Biography - Page 3
All of the sitting around had Rockslide bored, so one day in the middle of the night, he woke up Anole and convinced him to start fighting crime in the city with him. Santo reasoned that their generation was always on the defense and that for once the two of them should go out and protect the city like Daredevil or Moon Knight, heroes that get real things done and score hot chicks. Despite Anole’s observation that this must mean that every X-girl had turned him down, he actually thought Rockslide had a point and thought it sounded a bit cool. Anole soon had a disguise of a cloak and fake mustache, while Rockslide wore a hockey mask and a fake mustache under the mask (for some reason). They managed to stop several muggings and vandals and were having a great time, despite Rockslide blaming Anole’s gross scales for scaring away a 
woman they saved before she could give Santo her number. As it turned out, the woman was connected to the district attorney and was being targeted by Mister Negative, whose plans to take over San Francisco the pair had unwittingly been foiling. They managed to save her from her building exploding by Rockslide using the fastball special to throw Anole into the building to grab her and then catching him and the woman as they jumped out of the window. This led to the woman thanking them profusely this time, for making sure that her two-year-old daughter would not be an orphan. [X-Men: To Serve and Protect #1-2]
Mister Negative hired the Serpent Society to take out the two boys and, while Anole was worried, Rockslide was excited to get off a sick joke about daring them to “Bite Me!” Before he could finish this burn, one of the society used their vibrational attack to explode Santo. While he was in his energy form preparing to reform, he could not help but admire the tenacity of his best friend holding his own against the five villains. Just before Anole was killed, Rockslide reformed, finally got out his catchphrase and then turned the tide of the fight. Unfortunately, Mister Negative then showed up in person and brainwashed Rockslide to fight for him. Anole tried to talk him into resisting but then remembered the mental capacity of Rockslide meant he had no hope in this regard. Instead, Anole realized that the one-track mind of Santo to kill him could be used to trick him into going through the Serpent Society to get to him. This forced Negative to drop his mind control before Santo crushed him and thus the villain made his escape by throwing a grenade at them. Luckily, Rockslide shielded Anole from the blast and, in his worry, Anole begged his best friend to come back to him. Santo reformed and declared victory as his true goal in all of this was to get Anole to admit that they were best friends. It turned out Santo did care about Anole's constant comments about hating him. When the X-Men showed up to reprimand them for sneaking out and endangering themselves, Cyclops instead told them to keep up the good work. [X-Men: To Serve and Protect #3-4]
While nothing stops the Juggernaut, the X-Men did everything in their power to try when the villain showed up, souped-up with godly energies. Rockslide was one of several mutants whose powers were absorbed by Hope as a one-woman army against the lumbering force. When that plan failed, Cyclops tried another few dozen, including Plan 37, where Rockslide’s body was kinetically charged by Gambit. The explosion recorded as one of the biggest ever produced by mutants but still failed to stop the Juggernaut. The event only ended once Colossus agreed to become the new avatar for the Juggernaut’s powers. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #541-542]
When the X-Men’s enemies came to Utopia, a choice presented itself. Cyclops believed that mutants had no choice but to draft the younger generation into a war for survival, while Wolverine adamantly opposed the idea of child soldiers. With a massive Sentinel bearing down on the island, the two X-Men leaders came to blows and ultimately Rockslide and the other young mutants had no choice but to help battle the giant Sentinel to protect their home. [X-Men: Schism #1-5] Once the threat had passed, Wolverine declared that he was leaving with as many of the children as would come with him in order to reopen the Xavier Institute as the newly christened Jean Grey School for Gifted Youngsters. In the emotional standoff between all of the young friends, Prodigy stood for protecting Utopia, thinking it naïve to believe any kind of safety would result from a different residence. Meanwhile, Hellion argued that he would prefer to try to remain a kid over a soldier for as long as he could. When Rockslide asked Blindfold her decision, she replied she was going to the school. The other kids booed and threw things at Rockslide for declaring that any other decision was defying fate. [X-Men: Regenesis #1]
Rockslide adjusted well to coming back to the rebuilt school. He continued to hang out with Anole and some of the other students like Armor, even acting a bit jealous when she bragged about how often she went on X-Men missions. One day, Rockslide and his friends were playing football against Rogue and some of the other teachers, when Rogue took the opportunity to push Rockslide’s powers to their limits. She tackled through his body and continuously broke him apart, coaching him to form his body out of whatever was around. She wanted him to rebuild a better 
body than his original, and it was through this hard-earned lesson that he was able to create a massive “badass” stone body. Unfortunately, it was Santo’s power of drawing stone towards him that accidently disturbed the cairn portal keeping the evil demon N’Garai at bay. The teachers resolved to battle the creatures while doing their best not to disturb the classes of their students. At one point, Rogue entered the classroom and absorbed Rockslide’s power, along with many other students, to become a multi-powered rock-giant to end the threat. [X-Men Legacy (1st series) #260.1]
