Anole (comics)

Anole (Victor Borkowski) is a fictional character, a mutant in the Marvel Universe, one of the student body in the Xavier Institute and a past member of the New X-Men. He first appeared in New Mutants (vol. 2) #2 (August 2003).

Early life
Victor is a sixteen year old mutant and born and raised in Fairbury, Illinois, a small, typical American town in which he lived a normal life despite his reptilian features. The close-knit community accepted the boy for who he was until anti-mutant sentiment began to spread. For his own safety, his parents sent him to the Xavier Institute where he quickly excelled academically. His chosen foreign language is French. In the New X-Men: Yearbook Special #1 it's listed he likes theatre, frisbee, and basketball and dislikes traditions and bad action movies. He was voted Best Actor by the student body.

Alpha Squadron
When the advisor system was set up at the Xavier Institute, Victor initially chose Wolverine as his student advisor. However, he soon realized they were incompatible and opted for Karma as his advisor instead. During the formation of training squads throughout the school, he was reassigned to Northstar's Alpha Squadron. At first, he was quite friendly with Julian Keller and the other Hellions, but later became closer to his teammates. He was especially close to Northstar and was deeply affected by his death. He, like most of the students, was unaware of Northstar's resurrection by the Hand. Victor is gay, and Northstar helped him to come to terms with his sexuality; at that time Victor was not out to the rest of the school. His sexual orientation was confirmed by the writers online, and reaffirmed in The X-Men: 198 Files. A divergent story plot involved Anole committing suicide after coming out at parent's day and being shunned by his parents and two closest friends, Josh and Julian. Weir and DeFilippis had to scrap this New Mutants storyline at the last minute due to the wishes of Marvel not to show such a controversial matter in the book. Weir and DeFilippis later stated that they were happier with losing this plot, as they did not like the direction it would have taken Julian, also noting that "The Julian who developed since then is not a guy who'd have a problem with Victor being gay. In fact, he'd wipe the walls with anyone who did." Victor finds the term "sissy" offensive.

Post M-Day
Anole was one of only 27 students at the Institute who didn't lose his mutant powers in the aftermath of House of M. The squad system was dissolved and the remaining students were merged into one group. Shortly afterwards, Emma Frost set up an all-out brawl amongst the remaining students to determine who would become the team of X-Men trainees; Victor was not selected for the squad. When Northstar and his sister Aurora attacked the Institute, Anole found him and was able to temporarily snap him out of the mind control set in place by the Children of the Vault. However, Victor's joy at seeing his former mentor was short-lived, as Jean-Paul returned to his mind-controlled status and knocked him out.

Quest for Magik
Victor is seen with many of the other "supporting cast" of students and Rockslide, all listening to a tale Blindfold is making up for them. Soon they realize that her story isn't make-believe, it is a prediction, and she apologizes just before the group is sucked down into the dimension of Limbo. They are soon attacked by a large group of demons, and Victor argues with Rockslide, saying that he's supposed to lead them, since he's a "New X-Man." When Rockslide is mysteriously shattered, Victor attempts to take charge, rallying the students around the defenseless Blindfold, only to have his right arm severed at the shoulder by a demon. He wonders why he is not dead from losing too much blood and why it doesn't hurt. Later trapped in stone by the machinations of Darkchilde, Victor manages to break himself free and stop her from stealing all of Pixie's soul thanks to encouragement from Blindfold, who claimed that he had "strength inside of him." Anole now has a huge reptilian arm replacing the one he lost. It seems his mutation also endows him with the ability to recover limbs, though they emerge as stronger, mutated/reptilian versions of the originals. The arm itself is spikey, resembling his scalp, with razor sharp claws. After defeating Belasco, Anole and Pixie are made members of the New X-Men squad on recommendation of Rockslide, who threatened to quit if they weren't appointed.

Children of X-Men
Victor is seen playing pool while Rockslide and X-23 try and convince him to cut off his other arm. When he refuses Rockslide calls him a sissy. Anole gets offended and pushes him out the window while Rockslide proclaims, "I swear I didn't know! Don't be so sensitive!" After Rockslide refuses to blow himself up Anole calls him a sissy to get him to do it. He then offers to try and blow up Santo himself. In a misguided attempt at group bonding, Santo later outs Victor as gay to some of the other students, though Loa was already aware and says that everyone already knew.

