Jubilee (Marvel)
Jubilee is a female comic character who features in Marvel Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Jubilation Lee was a female human Mutant born to Chinese immigrants who moved to the United States shortly before she was born. She was named Jubilation for the joy her family felt when they came to America. Her father was a bank director and her family became quite wealthy. They ended up living in Beverly Hills and young Jubilation was enrolled in a prep school, where her talent for gymnastics was discovered. She showed great promise and the potential to become an Olympic level gymnast. Jubilation used her superior agility to commit petty crimes. She and her best friend spent most of their time at the local mall, shoplifting and making their escape on their rollerblades. Jubilee didn’t steal for lack of money but for the thrill of doing it. As Jubilee admitted, she wasn’t proud of doing it, just of how they did it. One day, Jubilee’s luck ran out and she found herself trapped in a dead-end alley by a pair of mall rent-a-cops. Fearing juvenile detention, not to mention her parents’ reaction, she panicked and her pyrotechnic powers manifested. The resulting blast destroyed the entire alley. Her first instinct was to run to the beach, where she tried to keep her hands wet so that it would never happen again. (Generation X v1 #24)
One day, her parents were busy with Jubilation deciding to go out with her friends where they were being disruptive at the mall. This led to mall security pursuing them and Jubilee came to take a wrong turn and was cornered. Faced with getting caught, her Mutant powers first manifested under the stress leading to her emitting a pyrotechnic blast from her hands that allowed her to burn through a fence to escape. The fireworks cause came to disorient the security guards whilst Jubilee in a panic tried to douse her hands in water whilst she desperately wanted to go back to normal. Her friends came to find her and they were reunited but the crying Jubilation Lee knew that nothing would be the same for her. (Generation X v1 #24)
Jubilee told her parents about her strange abilities, but it did not seem to be a problem for them. She quickly learned how to control her powers to a limited degree, enough to keep them from activating unintentionally. Not long after her powers emerged, Jubilee’s parents were killed in what seemed to be a car accident on Mulholland Drive. At the time, Jubilee had been at the shopping mall with her friends. When she returned home, Jubilation found the police waiting to inform her of the accident and she was handed over to another couple named Lee from the neighborhood. Jubilee did not like it there and ran away as soon as possible. She returned to the mall, which now seemed to be her only home. (Wolverine v2 #72) It was then that her parents were killed in a mysterious car accident when their vehicle was run off a cliff. Unknown to anyone, this was due to Hunter Brawn who had been laundering through Mr. Lee's bank. Upon learning this, Jubilation's father looked to expose the businessman to the authorities but Brawn had the Lee's killed. (Generation X Annual v1 #1999)
Jubilee lived there for weeks, surviving either by stealing and earning money performing with her fireworks. Mall security was annoyed by her constantly outrunning them and eventually called in an amateur team of mutant hunters, the M-Squad. On the same day, the mall was visited by the female contingent of the Australian X-Men group - Storm, Rogue, Dazzler and Psylocke. Jubilee was the sole witness to their arrival through one of Gateway’s teleportation portals. Admiring the four beautiful ladies, Jubilee secretly followed them through the mall. When the M-Squad attacked the young girl, they were easily defeated by the X-Men who then left the scene exactly the same way they had arrived. Jubilee was intrigued by these other people with super-powers. For reasons known only to him, Gateway deliberately left his portal open longer than necessary to bring the X-women home. Jubilee saw this and jumped through after them. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #244)
X-Men
