Wildside

Context

Wildside debuted in February of 1990 as a member of Stryfe’s mutant super-villain agents, The Mutant Liberation Front, in the The New Mutants series.

He is one of the more enduring members of Stryfe’s Mutant Liberation Front. Wildside reappeared for nearly every incarnation of the group.

He is most distinctive for being a near-clone of Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair) and Feral (Maria Callasantos)’s appearances. But this is never remarked upon in-story.

Background

Powers & Abilities

Wildside at first appears to be a generic “clawed mutant”. He has short, pointed claws on his fingernails, as well as sharp, pointed teeth.

He is athletic, leaping about and attacking people in melee.

Wildside is not an overly dangerous opponent. Like most of the MLF, he’s designed to go a round or two with an X-character and then lose, making that character look tougher.

He has been incapacitated after a single round against Feral, later against Shatterstar (Gaveedra Seven), and one-punched by Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff)’s sneak attack.

Take a walk

However, he has a rarely-seen mutant power: the ability to “warp perceptions of reality”.

This manifests as energy around his hands, with someone nearby experiencing a disabling, staggering confusion. Victims are seen holding their heads, becoming uncomfortable, and being unable to attack or defend themselves.

His powers can be effective, but he’s so sadistic he prefers to just claw at people.

A cyborg opponent noted that his powers merely affect one’s senses, not their mind. And so the cyborg was able to “turn off” his human senses and focus on mechanical ones, thus becoming immune.

His power may also be used to render himself and other people with him invisible. This is done in his debut and then never again.

A hustle here and a hustle there

Wildside is so ’90s that he has mutant powers that are almost an afterthought in favor of being a melee fighter.

Like Cable (minor TK powers; mostly a Gun Guy and Cyborg), Shatterstar (Tiring Energy Blast via Swords; mostly a Sword Guy), or Domino (Luck Powers; mainly a Gun Girl). This happened a LOT with Liefeld characters, though other 90s writers were as guilty of it.

He only ever did it a couple times (to Siryn to hold her down, and to some cyborg guy), and in his first appearance he made his team invisible to a large group of soldiers. But that aspect of his powers was never seen again.

It’s unsure how his claws and teeth came about. Maybe he’s one of the first incarnations of “secondary mutations”.

History

Wildside debuted as one of Stryfe’s Mutant Liberation Front, helping his team invade a military installation.

He uses his powers to render his entire team invisible for a time, but later simply uses his claws to slash away at people.

Later, he’s part of a short team that assaults X-Force as they hit an MLF base. Wildside taunts Feral, but is quickly disabled when she grabs his open mouth and snaps his jaw.

X-Cutioner’s Song

He appears during “The X-Cutioner’s Song” when the X-Men and X-Factor invade a big MLF base.

In his only victory against a named super-hero, Wildside manages to avoid Gambit (Remy LeBeau)’s energized playing cards. He then slams the hero’s head into the floor, concussing him and disabling him for the rest of the crossover.

Stopping to gloat about the impending disembowelment, Wildside is struck from behind by Quicksilver and knocked unconscious himself.

Quicksilver notes that if he talked less and fought more, he’d not be vulnerable to such attacks. Ironically, he is then himself taken down from behind by Wildside’s teammate Reaper.

Reignfire era

He reappears a few more times, such as when Reignfire recruited four members of the team for a new MLF.

He acted even more savagely here, gleefully killing many of Henry Peter Gyrich’s bodyguards, and heavily crushing on his new teammate Locus.

Wildside once managed to warp Siryn (Theresa Cassidy)’s perceptions enough to get the drop on her, threatening her life if Shatterstar did not give up the fight.

But Shatterstar tricked him into seemingly killing Reaper, and Wildside was quickly taken down.

Wildside led a portion of the group during Operation: Zero Tolerance. But he attacked Locus and was abandoned among Bastion’s Sentinels.

Post-MLF

He later showed up with Reaper. The Weapon X program sent them against Cable (Nathan Summers).

Cable rendered the pair brain-dead when he attempted to probe their minds. A Weapon X fail-safe nuked them.

Wildside was listed as depowered following M-Day, and never had another notable appearance.

Description

Sporting a huge pile of hair, shock-white, piled high to the sky and odd red “patches” over his eyes, Wildside’s visual appearance was an early sign of Liefeld’s visual character tropes.

His look and general build would be copied entirely for Feral, who debuted a short time later. And the “eyepatches” would be a recurring Rob element for years. They later appear on Domino, Deadpool (Wade Wilson), Cabbot Stone and any number of his other characters.

Wildside seems to be a palette-swap of Rob Liefeld’s version of Wolfsbane or Feral. He’s got the big triangle-shaped frizzy anti-grav haircut, the claws, the same skinny physique, etc..

Personality

A violent, murdering psychopath. But more in the Bullseye “enjoys murder and causing pain” sense than Feral’s defensive “get them before they get you” mentality.

So he’s pretty much a total 1990s-style villain. Constantly chatting, mouthing off, and trying to hurt people.

Wildside was distinctive enough to take part in pretty much every MLF incarnation. But his teammates eventually started getting sick of him.

You should’ve seen him go, go, go

Wildside is exceptionally cruel, reveling in killing others. He relished the idea of disemboweling Gambit, and killed many henchmen types in other stories.

When his teammate Locus is shown murdering others with a horrifying “teleport off parts of their bodies” power, Wildside immediately asks her to marry him.

He’s also an arrogant fool, frequently gloating before the deed is done.

Wildside often leaves himself open for counterattacks.

By Jabroniville..

Source of Character: Marvel Comics (mostly X-Force).

Helper(s): What Sébastien Andrivet and Darci are cooking.

Writeup completed on the 19^th of July, 2020.