When the Avengers and X-Men went to war over the return of the Phoenix Force, Wolverine stood by his principles and refused to get the children involved. The Utopia branch of the X-Men were the main group of mutants involved at first but, when the fight migrated to the Jean Grey School, the teachers managed to contain the fighting to themselves and Rockslide and the others were forced to watch and admire the match-ups on their phones. [Avengers vs X-Men crossover] One of the few adventures that Rockslide got directly involved in during his time at the Jean Grey School happened when all of the professors disappeared one day. Santo followed Quentin Quire and a few other newer students to a circus, where they found their mentors brainwashed and forced to perform tricks for a paying audience. Quentin almost begged the other kids not to intervene, as he particularly relished Wolverine dressed in clown attire. However, Rockslide did help take down the circus, personally subduing Beast and claiming that this counted as his first date with the new girl Shark-girl. However, she shot him down, describing him as a pile of Kidney stones. [Wolverine and the X-Men (1st series) #20-23]
In an attempt to foster a friendly rivalry, the Avengers Academy invited the Jean Grey School students to a flag football game. Naturally, Rockslide was the center linesman and even snapped the ball to his buddy and quarterback Anole. However, he quickly formed a friendship with fellow big invulnerable opposing lineman Mettle. He offered to listen to Mettle’s woman problems over their losing their recent ability to touch each other when temporarily depowered. Santo used this vulnerability as a clever ploy to pretend that Mettle killed him when he tackled through his rock form. Rockslide laughed at a freaked-out Mettle, and soon faced the wrath of his girlfriend, who 
futilely tried to kick him in the junk. Mettle diffused the situation and took to heart when Santo said that with him having an awesome girlfriend and all of his parts, he should stop whining in front of guys that had neither. [Avengers Academy #38] Rockslide and many other young mutants answered the call of Prodigy when an evil dimensional being that could not be sensed by adults threatened the world. After acting as the cavalry for this new Young Avengers team, Rockslide was more than happy to attend the giant party afterwards where the young heroes danced and socialized. [Young Avengers (2nd series) #12-15]
Pixie called in a favor with Rockslide while working with the all-female team of X-Men. Santo was able to easily withstand the pressures of outer space in order to contain a dangerous case filled with the sentient and malevolent bacteria Arkea and throw it into the sun. [X-Men (4th series) #10] Rockslide continued to help on the periphery of this X-team, such as helping Monet train in the danger room. After an unknown enemy attacked a couple of students, Rockslide joined Hellion, Anole and Broo in the Danger Room to train as part of a new squad to get revenge for their friends. The scenario that Julian pulled up was a medieval war in which Santo showed surprising tactical knowledge and admitted that he likes to play role-playing games. Julian ordered Rockslide 
to bowl through the mounted knights and Santo relished in the destruction, proclaiming that he was born in the wrong century. However, upon learning that this scenario was Psylocke’s program which Julian had hacked in an effort to impress the woman, cannon fire suddenly took out Rockslide. Taking a breather, Hellion and Anole picked up the slack until Psylocke decided to shut down the scenario and teach the boys a lesson that, in the field, all they could rely on was their friends backing them up. She declared the young men as being on standby for taking down the threat targeting them and their friends. [X-Men (4th series) 13-15]
When Quentin Quire of all people graduated from the Jean Grey School and was put in charge of some of his underclassmen, students like Rockslide and Hellion did not take it well. Hellion took bets on whether Santo could take out the little Bamf pests that had infiltrated the school but his efforts led to some property destruction and the teachers reprimanding them. Santo worried that he would never graduate now. He was among a handful of students to confront a time traveling man called Faithful John who attacked the school. They were subdued by his telepathy which showed them a vision of a terrible future in which their friend Genesis would one day grow into an evil version of Apocalypse. Rockslide protested when Julian agreed that Genesis must be stopped but Santo refused to let Julian pass, despite their friendship. After a brutal fight between the two, Julian saw the error of his ways and apologized to Santo. Rockslide understood but emphasized that Genesis was their friend and they had to stand by him despite what his future may hold. [Wolverine and the X-Men (2nd series) #1-5]
When an outbreak of Wendigos terrorized Canada, the X-Men were on hand to help Wolverine’s former teammates Alpha Flight. What they did not know was that Rockslide had been hiding in the 
bathroom of the blackbird and only revealed himself when the plane blasted to smithereens. Rockslide managed to hold his own against the army of Wendigos and even combined with Storm, Iceman and Firestar to become a force of elemental powers to take down the Great Beast behind the incident, Tanaraq. After this mission, Santo used his downtime to deepen his friendship with Anole. He had been talking with a potential boyfriend and Santo called him out for his cowardice of not showing his face to his crush. [Amazing X-Men (2nd series) #10-13]
