Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 194. Who are the Stepford Cuckoos in Marvel Comics?!

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Ep. 194. Who are the Stepford Cuckoos in Marvel Comics?! · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

• 0:11
  Hello Marvel fans, comic geeks and all the nerds in between.
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  I am Megan with vigilante vibes where I talk about all things
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  Marvel, Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, MCU, all that great
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  stuff. And today I want to talk about
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  another character from Marvel Comics that I just think doesn't
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  get enough hype I guess. So today I want to talk about
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  not just one, but quite a few. Who are the Stepford Cuckoos?
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  The Stufford Cuckoos first appeared in New X-Men #118 after
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  Emma Frost got taken down by Trevor Fitzroy, she spent a year
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  in a coma. While she was out, Doctor John
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  Sublime secretly harvest over 1000 eggs for his experiment,
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  which is disgusting behavior. Weapon Plus used those eggs to
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  create thousands of identical mutant girls.
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  The idea was to grow a telepathic super weapon that
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  could wipe out every mutant on the planet.
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  This became Weapon XIV or Weapon 14.
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  The girls were grown, aged, and kept underground in a place
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  called the World. Most of them stayed dormant, but
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  five were sent to Xavier Schools as sisters so they could train
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  and blend in. Once Xavier School went public,
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  the quintuplets Sophie, Phoebe, Mindy, Celeste, and Esme
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  enrolled to keep anyone from questioning their origins.
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  They subconsciously blocked the staff's mind from digging into
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  their backgrounds, which I think it's kind of a red flag because
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  wouldn't they know they're being blocked?
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  They quickly got the name Stufford Cuckoos, even though
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  they preferred calling themselves 5 and 1.
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  Emma Frost helped the girls early on after Esme developed a
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  crush on a student who turned out to be an alien in disguise.
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  After that, Emma took them under her wing and they became her
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  proteges. They joined Xavier's high level
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  telepsy class where they often clashed with Quintin Choir, who
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  is Kid Omega. Quintin Choir fell hard for
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  Sophie, but the Cuckoos thought he was weird and wanted nothing
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  to do with him, which he was weird.
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  Though fueled by his unstable powers of finding out that he
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  was adopted and abusing the drug kick Choir snapped and started a
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  student rebellion, which is something a weird kid does.
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  Not saying weird is bad, but he was an odd duck.
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  The cuckoo snuck into Cerebra, amped up Sophie with Kick, and
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  together they stopped him, but the strain killed Sophie.
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  What no one knew yet was that Esme had been manipulating
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  things behind the scenes, and she'd been using Kick too.
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  After Sophie's death, Five and One became Four and One, and the
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  remaining girls blamed Emma. As revenge, they exposed Emma's
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  psychic affair with Cyclops to Jean Grey, which is scandalous.
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  Shortly after, Esme tried to kill Emma with a diamond bullet
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  and then ran when she realized the truth about Sophie's death
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  might come out. Emma survived thanks to Beast
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  and Gene with the help from the Phoenix Source.
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  Esme eventually resurfaced with her new boyfriend Scorn,
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  pretending to be Magneto. Both she and Sorne were
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  spiraling things to kick. When Sorne rejected her, Esme
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  lashed out and he killed her by driving her metal earrings into
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  her skull. With Esme gone, the four in one
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  became the three in one. The girls, along with the rest
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  of the students were temporarily moved to an X court building
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  during repairs. During that time, Mindy's first
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  boyfriend, Jermaine died during an anti mutant riot.
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  Once the school reopened under Cyclops and Emma's leadership,
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  the students were split into squads.
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  The Cuckoos were placed on the Corsairs squad under Cyclops and
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  Co led the team. They brought in Elixir to help
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  heal Wing after his fight with the Ord.
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  When the Phoenix Force briefly returned to Earth, it considered
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  using the Cuckoos, Kid, Omega and Emma as hosts before
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  choosing Jean Grey again. Quinton woke up, dug up Sophie's
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  body, resurrected her, got rejected again, and then she
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  immediately died again. The Cuckoo stayed behind to run
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  Sariba during the chaos. This was a crazy time like this.
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  This felt very messy to me in the comics.
