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Wallflower
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Wallflower

Laurie Collins

Prime Marvel Universe

Wallflower's History

Laurie is a second-generation mutant. Her father, Sean Garrison, also has empathic pheromone powers and used them to manipulate people to get money, fame, and women. Laurie's mother, Gail Collins, was one of these women. They married and stayed together until Gail gained immunity to Sean's powers because she was pregnant with his child.

Leaving him after learning what had happened, she raised Laurie alone. Laurie, following her mother's lead, became a quiet loner. One day, while on holiday, she suddenly became very popular because her power had emerged. Her mother, realizing this (and immune to her pheromones), tried to talk her down gently - but Laurie, who hadn't realized why she'd suddenly become popular, became scared of what she could do and ended up even more withdrawn than before.

After the Xavier Institute went public, Gail decided to send her there, and moved to Salem Center to stay near her, so that she could have one person whose reactions she could trust. Although Gail insisted Laurie live at the school, to try and make her come out of her shell, it didn't work. Laurie went through several roommates very quickly including Angel Salvadore and Alani Ryan. During the riot at Xavier's caused by the Omega Gang, Laurie stayed quietly hiding in her room, panicking, and hoping she wasn't the cause.

When Sofia Mantega came to the school, she was paired with Laurie and, given her ability to blow Laurie's pheromones away, Sofia didn't have to worry about being accidentally manipulated by Laurie. Refusing to let her stay in their room, Sofia started hanging around with Laurie, as did David Alleyne and Kevin Ford. Laurie and Kevin quickly developed a mutual crush. Then, during a visit to meet Sofia's "dad" (not her real father, but his manservant who'd had more time for her than her real father ever had), they got into a fight with the Reavers, and Laurie was stabbed through the chest, mortally wounded. She was only saved when Josh Foley, one of the Reavers who had just discovered he was a mutant, healed her (and Laurie quickly developed a crush on him). Meanwhile Kevin, enraged, tried to kill Donald Pierce, the Reavers' leader, by withering him away with his power. Dani Moonstar was forced to make him confront his worst fear - killing Laurie - to make him stop, and he left the school shortly after.

Laurie continued to stick around with her new friends and was happy when they were joined by Josh. However, she was less happy when he developed a big crush on Wolfsbane just as Sofia was urging her to ask him out. When Josh was out late one night, breaking curfew, she thought she heard him approach and sneaked down to let him in, only to find him eviscerated by an out-of-control Wolfsbane, driven temporarily insane by the return of her powers. Controlling her power for the first time to scare Wolfsbane away, she nonetheless could do nothing for Josh's apparently mortal injuries. As he was rushed to the Institute's infirmary, she was depressed at the thought that she'd finally managed to control her powers properly but too late to save him. But, when David and Surge managed to think up a way to get him conscious long enough to heal himself, she was needed to keep him calm long enough for him to do it. They succeeded, although she was hurt by the fact that he obviously still had a crush on Rahne.

After the mansion was destroyed and rebuilt, Laurie was officially placed on the New Mutants Squad with David (Prodigy), Sofia (Wind Dancer), Josh (Elixir), Nori (Surge), and Kevin (Wither) (who had reluctantly returned to the school because of the interventions of Dani Moonstar and Emma Frost). Now as a part of the New Mutants Squad, Laurie was given the code-name Wallflower.

When Sofia failed in her first Field Day as leader, Laurie found her crying in their room after some harsh criticism from Josh. Laurie offered to speak to Josh. Trying to pluck up the courage to talk to him, she came across him just after he'd been turned down by Rahne again, who felt a relationship with him was inappropriate now that she was on the faculty. After Laurie mentioned the "Sofia thing", he suggested they get some dinner in town together. This date made both Rahne and Kevin (who still had a crush on Laurie) very unhappy. Going to a video arcade, she confessed to Josh about what her father was like, and how she didn't want to be like him, and that that was why she "avoided everybody." Halfway through their date they were interrupted by Rahne, who brought them back to the Institute because Agent Pierce and the FBI had caught up with Kevin about his accidental killing of his father.

