness and decided to disband. Chamber had been invited to join the X-Men, and the rest of the group went their separate ways after making their good-byes. Having nowhere else to go, Skin accompanied Jubilee on a road trip across the country back to their native Los Angeles. [Generation X (1st series) #75]

Once there, they shared an apartment and Angelo aimed for a more normal life, starting to work in the kitchen of fast food restaurant. With growing concern, he observed Jubilee’s attempts to get into the movie business, but he felt that she was exploited by her dubious agent. When he told Jubilee of his doubts, though, she accused him of being jealous. But a few days later, after her agent had made a move on her, she saw her mistake and returned to Angelo, apologizing for the way she had treated him. [X-Men Unlimited (1st series) #34]

Slowly but surely, Angelo felt more than friendship for Jubilee and he asked her out on a date, but she turned him down, not wanting to jeopardize the relationship they had. In retrospect, though, she blamed herself for not making Angelo’s final days happy. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #427]

It was only a few days later that both Angelo and Jubilee were kidnapped by the anti-mutant group, the Church of Humanity, who crucified them and several others on the front lawn of Xavier’s school. Whereas Jubilee was able to be restored with Archangel’s healing blood, Skin was not as fortunate. His and Archangel’s blood types were not compatible, meaning he was beyond help. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #423]

Not even in death could Skin find peace. His mother also having died in the meantime, Xavier’s arranged for Angelo to be buried in Los Angeles, right next to the graves of his family. However, when several other tenants complained about a mutant being buried there, the manager of the graveyard had Angelo dug up again. His remains were cremated and his ashes were handed over to Jubilee. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #427]

Time passed, the X-Men moved on, and eventually managed to conquer death itself for mutantkind. A quintet of mutants were guided by Professor Xavier in using their powers in conjunction, fabricating a unique effect that could restore mutants to life through a preserved genetic sample and a copy of their psychic essence from Cerebro. Angelo's fallen teammate Synch was among the first mutants planned for the resurrection protocols, for Xavier hoped his synchronistic aura could provide redundancy for the Resurrection Five. When Everett showed difficulty psychologically adjusting to his return, Angelo was fast-tracked through the resurrection protocols too, giving him a friend with similar experience to go through the adjustment process with. The success of Synch and Skin's bond aiding their recovery led to a new policy of clustering future resurrections in the same manner. [House of X #6, X-Men (5th series) #5]