STEPFORD CUCKOOS: Page 4 of 5

Publication Date: 27th Jul 2017
Written By: Gremlin.
Image Work: Gremlin.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - PAGE 4

During the time they spent on Utopia, tensions between Cyclops and Wolverine grew until they reached breaking point. Wolverine left the island to set up a new school in Westchester and he took a great deal of the students with him. The Three-in-One had a decision to make and, whilst Phoebe chose to go to Westchester, Irma opted to stay on Utopia. The deciding vote went to Celeste but, when she discovered the newly resurrected Quentin Quire was attending the Westchester school, she chose to remain on Utopia. Not wanting to split the group up, Phoebe was forced to remain on the island too.  [X-Men: Regenesis #1]

The Cuckoos talent for discretion came in handy one again when Emma Frost wiped her ex-lover Sebastian Shaw’s mind and faked his death. Not wanting any of the other X-Men to find him and discover her actions, she asked the Cuckoos to ignore the inevitable spike on Cerebro whenever he used his powers. Despite their animosity towards Emma, the girls agreed and Shaw’s presence remained a secret, for a while at least. One of the few remaining teens on the island was Hope Summers, the now grown-up mutant messiah baby. Few people liked her, though, including the Cuckoos, who found her rude and arrogant. Hope had been tasked with finding new mutant signatures and helping them to stabilize their emerging powers. One day, when Hope was helping the Cuckoos from being accosted by their feral teammate Primal, Hope spotted Shaw’s signature on Cerebro and demanded to know who it was. The girls tried to bluff Hope but she wasn’t having any of it and used her mimicking powers to steal the information from one of the Cuckoos. Hope was furious at being lied to, causing Phoebe to apologize much to the annoyance of the other two. [Generation Hope #13-14]

Celeste and Irma had reached their limit with Primal, whose mutant power caused him to function only on base instincts. They tried to “house-train” him by psychically neutering him, but they were discovered by Phoebe as they were doing so. Phoebe was furious with them for violating Primal’s mind, but the other two turned the argument around and accosted her for speaking out against them. Things almost turned violent between the sisters until Celeste calmed Irma down and made her see that it was Hope Summers and her team who were the problem. The whole island was starting to turn against Hope, thanks to the machinations of another new mutant Kenji, who was able to influence minds thanks to his powers. A big confrontation broke out between Hope’s team and the rest of the mutants, with the Cuckoos joining in, blaming Hope for the animosity between themselves. Kenji was eventually defeated and his influence over everyone was stopped but it was unclear as to how much of the Cuckoos actions were caused by Kenji and how much was just their jealousy of Hope. [Generation Hope #16-17]

When the Phoenix Force returned to Earth, the X-Men and Avengers went to war over what to do about it. Battle lines were drawn and the situation turned bad as the X-Men were forced to flee Utopia. The students, including the Cuckoos, were taken in by the Avengers and sent to their academy to be watched over. The students felt that they were being held as prisoners and so they tried to mount an escape before finally being let go by the Avengers themselves. As Utopia was a battle ground, the Cuckoos were forced to go to the Jean Grey School in Westchester, where they did their best to help the X-Men out in their dealings with the Avengers. The girls constantly monitored Cerebro and were listening in when Cyclops became Dark Phoenix and murdered Professor X. In spite of their grief, the Cuckoos continued to watch as Hope Summers channeled the Phoenix Force and restarted the mutant race. The girls hugged each other as they saw Cerebro suddenly light up as new mutants were created all over the world. [Avengers vs X-Men, Avengers Academy #29-31, Wolverine and the X-Men (1st series) #15, 18]

The next few weeks were turbulent, with Cyclops going on the run to set up his own school and Beast travelling back in time to bring the original five X-Men to the present. The Cuckoos did not like being at the Jean Grey School, especially now that a teenage version of Jean Grey walked the halls. The sisters were intrigued by the time-displaced girl to begin with but soon realized she was an inferior telepath to them and they did not hold back on their feelings towards her. One day, Cyclops and his teaching staff boldly teleported to the school to see if any of the Jean Grey School students wanted to defect and join his "revolution." The Cuckoos were surprised to see Emma standing alongside him and immediately entered a telepathic conversation with their former teacher whilst Cyclops made his speech. Celeste reacted rather negatively to Emma’s presence, given that the sisters had tried to reach out to her recently but had not gotten any response back.

