Alejandro "Alex" Mateo LunaAxo

The teenage mutant Axo senses others’ moods and can predict what they’ll do, though he doesn’t love all his abilities—skin that changes color, revealing his mood and strangers who reveal their secrets to him. While juggling school, relationships, and his powers, he starts to learn how to hone his powers by training with veteran X-Men.

Changing Colors

Living with his father and sister in Chicago, teenager Alejandro “Alex” Mateo Luna plays All-City Chess on the Brighton Park team but when his mutant power manifests, his skin changes colors based on his mood, leading him to quit the chess team. He soon finds out more about his ability, which involves those around him spilling their secrets, which he has no interest in knowing. This ability feels more like a burden to him than anything. He also doesn’t have many mutant friends until one fateful day on a school soccer field.

While supporting a friend’s soccer game, Alex experiences some bullying, which prompts his skin to change color as it alters his mood. One of the soccer players, Thao, intervenes, putting herself between the bullies and Alex, but when they throw a punch, she phases and turns invisible. The fist fight continues until a strange woman phases herself, Alex, and Thao through the bleachers to the ground below. The woman is X-Man Katherine “Kate” Pryde, AKA Kitty Pryde, and advises them to leave.

A few days later, Alex joins Thao and her friend Trista Marshall, who recognizes him from All-City Chess, and is adamant that they all should be friends and organize. But what Alex really wants is to turn off his ability that leads random people to dump their emotional baggage on him. They seek out the only adult mutant they know for advice, Kitty Pryde. Showing up on her doorstep, they are soon mind-controlled by telepath Emma Frost, who attempts to force her brand of help on them.

When Alex and the others come out of Frost’s trance, they see Kitty and Emma fighting. But Kitty’s roommate Priti arrives and calms things down. Emma offers to train the wayward mutants but Axo isn’t sure and asks Kitty whether she can be trusted. Kitty says yes but it’s complicated and ultimately agrees to co-train them in how to protect themselves at Priti’s former dance studio. 

After school, Alex and the others start to train at the studio turned mutant dojo. They introduce themselves, sharing their pronouns and a fun fact about them. Alex shares more about his abilities and how he does not want to be bombarded with other people’s secrets. Trista, meanwhile, comes up codenames for all of them, calling herself “Bronze” on account of how her skin changes to a a hard metallic bronze, “Melee” for Thao since she runs headfirst into things, always ready for action, and “Axo” after the Axolotl salamander, which changes color just like Alex. Alex loves his name, as does Thao, and the latter of whom thought they were ready to be heroes. But Kitty reminds that that wasn’t necessary, that they just needed to survive. Emma suddenly shows up with costumes, reinforcing the idea that they were on their way to being heroes. After changing, a swarm of goblins attacks, which they all fight off, but Alex senses that they weren’t real and calls Emma out on crafting the telepathic illusion. The argument that follows between Emma and Kitty over how to train Alex and the others is interrupted by one of their colleagues, Bobby Drake, AKA Iceman, who joins the dojo as another mentor, and Alex continues training with them as Axo.

Mood Sense and Predictability

Alex possesses an extreme form of empathy, or emotion-stirring, where strangers confess their biggest secrets and vulnerabilities to him and he can read other people’s moods. This mood sense helps him make educated guesses about where their feelings could lead, allowing him to predict their actions and also giving him a sense when someone’s a threat. He’s still learning the extent of his abilities and their limitations. He comes to learn that some mutants can obfuscate his threat sense. Alex also trains in hand-to-hand combat with veteran X-Men instructors and alongside his fellow teenage mutants. 

Sensing a Threat

Since Alex is visibly a mutant, he often deals with anti-mutant sentiment in the form of bullies and snide comments from nearby strangers. But his earliest foe is that of the geneticist and mutant obsessive Nathaniel Essex, AKA Mister Sinister, who tricks Alex into trusting him, which leads to a terrifying experience of capture and experiment. Though Alex’s mutant allies come to his rescue.

In the Mood for Allies

Two of Axo’s closest friends are Trista Marshall, AKA Bronze, and Thao Tran, AKA Melee, who bond over their shared existence as mutants. Since Alex is often cynical and sarcastic, Trista calls him a number of nicknames, ranging from Mr. Cynical and Captain Sarcasm to Eye-Roll King, the latter of which Alex likes. Together, they learn how to use their powers defensively from X-Men veterans Kitty Pryde and the Hellfire Club’s White Queen, Emma Frost.

Feeling All the Feels

One afternoon while training at the dojo, Alex and the others overheard their mentors Kitty and Bobby having a heated argument, and Kitty admitted that she had killed people. Alex and the others were shocked to hear such a revelation. Thao was furious and Alex tried to give Kitty the benefit of the doubt, though it didn’t stop Thao from quitting. Alex also left the dojo to think things over. Later, Alex and Trista video called Thao. They expressed some hard truths, like how Thao sometimes forgets about people’s feelings and bailed on them at the dojo. While they respected Thao’s commitment to her principles, they also hoped she was committed to them. Thao apologized and rejoined training sessions with the others who wanted to give Kitty a chance.

During a subsequent training session, Kitty complimented Alex on his predictive abilities. Emma took credit for her mentorship. As they continued to explore their abilities and independence, Alex and the others started paid internships with Kitty’s roommate Priti’s consulting firm. Offering marketing advice from the perspective of their generation, they met with Sheldon Xenos, founder of Verate, a mysterious new app that was promising a cure for mutants if they’d hand over their DNA. Alex got to know Xenos more and understood his desire of having control over genetics, seeing that Alex couldn’t turn off his color-changing appearance. Alex shared with his friends how he related to Xenos, but they were appalled, calling the app out on its various problems, such as its potential for eugenics, how it could impact data privacy, and promote body-shaming. Alex reminded them that they didn’t wear their mutant identity on them the way he did. 

Alex later met up with Xenos to discuss job opportunities at a park, but they were held up at gunpoint by a couple robbers. Alex punched the one with the weapon as he hated guns. The other thief started crying, upset over needing quick cash and their partner in crime consoled them. Alex sensed they were no longer in danger and left with Xenos. Later, Alex was excited to tell his family about his meeting with Xenos, and at dinner, learned that his sister Ana was out sick from school and needed her rescue inhaler. The next day at training, Thao and Trista outed Alex for siding with Xenos. Kitty warned Alex that not every mutant had the best intentions, but Alex stood up for Verate and Xenos, and called Kitty out for possibly having sided with the “bad guys.”

Alex met up with Xenos again but he turned out to be the evil geneticist Mister Sinister in disguise. Sinister captured Alex and in hooking him up to machines, intended to use his empathic powers to manipulate other mutants. Meanwhile, Sinister sent a clone of Alex into the world as cover, but Alex’s friends saw through the deception just before the clone suddenly dissolved. Thankfully, his mentors Kitty, Emma, and Iceman found Essex’s hideout and attempted a rescue, leaving Melee and Bronze behind. The adult mutant mentors attempted to free Alex, whose neural core was being siphoned away. But they were soon interrupted by a cloned version of Iceman, who tricked Melee and Bronze into joining the rescue party. Once Sinister was out of the way, Emma released Alex from the machine, which was a delicate process. But Sinister got loose and had his eyes on the other young mutants, until Emma stopped him in his tracks, with a bit of borrowed strength from Alex, but the effort was too much and she fell to the ground.