Boom-Boom

Few characters have had quite the staying power of Boom-Boom, who burst onto the Marvel scene in 1985's Secret Wars II #5, courtesy of Jim Shooter and Al Milgrom, and has been lighting up the Bronze Age and beyond ever since. A fixture across The New Mutants, X-Factor, and X-Force, she's spent four decades sharing pages with some of Marvel's most beloved young mutants — Sam Guthrie, Roberto Da Costa, Nathan Summers, and more — building a rich history at the heart of the X-Men corner of the universe. With 160 catalog appearances, an X-Men team affiliation, and 15 key issues to her name, she's far more than a footnote; she's a genuine throughline in Marvel's mutant saga. If you're tracing the evolution of Marvel's younger mutant generation from the mid-'80s all the way into the 2020s, Boom-Boom is absolutely essential reading.