The Cuckoos quickly realized Emma did not have her powers anymore, something which they delighted at by dragging her into their hive mind to taunt her. Celeste did not hold back and delved through Emma’s memories to see what had caused the depowerment. She was shocked to see Cyclops beating her down when he was under the power of the Phoenix and the brutality of the fight caused them to soften up slightly towards her, allowing her to speak her mind. Emma pleaded with them to transfer to Cyclops’ school, as she felt they still had much more to learn from her and she from them. After some careful thought, the Cuckoos decided to accept the invitation and told the Jean Grey School teaching staff they were leaving. They weren’t the only ones to leave, as the time-displaced Angel also asked to go, causing his teammate Jean Grey to psychically attack him to make him stop. The Stepford sisters decided to show the young girl how powerful they truly were and viciously struck the girl down. Once the dust settled, they teleported away with the rest of Cyclops’ group to take up residence in his converted Weapon X facility that he now called a school. [All-New X-Men (1st series) #10-11, Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #4]

The girls didn’t get time to rest, as they were sucked into Limbo alongside the rest of their team. Magik, one of the teachers, had angered the current resident of Limbo, Dormammu, and he was using her friends as pawns in his schemes. Many of the other students at the school had only had their powers a few weeks and so Emma begged the Cuckoos to give everyone a confidence boost to stop them from being too scared to fight. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #5-6]

The recent upheavals the sisters had been through had caused Irma to reevaluate her situation and her role in the group. Deciding she wanted a change, she cut her hair and dyed it black in a bid to give herself some kind of individual identity. When the new look was debuted, Celeste was furious at Irma for doing such a drastic thing without consulting the rest of them. It wasn’t all bad, as Irma did receive the approval of Christopher Muse, one of her new teammates. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #9]

Cyclops' school soon gained a few more students, one of whom being the teenage, time-displaced Jean Grey. Celeste still resented the girl’s presence in their time period and forced the rest of her sisters to ignore her, despite them having no issues with Jean. Things came to a head when they all went for a girl’s night out and Jean confronted Celeste in the middle of a bar. Just as the girls started to argue, though, they were disrupted by an Inhuman emerging from terrigenesis. Despite their dislike of one another, the telepaths were forced to work together to calm the nearby populace before things got out of hand. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #15]

Soon after, Phoebe took a cue from Irma and decided to dye her hair red in a bid to distinguish herself from Celeste. Cyclops continued to train the students hard and one of his lessons involved dumping the kids off in Tabula Rasa, a deadly and exotic environment that would prove rather taxing for the team. The group got split up and Irma ended up with Christopher and the two started to get closer, despite the danger all around them. When Eva Bell, the time manipulator of the group, suddenly disappeared and reappeared moments later, Celeste saw in her mind where she had been. The traumatized Eva was noticeably older than she had been moments before and she swore Celeste to secrecy, as she didn’t want to talk about her adventure. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #17]

Ever since Cyclops had started recruiting students, he had been talking about a “mutant revolution” and preparing them for the inevitable fallout. One day during a training session, Christopher started to question where the revolution would ultimately lead prompting Celeste to challenge him. She stood firmly on the side of Cyclops and the fact that it was only a matter of time before the Avengers decided they'd had enough of mutants and came after them. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #26]

When Xavier was killed, his will revealed that he had been keeping a very dangerous mutant pacified for many years. When Cyclops tried to pick up where Xavier left off, he himself was killed, along with Emma and Magik. Eva Bell suggested going back in time to warn Xavier about this situation but Celeste remained dead set against such an action. She tried to appeal to Eva and remind her that the last time she took a trip through time it had dire consequences for her. Eva did not listen though and went one step further by bring the past Charles to the present day. Celeste was beyond furious at her actions but Xavier managed to calm everyone down so they could formulate the best plan possible. Eva took Xavier back in time, where he stopped the dangerous mutant’s parents from meeting, thus stopping any of the events from coming to pass. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) #29-31]

After fights with SHIELD, Mystique and other X-Men, Cyclops eventually admitted to himself that his so-called revolution had amounted to nothing. He decided to close the school down, much to the anger of the Cuckoos, who had left the Jean Grey School to go to his. Rather than go back to Westchester, the students decided to try their hand at super-heroics on their own terms. Things started well as they began helping out newly emerged mutants and they even earned the praise of the local media. Things turned sour quickly though when they were confronted by some anti-mutant protestors on one of their missions. When one of their teammates was critically injured by a mob, the Cuckoos unleashed their wrath on the culprit, causing the local police to turn on the team. Realizing that they still needed a lot of training, they reluctantly enrolled themselves at the Jean Grey School once again. [Uncanny X-Men (3rd series) 32, 34-35]