An Explosive History
Jubilee aided Wolverine in rescuing Betsy Braddock, AKA Psylocke, another former X-Man, from the Mandarin’s control in Madripoor, and the trio then traveled to Genosha to help the other X-teams battle Cameron Hodge and overthrow the island’s anti-mutant government.
Although Jubilee generally used her powers to blind or distract opponents, she soon discovered that they possessed a much greater explosive potential—one that scared her. Jubilee had several noteworthy adventures, including meeting Abcissa, an alternate-future version of herself enslaved by Mojo; being briefly betrothed to a young Savage Land girl after natives mistook her for a boy; and being kidnapped by Doctor Doom, who hoped to harness her mutant plasma energy to power his nation. Although Jubilee grumbled at the educational curriculum that Professor X imposed on her, the two soon bonded, and she came to consider the X-Mansion her first true home in years, and the X-Men her adopted family. Eventually, an encounter with one of Gateway’s time portals caused Jubilee to learn her parents’ deaths were no accident. She tracked down the hitmen and took revenge, but Wolverine’s counsel led her to stop short of killing them.
Over time, Jubilee found her powers getting stronger, at the same time as a series of tragic events—including Illyana Rasputin, AKA Magik,’s death from the Legacy Virus, and Magneto’s forcible removal of Wolverine’s Adamantium skeleton—shook her faith in the X-Men’s lifestyle. When the techno-organic aliens known as the Phalanx attempted to kidnap several young mutants, Jubilee joined an ad hoc X-Men team that rescued them—and when she discovered that Professor X was opening a school for this new generation of mutants, she asked to be enrolled there. Bidding a tearful farewell to the X-Men, Jubilee moved to the Massachusetts Academy, where under co-headmasters Sean Cassidy, AKA Banshee, and Emma Frost, she trained in the use of her increased powers as a member of Generation X. Jubilee’s outspoken personality initially caused clashes with her new teammates, especially Nicole and Claudette St. Croix, AKA M, but she mellowed over time, developing a crush on Everett Thomas, AKA Synch, and “adopting” the mute, animalistic Monet St. Croix, AKA Penance. Generation X shared many adventures together, including several in other dimensions, in one of which Jubilee fell for a caped adventurer with similar fashion sense. Although growing to think of Generation X as where she truly belonged, Jubilee visited the X-Men often. When the United States government launched the anti-mutant Operation: Zero Tolerance, Jubilee was kidnapped by Bastion—and although she kept up a brave front, he eventually extracted the X-Men’s security codes from her mind, allowing him to storm the X-Mansion. Jubilee was eventually freed by a sympathetic underling and rescued by Wolverine, but she blamed herself for the damage Bastion was able to do to the X-Men. Soon afterward, the terrorist Viper brainwashed several of Wolverine’s friends to attack him, and Jubilee teamed up with Kitty Pryde, AKA Shadowcat, Wolverine’s former sidekick, as the unofficial “Wolverine Rescue Squad” to free their friends and defeat Viper. In the aftermath of Zero Tolerance, it was revealed that M was actually Monet St. Croix’s twin sisters, merged into a duplicate of her, and Penance was the true Monet. The two switched places, with Monet being freed from the Penance form and the twins becoming trapped inside it. Monet, humiliated and resentful, felt that Jubilee had treated her like a pet when she was Penance, and the two confronted one another in a bitter Danger Room session that left Jubilee’s relationship with the real Monet as contentious as with the twins—if not worse. Monet went on to romance Synch, who was blissfully oblivious to Jubilee’s own feelings for him.
When new co-headmistress Adrienne Frost, Emma’s sister, opened the Academy to human students, Jubilee met Tristan Brawn, Hunter Brawn’s grandson. She eventually discovered the elder Brawn’s involvement in her parents’ deaths—and although once again her desire for vengeance briefly overpowered her, she eventually dealt with him the right way, defeating him and sending him to prison for his crimes. When Wolverine was transformed into the Horseman Death by En Sabah Nur, AKA Apocalypse, Jubilee was instrumental in helping him break through his brainwashing and come to his senses. When Adrienne betrayed the school, Synch was killed defusing a bomb she planted. Jubilee learned to channel her grief and became a capable field leader—but Generation X soon disbanded, closing the Academy.
