OOC vs Character Development- Where do you draw the line?

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Koays

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Mostly inspired by reading other peoples debates...but basically-

There are ALOT of X-Men characters and they often shuffle in and out of use. For the ones that stay in focus and lead titles it's easy to track their character development. Cyclops, Psylocke, Wolverine and maybe Emma Frost are the best examples of characters who you can back track 10 years of story telling and see how each choice lead them to be who they are today.

However there are some characters who aren't as prominent and are thrust into situations that you wouldn't expect them to be or that aren't traditionally what the character is about or even have things like motivations themes and relationships changed without explanation. It tends to happen often when a new title is started but sometimes it can just happen when a character joins a book after a stint elsewhere.

Basically I'm asking:

Where do you stand when it comes to unnatural changes in a characters direction?
And when do you feel it's ok to change a character without development?

Questions to keep in mind-


Was X-23's portrayal in Bendis' run character assassination? Or was she "finally getting to act like a teenager instead of a weapon" as someone else put it?

Was the Emma Frost from Morrison and Whedon's runs an insult to the previous depiction of the character or the beginning of greatness for a otherwise mildly interesting character.

Was Jubilee as a Vampire refreshing and revitalizing to a character who had nothing of interest for her?

Is modern day Magik's portrayal as a badass in touch with her dark side a betrayal of the classic character struggling for control?

And for that matter- Are Cyclops and Psylocke, despite having almost every major change in character take place on panel, so far removed from their classic depictions that it's insulting to the source material?

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HAWK2916

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Hmmm... Interesting thread.

For Cyclops I will say that his development seems more natural in that it's taken place over a period of time and its easy to justify or at least understand his more hardened stance and that he seems not to view the world through the rose-colored glasses (no pun intended) of a bright-eyed teenager who believes wholeheartely what his father figure is telling him. I mean how many of us in real life were taught a certain thing or raised a certain way and when we grow up come to find out that our parents weren't always right? I dont think Scott should go full on villain but really his classic depiction was not very interesting. I think his development is the way to go, in that it was done gradually so that you could point to certain things and understand what happened as opposed to someone just coming out of the blue with something.

I think what would help in these instances, are the old-school classic side panels in which you had the character's inner dialogue in addition to what was happening. Showing Cyclops or anyone for that matter, struggling over the years with ideology vs reality would go a long way toward helping to understand motivations for certain things.

For me the only times when a change without development, or backstory as I take this to mean, is ok when there is a traumatic event and character changes in reaction to it. Things like a near-death experience, a character death or other traumatic event, like perhaps one that we both long for, the Dark Messiah thing and people finding out they were wrong, that should change perspectives. Possibly grief or anger to certain events or whatever would spark a change in character but then again thats where in the inner dialogue panels would help. For instance, Wolverine dying should affect his former teammates- maybe someone who was reckless is now more cautious and introspective. Others may take a stance that life and happiness is all fleeting so they become more reckless or driven. Other times that its ok maybe is when a backstory will be told over the course of the run or issues of the book that will explain how we got here. Or and these are not my favorites but very common in Marvel.. in the case of some sort of possession-perhaps the aftermath, a resurrection from death, or an awakening from a coma or something.

To answer the questions:

I dont like what Bendis was doing with X23. I wouldn't say it was character assassination but it was somewhat out of character. In real-life some experiences or situations that a person grows up in takes away their childhood and they never become a regular teenager, i think X23 compares favorably to Magik in this instance with their childhoods. its tragic and should never be swept under the rug or buried under the pretense of "acting like a teenager instead of a weapon". She was getting to be a teenager in New Xmen and taking that further was somewhat damaging to her character, in the same way that taking away Wolverine's mysterious past and overexposing everything has not been good for his character in my opinion. To me its like starting to head over to that infamous corner that these writers paint their characters into.

As for Emma, Im not sure if it was an insult but I guess in some ways it was. Emma is a strong character in her own right but to play the eye candy role is somewhat of an insult. Im not sure if thats what these writers went out of their ways to do since I havent read their stuff in a while but Emma running her own corporation and being a teacher in her own right should not have been forgotten. More and more she should have had her own opinion and manipulated things in her own way instead of just backing Cyclops, which is one reason i actually loved her depiction in Dark Xmen. Emma should have been heading up her own X-corp or still manipulating the Hellfire Club or using her own X-force to accomplish her goals. What happened with Emma can almost be as insulting as seeing Magneto bowing to Cyclops. But again im not sure we can put it all on those two writers.

