LAWLESS(Reality-928 circa 2094 AD)
LAWLESS
(Reality-928 circa 2094 AD)
Membership: (All formerly) Auntie Maim, Broken Haiku, Desert Ghost (Xi'an Chi Xan), Junkpile, Mongrel, Reverend, Victor Ten Eagles
Purpose: Adventures
Aliases: None
Affiliations: Krystalin (Krys Porter Ogada), la Lunatica, Skullfire (Timothy Fitzgerald)
Enemies: Elders of New Hope (including Beaumont), Foolkiller (Gideon), Foolkillers
Base of Operations: Formerly the America Midwest
First Appearance: (Mentioned) X-Men 2099#6 (March, 1994);
(seen and identified) X-Men
2099#32 (May, 1996)
History:
(X-Men 2099#6 (fb) - BTS) - The Lawless were a group of desert outlaws in the American mid-west.
(X-Men 2099#33 (fb) - BTS) <2094 - five years before the main story> - The Lawless (Auntie Maim, Broken Haiku, Junkpile, Mongrel, Reverend, Victor Ten Eagles, Xi'an Chi Xan) came to New Hope, Texas, unaware that it was run by a group of fundamentalist zealot elders -- who sought to keep the city pure from outside influences, which they viewed as corrupt -- and who had put landmines in its streets.
(X-Men 2099#33 (fb)) - The Lawless ran over the street mines, after which they ambushed by the town's inquisition, whose executioners were super-soliders known as Foolkillers
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - Beaumont was among the elders who passed judgment on the Lawless.
(X-Men 2099#33 (fb)) - The head Foolkiller made it clear that they would kill anyone who didn't fall in with their twisted faith.
For two days, the Lawless were subjected to a variety of subtle and unsubtle tortures designed to convert them.
Broken Haiku eventually hacked into their computers and shut off the tranquilizer feed that was keeping the Lawless sedated.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS / X-Men 2099#33 (fb)) - The Lawless fought
their way through the "handful of psychopaths called Foolkillers"
The Lawless found the rest of New Hope was willing to fight to the last man to stop them.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - The Lawless napalmed the active Foolkillers.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - After "one very long, very bloody afternoon," New Hope was burned to the ground.
The Lawless slew every man, woman, and child in town.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb)) - When an injured Beaumont confronted and accused the Lawless of slaying good and righteous people, Junkpile asked Xi'an if he wanted him to kill Beaumont.
Noting that Beaumont couldn't stop them from leaving, Xi'an told him not to bother. Beaumont raised his gun, telling Xi'an he knew his kind, and that they thought they could escape their judgment, but "whether it by my hand of another's, you'll all die as fools."
Noting he would dance while Beaumont rotted, Xi'an struck him and reminded him that they hadn't asked for any of this grief: The people of New Hope had started it, and the Lawless finished it. As Xi'an angrily kicked the fallen Beaumont, he was advsied by Broken Haiku, Mongrel, and the Reverend that there was no point as Beaumont couldn't fight back (and was possibly already dead?). Xi'an agreed that they had wasted enough time there and it was time to get out; he led the Lawless out of New Hope.
X-Men 2099#33 (fb) - BTS) - Unbeknownst to the Deep in the long sleep of the Revival Chamber, Gideon survived.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - After the Lawless broke up, the former spitfire wirehead Broken Haiku retreated permanently into cyberspace.
(X-Men 2099#6 (fb) - BTS) - Xi'an Chi Xan traveled to Saigon as an American criminal on the run from enemies made as a member of the Lawless.(X-Men 2099#33 (fb - BTS)) <7 months before the main story> - Gideon awakened from his Revival Chamber tube via an automatic revivication sequence, finding all of his fellow soldiers rotting in their tubes, untransformed. Finding the city above him burned to the ground, the streets littered with skeletons, he realized that the Lawless was responsible. Plotting vengeance, the last Foolkiller prepared to take out the Lawless.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - The Foolkiller slew the Reverend, laser-burning the word "FOOL" into his chest and leaving his body in Reno.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - Broken Haiku learned of the Reverend's fate.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb)) - As soon as Broken Haiku remotely reported the Reverend's fate to Victor Ten Eagles, Foolkiller appeared in Victor's Sante Fe ranch workshop and blasted Victor's right arm off; the laser cauterized the wound, preventing him from bleeding out. Shutting down the shop's lights, Victor slipped outside and blew up some fuel-filled storage tanks. Suspecting the Foolkiller might survive the blast, Victor staggered into his desert-rover and set the autopilot to reach a hospital in Flagstaff before blacking out from the pain.
(X-Men 2099#31 (fb) - BTS) - The clinic's doctors treated Victor and provided him with a prosthetic arm.
(X-Men
2099#31) - Victor traveled to Halo City, warning Xi'an of the
Foolkiller's return, noting the Reverend's death and that he
believed the Foolkilller was almost certainly headed for Halo
City.
