JUBILEE

Three years before Jubilation Lee existed, Marvel published a Jubilee. In Longshot #4 (1985), Ann Nocenti and Art Adams introduced Darla, a New York kid in Longshot's Bratpack circle. A year later, in New Mutants Annual #2 (1986), Chris Claremont had Spiral kidnap Darla and her friends and deliver them to Mojo, who used his technology to age the children into adult fighters and arm them with powers, holding them in line through the captive Psylocke's mind control.

Darla's transformation came with a name, a power set and a catchphrase that should sound familiar: she was rechristened Jubilee, given flight and the ability to generate blinding fireworks displays, and sent against the New Mutants announcing, in effect, that every one of her moves was a celebration. When Cypher freed Psylocke from Mojo's grip, the spell broke, the kids reverted to children, and Darla went back to being an ordinary little girl who had, for one issue, been somebody else's superhero.

Then came Uncanny X-Men #244 (May 1989): Jubilation Lee, mall rat of Beverly Hills, introducing herself with a near-identical flourish — actually, her name is Jubilee, because with her every day is a celebration. Same writer's stable, same fireworks, same slogan, different girl. And here is the strange part: in nearly four decades since, no story has ever connected the two Jubilees. Darla is not Lee's relative, predecessor or inspiration in-universe. She is a rough draft that got published first, then quietly left in the drawer.