The Jubilee thing was horrible. It was bandwagon jumping at its finest making her a vampire. The better development was her losing her powers then joining New warriors and using technology to still do her thing. I think it would have been better to have her trying to get her powers back by any means than to just randomly make her a vamp and call it refreshing and revitalizing a character. I mean if we want contrived stuff how about her and Iceman got together she had his kid who turns out to be a mutant and now she wants to make sure to protect the child so she stays with the Xmen and her and Bobby are together. lol, Hows that for contrived stories. Or have her trying MGH and everything lese to get her powers back. The vamp thing was a cheap, seemingly last minute thing to give her powers or whatever when really her and Dani and quite a few others should have just been repowered in the Children's crusade thing.

Magik's struggle has also taken a seemingly normal turn. Embracing her dark side instead of viewing things like say Colossus would be a natural progression I think. However i wouldn't just discard her struggle and it should be referred to at times. Again the side panels of inner dialogue lol. I think she can embrace being a badass and using her powers while still trying to maintain control. The whole swallowing Limbo thing was just off in my opinion though. Not a good development.

Psylocke is interesting. Though her being addicted to killing is kind of stupid in my opinion. I would call that a serial killer right? Her being an adrenaline junkie and coming from a rich kid background perhaps being entitled and a bit spoiled is understandable and plausible. Kind of like the big corporate cut their throats if they're in my way attitude is more understandable. Also taking into account what's happened to her i could see that natural progression into being an assassin and going after those who are a detriment to the survival of mutantkind. I think @ageofhurricane pointed out in another thread that killing someone (Havok i think) was her solution to a problem in some earlier appearances with the Xmen. And who can forget how she got Wolverine's respect in fighting when seemingly clearly outmatched and in danger. Coincidentally for people that like to play matchmaker with the Xmen her and Cyclops seem like the perfect fit right about now lol.

I hope that answered the question acceptably, im a little drunk and rambling at the moment but.. thats what i got.

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cattlebattle

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#3  Edited By cattlebattle

Every writer has a different vision of each character, that is what intrinsically makes American super hero comics so messy....Sometimes a writer will attempt to write a character out and then another writer comes along and drags that character back in. So, ultimately the question is a tough call. You could make an arguemnt that nearly every character is written out of character from their original interpretations.

Along with many other antiquated ideas I evidently maintain about these characters, I also think having Emma Frost as an X-Men never makes sense. I mean, if she is planning on using the X-Men for her own goals.....then great, but, her history suggests that she is a rather evil, petty person. I mean, she is a confirmed murderer, she has attempted to kidnap children and brainwash them on several occasions, she killed Firestars horse and attempted to alienate her from her father so she could mold her into an assassin....Just some really petty, crazy, evil stuff.

She really has no business being an X-Man in my opinion.

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HopesummersFORtheFUTURE

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@cattlebattle: marvel needed emma to become an x-men for her sex appeal (and to compete with other comics)

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LordMordor

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Cyclops is honestly probably one of the best examples of real character growth and development, even if you don't like where that development lead. You can pretty easily trace changes all the way back to Morrison and see, or at least understand why he changed and how. Xavier was gone and the team needed a leader to step up, so he did. Mutants were nearly wiped out after M-Day. It was no longer about being a team leader, it was about leading a people, so he did. Norman Osborn is in charge and is after mutants...leave the country and start island nation. There were very real and very big threats to that small group, and compromises had to be made to insure its safety, ect.

The one issue I have with his development was that Emma was much of the time used as a tool to help show it rather than develop much on her own. HAWK mentioned the lack of side panels to show inner dialogue. Well, that's what Emma ended up being much of the time. Every time Scott had moments of questioning himself or what he was doing....he was voicing them to Emma and the two talked about it, usually with her encouraging him. Emma became a way they could discuss the doubts Scott had but could not show without unnaturally breaking things up with internal monologues. In a way this developed her, we sometimes saw her questioning herself on how good a person she really was or seeing the softer side that she does have but doesn't show. But that development was very minor overall.