Laurie, upset by this information, went to the lake for some alone time. Icarus found her, and told her and the New Mutants that the Hellions and Wind Dancer had gone to break Kevin out. The New Mutants and Icarus fought with the Hellions to try to stop them from taking on the FBI. Laurie used her powers to keep Rockslide crying and out of the fight while the others fought around them, until the X-Men, alerted by Rahne, turned up and took them all back to the Institute. The charges against Kevin were dismissed, and Kevin swapped squads with Icarus.

Josh continued to pursue Rahne despite casually dating Laurie. Eventually Rahne decided to totally break things off with Josh permanently, but unbeknownst to either of them, Kevin overheard their entire conversation. Eventually, Kevin used the information to break Josh and Laurie up. Laurie was left embittered by the experience, going so far as to use her pheromones to manipulate Prodigy into kissing her at the dance in a successful attempt to make Josh jealous. This event might have gone unnoticed but for Sofia realizing what was happening, and the event added to the fast disintegration of the squad.

Thereafter, Sofia convinced all the New Mutants to camp out for one night on the Xavier Institute grounds. While the initial attempts by Sofia at forcing a resolution came to disaster when a fist-fight between Josh and David led Laurie to confess to Josh what had happened at the dance, later she and the other New Mutants overheard him pouring his heart out to Icarus. Laurie forgave Josh enough to be friends and told David she didn't know how to apologize to him for her behavior at the dance, saying she just didn't want to be the weak one any more, and he forgave her.

After M-Day, where almost the entire mutant population lost their powers, Laurie was one of the few who retained the active X-Gene. Unfortunately for her, Wither believed he had lost his powers and reached out to Laurie, withering away her arm. Elixir tried to reverse the damages, without success. Seemingly because of that injury, Laurie wasn't part of the battle royale to determine the future X-Men in-training.

Shortly after this trauma, Laurie was shot in the back of the head by Matthew Risman, a sniper of Reverend William Stryker's Purifiers, while she was talking with Elixir. It was later revealed that Stryker had her killed because a vision, from Nimrod, about the future foretold where she would be the one to defeat his army. She would be able to stop his army in their tracks using her full power. He killed her in an attempt to prevent any chance the X-Men had of defeating him. After she died, Nimrod showed Dust taking her place as defeating his forces. She was only sixteen years old when she was killed by Willaim Stryker.

Laurie was turned into a Bio-Sentinel by Kaga in an effort to kill the X-Men. After being changed into a bio-Sentinel, she was released into a crowd of people at a San Francisco fair, and spotted by Emma Frost, who claimed she never forgets the face of one of her students. Trying to reach her deceased student, Emma Frost made contact with her, activating the Sentinel hidden in her and shattering her body to reveal her true nature: a massive flesh-made Sentinel.

After it fired a full pack of Brood-missiles amongst the crowd, the Sentinel was removed from the fair where she was attacked by Beast using the X2 ship and destroyed by it. Its remains were sent to Graymalkin, in order to be examined by Mutantes Sans Frontieres scientists.

Kaga then sent a Krakoa-Brood hybrid to destroy the Sentinel, in order to prevent the X-Men from finding more clues on the corpse, and that monster was half-blown up by Scott Summers.

Kevin was gravely affected by the harm he did to Laurie, quitting the Xavier Institute only to fall into the hands of Selene, former Black Queen of Hellfire Club. Later, when she came to attack Utopia, Wither and Elixir fought over Laurie's memory, and Wither was killed.

When the X-Men formed the Mutant-nation of Krakoa on the likewise named island of Krakoa, the mutants unlocked the secrets of ressurection. As such, allmost all (former) mutants that where killed, where ressurected by a group of mutants known as The Five. This also was the case for Wallflower, whom after being ressurected, remained on the island nation. As a victim of anti-mutant violence whom the X-Men regretted being unable to save, Laurie was considered a high-priority mutant for resurrection on Krakoa. After her revival, she met Broo, and became one of the many attractive female classmates he developed a crush on. Laurie was there to greet her old friend Sofia on Krakoa after her own resurrection and repowering, at last, fully reuniting their generation of Xavier Institute students.