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  Then came M day. Most mutants lost their powers
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  but the cuckoos kept theirs. 3 of only 27 powered students
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  left. Emma sent the depowered kids
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  away for safety, but their evacuation bus was bombed by
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  Reverend Stryker, killing 42 former students. 42 students,
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  dude. Emma also forced the remaining
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  powered students into a battle Royale to decide who would
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  become the next New X-Men. The Cuckoos were disgusted and
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  told Cyclops what she'd done. Soon after, a leftover spark of
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  the Phoenix inside the girls set off the weapon 14 nanotech
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  inside their bones. This briefly resurrected Sophie
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  and Esme, who tried to push their sisters back into the
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  world. The place where they used to
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  live, not the world. To fulfill Sublime's anti mutant
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  plan, the Phoenix and Sublime fought over the girl's minds.
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  When the X-Men arrived, Phoebe and Mindy got captured and wired
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  into Sublime's machine, while the Phoenix possessed Celeste.
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  Eventually, the Phoenix split across all three sisters and got
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  trapped inside their new mutation diamond hearts.
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  That's that, got it. This also awakened the 1001 the
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  rest of Weapon 14's clones, so Celeste held out long enough for
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  the X-Men to break them free, but Phoebe lashed out and caused
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  an explosion. Celeste seized control of the
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  Phoenix and destroyed the remaining clones and sealed the
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  Phoenix's shards inside the Cuckoo's hearts, which left the
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  three girls emotionally numb. Not that like I I mean they
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  weren't super emotional before. So back at school, the girls got
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  into their bratty and rebellious era.
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  They helped Elixir get a telepathic download of a PhD
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  from Bsprain. They were pulled into limbo and
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  rescued by Prodigy. And to thank him, they restored
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  all the knowledge he'd left. When he is, his powers vanished.
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  When the Hulk attacked Xavier, the Cuckoos used Cerebra to call
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  him backup. They were even briefly
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  considered for the initiative program after the first new
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  mutant birth post M Day, the Cuckoos ran Sariba again to
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  track the baby and coordinate the team.
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  When the X-Men moved to San Francisco, the Cuckoos also went
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  to San Francisco. They helped evacuate a hospital
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  during the Scroll invasion and provided telepathic support for
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  Emma as she brought down the scroll's psychic shield.
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  They continued helping Elixir and the X Force and agreed to
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  keep X Force's existence secret for Cyclops.
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  After relocating to Utopia, they spent a lot of time manning
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  Cerebra. During a Predator X attack, the
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  Phoenix Fragments escaped from their hearts and shot back into
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  space, knocking the girls into comas.
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  When they woke up, they recruited Rogue to help search
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  for the Phoenix, but came up empty.
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  Losing the Phoenix again put them into another depression.
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  During a trip to Manhattan, they beat Spider Man to the punch,
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  stopping a bank robbery. Even without a formal team, they
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  kept supporting various groups like Cyclops, X-Men, Hope's,
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  Team X, Force, Magnetos, all those others they kind of like.
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  They kind of filled the cracks, I guess.
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  During the Chaos War, Sophie and Esme were temporarily
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  resurrected. Even though things were tense,
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  they helped deal with the Underworld threat when the
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  mutant community split between Cyclops and Wolverine.
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  Phoebe wanted to return to the Jean Grey School.
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  Mindy wanted to stay on Utopia. Celeste cast the deciding vote.
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  She stayed mostly because Quinton Choir was there when the
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  Phoenix Force came back and The Avengers versus X-Men conflict
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  kicked off, the Cuckoos were among the younger students held
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  at The Avengers Academy. Afterward, they were
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  begrudgingly joined the new Jean Grey School, where they
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  witnessed Professor X's death and the reignition of mutant
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  kind. They hated their new school, so
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  when Cyclops showed up looking for recruits, the Cuckoos and
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  Angel immediately volunteered to join a side.
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  They became the team's primary telepaths since Emma's powers
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  were damaged. Around this time, Mindy dyed her
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  hair black for individuality, Phoebe dyed hers red, and
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  Celeste freaked out, but Emma approved.
