Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case File #243: Bailey Hoskins

I was thinking I’ve been putting up a lot of DC heroes lately, and then I found something:  an article on CBR about the worst X-Man.  Who was it?  Bailey Hoskins.  Who’s Bailey Hoskins?

Well, I read the article, and he’s just kinda awesome.

See, Bailey only appeared in a single mini-series, appropriately titled X-Men: The Worst X-Man Ever.  

Bailey was a very average teenager when he learned something big.  It seems both his parents were mutants.  As such, Bailey was also probably a mutant.  After a quick trip to the X-Mansion, Beast confirms Bailey is a mutant with a rather impressive-sounding mutant power.  He can explode, controlling the shape and power of the explosion to make it as strong or as weak as he wants.

There was just one little hitch.  I’ll let Daffy Duck demonstrate:

Yes, Bailey could explode, but he couldn’t pull himself back together again afterwards.  He might as well have no powers since he couldn’t really use his.  Well, not more than once anyway.

Not long after that, Sentinels step on his parents, and Bailey moves into the X-Mansion.  He’s not very popular there since he can’t even use his powers without dying.  Eventually, Beast puts him on a team with a couple other mutants.  One is Miranda.  She’s an “Omicron-level” mutant.  Keep in mind Marvel says their most powerful mutants are Omega-level.  Miranda was more powerful than that.  I’ll say what she can do later.

There was also the sibling duo of Rags and Riches.  Rags could decompose matter.  Riches could turn anything to gold.

As it was, Bailey didn’t fit in anywhere.  He even tried chasing down a minor member of the Purifiers only for the guy to (successfully) sue the Xavier Institute for emotional trauma, and it doesn’t look like Bailey even did anything.  But all the mutants he met tended to dislike him.

Things went worse when Bailey found himself blackmailed to try and kill Professor X.  He didn’t.  Don’t worry.  That Riches guy did instead by turning the Prof’s insides to gold.  It turned out he was a mole the whole time.

With Xavier dead, evil mutant groups took over the world, though some longtime X-Foes like Magneto found themselves on the outside looking in as well.  As time passes, Bailey eventually meets Miranda again.

What was her power?  She could reset reality.

That’s right.  Her mutant power was the power to retcon.

So, really, she can reset everything.

In fact, that was basically her whole deal.

But before that happened, Bailey decided to go see Riches again now that that jerk was the most powerful man on Earth.

Bailey basically walked up to the guy and finally used his mutant power.  At that point, Miranda said Bailey’s story was told, so she could rest reality again.

That’s…some really meta stuff right there.  A character in-story was there solely to make sure one other character got a story told?  You know, sometimes these characters are forgotten for all kinds of reasons, but then we get characters like Bailey.  There was one story for him, someone told it, and now he’s finished.  And you know, I am perfectly fine with that.

Of course, I haven’t read this book personally yet, so maybe I’ll have to track it down now…