X-Men’s New Time-Bender Reggie Just Changed Everything

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When Reggie first arrives at the Xavier Institute, he looks like every other nervous teenager: awkward smile, too-tight jacket, eyes that dart when someone mentions responsibility. What sets him apart is not his appearance but the tremor in his hands whenever clocks tick, a physical echo of the temporal storm inside him. The X-Men quickly realize Reggie’s power isn’t simple precognition or slowed perception; he bends time itself, slipping forward and backward through his own timeline with disorienting, exhilarating consequences.

Reggie’s abilities force the team to rethink strategy. Traditional powers, strength, telepathy, speed, have predictable tactical uses; Reggie’s gift rewrites cause and effect, allowing the X-Men to rehearse a battle outcome, undo fatal mistakes, or scout multiple futures. That versatility is intoxicating but dangerous: small tweaks cascade into paradoxes, erasing victories and altering relationships in ways even the most disciplined mutants struggle to anticipate. Senior members like Storm and Wolverine step into mentoring roles, teaching restraint and the ethics of temporal intervention.

At the heart of Reggie’s arc is a moral and emotional education about responsibility. He initially uses time shifts to correct personal embarrassments and to relive fleeting moments with loved ones, but those selfish rewrites have side effects, other people’s memories blur, and unforeseen harm ripples outward. Professor Xavier frames Reggie’s training as an exercise in empathy: true heroism means accepting loss and making choices that honor the autonomy of others, not trying to manufacture perfect outcomes. Reggie learns to hold the past in reverence rather than as a plaything.

Narratively, Reggie revitalizes classic X-Men themes, identity, consequence, and community, by forcing the team and readers to confront time as a character. Writers can mine his power for visually striking panels and emotionally charged scenes: repeated conversations with different outcomes, timelines colliding in cluttered pages, and the visceral loneliness of knowing what might have been. His arc also offers philosophical questions about fate versus agency, giving the series depth beyond spectacle and connecting to the franchise’s long-standing exploration of mutation as metaphor.

By the time Reggie earns his codename and a place in the X-Men lineup, he has become more than a trickster with a stopwatch; he is a living testament to growth under pressure. His journey from impulsive manipulator of moments to a guardian who respects temporal balance mirrors the X-Men’s core belief that power demands conscience. Reggie’s time travel powers therefore expand the X-Men universe not just mechanically but thematically, providing fresh conflicts, richer character work, and a poignant reminder that some things, love, sacrifice, and memory, are worth preserving exactly as they were.