10) Marvel Girl (Rachel Summers)
The most iconic future-set storyline in all of comics has got to be Days of Future Past, from the pages of The Uncanny X-Men. If you’re only familiar with the movie version, however, you might not know of Rachel Summers – the mutant with the power to send mutants back in time (Kitty Pryde takes her place in the movie).
As the name might tell you, she’s the daughter of Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Just like her mother, she’s also been a host for the Dark Phoenix entity, which in her case sent her back in time to the present. Since then, Rachel has become a firm X-Men team member, as well as part of Captain Britan’s Excalibur team. She later took on the her mother’s alter ego of Marvel Girl, after Jean died (yet again).
A mention should also go to Hope Summers, the mutant messiah. The first mutant born after Scarlet Witch wiped out the species (it’s a long story), Hope was raised in the future by Cable (Rachel’s sort-of brother from a different timeline – its another long story).
9) Spider-Man 2099
Back in 1992, Marvel started the Marvel 2099 comic book line that reimagined their characters living a hundred years in the future. While the imprint was popular at the time, lasting until 1998, all but one of these characters sunk into obscurity without a trace. Spider-Man 2099 is the only one lucky enough to still be knocking around the Marvel universe today.
A brilliant geneticist living in a cyberpunk New York, Miguel O’Hara – the first Latino person to become Spider-Man – tries to recreate Peter Parker’s powers and succeeds, rewriting his genes into 50% spider DNA. He even gets a couple of additional abilities, like enhanced vision and hearing. As well as embarking on a crime-fighting career in his own time, Miguel later became stuck in the present day.
For many of the same reasons as Batman Beyond (more on that later), Spider-Man 2099 is a great character, as it’s fun to see what becomes of the Spider-Man mantle in the future. Miguel is also one of the most famous alt-Spideys, and certainly the longest-lasting.
