Sean is older than most of the new recruits, and these first issues give him plenty of opportunities to feel it.

Sean is older than most of the new recruits, and these first issues give him plenty of opportunities to feel it. In X-Men #96, he enters during a training session and intervenes when Wolverine attacks Kurt. There is nothing abstract about the correction. Kurt could have been killed. Sean is the person willing to interrupt the performance and say so. His own history with the X-Men also sets him apart. He was already part of their world before Krakoa. Joining this continuing team is a new commitment, but it isn't his first encounter with Xavier's people or the strange moral complications that follow them around. The sonic scream makes him an aerial combatant as well as a weapon. That gives the field group another person who can reach danger quickly and another way to operate above ground level. He is useful across a rescue, an attack and an escape, provided the conditions permit his powers to work. Lang's orbital prison makes the limits painfully clear. An attempted break out leads straight into the vacuum of space. A power that seems overwhelming inside an ordinary room can become useless in an environment that removes the conditions it depends on. Moira's arrival supplies a gentler thread through the same period. Sean's immediate interest gives him something to do besides supervise younger people's bad decisions. The Christmas outing allows their connection to develop as part of the group's life, before another emergency takes the evening over. He can be stern, affectionate, funny and practical without having to choose one permanent manner. The early team benefits from somebody who has lived long enough to know that an argument may need stopping, a frightened person may need help and a pleasant evening is worth trying to have anyway.