10 Comic Book Plots That Will Never Be Resolved
4. The Upstarts And Their Prize
The Upstarts burst pretty dramatically onto the X-Men scene in the 90's They were a group of brand new characters like Trevor Fitzroy and Shinobi Shaw involved in a game to see who could rack up the highest score by killing other mutants, all for a mysterious prize.
The story was a pretty clear attempt to get rid of older characters in favour of new creations and so the Upstarts racked up quite a body count, including Emma Frost, the Hellions and even Magneto. Things soon turned into a bit of a mess though when they ran out of targets Marvel would let them kill and so Gamesmaster, the groups arbiter, suddenly changed the rules of the game to be about capturing mutants instead.
It was also made more confusing by the fact that no-one actually knew what the "prize" was, with some thinking it was immortality, others a boost in powers or even the winner gaining the powers of everyone else. To further complicate things, the founder of the game was revealed to be Selene, the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, who had her own hidden agenda and promised that no-one knew what the real prize was.
The whole thing just kind of fizzled out when teen mutant Husk convinced Gamesmaster to go do something else instead. The group promptley disbanded and we never found out what the prize they were all so obsessed with even was.