That December, I remember being again intrigued, this time by a crossover issue of THE NEW MUTANTS, and I spent most of that winter break spending a great deal of money catching up on that series. I simply loved that group of characters. But standing out above all of them was this guy named Doug Ramsey (Cypher). Surrounded by a team full of people who could fly, move mountains, possess people, or turn into various forms of wolf, all poor Doug could do was communicate. And yet he was one of the most well-developed characters back in the days of Chris Claremont's writing. Untapped potential beyond the dreams of a would-be writer like me. And then they killed him off, the potential unrealized.
So Doug and Rachel have been in my fan-fiction ever since it started, but as time went on, Doug got more and more of the spotlight. Finally, I decided that I wanted to do my own fantasy team, with Doug as the leader, and write my own continuing series. I started setting this up toward the end of writing the LATE SHOW parodies, and whimsically chose a lineup drawing its seven members from three previous mutant teams: Cypher, Mirage, Warlock and Wolfsbane from the New Mutants, Rictor from the X-Terminators (this was before X-Force, after all), and most whimsically of all, Tarot and Catseye from the Hellions.
So then, naturally, the Hellions got killed off shortly after I started writing. This got my back up, as like Doug, they had been killed off with no regard to the untapped potential of their characters and powers. But on the other hand, it inspired me to develop them more thoroughly as characters, and they quickly became integral parts of the ongoing story.
In some ways, GO WEST is that same team of seven. They are the "main cast," as it were, but as so often happens, incidental characters began stealing more and more of the spotlight as the series continued. I'd gone and populated the Massachusetts Academy with a whole busload of new mutant characters, each patiently waiting for a turn at center stage. At the time of this writing (in the middle of Chapter 27), the supporting cast has grown and developed, and I couldn't be happier. I hope this cast of throw-offs from Marvel and original creations intrigues you as much as their untapped potential did and does intrigue me, more and more, as I keep writing.
That said, there are some warnings I need to pass on. This is fan-fiction based on comic book characters in a comic book universe, but unlike most comics, it is decidedly un-action-oriented. Battle scenes and strife are present, but not on a daily basis. Mutant powers are often downplayed in the background, simply as part of the character rather than that which defines the character. This is a prolonged prose story about a few dozen college-age kids with mutant powers being just one of the potential problems they have to face in everyday life.
And since it IS a story about this age group in these life-situations, there is going to be some of what must be called Mature Content. Now, in many comic books, Mature Content is a euphemism for gratuitous sex and violence, but here, I really do mean Mature Content. There is also a decent amount of strong language, with some characters more prone to swearing than others. It has been my intention to portray these folks as real late-teen/early-twenties individuals going to college, which means that they aren't spending all their time saving the world or working out in the Danger Room. These are young adults who go to school, go on dates, philosophize about life, subject themselves to sometimes needless angst, cuss up a storm when necessary, get into verbal fights more than fistfights, have sex, argue, pal around, act hopelessly gooey, doubt themselves, have delusions of grandeur, and sometimes behave like insensitive clods, just like real people. If you read GO WEST, be prepared to see all that, as well as seeing "hot-topic" subjects like rape, child abuse, and mental disorder treated as parts of real life that don't get better after a 22-page special issue gets over. In other ways, GO WEST is a series of prolonged love stories, some of which don't match the so-called "norms" of society. To reiterate, this is meant to be a story about real people, in all their diversity, who happen to have unusual powers: not a story about powers in costumes fighting other powers in costumes.
THAT said, I hope you enjoy GO WEST. It's by far the longest prolonged work I've ever written, and it's not even nearly done yet. I also hope it's something that could be enjoyed by Marvel fans as well as those who've never picked up an X-book in their lives.
Thank you all for reading. If you have any questions or comments about the storyline, please send them along. I look forward to hearing from all of you.
--Jeremy Bottroff (kyototh@cox.net)