The passing of headmaster Wolverine rocked the Jean Grey School. Before Logan met his end, though, he left a secret request to his friend Spider-Man. This request was that Spider-Man come to the school and teach an ethics class to seven special students that Logan had identified as possible moles working with one of their enemies. Rockslide was one of these students and was the first one to come under suspicion when, as a joke, he shoved Spider-Man into the arms of a training robot during a Danger Room session. Of course, Rockslide despaired at killing their substitute teacher but, fortunately, Spider-Man was able to free himself. Rockslide quickly redeemed himself when at the museum, one of Spider-Man’s foes, Stegron, attacked Hellion and started to drain his life force. Santo shoved him aside and started getting drained himself but was saved with a web-line from his teacher. X-Man foe Sauron joined Stegron and the pair were able to capture Spider-Man and all of the students. Santo and his peers woke up on Staten Island, where the dino-themed villains enacted their plan to turn all humans into dinosaurs. Luckily, the fake defection of Shark-girl led to a situation where the team was able to prevail and reverse all of the dino transformations. [Spider-Man & the X-Men #1-2]
Additionally, after Chameleon kidnapped and brainwashed the group to perform in a late-night band on Mojovision, Santo and the team finally arrived back at school. The impressive showing of Rockslide and Shark-girl in the previous missions led Spider-Man to declare them team captains in a head-to-head science fair competition with Beast’s class. Rockslide took this responsibility to heart and even managed to give some solid advice to fellow big ugly mutant Glob Herman. Glob wanted to know how Rockslide shook the image of a big dumb “bro” and got the respect he also felt he deserved. Santo explained that he started to try to get Spider-Man to like him by voicing his ideas and, the more he tried showing people he had something of substance to say, the easier it got to try more. His turning point came when he realized that nobody gives you respect because you feel like they should, you have to give them a reason to respect you. The team managed to 
finish a DNA analyzer using the ideas they uncovered from their encounters with Sauron. Before the decision of a winner of the fair occurred though, Beast’s space transporter opened-up a portal to allow a bunch of Venom symbiote-covered Brood to invade. The team beat them back into the portal and followed them into their home turf the SWORD space station. Rockslide mistook the urgency of not letting them get back through the portal, thus destroying it and stranding them in space. Luckily, the heroes defeated the aliens without the potential back-up Santo denied them. In order to get back to Earth, however, they needed Glob to be strapped to the front of the escape ship to take the heat of reentry. Glob had taken Santo’s advice of stepping up and saved them all. [Spider-Man & the X-Men #3-5]
Everything came to a head with the revelation of Ernst as the mole, working with Mister Sinister in the hopes that he could provide a new body for her best friend/brain in a jar No-Girl. They kidnapped Spider-Man while Santo and the other classmates sat around bemoaning the idea of returning to regular class after their non-stop adventure class with Spider-Man. After realizing something must be wrong, the class investigated Spider-Man’s room and were able to track him to a mall. Upon Rockslide busting down the door, the teens faced down Sinister and his cloned X-Men, Sinister’s Six. Rockslide fought a cloned Beast and managed to toss him through cloned Iceman, taking them both down. He also helped Shark-girl rally after her defeat, only to awkwardly watch her and his friend Hellion give into their attraction for each other. The scenario finally ended when Ernst repented and started beating Sinister to the point that he activated the self-destruct. Glob suppressed the explosion, while Rockslide and the others evacuated the civilians. When the ceiling caved in, Santo managed to hold it up long enough for Hellion to save everyone. Upon arriving back to the school, the whole class stood up for Ernst despite her mistake and they all expressed their gratitude for the valuable lessons in responsibility that Spider-Man had taught them. [Spider-Man & the X-Men #6]
Rockslide managed to become part of one of the X-Men teams going forward and his first task involved using his indestructible body as target practice for Pixie’s spells. After, taking the blast like a champ, he joined the team to recover the Juggernaut’s Ruby of Cyttorak, which was seeking a new host. After realizing that if he picked up the gem he would become the new Juggernaut, 
Santo declared that he would find that awesome. However, upon reaching the Temple of Cyttorak and successfully fending off the monstrous guardian, Rockslide’s desire of becoming the next host presented itself. Despite that sounding great, he instead blew up in the face of the guardian and mocked the monster for testing his heroic resolve. He followed this up by single handedly defeating the enemy. Rockslide still wanted the gem, though, and cursed the Living Monolith for obtaining it first and using his gigantic form to run amok. Rockslide and the X-Men could do very little against the unstoppable giant and the threat only ended when Cain Marko took back the power of the Juggernaut from the Monolith. [Amazing X-Men (2nd series) #15-19]