Jubilee returned home to try an acting career, which ended when she realized that her unscrupulous agent was exploiting her. She then briefly joined her former headmaster Banshee’s paramilitary X-Corps organization, where she reunited with Generation X teammates Paige Guthrie, AKA Husk, and M as a trio nicknamed “Banshee’s Angels,” until X-Corps was betrayed from within and dissolved. Later, Jubilee and several other mutants were captured by the Church of Humanity and crucified on the X-Men’s lawn. Although she survived, her former teammate Angelo Espinosa, AKA Skin, did not—and Jubilee was deeply shaken.
Although she attempted to be an X-Man once again, the mansion’s destruction by a Magneto imposter was Jubilee’s final straw. Deciding to return to a normal life, Jubilee moved back to LA to live with her long-lost aunt Hope, and became a peer counselor, befriending high-school outcast Meg Devereux. Shane Shooter, a young mutant who ran a street gang, briefly romanced Jubilee, however she soon discovered her aunt’s secret life as an assassin, and clashed with Triad enforcers in a battle that destroyed Hope’s home. Jubilee moved back to New York, unaware that Hope, a cyborg, had survived.
In the aftermath of M-Day, Jubilee was depowered. She struggled to find purpose, becoming a pro-mutant political activist and running a halfway house for ex-mutants—but she was severely injured in a battle between Wolverine and Arkady Rossovich, AKA Omega Red, and, bitter, cut ties with the X-Men. Approached by Donyell Taylor, AKA Night Thrasher, to join a new iteration of the New Warriors and foment dissent against the Superhuman Registration Act, Jubilee accepted. She outfitted herself with technology that Thrasher had stolen from the condemned Avengers Mansion, including reverse-engineered versions of the Wizard’s Wonder Gloves, and took the code name Wondra.
She became the New Warriors’ field leader and trained her new teammates, all depowered mutants, in the use of their new tech-based powers. Bonding with the Warriors, Jubilee rediscovered the family she had lost in the X-Men—but after Thrasher repeatedly abandoned the team in battle, she became openly suspicious of his motives, causing tension in the group. When Thrasher manipulated the Warriors into attacking Samuel Saxon, AKA Machinesmith, under false pretenses, Jubilee discovered his lies and revealed them to the team—but Thrasher soon unmasked, revealing himself as the original Night Thrasher’s brother and earning back some goodwill. The group then teamed with some of the surviving members of the original Warriors team to recover Zachary Smith Jr., AKA Microbe’s and the original Night Thrasher’s bodies from S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, and held a funeral. However, after Warriors Skybolt and Ripcord were killed, and Donyell’s secret agenda–a time travel mission to save his brother’s life–failed, the Warriors dissolved.
To ultimately gain control of Wolverine, Jubilee was targeted by Vlad Dracula, AKA Dracula’s son Xarus as part of his plan to vampirize mutants, creating an unstoppable world-conquering Vampire Nation. Jubilee was infected with a manufactured virus when a vampire suicide bomber exploded near her, leaving her with pseudo-vampiric attributes and a growing compulsion to go to Xarus. Despite the X-Men’s scientific X-Club’s attempt to cure her, Jubilee eventually left for Xarus, who vampirized her fully. Per Xarus’ plans, Wolverine tracked down Jubilee but was bit by her; unknown even to him, Wolverine’s healing factor had been temporarily shut down by nanobots secretly implanted as part of X-Men leader Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops’s plan to defeat Xarus. At a crucial moment in Xarus’ attacks, Cyclops deactivated the nanotechnology, allowing Wolverine’s healing factor to cure his vampirism. The X-Men attacked the vampires’ stronghold, finding Xarus decapitated by Dracula, who again sought control of the Vampire Nation; Dracula left a still vampirized Jubilee with the X-Men when he departed. An increasingly angry Jubilee was treated with Wolverine’s blood (and healing factor) to curb her vampiric urges and allow her to be in weak sunlight; a great number of Utopia’s residents distrusted and feared her. After an adventure in Siberia helped Jubilee regain some of Wolverine’s trust, whose blood she needed to consume to retain control of her vampiric urges, she returned to Utopia. She took to wearing a Sunlight Pendant that she received during her time with Xarus’ vampires, which allowed her to be in the sun.
She continued to struggle with being a vampire, but other mutants, including Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X, have helped Jubilee maintain a normal life, including throwing a birthday party for her. Jubilee went with Wolverine to Paris, France, to help his clone, X-Man-In-Training Laura Kinney, AKA X-23, locate a quantity of the chemical trigger scent that sends X-23 into a murderous frenzy; but the chemical had been modified to send anyone exposed to it into a murderous rampage. During their escapades, the two girls came to understand each others’ predatorial nature; X-23 asked Jubilee to kill her if she lost control. They worked together with Wolverine and Remy LeBeau, AKA Gambit, to stop a large group of civilians exposed to the scent from killing each other. Jubilee continued to wrestle with her vampire nature but tried to focus on the beauty of being alive.