The others are no where near as good because so much focus has been on Scott. I'm not familiar enough with Psylock or Jubs to really speak to their development, but X-23 at least had some hits and some misses. She has a long history of TRYING to be more normal, to get past her history as a weapon, so her eventually seeing some success and maybe even enjoying that success isn't really an issue. Its more an issue of how its presented. Laura has her own way of talking, very few contractions, almost no slang, very to the point, ect. Its what makes sense considering how she grew up. Her striking up friendships with the ANXM (mostly scott/warren) are fine...the problem was Bendis-Dialogue. She no longer spoke like how we have been accustomed to her speaking forever, and its very jarring. I think its gotten better since those first few issues with her, but its still not what we have come to expect. Also because she very rarely had those moments like Cyclops did where she talks about how she feels or what she thinks with another person...we never see her coming to conclusions and cementing the change for the reader. Readers can look on panel and see where (generally) Scott made a decision/development and started moving on from there. With Laura....what we get instead is her getting shipped from one book to another and are seeing changes. "oh, I guess after spending time with X...she has grown in this manner and now is like this"

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cattlebattle

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@cattlebattle: marvel needed emma to become an x-men for her sex appeal (and to compete with other comics)

They should have just "slutted up" Kitty Pryde...if that were the case :D

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Koays

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@cattlebattle: lol They'll never let her live down Butter Rum..... They'll eye roll Firestar and question her relevance but that horse is remembered fondly as a true hero to his kind.

Playing Devil's Advocate. But is it fair to say that just because they showed their work when they evolved the character that it's not OOC?

I mean if you show a long and detailed process in which Apocalypse becomes Tinkerbell is that not still a betrayal of the character. I mean even ignoring the different writers and directional choices Cyclops had never been that guy that we saw heading into and during post Decimation.

What makes that different from what some consider the vilification of Prof. X with the addition of 2 or 3 questionable acts that we saw that he still regretted and struggled over?

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LordMordor

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#8  Edited By LordMordor

the problem with Xavier is much of it was retroactive....we learned about shady stuff he had done often well after it had happened. "Scott, you had another brother I had hidden from you" "I'm suppressing your powers jean" "the danger room is sentient" ect ect

With Xavier it feels different because they are reaching into the characters past and telling us...btw, this guy you thought was completely altruistic actually did a lot of bad stuff you didn't know about. With Scott...you SAW the changes and decisions as they happened. You saw the situation, the talks and struggles regarding it, and all that. Scott grew into the character he is because we saw him grow. Xavier became shady because writers went back in time and are telling us retroactively, "this guy you thought you knew is shady"

basically, im completely in favor of the methods used to develop Scott. That's how character development should be done. Xavier's change is not. If they wanted to make a darker Xavier, they should have started fresh and presented him with situations where he felt he had to compromise, rather than going back and telling us that they guy we were previously reading about wasn't who we though

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cattlebattle

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@koays said:

@cattlebattle: lol They'll never let her live down Butter Rum..... They'll eye roll Firestar and question her relevance but that horse is remembered fondly as a true hero to his kind.

Playing Devil's Advocate. But is it fair to say that just because they showed their work when they evolved the character that it's not OOC?

I mean if you show a long and detailed process in which Apocalypse becomes Tinkerbell is that not still a betrayal of the character. I mean even ignoring the different writers and directional choices Cyclops had never been that guy that we saw heading into and during post Decimation.

What makes that different from what some consider the vilification of Prof. X with the addition of 2 or 3 questionable acts that we saw that he still regretted and struggled over?

It wasn't just beloved Butter Rum though *cries slightly in rememberence*, it was a whole stable of horses that was burned down in an attempt to get Angelica to become an assassin. Just so maybe Firestar could kill Selene

In the case of Emma, the development of her and her redemption doesn't matter....during the first ten years or so of her existence she was this impeccably evil character that seemed to simply relish the fact that she was so. Even if you were attempting compare the redemption of her character to something like Rogue or Magneto it wouldn't hold. Magneto's actions are arguably justifiable a lot of the times and most of the times he did something reprehensible he was under some sort of influence and his whole character in general had a deeper goal and said goal is often heavily debated by fans as it is quite a contemplative situation, Rogue on the other hand was retconned to be young and not fully aware of what she was doing all the time.....having Emma Frost as an X-Man, considering her actions from about 1980 to 1990, is tantamount to having someone like Ra's Al Ghul join the Justice League, actually, that scenario would be more believable as Emma was just always obsessed with power, she had Ned Buckman murder the Inner Circle and himself just so her and Shaw could take over ........then, after the death of her Hellions, who she treated as chess pieces anyways, all of the sudden starts to slowly buy into Xaviers dream?? Just kind of always seemed inorganic and forced to me. Also, even after aligning herself with Xaviers school, she still did a lot of underhanded things.

