Jubilee (Jubilation Lee)

Last character appearing in the pics officially released for X-Men: Apocalypse, another woman: Jubilee, who’ll be portrayed by Lana Condor. In the movie, she’ll be one of Charles Xavier‘s new students, a pyrotechnic mutant with a taste for fashion. She already appeared in the original trilogy, portrayed by Katrina Florence in the first movie, and by Kea Wong in the second and third ones. She only had minor cameos, appearing in the background and usually not even speaking. Her first live action appearance, however, was in tv movie Generation X, where she was portrayed by Heather McComb: she was one of the protagonists, a new student entering Emma Frost‘s and Sean Cassidy‘s school for mutants along with Skin… and doing her best for getting along with the other, more experienced students. This time she’ll be in the middle of the action, and that’s quite intriguing, especially considering she has one of the most useless mutant powers ever. Let’s see together.

Jubilation Lee, Jubilee for friends, was born in Beverly Hills, California, the daughter of two wealthy Chinese immigrants. She grew up having quite a perfect life: she was one of the most popular girls in her exclusive high school, and she was even one of the most proficient gymnasts in California, with her teacher sure she would have attended the Olympic Games with such a skill. She spent most of her time in the malls with her best friend, and the two of them often engaged in petty robberies, just for fun, escaping from the surveillance on roller blades. One day, she was cornered by a couple of guards, and panicked: in that occasion, she manifested for the first times her mutant powers, firing colorful lights from her hands. The surprise for the guards was enough to allow her to escape, and later that evening she told her parents about it… but they didn’t even flinch: the ability itself was pretty harmless, and they loved their daughter even as a mutant. Her life could continue as always… if not for a dreadful night, during which Jubilation lost everything: her parents got killed by two hitmen, Reno and Molokai, who were hired by Hunter Brawn, a powerful man whose illegal schemes the girl’s father wanted to expose. Brawn also messed with the Lees’ bank accounts, so Jubilee found herself alone, orphan and penniless from a day to another. Waiting to be adopted by another family, she was sent to an orphanage, but she didn’t want to have anything to do with it, and she escaped pretty soon, taking shelter in the closest place to a home she knew: a shopping mall in Hollywood. She survived with petty thefts, frustrating the guards who were always unable to catch her; she also started to use her powers to entertain the mall’s customers and making some money with her “fireworks”, as always escaping from the guards whenever they approached. Eventually, the mall decided to hire the M-Squad, a private police force specialized in hunting mutants. Jubilee soon found out these people were not the usual guards as, despite frying some of their equipment, she ended up caught in no time. But fate had other plans for her.

Luckily for Jubilee, there were four very particular customers that day at the mall: Ororo Munroe, Anne Marie, Betsy Braddock and Alison Blaire, better known as Storm, Rogue, Psylocke and Dazzler from the X-Men. The four women fought and defeated the M-Squad, saving Jubilee in the process. The girl was now extremely curious of her saviors, and she decided to follow them: when the X-Women jumped through a portal, Jubilee followed them, careful not to be seen. At the other side of the portal, Jubilee found herself in Australia, in the temporary base of the X-Men. She stayed hidden, stealing food and clothes from nearly everyone there, with only the old mutant Gateway (the one who had created the portal) knowing she was there, but remaining silent. Jubilee was still in hiding when the villainous Reavers conquered the Australian base, and kidnapped and tortured Wolverine. While sneaking around as always, Jubilee found Wolverine nailed to an iron cross, near death. Instinctively, she freed him and nurtured him back to health, and helped him defeat the Reavers. A strange relationship grew between them, as Jubilee was in desperate need of a father figure, while Wolverine enjoyed the joy and peace of mind that a kid could give him: they became inseparable, and when the Canadian mutant started traveling the world on his own, Jubilee followed him as his unofficial “sidekick”, never leaving his side. Together, they faced quite a number of threats, and Wolverine trained her also in fighting. Young Jubilee proved to be skilled enough to hold her ground against The Hand‘s ninjas, and she even provided an escape for her and Wolverine when the duo was captured by the Mandarin, using her powers (much stronger now) to blow up a portion of the Chinese warlord castle. The duo then became a trio, with Psylocke joining Wolverine in his “missions”: together, the three mutants battled foes such as Sabretooth and Omega Red, and of course a remarkable number of Sentinels, until they left the Far East to go to Genosha, where the local mutant population was under a fierce attack. The adventure on Genosha served to Jubilee as a “final test”, and back to the United States she was officially welcomed as a member of the X-Men.

Jubilation Lee is an easy-going and dynamic girl, always cheerful despite her somewhat tragic past. She has a special bond with strong personalities, especially Wolverine and Storm, but with the years she’s developed some leader’s skill of her own. As Jubilee, she’s able to generate “fireworks”, technically lumikinetic explosive light blasts, globules of pure energy that at first manifested themselves just as colorful sparkles able, at maximum, to momentarily blind somebody; with time, Jubilee learnt to control them better, and she’s now able to increase their explosive power, transforming them into real energy bombs. She’s also an extremely proficient gymnast, and a skilled hand-to-hand combatant trained directly by Wolverine and Psylocke. A fashion-lover and a player at heart, Jubilee has been for years some kind of mascot for the X-Men, but she’s now ready to be something more for her teammates and friends.