X-Men #171
X-Men Vol. 2 #171 serves as the opening chapter of the 'Bizarre Love Triangle' arc and is a notably dense first-appearance issue, simultaneously debuting five new characters: Bling! (Roxy Washington), Rain Boy (Carl Aalston), Onyxx (Sidney Green), Flubber (Nick Shelley), and Foxx — the last of whom is eventually revealed to be Mystique in disguise, setting up one of the more psychologically unsettling schemes in her long history of manipulation. The issue also marks the formal introduction of Gambit's student training squad, the Chevaliers, as a team unit — part of the broader Xavier Institute squad system that defined the school's post-Morrison era structure. While the arc drew mixed critical reception for leaning heavily into soap-opera melodrama, it pushed the Rogue-Gambit relationship into genuinely fraught territory and introduced characters, particularly Bling!, who went on to have meaningful, decades-long careers in the X-Men line.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The issue was written by British author Peter Milligan — coming off his acclaimed, boundary-pushing X-Force/X-Statix run — and pencilled by Salvador Larroca, with inks by Danny Miki and Allen Martinez and colors by Liquid!, under editor Mike Marts with Joe Quesada as Editor-in-Chief. It shipped on June 8, 2005, with an August 2005 cover date. Milligan's approach to this run drew from the institute's expanded squad system that had been established in the preceding New X-Men era, using it as a backdrop for interpersonal drama rather than large-scale action — a creative direction that left some readers and critics feeling it was tonally uneven relative to his previous Marvel work.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Rain Boy (Carl Aalston), a mutant whose body is permanently transmuted into living water, requiring a containment suit to maintain humanoid form.
- First appearance of Bling! (Roxanne 'Roxy' Washington), who would go on to become one of the more durable student-era X-Men, retaining her powers through M-Day and appearing well into the Krakoan era.
- First appearance of Onyxx (Sidney Green) and Flubber (Nick Shelley), fellow members of Gambit's Chevaliers squad.
- First appearance of Foxx — introduced as a mysterious new student with an aggressive interest in Gambit — who is later revealed across the arc to be Mystique in disguise, attempting to destroy the Rogue-Gambit relationship.
- First appearance of the Chevaliers as a team unit: the student training squad led by Gambit as part of the Xavier Institute's structured squad system established by Cyclops and Emma Frost.
- Written by Peter Milligan with art by Salvador Larroca (pencils and cover), inks by Danny Miki and Allen Martinez, colors by Liquid!, and letters by Cory Petit; edited by Mike Marts.
- Part 1 of the four-part 'Bizarre Love Triangle' arc (X-Men #171–174), which also features a secondary love-triangle subplot involving Havok, Polaris, and Iceman.
- The arc was collected in the trade paperback X-Men: Bizarre Love Triangle (Marvel, 2005), and the issue's story was also reprinted in the UK anthology Essential X-Men Vol. 1 #155.
Cast · 8 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in X-Men: Bizarre Love Triangle #[nn] (2005), X-Men by Peter Milligan #1 (2019)
Key issues in X-Men
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