Clearly a lady that has
Clearly a lady that has "future hero" written all over her /sarcasm

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Koays

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@cattlebattle: Well technically killing Selene could be seen as a very heroic deed. Even if it was for selfish reasons. And killing the leaders of the hellfire club is technically killing bad guys. But I digress from the bs.

For me what I always found annoying about Emma's initial turn was that it never fit in with her character that she would be swayed by a mutant cause, Xavier's or any other. It seemed like she was a mutant character but otherwise it was just a means to an end, and the plight of mutants and the dream to coexist never seemed like something that would be important to her.

That said Morrison and beyond Emma is a different character. She's a broken person who fell for the dark side of power and in a way was so screwed up by it she couldn't really see her actions as wrong. And when she finally did take a look at herself she became so disgusted by it that she would go into kill mode at the sight of things from her past.

The two don't really reconcile with each other...like at all. But the 00's Emma is far more complex, so despite the complete rewrite of history required for her story and POV to be legitimately believable would it be fair to say that in this example the choice to be out of character gave us something better then we had before?

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HexThis

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@koays

Where do you stand when it comes to unnatural changes in a characters direction?

Listen, there are two kinds of "unnatural" changes: There's 1) the unnatural change that occurs from unforeseen circumstances then there's 2) the unnatural change that is frivolously inserted or passingly made true. Obviously the first provides some leeway, the second is just unresearched writing which annoys the hell out of me. If you're a writer, you have a cheat sheet, an intricate spark notes available in places like UncannyXmen.net or here or even Wikipedia, you have no excuse!

And when do you feel it's ok to change a character without development?

Like I said, when it's something that is an event. Not an event-event, like how we see them in comics but like an incident or traumatizing experience, that is A-okay by me if it prompts different behavior because that's what trauma does to people IRL. OR! If you're a writer who noticed an untapped characteristic that you think is valuable or under-acknowledged, well then maybe that's justifiable.

Bottom line is that anything done out of ignorance, fickleness, or carelessly is BAD, if you ask me.

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Oh boy.

I really am going to behave and keep it concise this time. I am. I hope.

Where do you stand when it comes to unnatural changes in a characters direction?

I don't like them, but if it's due to some traumatic event, or extenuating circumstance, or brainwashing, or dothisoryourkidwilldie type of situation, then I can roll with the flow. It's comics, right?

And when do you feel it's ok to change a character without development?

Never. It's never okay to change a character without development unless it's an non canon story one off or alternate universe. I know that sounds rather abrupt and maybe strict but the question kind of answers itself. What writer worth their salt changes a character without development? If someone ordered a salad, you don't serve them oatmeal. If I pick out a lemon popsicle, I don't want to taste chocolate. (I lost you, I know I did. It makes sense in my head, though, I swear)

Questions to keep in mind-

Was X-23's portrayal in Bendis' run character assassination? Or was she "finally getting to act like a teenager instead of a weapon" as someone else put it?

Bendis and his handling of X-23 is an example of writergonemad. There is nothing more to it than that. You don't get to "finally" act like a teenager when you never even got to be a child. It's common sense, frankly. Laura will never be a giddy, love/angsty teenager. She went straight to adulthood. A writer that pretends otherwise to have a plaything for pet characters (the young X-Men) deserves the criticism.

Was the Emma Frost from Morrison and Whedon's runs an insult to the previous depiction of the character or the beginning of greatness for a otherwise mildly interesting character.