Krystalin (Krys Porter Ogada), Xi'an's X-Men teammate and Victor's friend/lover (IIRC), learned of this, but Victor warned her to stay away.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - Deciding this problem did not concern his newer X-Men team, Xi'an resolved to reassemble the Lawless to deal with it.
(X-Men 2099#24 (fb) / X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - With Junkpile having disappeared during SHIELD's raids on the Theatre of Pain, Xi'an and Victor were unable to reach him.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - Foolkiller destroyed Broken Haiku's datadrop, slaying her agent Ulysses Reynaldo Colosia (apparently writing "FOOL" on his head with his laser) and leaving Broken Haiku offline for the first time in years.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - Victor Ten Eagles tried to contact Broken Haiku to arrange a meeting, but the message bounced back, and he realized she was off-line and possibly dead.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - The Tornado triplets cancelled their date with Mongrel, leaving him available for communication.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - Victor and Xi'an contacted Auntie Maim and Mongrel and arranged to meet them at a polyclinic based out of an old church in which Xi'an used his healing powers to try to atone for his past misdeeds.
(X-Men 2099#32) - Arriving at the church, Mongrel greeted Auntie Maim, Victor, and Xi'an, noting that he had never thought he would see any of them again, not together, and definitely not in a church.
Victor then shared what he knew about Foolkiller's assaults on the Reverend, himself, and Broken Haiku, after which Mongrel reminded the others they had handled everything New Hope had given them, including a number of Foolkillers. When Xi'an lamented how they had answered atrocity with atrocity, Mongrel considered him a whiny pacifist, noting that he had respected the previously viscious Xi'an before. Agreeing, Auntie Maim wondered if they could trust each other in battle and if they weren't better off on their own.
Victor insisted that they owed it to the Reverend and possibly Broken
Haiku to nail this Foolkiller. Considering that there was only one guy,
Auntie Maim wanted to go after him, but Xi'an figured he was smart
enough not to take on all of them at once: Xi'an would serve as bait to draw at Foolkiller.
As Xi'an stood outside the church, Auntie Maim watched from atop the Darkholme building, Mongrel from across the street, and Victor from a ledge on another building. When a man approached Xi'an, Victor and Auntie Maim dropped down to confront him, but it turned out to be Horace Pogue, a man with a weak heart wishing Xi'an's healing touch. Xi'an warned him to get away as it was too dangerous to be there.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - While the others were distracted, Foolkiller ambushed Mongrel, wrapped him in chains, and dragged him behind the Aeroglide.
(X-Men 2099#32) - With Mongrel in tow as he drove Mongrel's ride on the streets, Foolkiller confronted the others, noting that he was there to see that the judgment of the elders was upheld. Xi'an jumped and grabbed the chains holding Mongrel; however, Xi'an caught the chains in his healing right hand, and as the Aeroglide continued speeding onward, he couldn't get his destructive left hand on them. The pair whipping around blocked Auntie Maim's shot at Foolkiller, and as Victor rushed toward them, Foolkiller took to the air. At Mongrel's urging, Xi'an let go just in time, and Mongrel was seared with flames and screamed in agony as Foolkiller flew away, promising to return for the others.
Knowing Foolkiller wouldn't leave Halo City as long as the other Lawless members were there, Xi'an told the others they would find Foolkiller, after which, "...it's judgment day, Lawless style." Victor appreciated that this sounded like the Xi'an he used to know.
(X-Men 2099#33) - Badly burnt and chained in the Unicelco building in which Foolkiller had made his base, Mongrel provoked Foolkiller, but they were interrupted by the arrival of Auntie Maim, Victor Ten Eagles, and Xi'an Chi Xan.
As the others regrouped, Foolkiller revealed that he had a omnium bomb built into his own chest and that he would kill the Lawless even if it meant his own death. Xi'an -- having been their leader -- took responsibility for the Lawless' actions and tried to convince Foolkiller to let the others go. Foolkiller refused to negotiate, and Skullfire -- summoned alongside la Lunatica as back-up by Krystalin -- jump-started one of the sky cycles, allowing Lunatica to use the distraction to tackle Foolkiller and break his left arm. She then used her psychic powers to make him relive his own psychic torment.
Xi'an sent everyone else out, then approached the stunned Foolkiller, asking him to turn away from the violent life the elders of New Hope had given him. Impressed that Xi'an was risking his life to offer him a chance at redemption, Foolkiller nonetheless decided that to believe that destiny was not preordained would mean acknowledging that his life as a Foolkiller was a horrible mistake; and if that was true, he himself would be the biggest fool of all. He detonated the bomb.
(X-Men 2099#34 (fb) - BTS) - Xi'an and Victor survived the explosion, at least.
(X-Men 2099#34) - <Days later> - Combing the ruins of Unicelco to see if Foolkiller might have survived, Xi'an and Victor found his skull, his flesh having been consumed by the facility's industrial solvents.
