Who is Temper in the Upcoming Relaunched X-Men Series?

“A Hell of a Past” is a feature where we detail the often convoluted histories of comic book characters. Today, we take a look at Temper, the hero formerly known as Oya, who will be one of the members of the relaunched X-Men.

When Marvel announced its plans to relaunch the X-Men titles this July under the “From the Ashes” banner, it revealed that there would be three “core” X-Men titles that the X-Universe will center around, X-Men by Jed MacKay and Ryan Stegman, Uncanny X-Men by Gail Simone and David Marquez, and Exceptional X-Men by Eve Ewing and Carmen Carnero.

The concept of X-Men (by MacKay and Stegman) is that now that mutants no longer have Krakoa to protect them, Cyclops has put together a team of powerful mutants that could both work as a strikeforce dealing with any anti-mutant problems in the world, but also serve as a deterrent against anyone who thinks about attacking mutants, as they’ll have to deal with Cyclops’ powerful group of mutants.

In a lot of ways, it is similar to the setup that Kieron Gillen had with his Uncanny X-Men series a decade ago in the wake of the X-Men Schism. In either event, among the members of Cyclops’ team are a bunch of notable mutants like Magneto, Magik, Beast, and Psylocke, plus a very famous non-mutant, Juggernaut, and a pretty notable mutant introduced during Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run, Kid Omega. The one not-so-famous member of the team is Temper, who was formerly known as Oya. I thought it would be nice to fill in fans on Temper’s background ahead of the new series.

Following the events of the House of M, Scarlet Witch decimated the mutant population of Earth to only a few thousand mutants (after there had been over two MILLION mutants on the planet). The X-Men kept searching for a way to bring mutants back, and a really big change occurred when a new mutant infant was born. Everyone wanted their hands on the first new mutant on Earth, and ultimately, the X-Men gave the baby to Cable to look after, as he traveled with the infant into the future. He returned with the baby, named Hope Summers, when she was a teenager. Soon after, five other new mutants were discovered, their powers seemingly triggered by Hope.

In Uncanny X-Men #528 (by Matt Fracion, Whilce Portacio, Ed Tadeo and Brian Reber), we met Idie Okonkwo in one of the worst moments of her life. Her village had been mostly burned down, her family killed in the process, but in the middle of the flames, her mutant powers kicked in, and she froze the soldiers who were attacking her. She was now cornered, though, and things looked bad for her…

She is rescued by Storm and Hope Summers, who have arrived to find Idie, who is one of the “Five Lights” that lit up when Hope returned to the present. Idie’s mutant power is temperature manipulation, so that she can create fire and/or ice, and she is also immune to the effects of extreme weather. After Hope helped stabilize her mutant abilities, Idie used her powers on the soldiers who attacked her, Storm and Hope, as she then went on to join the X-Men to learn more about her powers…

Hope collected the other Five Lights, and formed a team that she led, as she helped train them all. This took place in the series, Generation Hope, by Kieron Gillen, Salva Espin and Jim Charalampidis. In the first issue, we can see that Idie’s religious beliefs have her believing that she is a cursed monster, and she wishes that her powers were more obvious, as she feels she deserves to be viewed by everyone as a monster…

In the eighth issue of the series, Idie adopts the codename Oya (before that, she was just “The Girl Who Couldn’t Burn”)…

This SEEMS like it is a positive step for her, but we soon learn that she’s adopting the name because she thinks she is going to hell, and since she is going to hell anyways, she might as well embrace her heresy…

Throughout the series, Oya learned how to use her powers, but she didn’t really feel comfortable with herself.

How did Oya help start the X-Men’s Schism?

In X-Men: Schism #1 (by Jason Aaron, Carlos Pacheco, Cam Smith and Jason Keith), Wolverine bonds with Idie over the fact that she, at 14, really never had a childhood (and neither did he). He gives her a doll at the end of the issue, and they eat ice cream together. In the second issue of the series (art by Frank Cho), Wolverine is unsettled when Idie refers to them all as monsters, while insisting that she has made her peace with herself…

In the next issue (art by Daniel Acuña), Oya tagged along on an X-Men mission, when the rest of the X-Men were incapacitated. There was a bomb in the building. She was telepathically connected to Wolverine and Cyclops, asking what she should do. Wolverine tells her to get out of there, while Cyclops tells her to do what she thinks she needs to do…

She attacks the bad guys, and rescues the X-Men, but in the process, kills twelve bad guys. Wolverine is aghast at Cyclops having a teenager kill like that…

We can see it has messed her up big-time in the next issue (art by Alan Davis, Mark Farmer and Keith)…

And in the final issue, she tells Wolverine that it is right that she did it, as she’s already a monster, so being a murderer isn’t much different…

Idie’s beliefs about herself inspire Wolverine to restart up Xavier’s School for Mutants (now called the Jean Grey School), as he feels that younger mutants shouldn’t have to become soldiers right away. Idie is one of his pupils.

How did Oya become a member of the Hellfire Club?

Idie quickly becomes one of the more popular students at Wolverine’s new school, and in Wolverine and the X-Men #4 (by Jason Aaron, Nick Bradshaw and Justin Ponsor), we learn that there is a high probability that she will lead the X-Men one day…

After one of her classmates was shot, Idie quit the school, and joined the Hellfire Academy in Wolverine and the X-Men #29 (by Jason Aaron, Ramon Perez and Laura Martin)…

In Wolverine and the X-Men #33 (by Aaron, Bradshaw, Walden Wong and Martin), she is made the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club…

However, she reveals that she just wanted to find out who shot her teammate, and this was all a scam, and she was still an X-Man…

She continued with the school for the rest of its existence.

How was Oya exiled on Krakoa?

Oya was one of the many mutants who took up residence in the mutant nation of Krakoa. However, she became close with the mutant villain known as Nekra, and Nekra was a bad influence on Oya, and in Sabretooth #1 (by Victor LaValle, Leonard Kirk and Rain Beredo), we learned that Oya was exiled to “The Pit” with Nekra and three other mutants who committed violations of the Krakoan code (which involved no killing of humans)…

Oya and Nekra had killed some mercenaries who were trying to get on to Krakoa. Because of this, they were exiled. Sabretooth, though, had turned the pit into basically hell, which naturally freaked Oya out a bit…

Sabretooth decides to work with the other exiles, but then he escaped on his own. Cypher cut a deal with the other Exiles, that they would get their freedom if they could hunt Sabretooth down, which they headed off to do…

The Exiles stopped an evil plot of Sabretooth’s in the follow-up series, Sabretooth and the Exiles, but the villain himself escaped.

Oya and the other Exiles have been helping Wolverine try to stop Sabretooth in the current Sabretooth War in the pages of Wolverine, that is still going on. Here she is with Wolverine in the most recent issue (SPOILERS!), by Benjamin Percy, Victor LaValle, Geoff Shaw and Alex Sinclair…

She is working with Kid Omega in this story, as well, who is also in the new X-Men series with her, so I suppose this shows how Oya gets hooked back up with the X-Men. By the way, in the new series, she will be taking the name Temper, which is a reference to how you temper steel by heating and cooling it.

If you have suggestions for characters that you’d like to know more about, or characters whose history that you just think are interesting, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com