In every installment of “If I Pass This Way Again,” we look at odd comic book plot points that were rarely (sometimes NEVER!) mentioned again after they were first introduced. Today, we look at Jubilee's hidden mutant power!
Obviously, everyone knows that Jubilee's main power is that she makes these little energy bombs that explode like fireworks.
They're mostly low level stuff, but when she gets agitated, her fireworks can tear down entire buildings.
She lost her powers during M-Day and then she was turned into a vampire. So the firework powers are gone. However, did you know that she originally had ANOTHER mutant ability? One that hasn't been used in over two decades?
Okay, so in Uncanny X-Men #244 (by Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri and Dan Green), Jubilee meets the X-Men for the first time when they save her from some mutant hunters who were set after Jubilee because she was living in a mall while she was homeless (after the death of her parents). At the end of the issue, Jubilee decides to sneak a ride with them back to wherever they're going. Note, though, what Psylocke does right before Jubilee follows them RIGHT BEHIND THEM...
The next issue (with art by Rob Liefeld and Dan Green), Psylocke is on guard duty using her telepathic powers to scan for people and, she does not figure out that Jubilee is hiding in their home!!
In Uncanny X-Men #249 (by Claremont, Silvestri and Green), Havok is knocked out and Jubilee helps him and leaves him a note and, in effect, takes a phone message for him...
It is now READILY APPARENT that there is an intruder in their home. So Psylocke scans again and...
Clearly, then, Jubilee had the ability to block telepathy somehow. Or maybe just psi-scans in specific? Like maybe you COULD read her mind, but you can't pick her out of a crowd? Like, if you had her pinned down, you could read it, but not before that point? I have no idea, but it remains very clear that she has some sort of telepathic immunity.
Said immunity was, naturally, never shown again. There WAS a good moment in Operation: Zero Tolerance, where she fights back against scans of her mind, but it seems like that was more of a case of her figuring out that Bastion was trying to force her to remember certain things so that he could monitor her memories and she just made sure to NOT think about anything that he could use. That seems like the sort of telepathic training that most X-Men members probably got.
Generally speaking, though, that's it for Jubilee and her telepathic immunity.
If someone else has a suggestion for an interesting plot point that was introduced and then almost instantaneously ignored, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!