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  Later, during a battle with the Future Brotherhood, the Cuckoos
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  and Emma teamed up telepathically to fight Scorn, a
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  future Jean Grey. They did OK at first, but
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  eventually got overwhelmed. After Cyclops shut down the new
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  Xavier school and told everyone to return to the Jean Grey
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  school, the students rebelled. The Cuckoos helped trap Mystique
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  by manipulating her mind and luring her into a dazzler shaped
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  trap. They and the others even plan to
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  skip both schools and start their own little group.
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  During a mission to stop a mutant girl summoning demons,
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  this Cuckoos went diamond, used their telepathy to restrain her,
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  and nearly killed her father's mutant hating friend after he
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  injured gold balls. Afterward, they admitted they
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  weren't ready for the real world and decided to stay at the Jean
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  Grey School. About a year later, they went
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  back to their natural blonde hair and matching outfits.
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  Eventually they moved to the mutant nation of Herkoa where
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  they acted as psychic liaisons for the human ambassadors.
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  Thanks to Cracowa's resurrection protocols, Sophie and Esme
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  rejoined the group and the Cuckoo's were five once again.
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  The girls usually act pretty much the same.
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  They talk alike, they move alike, they usually stick
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  together. They do argue now and then, but
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  for the most part they function as 1 unit, which is unsettling.
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  Still, when they split up, their individual personality start to
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  show. 1 might be kinder, 1 might be more shy, 1 might be more
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  bold. Little quirks that make them
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  stand out from each other. So let's talk about them
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  individually. Let's talk about Sophie.
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  Sophie was originally the main personality of the group.
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  She always wanted to be a hero, and her choices generally came
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  from a noble place. She definitely had the strongest
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  moral compass of the five. Phoebe.
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  Phoebe's a problem. Phoebe tends to be the more
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  aggressive one. When the Phoenix Force showed
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  up, she was the one who actually wanted to tap into its
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  destructive power. After Sophie died, Phoebe
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  naturally slipped into the leadership role.
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  She's also more independent. She resisted 0's mind control
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  when most others couldn't, even if it meant disagreeing with her
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  sisters. Later, when the X-Men split, she
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  was the one who wanted to head back to Westchester.
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  Mindy Mindy likes playing piano and was one of the most resigned
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  to the idea that they were tools created by Sublime.
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  During Osborne's attack, Cyclops actually assigned her to
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  purposely get captured so they could act as a Trojan horse,
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  guiding the X-Men to where Osborne was keeping prisoners.
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  When the team split, she wanted to stay at Utopia.
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  Celeste Celeste started off as the shyest and sweetest group
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  member. She didn't want to use the
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  Phoenix when it took hold of her sisters, but she ended up being
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  the one who mastered it enough to destroy her incubated clones
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  and trap the phoenix shards in their diamond hearts.
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  Over time, she got a little bit more confident.
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  Her sister's saying she's starting to think she's better
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  within them. You know how they do.
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  She also is the one who tries to nudge them towards watching
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  something more educational than Glee.
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  They like Glee, by the way. Celeste cast the deciding vote
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  to stay on Utopia, but she gets very emotional when she can't
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  reach Emma telepathically, so she is the more sensitive one.
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  Esme. Esme is also a problem.
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  Esme was always the schemer. She used Kik to gain leverage
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  over her sisters and team up with Scorn.
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  She secretly pushed Sophie into overdosing on Kik, later shot
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  Emma Frost, and eventually ran off to join Scorn's brotherhood.
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  Definitely the most manipulative out of the group.
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  So that those are the Stafford Cuckoos.
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  They are a lot to take a they're a lot to keep up with, but
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  they're so freaking interesting. Like if you like Emma Frost, if
• 12:57
  you like the White Queen, then you'll love the Stafford
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  Cuckoos. So with that being said, I
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  usually have some comics for you to check out and today is no
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  exception. I think you should check out
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  X-Men Phoenix and Song one through 5 and new X-Men volume
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  to. But to be honest they are
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  scattered a little bit of everywhere so it's hard to like
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  nail down which one you really want to check out.
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  But I do think you guys should look into them.
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  They're very interesting. So with that being said, have a
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  marvelous day.