So! Background info time. Taken straight from the Marvel wiki.
Julio Esteban Richter (Rictor) was one of the mutants depowered after the House of M storyline, and losing his seismic powers and his connection with the earth was devastating for him, so much so that he considered taking his own life.
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| Literally trying to talk him off the edge. |
His father was a gun-smuggler and Ric witnessed his death at the hands of Stryfe, a clone of Cable, the time-travelling son of Scott Summers (Cyclops). Naturally, this made working for Cable's X-Force team a bit awkward (I only mention this because I know how much y'all enjoy this kind of convoluted time travelly storylines. I haven't actually read anything before Peter David's 2005 resurrection of X-Factor). Ric was created by writer Louise Simonson and artist Walt Simonson and first appeared in X-Factor vol.1 #17 (June 1987).
Gaveedra Seven (Shatterstar) is an alien from a planet called Mojoworld who is sent back in time and to Earth, where he joins X-Force and develops a close friendship with Ric that eventually turns into a secret romance. Shatterstar was genetically engineered for brutal gladiatorial combat and has strong notions of a warrior's pride and honour. He first appeared in The New Mutants vol. 1 #99 (March 1991) and used to look like this because he was created by Rob Liefeld (artist*) and Fabian Nicieza (writer):
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| Yeppers. |
