BLING!

BIOGRAPHY - Page 1

Roxanne was born into the life of fame and opulence as the daughter of veritable hip-hop royalty. Despite her illustrious pedigree and having “starred” in both of her parents’ music videos from childhood, Roxanne rejected this lifestyle for herself. This decision to try to go a different path may have been motivated by the drawback that her secondhand fame had inflicted upon her: constant danger. As the offspring of the wealthy, she was a frequent target for kidnapping. There was a further implication that her parents hung around with an unsavory crowd, as Bling! later recounted that, as a child at their parties, she never knew what could happen… and not in a good way. Unfortunately, this string of traumatic experiences likely prepared her for what was to come. [X-Men: The 198 Files #1, X-Men: Legacy (1st series) #230]

In her teens she woke up one night freezing cold. She tried to warm herself up by rubbing her arms but overnight they had turned into crystal; she was a mutant. Her new form now made her even more of a spectacle than before and she hated it. People stared and it made her very uncomfortable among humans. Wanting to have some chance of blending in, Roxanne joined the Xavier Institute, which had just opened its doors as a school for mutants. [Generation X (2nd series) #4, Generation X (1st series) #85]

Roxanne became an exemplary student, responsible, hard-working and motivated by a genuine goal of improving herself. Secretly, she was also battling with herself not just about her mutant status but trying to come to terms with her sexuality. [X-Men: The 198 Files #1] Matters came to a head with the arrival of “Foxx.” Roxanne was part of Gambit's Chevalier's training squad and presumably, as a nod to her parents, had taken the code-name “Bling!.” The Chevaliers were quite close-knit and, like Roxanne, all the students had physical mutations. Their new inductee, the beautiful Foxx, quickly turned the heads of several members of the Chevaliers, including the still confused Bling!.

Foxx by contrast was rather aggressively pursuing their teacher Gambit and causing disharmony among their group. As de facto squad leader, a concerned Bling! confronted her and told her to back off, while doing so she essentially came out to Foxx, confessing she too was developing an attraction towards her. Foxx's reacted to Bling!'s admonishment with intense violence, showing herself to be a surprisingly competent combatant. Afterwards, while Bling! was in a private tutorial with Gambit, a now paranoid Rogue burst into the room and threw Bling! out. 

Rogue later found Bling! and apologized for her outburst. Ultimately, Foxx hadn't actually been real. She had been a guise of Rogue's foster mother, Mystique had created as a part of an elaborate plan to tempt Gambit and break up his relationship with Rogue. The whole incident had been very disturbing for Rogue, which she confided in Bling!. Bling! was unsettled herself, given that she now realized that she developed a crush and came out of the closet to a volatile shape-shifting super-villain [X-Men (2nd series) #171-174]

Like every mutant on Earth, Bling's Life was impacted by the Decimation event. Unlike most others mutants, she actually retained her powers. Her training squad, along with all the others, was disbanded. Emma Frost held a battle royale to pick a select group of students she would personally instruct to become future X-Men. While Bling did compete, she was not successful. Still, she would soon get a chance to get back into the action. [New X-Men (2nd series) #23]

The remnants of mutantkind were now living in the grounds of the X-Mansion, which had become kind of a reservation. The ancient mutant Apocalypse declared war on humanity, hoping to recruit the surviving mutants. Among his followers were a string of new Horseman, including Bling's former instructor Gambit. Despite her relative youth, Bling was selected to infiltrate his headquarters, along with veteran X-Men: Havok, Iceman, and Rogue. While her own efforts were unremarkable during the mission and she had little impact on the ultimate resolution of the Apocalypse problem, it did show there was growing insight into just how much potential Roxanne had within her. [X-Men (2nd series) #184-185]

After Decimation, more and more mutant children were killed, several of Bling's classmates among them. She attended a memorial along with most of the X-Men to honor their dead but it was a sobering period for her. [New X-Men (2nd series) #33] When Surge and Prodigy approached her about joining the remaining X-Men training squad, she declined. She now felt that anyone wanting to become an X-Men had a death wish and was even considering fleeing the institute entirely, fearing that the government might decide to just come in execute them all when their numbers were now so few. [New X-Men (2nd series) #35] Arguably, Cyclops and Emma Frost may have agreed with Bling's grim assessment as, after a string of attacks, they opted to close the school soon after and moved the mutant race across country to San Francisco. Despite her reticence, Bling opted to go with them.