Comments: Created by John Francis Moore, Jan Duursema, and Scott Koblish.
Victor, Krystalin, Lunatica, Skullfire, Mongrel, and Auntie Maim all departed before Xi'an's final confrontation with the Foolkiller, and the first four all survived, so I don't know why Auntie Maim and Mongrel wouldn't have survived as well.
For that matter, even though Mongrel was already badly injured, he could have survived the explosion, as he was a lot farther away than Xi'an, who also survived; plus, he's got feral powers, which often seem to include enhanced healing.
Junkpile was already MIA before the Foolkiller stated tracking down the others, and his fate remains unrevealed.
Broken Haiku wasn't seen after she "went offline," but that could well have meant that her access point to the physical world and its computer systems was destroyed, but if she was truly a cyberspace being, there's no reason her cyberspace self couldn't have survived and later re-established contact with Earth and/or its computer systems, or not if she didn't want to.
As far as I could see, the only one who at least seemed to have definitively died was the Reverend.
I guess it was the "always leave them wanting more," phenomenon, but I'd love to see more backstory on the Lawless and its individual members.
Tales of the X-Men 2099: The Lawless. It could happen. I'd buy it...
Additional images of the Lawless' time in New Hope can be seen in the Foolkillers sub-profile for Foolkiller 2099.
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Lawless have no known connections to:
The Reverend carried a number of firearms and was an experienced combatant.
(X-Men 2099#33 (fb)) - The Reverend was part of the Lawless when they inadvertently wandered into New Hope, Texas.
Along with the others, he was caught in a landmine explosion, ambushed and captured by the Foolkiller, and tortured by the Foolkillers and elders of New Hope, who sought to convert them to their twiested faith via two days of torture.
After Broken Haiku hacked into the Foolkillers/elders' computers and shut off the tranquilizer feed that was keeping the Lawless sedated, the Reverend joined the rest of the Lawless in taking down (slaying) the Foolkillers. When the people of New Hope fought the Lawless to the last man, woman, and child, the Lawless killed them to the last man, woman, and child.
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb)) - When the injured Beaumont, last of the elders of New Hope, denounced the Lawless, the Reverend told him, "Say your prayers, Daddio."
After further provocation, Xi'an punched down and began kicking Beaumont, Broken Haiku advised that Xi'an had made his point and Beaumont couldn't fight back. Either in response to that statement or to Mongrel's, "No sense kicking a dead horse, cowboy," the Reverend noted "Amen to that."
(X-Men 2099#32 (fb) - BTS) - The Foolkiller slew the Reverend, laser-burning the word "FOOL" into his chest and leaving his body in Reno.
--(Mentioned) X-Men 2099#31; (seen) X-Men 2099#32 (33
Notes: Obviously his name and his outfit reference being a Christian clergyman.
Whether he was indeed a pastor, priest, etc. and then retired, or whether he just adopted the name and outfit for his own amusement or other reasons is unrevealed.
Though he wanted Xi'an to stop kicking the helpless (and possibly dead) Beaumont, the Reverend obviously participated in the extermination of the people of New Hope; though these people attacked first and forced the Lawless into this response, he obviously wasn't a pacifist.
He seems to have a white streak down the middle of his head in some of the better images...whether that is natural or dyed is unrevealed.
His glasses and use of the term "Daddio" made it seem as if he might have some fixation on 20th century counter-culture...or maybe not.
The Reverend can be seen in multiple images in the main profile, particularly the top three, as well as in the Foolkillers sub-profile for Foolkiller 2099.
images: (without ads)
X-Men
2099#32, pg. 1, panel 3 (full group, upper body);
pg. 2, panel 3 (additional images of Broken Haiku and Reverend);
pg. 6 (Mongrel (full, from behind) greeting Auntie Maim, Xi'an, and Victor in church);
#33 cover (yellow parchment, uncolored image showing more of their bodies);
pg. 11, panel 4 (fighting past Foolkillers);
pg. 18 (Maim, Mongrel, & Victor behind Xi'an, preparing to depart);
pg. 21, panel 3 (Victor, Maim, and Mongrel depart)
Appearances:
X-Men 2099#6 (March, 1994) - John Francis Moore (writer), Ron Lim (penciler), James Sanders III (inker), Joey Cavalieri (editor)
X-Men 2099#31 (April, 1996) - John Francis Moore (writer), Ron Lim (penciler), Harry Candelario (inker), Joey Cavalieri (editor)
X-Men
2099#32-33 (May-June, 1996) - John Francis Moore (writer), Jan Duursema
(penciler), Scott Koblish (inker), Jaye Gardner (editor)
X-Men 2099#34 (July, 1996) - John Francis Moore
(writer), Jan Duursema (penciler), Rob Hunter & Paul Neary (inkers), Jaye Gardner
(editor)
First posted: 02/14/2018
Last updated: 02/14/2018
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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