Marvel's X-Men United #9 Unmasks Superior, the Mutant Strong Enough to Break Emma Frost

Marvel has finally put a name to one of its most talked-about mystery mutants. Solicit details for X-Men United #9, out November 11 from writers Evan Narcisse, Eve L. Ewing, and Tiago Palma, confirm that the detective introduced back in Giant-Size X-Men as "The X-Man Who Never Was" now goes by Superior. Fans had floated the codename since the earlier "Revelation: Superior" short, and it's now official: Justina LaGuardia, the Italian investigator who turned down Charles Xavier's recruitment pitch and then erased herself from his memory using his own psychic powers, is a problem the X-Men can no longer avoid.

Her power set is what makes her dangerous. Superior amplifies any mutant ability active near her, pushing it past its normal ceiling, which is how a woman with no prior contact with mutantkind managed to outmatch Omega-level telepath Xavier himself. Put her next to Colossus and she's stronger; next to Northstar, faster; next to Jean Grey, more psychically overwhelming than Jean is on her own. In #9, that target is Emma Frost, who the cover shows getting outright overpowered on the psychic plane as the confrontation spills toward Graymatter Lane, the X-Men's psychic-plane school.

Whether Superior is a villain is murkier than the cover suggests. She reportedly distrusts the X-Men as an irresponsible paramilitary outfit that puts child soldiers in the field, and she may be tied to a recent psychic assault the team has been pinning on the Shadow King. The pitch leans into her seeing herself as a protector of young mutants rather than a straightforward antagonist, which is exactly the kind of gray-area threat that tends to stick around.

Source: ScreenRant