Hello and welcome to the latest guest post here on Track of Words, where today I’ve got the fantastic Robbie MacNiven on board to talk about the characters and one of the main themes in his new X-Men novel First Team. The second instalment in the Marvel: Xavier’s Institute series from Aconyte Books, First Team is due to be published in global ebook and US paperback on the 2nd March, with the UK paperback following on the 15th April. To start things off, check out the cool cover art for First Team – by the talented Anastasia Bulgakova – and then take a look at the book’s synopsis.
Victor Borkowski – aka Anole – has adjusted well to life at Xavier’s Institute, gaining control over his reptilian mutant powers and the respect of his fellow students. However, when he discovers that his parents have been kidnapped by anti-mutant extremists, the Purifiers, Victor’s discipline and trust in the X-Men is strained to breaking point. Setting out alone in defiance of his instructors, he’s quickly in serious trouble. It isn’t just the fanatical Purifiers threatening his family, there’s a villainous scientist waiting to get hold of Victor himself. Maybe he can’t do this by himself after all…
You can find out a bit more about this novel, and Robbie’s enthusiasm for the X-Men and the worlds of Marvel, in my Introducing: First Team article from back in November 2020, and also in an excellent interview that Robbie did for the Aconyte Books website. Now though, here’s Robbie to tell us a bit about the main characters in First Team, and how they relate to one of the core themes of the book: family, and in particular found family.
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Robbie MacNiven: Family is a core theme of so many of the stories that feature Marvel’s X-Men. In a word of tension and prejudice, acceptance is hard to come by, and the very abilities that might seem to make someone exceptional also make them at best outcasts, and at worst, targets.
You don’t have to go far to find X-Men and fellow mutants with tragic backstories. That is part of what I found interesting about Victor Borkowski – alias Anole – First Team’s main protagonist. Unlike so many others, Vic doesn’t have any dark origins to fuel him on a journey of discovery. As a child he didn’t suffer unduly. He grew up in a loving household in rural America, with wonderful (indeed, wonderfully ordinary) parents who shielded him from the hatred, the violence and the pain that was the lot in life for so many of his kin. The result of this is a student at the Xavier’s Institute who is comfortable with his identity, be that openly mutant or openly gay. It’s a foil for characters who struggle with either or both, and a focus for anyone bereft of the security that a caring family brings.
Graymalkin, Victor’s friend and accomplice in the novel, is a case in point. A mutant whose abilities were triggered by being buried alive for 250 years following a homophobic assault by his father, he struggles with trust and with self-acceptance, and endures bouts of unrestrained PTSD. Even amongst the disparate community of mutants that makes up the Xavier’s Institute, Graymalkin would likely have been unable to find a place, a haven where he could rebuild his life. But through his particular friendship with Anole, he has something to work towards. Victor has many of the qualities that Graymalkin aspires to. He is charismatic and confident, yet approachable and down-to-earth. His seemingly easy-going attitude chimes with the fact that he is an openly gay mutant who is comfortable with his own existence. The abuse Graymalkin suffered as a child makes him different from Victor in almost every way, and yet they share hopes and aspirations for wider acceptance that make them very similar. Both recognise this, and are stronger for their friendship.
Vic’s other teammate in the novel, Cipher, also contrasts his happy upbringing with one of strife and struggle. While her origins remain opaque, it’s clear that she has been fending for herself from a young age. Like Victor, she possesses essential leadership qualities, but unlike him has a cautious reserve born out of bad experiences. Her abilities allow her to go unseen, a state she takes comfort from, but which she also realises is only ever a short-term fix. She may not voice her struggles to Vic as clearly as Graymalkin, but she has demons all the same. Victor understands this without making it a core tenet of their friendship. Cipher is Cipher, and there’s probably only one other mutant out there Vic would rather have at his back.
Like so many other mutants, both Graymalkin and Cipher have created a found family, a nucleus based not on biological relationships, but ones built off of experience. Victor is a part of this family, though he himself is only partially aware of it. With his own parents to protect, it takes time for him to accept that the Institute and its students have become just as important to him as the couple that raised him in sleepy Fairbury, Illinois.
Family, then is at the heart of First Team, as it is with so many other X-Men stories. Ultimately the threats posed to family, be it Victor’s parents or the found family of the Institute, drives the novel’s plot. The reactions of our heroes to these threats tell us a lot about the different but related experiences of Victor, Graymalkin and Cipher, what they’re willing to sacrifice and where each will ultimately, inevitably, choose to draw the line.
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Robbie MacNiven is a Highlands-native History graduate from the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of several novels and many short stories for the New York Times-bestselling Warhammer 40,000 Age of Sigmar universe, and the narrative for HiRez Studio’s Smite Blitz RPG. Outside of writing his hobbies include historical re-enacting and making eight-hour round trips every second weekend to watch Rangers FC.
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Thanks so much to Robbie for this great article! If, like me, you grew up watching the X-Men Animated Series (and now have that theme tune in your head any time you think of the X-Men) or reading the comic books, I’m sure you’ll be looking forward to getting hold of this novel and exploring the X-Men world a little further. You can read my review of First Team right here.
If you haven’t already, make sure you also check out Introducing: First Team by Robbie MacNiven for more information about First Team.
If you’re in the UK and would like to support local independent bookshops, you can pre-order the paperback of First Team from my store on Bookshop.org*
Alternatively, order First Team from Amazon*
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