Origin
Not much is known about Quil, or Maxwell Jordan, from before he became a mutant. He enlisted in the Xavier school not much after Charles Xavier publicaly enounced he was a mutant and that his school was open for all mutants.
Creation
Quill was created by writers Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir and artist Randy Green and first appeared in New X-Men: Academy X issue 1 (2004).
Major Story Arcs
Joining the Xavier Institute
Quill (Maxwell Jordan) was a student at the Xavier Institute of Higher Learning, where he was a member of Cyclops‘ training squad the Corsairs. Jordan was voted class clown by his peers and was always an up-beat and optimistic student during his stay at Xavier’s.
Along with two of his friends, Quill was caught stealing a copy of a computer science test by the X-Man Kitty Pryde. As punishment, Quill and his friends were forced to accompany Gambit, a then-X-Man and former thief, for a day to learn from their mistakes. However, Gambit himself was in the process of stealing a video that caught him in an adult act and instead used the three young men to help him acquire it. Quill has since aspired to be just like Gambit one day: a professional crook.
Despite his comparatively diminutive stature, he asked out a melancholy Surge to the year end school dance and helped cheer up from her jealousy of Prodigy and Wallflower who had arrived together at the dance.
M-Day and Death
Quill was one of the few mutants to retain their powers after M-Day, when the Scarlet Witch magically removed 90-98% of the mutant population’s powers. He fought in a battle royale in an attempt to join a seven-member training squad, but was not selected by Emma Frost and instead remained inactive with the remaining students.
However, when the school was attacked by William Stryker and his band of Purifiers, Quill was shot and killed while he and the rest of the student body evacuated the premises.
Powers and abilities
Quill is a mutant whose entire body is covered in sharp porcupine-like quills that can be expelled at high velocities. Quill can produce spikes from his body at will and can fire them with great precision. Not only can he utilize his piercing barbs as deadly ranged weapons, he can also employ them as close ranged weapons to rend opponents up close. His quills have the capacity to kill people which makes him dangerous. His weakness would be the fact that his spikes can harm people when they touch them.
Alternate Realities
In a telepathic dream sequence initiated by Danielle Moonstar and Emma Frost, Prodigy was able to witness firsthand a future reality that could occur should they remove the mental barriers that limit his knowledge absorbing powers.
In this reality, Prodigy was President of the United States and Quill was a member of the X.S.E., a group meant to guard and protect the President.
House of M
In the House of M reality, Quill is a member of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s Hellions.
Other Media
X-Men The Last Stand (2006)
Quill appeared as a member of The Brotherhood of Mutants in the film, X-Men: The Last Stand. When Magneto made his assault on the Washington labs facility on Alcatraz Island Quill was shot with a cure gun. The way he is portrayed in the movie is nothing like his heroic counterpart in the comics