On the other side of the portal, Jubilee found herself at the X-Men's temporary base in the Australian outback. Jubilee stayed hidden and, while living in the underground base, the mutant known as Gateway was the only person aware of Jubilee's existence. During her stay in the base, Jubilee stowed away in Dazzler's quarters and found an immediate kinship, in the extent of Alison Blaire's wardrobe. Jubilee stole food and borrowed clothes from several of the X-Men to create a makeshift costume for herself. (X-Men Annual v1 #13) Jubilee was present when Nanny and Orphan-Maker ambushed the X-Men at their base, but simply hid while the battle ensued. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #248) Once while the X-Men were out, Jubilee was harassed and hounded by a Reaver guard dog that was left at the base. Jubilee stayed in hiding until the X-Men had abandoned the base, and their enemies the Reavers had captured Wolverine and taken over the base. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #251) Jubilee became something of a kid sidekick to Logan, looking after him as his healing factor dealt with his wounds. During this period, they formed a close, father-daughter bond. When they reached Madripoor, they encountered Lady Mandarin, who was actually Psylocke brain-washed and in a new, Asian body. Jubilee was captured by Psylocke’s master, the Mandarin, and dressed up like a China doll. In desperation, Jubilation unleashed an unprecedented amount of her mutant plasmoid power, completely demolishing the house she was in. This incident made Jubilee extremely wary of pushing the limits of her powers, as she was afraid of hurting people again. Psylocke was eventually freed from the Mandarin's control when she used her psychic knife on Wolverine. This created a psychic backlash and she saw herself in his memories as she once was. Betsy joined Wolverine’s traveling party but Jubilation did not immediately trust Betsy and the two of them were heavily at odds for their first few months together. However, for the sake of Wolverine, they worked together and the trio shared several other adventures in Madripoor. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #258)
When Professor X was almost killed by a villain named Stryfe, who appeared to be Cable, the X-Men were quick to suspect Cable of the deed. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #294) It was Jubilee who persuaded the X-Men that he might not be the culprit, as no one knew what Stryfe really looked like, and he could therefore be disguised as Cable. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #295) When Professor Xavier temporarily regained the use of his legs after being cured from a techno-organic virus, he and Jubilee spent some time bonding. The youngster convinced Xavier that he should try out rollerblading at least once and then deliberately made him crash into a pond of water on the Xavier Estate. That night, Jubilee came to realize that the Professor was more than a stiff guy making the rules and the two of them enjoyed their time together, until he once again lost the use of his legs. Jubilee didn’t know the right words to offer him as she helped get him back to his wheelchair. In aiding her mentor, she realized that there was no need for words at all - it just needed doing. (Uncanny X-Men v1 #297)
A few weeks later, Wolverine encountered Magneto, who magnetically pulled the adamantium in Logan's skeleton out through his pores. The feral X-Man nearly died as a result and was left a shadow of his former self. It was also discovered that his metal claws were not simply implants, as had always been believed, but that there were naturally occurring bone claws under the metal. Logan temporarily left the X-Men to find some answers and to heal properly, as he explained in a letter to Jubilee. He also left her his favorite cowboy hat, knowing the emotional anguish his departure would cause her. (Wolverine v2 #75)
Generation X
One of the most important details from her time with Generation X was when she discovered the true killer of her parents, Hunter Brawn. She staged a solo operation, using all of her powers, skills, and abilities to track down Brawn. With the help of her friends and teammates, she managed to take him down. Enraged at how he had destroyed her family, her powers flared to a massive level. Instead of killing the man, she took out her aggression and blew up his warehouse, leaving him to be arrested by local authorities. (Generation X Annual v1 #1999)
After Generation X disbanded, Jubilee moved to L.A. with former teammate Skin to pursue an acting career. She was unfortunately cast in stereotypical Asian roles, and after her agent tried to seduce her, she blasted him with a powerful plasma blast. (X-Men Unlimited v1 #34)
Decimation
When Sally Floyd tried to get in touch with the X-Men regarding the sudden depowering of most of the mutants, Jubilee did what she could to help, but since she was no longer a mutant she could not go back to the Xavier Institute and was instead working as a political activist against Congressman Sykes. (Generation M v1 #2)
Curse of the Mutants
