After 51 Years, Powerhouse Hero Officially Joins X-Men for First Time Ever

More than five decades after their introduction, a powerful Marvel mutant is about to join the X-Men for the very first time. Here's the powerhouse hero about to join the team, what they can do and why it took so long.

X-Men has one of the biggest casts in pop culture, and pretty much every Marvel mutant has worked alongside the team at one time or another. Even hardcore villains like Magneto, Sabretooth, Mystique and Juggernaut have claimed membership at one time or another.

However, one powerful hero has never served on the team... until now, as a new X-Men roster steps up to officially replace the Avengers.

Justice Joins the X-Men For First Time Ever

Marvel recently announced new series Maximum X-Men - from Christopher Yost and Tony S. Daniel - which will see a mutant team replace the Avengers. The series will spin out of current event series Avengers: Armageddon, which is expected to kill off the franchise's biggest hero and replace them with a more street-level team.

In response, Storm will assemble a team of mutant powerhouses, protecting the planet until the Avengers can return to their prior role. With iconic members including Wolverine, Colossus and Iceman, this is a powerful team, however it's also the first X-Men roster ever to recruit Vance Astrovik's Justice.

Debuting in 1975, Vance Astrovik has gone by multiple codenames, including Justice and Marvel Boy. A powerful telekinetic, he's a foundational hero for the New Warriors franchise, and joined the Avengers during Kurt Busiek and George Pérez's iconic tenure with the team. Despite being a mutant, those are the teams he's been associated with for his entire career, making this X-Men recruitment his first.

Justice's timeline is complicated by the fact that classic Guardians of the Galaxy hero Major Victory is a far-future version of Vance. The modern-day version's mutant powers activated due to the stress of being confronted by his time-traveling future self, who hoped to change the past (and has since been retconned as belonging to an alternate reality.)

​​​​​​​Justice's Powers in Marvel Lore

In Marvel lore, Justice's mutant power is to generate a telekinetic energy field around his body which he can manipulate into different forms. This allows him to create powerful force fields or weaponized blasts, as well as to mimic flight by carrying himself through the air. Justice is an incredibly potent heavy hitter, whose fields match X-Men's strongest characters in terms of physical might.

Justice has had a lengthy history in Marvel Comics, and is considered a particularly controversial character in its world. That's due to two major events. First, the death of his father, which Vance accidentally caused with his powers, and his subsequent time in prison as a result. Second, the events of Civil War, where a new iteration of the New Warriors caused massive civilian casualties, tarring past members of the team.

Vance is given to hero worship and was known for his fanboy attitude on the Avengers, which - like Storm's new X-Men roster - he joined with then-fiancé Firestar, aka Angelica Jones.

Justice Is an Ultra-Rare 'Avengers to X-Men' Recruit

While a bunch of X-Men have later joined the Avengers, vanishingly few have gone in the other direction. Justice and Firestar are the most concrete examples, with other edge cases in Namor and Spider-Man (who was hired onto the faculty of Wolverine's Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.)

However, Justice is in good company on Storm's new roster, with Firestar, Wolverine and Storm also having served significant terms with the Avengers. It's likely for this reason that Justice has been recruited, adding legitimacy to a team who hope to fill in for the Avengers, but will meet unique obstacles in a world that still largely hates and fears mutants.

​​​​​​​How Will Justice Fit into X-Men's New Era?

While Justice is an odd pick for Maximum X-Men, he's also likely to be one of its most compelling characters. That's because he and Firestar aren't being shared with other titles like most of the other members of the team. In an interview with AIPT, Maximum X-Men writer Christopher Yost says:

​​​​​​​I love Firestar and Vance, and have used them both in either New Warriors books or an X-title in the past. Sometimes it’s good to have characters you aren’t sharing so you can mess with them a little more. Firestar’s had a rocky road, and this is the start of her journey back into the light. Vance doesn’t really want to be an X-Man, but sees the need. He’s a hero through and through; he can’t HELP but be a hero. And of course, we’re going to make him regret that.

For fans of the character, it's worth noting that Justice and Firestar are some of the only heroes the creative team are totally free to kill off without inconveniencing other titles like X-Men United and Uncanny X-Men. Given the team's first mission will see them fending off a Negative Zone invasion led by Annihilus, that's more likely than it may sound.

Justice Gets His First Official X-Men Costume

Joining the X-Men is a big deal, and Marvel is marking the occasion with a new costume for Justice. In a deliberate homage to Chris Claremont and Jim Lee's X-Men run, the creative team have reintroduced the blue and yellow team costumes for that era, with Vance sporting a new look in Tony S. Daniel's cover.

Traditionally, Justice wears white and blue with a star logo and cape, but the new X-Men costume does at least seem to be keeping his headpiece. Unfortunately, that's led to some fans mistaking him for Gambit, who won't be part of the main team (but could show up to support.)

X-Men's New Era Is Big News for Justice

Despite his immense power, Justice is generally treated as a C-list hero. He's the kind of character who ends up being faculty in a title like Avengers Academy or Avengers: The Initiative or allying with the pseudo-villains in an event like Outlawed. Despite that, he's a compelling character - someone who struggles with the potential for a compex destiny and a past homicide he can't take back.

After years being one of the few mutants not caught up in X-Men lore, Justice is finally joining the team, lending his telekinetic might to a roster assembled to replace the Avengers.

Maximum X-Men #1 is coming December 2 from Marvel Comics.