X-Men: 10 Characters That Must Appear In The New Mutants Movie

Possibly the first character in comics history to be outed by the fans long before he officially came out as gay in the storylines, Julio Esteban Richter gained most of his current popularity as a part of Peter David’s return to the X-Factor title in 2005, but began life as a latter-day member of the New Mutants.

A young mutant capable of creating massive seismic shockwaves - earthquakes - Rictor is a captive of rightwing anti-mutant terrorists The Right when he’s saved by the original X-Factor, in the same clutch of stories that introduced Boom-Boom to the New Mutants.

Rebellious and individualistic, Ric is also passionate and highly emotionally intelligent. His deep empathic link to the earth, a side effect of his seismic powers, is a major reason for his intense emotional responses to stimuli and his natural understanding of those responses. When he loses those powers along with 90% of the world’s mutant population following the Decimation event, he loses that connection to the world and contemplates suicide, but finds a new way to belong with the X-Factor Investigations team.

There’s no reason why the character can’t take part in the same narrative beats as a part of the New Mutants movie storylines: it’s a basic tenet of all superhero cinema that storylines from the comic books are cherry-picked to create a new take on the characters in question.

Ric’s profound friendships with both Boom-Boom and Wolfsbane make him a perfect fit for a New Mutants film, and his powers have dramatic weight as well as dynamic heft: they work well for storytelling purposes and look great on screen.

None of which explains why he's called 'Rictor', of course... especially as the whole earthquake thing fits far better with his real life surname, as in 'Richter Scale'. The eighties and nineties were an odd time.