The polls are open! For the next week, comic book fans can head over to Marvel.com to vote on a new member of the X-Men! The idea was introduced in the latest issue of Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men comic: the team is going democratic. The residents of Krakoa will vote for who they want on the X-Men lineup. And to sweeten the pot, Mavel is having the fans vote for one of those members. I love this idea!

I absolutely love the idea of making the main X-Men team lineup dependent on a vote — both in-story and for the fans. This, along with Nightcrawler forming a mutant religion, is exactly the sort of strange and new idea I wanted to see in Dawn of X. You can keep your interdimensional swordfights and your ancient Apocalypse children, give me neat new infrastructure quandaries for how X-Men teams are formed! I’ve long been annoyed by what I call the X-Men Assembly Line for team rosters. This new idea is the bee’s knees!

If you go vote at Marvel.com, there’s a list of choices to choose from: Banshee, Polaris, Forge, Boom-Boom, Tempo, Cannonball, Sunsport, Strong Guy, Marrow and Armor. Longtime readers of this blog will know that I immediately voted for Strong Guy! But seeing as how I’m a rather opinionated fellow, I have a couple of suggestions for write-in candidates.

Join me after the jump for six(ish) characters that I think deserve a spot on the main X-Men team and a chance to get more character exploration in the new status quo!