Not just an insult, it just didn't flow well. Morrison playing Emma off of Jean with poor Scott trapped in the middle was shoddy, tripey writing. Like, I know he re energised the franchise (well, arguably he did), but he relied too heavily on forced tension in a triangle situation that didn't make any of the characters come off well. As in, believable. I cringed for Scott throughout Morrison's run. I really did. Emma didn't get to go through any real wringer, not like Magneto did. It was just a cat fest, along with nasty comments from the male side of the X-Men which didn't impress me and certainly didn't add to Emma's character. Whedon I am more forgiving and that's because he depicted Emma as her own person. As in, an everyday, functioning X-Man and teacher. When he left, Emma went back to femme fatale with a dash of goodness only slightly more deeper than her dash of evil. Boring.

Water under the bridge now, I guess. I love the character something fierce, just so you know, and I also prefer her to be with Scott as I believe the two of them have experienced the best and worst of the other as adults and are the better for it. Is there a word to describe something more deeper and more stronger than best friends? That's what those two are to each other. I'm waiting for a writer to come along and express this properly. One can hope.

Was Jubilee as a Vampire refreshing and revitalizing to a character who had nothing of interest for her?

It was a mistake. An awful one. But she's since progressed and with cameos like the one she had in X-23's last ongoing and mini she had with Wolverine, I've since accepted it and it's part of who she is now. It wasn't an organic change for the character, but it is now.

Is modern day Magik's portrayal as a badass in touch with her dark side a betrayal of the classic character struggling for control?

This treatment of Magik isn't a new one. The last time I felt she was shown properly was in the New Mutants, which is basically her introduction to the X-Men. I just feel she's become an Emma lite to the newer members of the team since Emma is/might be considered too "old" for the hotforteacher trope.

And for that matter- Are Cyclops and Psylocke, despite having almost every major change in character take place on panel, so far removed from their classic depictions that it's insulting to the source material?

No. I think they are okay. What is a classic depiction anyway? (Don't answer that, I am being rhetorical. Ish) Especially when considering comic characters who've been around for literally decades? If anything, it's because it happened on panel that I can and have accepted who they are shown to be right now.

Welp. So much for being concise, haha. (sorry)

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cattlebattle

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@koays said:

For me what I always found annoying about Emma's initial turn was that it never fit in with her character that she would be swayed by a mutant cause, Xavier's or any other. It seemed like she was a mutant character but otherwise it was just a means to an end, and the plight of mutants and the dream to coexist never seemed like something that would be important to her.

Exactly. One of the greatest thing about the Inner Circle was that they not only functioned as a collective team of bad guys, but they all had their own agendas as individuals. Selene apparently wanted to just rule everything she could, Shaw had an odd obsession with controlling the mutant genome and gaining political footing, and Emma wanted more power and reveled in the fact she had the next generation of Hellfire Club members in her ranks. There was never even the slightest modicum of an idea she would want to do anything remotely regarding whatever the X-Men did.

@koays said:

That said Morrison and beyond Emma is a different character. She's a broken person who fell for the dark side of power and in a way was so screwed up by it she couldn't really see her actions as wrong. And when she finally did take a look at herself she became so disgusted by it that she would go into kill mode at the sight of things from her past.

The problem with this is that can you lump this reasoning for any character......regardless of the writer or situation. You have to acknowledge a characters past and for a character like Emma Frost, her past is too shrouded in just being a petty, murderous, selfish, evil person, if you even go look at Hysterias "X-Men read through blog" he is covering a lot of New Mutants stuff right now and even he has mentioned how odd it is the White Queen would be considered a good guy one day. Another interesting thing is that a lot of readers think she is written best by Whedon and Morrison since she has been a good guy, two writers that played around with her being ruthless while being an X-Man, almost as if she could betray them at any given moment.....because she works better as a villain, lol.

Look at it like this, if you took the Joker and applied the something similar to what you wrote, lets say there was a story where the Joker gained his sanity and he one day he realized that all his actions were wrong and took a look at himself so that he became disgusted at the sight of things from his past and later joined the Bat family......would that work?? I am willing to bet people would burn that comic because of Jokers background. I feel that's the same thing for Emma Frost. Where is the fun in characters if nearly every X-Men villain just can eventually join the good guys?? Some characters should just be beyond the point of redemption.

@koays said:

The two don't really reconcile with each other...like at all. But the 00's Emma is far more complex, so despite the complete rewrite of history required for her story and POV to be legitimately believable would it be fair to say that in this example the choice to be out of character gave us something better then we had before?