She soon encountered the Forgiven, a group of vampires who refused to feed on blood and led by Raizo Kodo. Seeing an alternative to feeding off of Wolverine’s blood forever, she chose to stay with them a while and learn from them. Jubilee later joined in the conflict between the Avengers and the X-Men, battling Natasha Romanoff, AKA Black Widow.
When Jubilee was in Budapest, she found a baby boy and named him Shogo. She brought him back to the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning and reunited with her old teammates. She then adopted Shogo and legally became his mother. She soon battled Sentinels on Santa Catalina Island and led the X-Men in the field.
When mutant-hating Purifiers attacked the newly minted Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach, the student body was reminded that the world was still dangerous for their kind. The students were split up based on their potential, as future X-Men or mutant ambassadors. Former student Jubilee was asked to mentor a ragtag class of mutant misfits who didn’t fit into either category: Quentin Quire, AKA Kid Omega, Roxy Washington, AKA Bling!, Trevor Hawkins, AKA Eye-Boy, Benjamin Deeds, AKA Morph, Lin Li, AKA Nature Girl, and Nathaniel Carver, AKA Hindsight. Now a teacher, she worked alongside former New Warriors and Generation X teammate Jono Starsmore, AKA Chamber. They soon reunited with former teammate Monet St. Croix, but she had merged with Marius St. Croix, AKA Emplate, her brother, who attacked the students at night, taking their energy. Jubilee and Jono coordinated nightly surveillance walks, which brought them closer and led to a romantic relationship. But one day, Monet/Emplate attacked, taking Jubilee’s sunlight medallion and attempting to kill her using the sun. Kid Omega being nearby, gave up part of the Phoenix Force that lived within him to help his teacher and it restored Jubilee’s original powers, curing her of her vampirism. With her powers returned, she attacked Monet/Emplate, buying time to figure out a plan to free Monet.
When Nate Grey, AKA X-Man, created an alternate world where mutants lived in a utopia where Xavier’s dream was alive and intimate relationships were illegal. Jubilee was part of the mutant police force, Department X, where she’d arrest mutants for violating the world’s laws. Her work led her to arrest criminals Luke and his girlfriend Nezumi Sen, with the latter being pregnant. Unknown to Jubilee, her teammate Moneta imprisoned and tortured her. When Jubilee found Nezumi locked in the Department’s basement, Jubilee apologized but Nezumi accused Jubilee of being complicit. When Nezumi gave birth and called forth rats to break her chains, Jubilee intervened and in seeing the newborn was reminded of Shogo, and swaddled the babe. She then helped Nezumi and her child escape. She helped them by robbing a few banks and securing an escape van. She was soon liberated from this faux reality and returned to her own.
When the mutant island nation-state of Krakoa was established, Jubilee celebrated the mutants’ sovereignty. Reunited with Shogo, she joined the new team Excalibur led by Betsy Braddock, to open a Krakoan gate in the magical realm of Avalon in Otherworld and protect the realm from the evil sorceress Morgan le Fay. Upon entering Otherworld through a portal, Shogo turned into a dragon, an effect of Otherworld’s faerie magic. While Jubilee was worried, Betsy assured her that they wouldn’t put him in any danger. However, during an attack by Morgan’s forces, Shogo was badly wounded and Jubilee let loose her explosive powers in retaliation. At first inconsolable, Jubilee pulled herself together and comforted Shogo as he healed.
Jubilee later joined Tabitha Smith, AKA Boom-Boom, to treat Alison Blaire, AKA Dazzler, to a night on the town after she had a bad breakup with Alex, a vampire. The trio were soon kidnapped by Alex and tossed into a death arena, fighting their ally Laura Kinney, evil doppelgängers and vampires. They survive and all come out on top but then Alex sold the troop to Elder of the Universe Taneleer Tivan, AKA The Collector. Luckily, the Collector mansplained his plan to them, allowing them to make an escape back to Krakoa. But Dracula stormed the island, demanding recompense for the vampires Jubilee and the others killed. He soon relented once Alex’s treason against the Vampire Nation was revealed.
During Krakoa’s Hellfire Gala where Jubilee was in attendance, Nimrod attacked the event with his mutant-hating organization Orchis and she, among many others, was slain. She was soon restored to life thanks to the Five, Krakoan mutants with combined powers capable of resurrection.