Messiah Complex
During Messiah Complex, Professor Xavier detects the first mutant birth since Decimation. Discovering the baby missing and its home destroyed by the Purifiers, the various X-Teams divide to search for and rescue it. Some of the New X-Men and Armor decide to launch a preemptive strike against the Purifers to see if they have the baby, as well as to seek revenge for their murdered classmates. Anole sneaks into the base using his camouflage powers and while checking the Purifers' computers, Rictor, who is undercover, confronts him. The team is ambushed by the Reavers and Lady Deathstrike, who wounds Hellion in the fight. Pixie manages to teleport the team out and they are spread between Washington and the Institute. The New X-Men are recovered by Iceman who brings them back to the Institute.

The school is later attacked by Predator X. Recalling that X-23 was able to kill one of the predators, Pixie attempts to teleport it to X-23's location on Muir Island, but accidentally teleports the entire team as well into the final fight. Anole is among the active New X-Men who fight against the Marauders in a surprise attack.

Divided We Stand
In part one of the two-part series Divided We Stand, Victor receives a warm welcome from the citizens of his hometown, stating "The town practically threw me a parade." Northstar, contacted by Cyclops, finds Anole, who goes into hiding after accidentally attacking his own father due to post traumatic stress disorder from his time at the X-Mansion. Northstar discovers Anole on a tree limb beside a tree house, the teenager not too happy to see his former mentor. At first, Jean-Paul makes jokes, thinking Victor is having a problem with fitting in, as both a mutant and as a gay teen.

Victor explains that his town accepts him for who he is - his problems come from Northstar, along with the other X-Men, for stealing the New X-Men's innocence. He tells Northstar that they should have been playing video games and going on dates, "...not fighting the Devil!"

Victor places a lizard-like stuffed animal at the base of the tree with a note reading "Mom and Dad. I'm sorry and I love you. Victor." He tells Northstar that his parents will look for him at the tree house first once they begin searching for him, and he calls the tree house his own X-Mansion. Just before Anole departs, he elbows Jean-Paul in the face - similar to how Northstar attacked him in the past - and tells him to tell all of the former New X-Men not to come looking for him.

Secret Invasion
Although Anole isn't seen, he is mentioned to be fighting alongside the other X-Men is San Francisco when the Skrulls invade.

Young X-Men
Dani Moonstar personally recruits Victor to the Young X-Men, who is still apprehensive after the events of Divided We Stand. He is persuaded to join the team when Dani tells him that the X-Men have relocated to San Francisco.

Powers and abilities
Victor's reptilian mutation gives him green scaly skin, a spiked head carapace instead of hair, a prehensile sticky tongue, the ability to stick to solid surfaces, and enhanced agility, speed, reflexes, coordination, and balance. He can also blend in with his surroundings to become "invisible". He can grow back lost limbs but they appear like his "hair" and grant him with a higher level of strength. His new arm has sharp claws at the ends of his fingers that he can use for attack purposes (as seen in New X-Men #40). Beast confirmed that whenever Anole loses a limb, a stronger version of that limb grows in, though he is reluctant to risk further transformation.

Codename Etymology
Victor's codename "Anole" is a type of lizard also popularly known as American chameleon although the two are not closely related at all. It was given to his creators (Christina Weir and Nunzio DeFilippis) by a fan via a post on their forum.

Appearances

 * Astonishing X-Men #13, 18
 * New Mutants v2, #2, 7-8, 10, 13
 * New X-Men: Academy X #1, 4-5, 7, 10, 13-14, 16
 * New X-Men: Academy X: Yearbook Special
 * New X-Men v2, #20-21, 23, 25, 29-30, 32, 34-35, 37-44, 46
 * X-Men v2, #165, #190, 192
 * X-Men: Divided We Stand #1
 * X-Men: Messiah Complex #1
 * X-Men: The 198 Files

Despite only rare appearances, Anole has developed quite a fan following and has been the only student outside of the New Mutants and Hellions squads to be featured regularly. He has made numerous appearances during the new creative team's run on the title, having a more active role in the plots than most of the other background characters. He also had a cameo appearance in the movie X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006. He was a member of Magneto's Brotherhood, who gets hit by the mutant cure. He was at first mistaken to be Toad, who had already appeared as a main villain in X-Men in 2000.