Whilst travelling, she found an orphaned baby boy who was all alone after a meteorite strike and decided to adopt the child. During this time, she came to feel that she was being followed and contacted her friends among the X-Men to help bring her home. It was discovered that the child had been infected by an extraterrestrial bacterial being called Arkea who was the twin sister of Sublime who had been banished into space long ago. She had arrived on the meteorite and took the boy as a host until she could find a powerful machine body to inhabit as she was a technopath. (X-Men v4 #1)
House of X
Overview
Personality and attributes
Jubilee had said that in her time with Wolverine that she learnt to not take a life. (Generation X Annual v1 #1999)
She regularly thought about her parents long after their deaths. Sometimes she would wake up thinking that she was still in her bed in Beverly Hills and that her parents were alive. This tended to lead to her getting depressed again as she thought of the crash that killed them. (Generation X Annual v1 #1999)
In her youth, she used to complain about her parents making her take part in gymnastic practice but later came to be grateful for this skill. (Generation X Annual v1 #1999)
It was noted that her father worked at a bank as its president. (Generation X Annual v1 #1999)
Jubilee hated Christmas as it reminded her of her deceased family. However, this changed after she met Santa Claus and helped rescue him. (Generation X Holiday Special v1 #1)
Her father had a sister who was her Aunt Hope with her being wealthy and having a large mansion. She did not know her brother had a daughter which was why she did not try to reach out to find her when Jubilee became an orphan. (Jubilee v1 #1) Hope Lee was secretly a professional assassin who worked for a Chinese crime lord for years until he betrayed her. As such, her years of experience meant that she was skilled in fighting in hand-to-hand combat and in the use of guns. (Jubilee v1 #5) Her body was shown to contain some cybernetics as she had a hidden mechanical left leg. She had wanted to retire from the assassin life and live with her niece but her former boss refused to allow her to leave that world behind which was why he sent hired guns to kill her. (Jubilee v1 #6)
Jubilation later came to adopt an orphaned baby boy who she named Shogo. (X-Men v4 #2)
Powers and abilities
She did not understand Chinese and said she had never learnt the language. (Jubilee v1 #6) Lee had said that she was not a computer hacker but was skilled enough to use the internet to track a person down and store all a person's hardcopy backups. (Generation X Annual v1 #1999)
It was shown that Jubilation had become a skilled gymnast with this being a useful skill for her. (Generation X Annual v1 #1999)
Jubilee was said to be capable of detonating matter on a sub-atomic level. (X-Men v2 #36)
She came to refine her powers allowing her to manifest swords composed of energy. With these, she could project dozens and send them slamming into a target area where the sheer number caused a large explosion. (Excalibur v4 #9)
Notes
- Jubilee was created by Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri where she made his first appearance in Uncanny X-Men v1 #244 (May, 1989).
- The Women of Marvel: Celebrating Seven Decades Handbook v1 #1 (2010) noted that she was the daughter of two prosperous Hong Kong immigrants.
Alternate Versions
- In Wolverine and the X-Men v1 #36 (2013), an alternate older version of Jubilee was shown to inhabit the universe designated as Earth-13729.
In other media
Television
- In X-Men, Jubilee appeared in the 1990's animated television series where she was voiced by actor Alyson Court.
- In Spider-Man, Jubilee made a guest appearance in the 1990s animated television series where she was voiced once again by actor Alyson Court.
- In X-Men: Evolution, Jubilee made a brief appearance in the animated television series where she was voiced by actor Chiara Zanni.
Films
- In X-Men: Apocalypse, Jubilee appeared in the live-action film where she was portrayed by actor Lana Condor.
Video games
- In Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, Jubilee appeared as a selectable helper character in the fighting video game where she was voiced by actor Alyson Court.
- In X-Men Legends, Jubilee appeared as a playable character in the video game where she was voiced by actor Danica McKellar.
- In Marvel Heroes, Jubilee appeared as a team-up character in the MMORPG where she was voiced by actor Aly Casas.
Appearances
- Uncanny X-Men: (1989)
- Generation X v1:
- Jubilee v1:
- X-Men v4:
- Generation X:
- Excalibur:
External Links
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