This is subjective. Just because Emma was a villain in the first decade of her existence doesn't mean she was one dimensional. She and Shaw were villains you liked to hate, you enjoyed reading about them and their schemes as much as you enjoyed reading about the X-Men. So, you ask the question if if what we have now is better, I would think no. The X-Men don't have interesting villains anymore these days, if they insist on keeping the same characters and villains around for decades then I would very much like Emma Frost to be a villain in some regard.....she could train the next generation of evil mutants diametrically to the X-Mens school.

One of the funnest things about X-Men sometimes is looking at how oddly broken the franchise has become, it's like watching a train wreck sometimes. When you look back to days when it was solidly good you notice that villains that were considered just no good, rotten people have become good guys, like Emma Frost or Juggernaut and characters that used to written like sympathetic villains like Mystique or Madelyne Pryor have most recently been written to be one dimensional villains....it's so weird.

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HAWK2916

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@cattlebattle: Just from reading this....man it would be so cool if Emma was somehow revealed to be training the next Hellfire Club inner circle inside the x-mansion so to speak. Or if she really had implanted something in Scotts mind to take him down a more militant path all along to further her own agenda. I don't know.... I might be reaching but that might be interesting. She really could be running or at least contributing to an Xforce with her mindset as it is.

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@cattlebattle: Idk. For me Emma even becoming headmaster in Gen X was just the wrong move. There just wasnt a real redemption arc that was believable for her. And honestly if someone were to say that Xavier screwed with her head while she was in a coma or even just offered her money or something to play that role it would've been a more natural swing for her. It seems like even if she was the lesser of Evils like Shaw and Selene the only difference was that she could be reasoned with and that shouldve been the basis for them to change her.

As far as Emma being a better villain or hero. I think of it this way, Shaw lost any type of "big threat" vibe he presented over the years, as have pretty much every villain from Mystique to Apocalypse. So while i'll agree that if Emma had kept the level of threat she represented before she would've contributed much more to the wasteland of relevant villains then she did as an X-Man it's not likely she would've been able to maintain that level of importance. And what she contributed as a team member of the X-Men over the years has undoubtedly made the team better and more interesting.

I agree that the X-Men villains join up with the team way too easily and too often. But in the case of Emma and even Magneto's latest tenure, i feel like they contributed to making the group more diverse as far as their ideals. Cyclops, Rogue, Psylocke and Logan are all very different but there's very little conflict that can be had over ideals between them. But throw in someone who has a different background and outlook but also the same credibility as any long term X-Men and it makes the group dynamic much more interesting. By know means am I saying we should just do random shake ups and ignore continuity in favor of something that may or may not pan out as being interesting....but I will say that in Emma's case her character reboot kind of did work out for the better.

@ms-lola- Lol you really didn't lose me, and I agree generally but just to play Devils Advocate again.. Emma Frost (i should really find another example) and the changes in her character are like ordering a pizza and getting Chinese food instead. You would've been happy with what you ordered but what you got was just as good. I'm not looking for more writers to do the same but isn't it worth something that Emma panned out? Morrison may not have been the best writer for the characters(being generous here) but the choice led to a character who is now championed by a large portion of the readership. What makes Emma's change any different then Jubilee's vampirism, which was "bandwagon jumping at it's finest" as @hawk2916 put it, but has now sort of grown to be just another part of the character, alongside motherhood, being willfull and her ingenuity?

@hexthis- I can also agree with your way of putting it. But in the interest of discussion... Are you willing to say that if a writer has a great story but the character he wants to use, lets say Rogue, doesn't completely line up with the way he wants portray them he shouldn't write the story? Even factoring in the tragedy that occurred prior to Uncanny Avenger's, the Rogue isn't the one we saw last, but she is needed in order to show another perspective to the ideals of Havok and the other side of team. It's tough to find a character with enough credibility to fill that role, and regardless of the extent that it panned out in the story, going into the first issues Rogue is a good choice to be the voice of opposition. Should the writer have trashed the idea because Rogue didn't fit the role neatly?

@lordmordor - Are you saying that your not in favor of Xavier's retcons? I mean their not ideal by any means but when viewed together they show alot more depth then he would've had otherwise.

