X-Treme X-Men #6

History

X-Treme X-Men was launched in mid-2001 as a deliberate editorial solution: to make room for Grant Morrison's tightly controlled New X-Men cast, Marvel spun beloved fan-favorites Storm, Rogue, Bishop, Gambit, Sage, Psylocke, and Thunderbird into a third flagship X-title, with veteran X-scribe Chris Claremont at the helm and Salvador Larroca handling both pencils and inks for the first 24 issues. Issue #6 arrived in December 2001 as the opening chapter of the second story arc (issues 5–9), scripted by Claremont with Larroca on full art duties and lettered by Tom Orzechowski, under editors Mark Powers and Matt Hicks with Joe Quesada as editor-in-chief. One behind-the-scenes editorial wrinkle surrounds Lady Mastermind: Claremont originally conceived Regan Wyngarde as a disguised version of Mastermind II, but when that character appeared concurrently in Uncanny X-Men beginning with #401, editorial opted to establish them as distinct characters rather than the same person.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Regan Wyngarde / Lady Mastermind (Regan Wyngarde), daughter of the original Mastermind (Jason Wyngarde) and a potent illusionist — created by Chris Claremont and Salvador Larroca.
• First appearance of Heather Cameron and Davis Cameron, who will take the codenames Lifeguard and Slipstream respectively; in this issue they are Australian civilians (a lifeguard and a surfer in Surfers Paradise) unaware their father is the underworld boss Viceroy.
• Lifeguard's mutant power — the ability to spontaneously manifest whatever superhuman attribute is needed to protect herself or others in life-threatening danger — is established across this arc, and the character later reveals Shi'ar royal heritage.
• Slipstream's mutant ability involves generating a trans-spatial 'warp wave' for teleportation; Sage later reveals within the arc that his latent gene was not originally meant to activate in his generation.
• The story arc (issues 5–9) centers on Gambit being framed by Sebastian Shaw for the murder of Australian crime lord Viceroy; this issue advances the investigation with the team splintered across Sydney — Bishop at the morgue, Rogue and Gambit captured and tortured by the Examiner, and Storm and Thunderbird racing to protect the Cameron siblings.
• Lady Mastermind was introduced working in concert with Sebastian Shaw (the Black King of the Hellfire Club), targeting Sage, Shaw's former operative — an adversarial dynamic that Claremont had been building in the series from its earliest issues.
• The issue has a newsstand edition variant alongside the standard direct-edition copy.
• The issue was reprinted in the X-Treme X-Men by Chris Claremont Omnibus Vol. 1 (Marvel, 2022) and also appeared in a Scandinavian reprint (X-Men, Hjemmet/Egmont, 2003 series, #1/2005).

Full credits

Key issues in X-Treme X-Men

★

#21 1st appearance — Elias Bogan

Variants (1)