While it might be an overstatement to say that 2018 has been a great year for Shatterstar, it has certainly been an interesting year for the character and could still turn out to be a big one. While Shatterstar had previously popped up in the video game Marvel: Avengers Alliance, he received his first big narrative adaptation this year when he appeared in Deadpool 2. Shatterstar was portrayed by actor Lewis Tan and joins Deadpool's X-Force team before meeting a quick and ugly demise alongside most of his comrades. It was an unceremonious introduction to a broader audience, but also Shatterstar's most notable appearance to date.

Now Shatterstar is receiving his own miniseries starting this week from writer Tim Seeley and artist Gerardo Sandoval, which is set to deliver lots of high-octane action from this sometime X-Man and his double-edged swords. With the Shatterstar star on the rise in comics and other media, it's a good time to ask the question: Who the heck is Shatterstar, anyway? Whether you're a Deadpool fan curious after the movie or a comics reader just looking to bone up on your knowledge of superheroes from the 1990s, we've assembled a brief guide to provide you everything you need to know in order to read Shatterstar #1 this week.

Creation

Shatterstar was co-created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza and introduced during their collaboration on the first volume of The New Mutants. Shatterstar's first appearance predated his first actual story by almost a year as he was drawn by Liefeld in a pin-up for The New Mutants Annual #6 in 1990 as a special foreshadowing of things to come before being introduced in The New Mutants #99 in 1991. His introduction came at an important moment both in Liefeld's career and the arc of The New Mutants. It was the second issue of The New Mutants both co-written and drawn by Liefeld, marking Shatterstar as an early creation of both Liefeld the writer and artist in a career that would lead to many new characters. It was also the second issue in the story "The Beginning of the End" that would see most of the team depart before being replaced with new characters and a new title: X-Force.

While Shatterstar was not designed to be a mutant, he possessed a variety of superhuman powers including mental and physical attributes that were all enhanced beyond those of an ordinary person. He is especially well known for his extraordinary strength and agility, which have allowed him to be trained in a variety of martial arts and forms of weaponry with great skill. Shatterstar also possesses hollow bones, making him lighter than he appears and an accelerated regeneration factor that allows him to recover from superficial wounds within about one day. While Shatterstar has used many weapons throughout his career, he is best known for his use of swords with dual blades on each handle.

Early Days

When Shatterstar was initially introduced in the pages of The New Mutants, his past was left largely as a mystery. It has only been through relatively recent interviews with co-creator Rob Liefeld and the writing of Peter David on X-Factor that his parentage and origins were clarified. Shatterstar is the children of two X-Men: Longshot and Dazzler. When the pair was dating while teammates on the X-Men, Dazzler became pregnant before they traveled to Mojoworld (Longshot's planet of origin) and returned with the absence of the child unexplained. It has now been clarified that Dazzler gave birth and a future version of Shatterstar destroyed both of his parent's memories of the event before transporting himself into the future.

Removed from his earliest connections to the X-Men, Shatterstar would be raised on Mojoworld as a slave trained and designed to fight in gladiator events for televised entertainment. He eventually escaped enslavement and joined a resistance force called the Cadre Alliance. They chose to send him back in time and space to Earth in order to find new allies, which led to his first adult encounter with the stories of the X-Men.

Shatterstar became a founding member of Cable's new team X-Force and was promised that they would eventually time travel together in order to overthrow Mojoworld. The team became a major part of X-Men history during the 1990s and fought many famous villains. It was during this period that Shatterstar found himself with an unexplained bond to the human Benjamin Russell. The pair shared memories while existing in separate, but similar-looking bodies with no clear connection. This plot thread has remained a mystery in Shatterstar's history through today.

Recent Developments

As X-Factor disassembled and reformed multiple times, Shatterstar developed as a solo character within Marvel Comics. He went on a variety of notable individual missions. Shatterstar developed a strong friendship with his teammate Rictor and helped him to stop his family's connections to gun smuggling. Shatterstar also spent time in the lawless setting of Madripoor where he both engaged with gladiatorial fighting once again on his own terms and met with Spiral, another resident of Mojoworld who often travels to Earth. During this period Spiral admitted that she had feelings for Shatterstar and even lured him into an adventure in an alternate reality in an attempt to make her feelings known.

Destiny had different plans for Shatterstar's love life, however. After rejoining a new iteration of X-Force, Shatterstar was saved from a mind-control scheme by his teammate Rictor, whom he kissed after recovering control of his own body. The event helped him to discover his romantic feelings for his teammate, and the pair embarked on a relationship that would prove tumultuous at times. Despite difficulties posed by other X-Force members and different approaches to a long-term relationships, the couple remain dedicated to one another in comics today. Together they traveled through time to Mojoworld, helping Dazzler give birth to Shatterstar and setting the baby on its long road to the present.

Shatterstar remains one of the most deadly and handsome members of the X-Men, and an important figure both in the history of X-Force and for LGBTQ representation in superhero comics. While he already possesses a long and complex history, it appears that his greatest stories and popularity may still lie ahead.