Rictor (Julio Esteban "Ric" Richter) is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, primarily in the X-Men family of books. The character was created by writer Louise Simonson and artist Walt Simonson and first appeared in X-Factor #17 (June 1987). In subsequent years, the character was featured as a member of the original New Mutants team and the original X-Force team, and continued to appear in various X-Men franchise publications thereafter. In comic books published in the 1980s and 1990s, Rictor's mutant powers were to generate and manipulate seismic energy and create tremendously powerful vibrations in any nearby object, inducing earthquake-like phenomena and causing objects to shatter or crumble. When the character was reintroduced in 2005, it was as one of many depowered mutants adjusting to civilian life. The character remained depowered until a 2011 comic. Introduced in the late 1980s as a supporting character in X-Factor, Rictor appeared in Marvel comics for ten years under the pens of a number of different writers; much of his character development in this period came from Fabian Nicieza's run on X-Force. The character returned to publication in 2005 with the X-Factor vol.3 and has been written by Peter David continually since then. Responding to fan interest in the gay subtext surrounding the character in Jeph Loeb's X-Force run, Rictor's kiss with teammate Shatterstar in the pages of X-Factor vol.3 in 2009 became the first depiction of a same-sex kiss in a mainstream Marvel Comics publication. Since then, Rictor has been written as an out gay man who is fully accepting of his sexual identity, and one of the few gay superheroes in the Marvel Universe. Rictor appeared in the 2017 film Logan, portrayed by Jason Genao.
Publication history
Created by writer Louise Simonson and artist Walt Simonson, Rictor first appeared in X-Factor #17 (June 1987). X-Factor owed its early popularity to reuniting the five original main characters of The X-Men; new characters were introduced to the series over time, and Simonson's run introduced Mexican earth-manipulator Rictor as one of several young wards to the senior X-Men characters. In 1988, Simonson spun off these characters into their own miniseries X-Terminators before transferring most of them, including Rictor, to the cast of her other ongoing X-Men title The New Mutants during the "Inferno" crossover event. As part of the main cast of The New Mutants, Rictor also appeared in the crossover events "Days of Future Present" and "X-Tinction Agenda". Rictor was written out of The New Mutants in issue #98 (February 1991), when artist Rob Liefeld took over plotting for the series after Simonson's departure. Under Liefeld's creative direction, the series was ended with issue #100 and relaunched as X-Force, with substantial changes in team lineup and a new high-octane and gritty tone. Rictor reappeared in X-Force #11, Liefeld's final issue on the series; dialogue scripter Fabian Nicieza subsequently took over full writing duties on the series and had Rictor join X-Force in issue #15 (October 1992). During his time on X-Force, Rictor also appeared in the crossover stories "X-Cutioner's Song", "Fatal Attractions", "Child's Play" and "Phalanx Covenant", and guest-starred in the Cable series. Rictor remained a main character on X-Force for the duration of Nicieza's run on the series, up to the "Age of Apocalypse" event. Afterwards, Rictor left the team when Jeph Loeb took over as writer in issue #44 (July 1995); Loeb later brought Rictor back in issue #59 (October 1996). The character would remain on the team until issue #70 (October 1997), afterwards reappearing in issue #76 and the 1999 annual. Rictor would develop a close bond with his X-Force teammate Shatterstar, who had first appeared in The New Mutants #99. From the beginning of Jeph Loeb's run as writer, the characters' relationship was deliberately coded as romantic. However, Loeb's intention to write the characters into a relationship was not followed-up by his successors upon departing the series, and the romantic connection between them was not made explicit. In 2002, the character returned in the pages of New X-Men as a member of Professor Xavier's X-Corporation. Following the House of M crossover storyline in 2005, which saw the character lose his mutant abilities, Rictor returned to the X-Factor title with Peter David's third volume of the title. X-Factor vol. 3 began with Rictor extremely depressed and suicidal over the loss of his powers, joining as a civilian member of Multiple Man's team of superhero detectives, X-Factor Investigations. David's run would explore the character's romantic relationship with Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair), as first visited in the Liefeld run, and later made comic book history when the character was reunited with Shatterstar in X-Factor #45 (2009), which saw the two characters kiss. Storylines since, in the renumbered X-Factor #200 and onwards, have focused on the pair's explicitly romantic and sexual relationship. Marvel continued to depict Rictor as powerless until Avengers: The Children's Crusade #6 (2011), in which the Scarlet Witch restored his abilities. In 2018, Rictor appeared as a main character in the miniseries New Mutants: Dead Souls and as a supporting character in the miniseries Shatterstar.
Fictional character biography
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