I mean what we basically got was a man who was altruistic and pure to the core as far as anyone could tell. And then we're shown that the entire time he's maintaining this image he's making decisions that are questionable, deplorable and that would shake the X-Men t the Core should anyone find out. But then after all of his dirty laundry has been aired out, he continues to act the same as he always has. Showing that either he has come to terms with his mistakes, considers them acceptable losses or still feels he's morally right in spite of them. Isn't that change as complex as Cyclops' philosophical debate?

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@hawk2916: See I think that would be going backwards quite a bit, I like Scott's actions as they make sense in the changing times and I think it would completely go against Emmas character who has been shown to be in love with Scott and to enjoy being a good gal.

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@hawk2916 said:

@cattlebattle: Just from reading this....man it would be so cool if Emma was somehow revealed to be training the next Hellfire Club inner circle inside the x-mansion so to speak. Or if she really had implanted something in Scotts mind to take him down a more militant path all along to further her own agenda. I don't know.... I might be reaching but that might be interesting. She really could be running or at least contributing to an Xforce with her mindset as it is.

There are interviews you can watch on youtube, or read on someones blog, or even some comic podcasts where people have a lot of former X-Men writers on, whether its Louise Simonson, Claremont, Nicieza, Lobdell, Mike Carey or Yost, and the interesting thing is that they have all voiced their opinion that they would reveal Emma to have some secret agenda while working with the X-Men, but she complicates it when genuinely falling for Scott.....I think they even had something like that happen on one of their animated shows....

It would be an interesting idea to retcon it into her being responsible for Scotts current outlook, his whole demeanor is arguably quite out of character from the Cyclops that has existed since 1963. Then again, the problem is that certain writers have wrote stories where Emma Frost seems to regret her past.....and that, like I always say, is the reason why super hero comics are just generally broken, especially a series like the X-Men, which spent the time it was being popularized being written as a serialized narrative for 15 years by one writer. Too many different people with too many different visions.

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@koays said:

@cattlebattle: Idk. For me Emma even becoming headmaster in Gen X was just the wrong move. There just wasnt a real redemption arc that was believable for her. And honestly if someone were to say that Xavier screwed with her head while she was in a coma or even just offered her money or something to play that role it would've been a more natural swing for her. It seems like even if she was the lesser of Evils like Shaw and Selene the only difference was that she could be reasoned with and that shouldve been the basis for them to change her.

I agree. In the first several issues of Generation X she is still very much a.......uh, bitch, for lack of a better term, then in issue 16 or so she tries to genuinely make a peace offering to Monet St Croix, who, up until that point had been quite unruly towards her. This is very weird since this happened in or around 95 or 96 and just 4 years prior (even less if you are going by "Marvel Time") she had her Hellions attempt to kill the New Warriors for sh*ts and giggles. Thats why I always think of her redemption as kind of hackneyed and forced, it seemed like she just woke up one day and tried to be nice for seemingly no reason. She is also constantly teased to be up to no good during that series is worth noting.

@koays said:

As far as Emma being a better villain or hero. I think of it this way, Shaw lost any type of "big threat" vibe he presented over the years, as have pretty much every villain from Mystique to Apocalypse. So while i'll agree that if Emma had kept the level of threat she represented before she would've contributed much more to the wasteland of relevant villains then she did as an X-Man it's not likely she would've been able to maintain that level of importance. And what she contributed as a team member of the X-Men over the years has undoubtedly made the team better and more interesting.

Thats the writers fault. More specifically editorial. Everyone wants to make a new villain, then subsequent writers throw out those villains in favor of old ones and so on or try to craft a story where the villain ultimately gets his comeuppance and loses his gravitas he once had. Someone just need to maintain better control of the villains, their whereabouts and overall direction. I don't think there is anything intrinsically specific about Emma Frost that has made the team better, they could have had any character fill her role. Get Diamond Lil from Alpha Flight, she kind of had a snobbish attitude.

It's funny that you think the level of importance of some villains has diminished through repetitive usage throughout the years, like what you said about Shaw, yet you have argued in the past that all the main X-Men that have been around for 30 some odd years still have the gravity they once had....I find Shaw carries as much weight as Colossus does these days in my honest opinion. Just an observation.

@koays said:


I agree that the X-Men villains join up with the team way too easily and too often. But in the case of Emma and even Magneto's latest tenure, i feel like they contributed to making the group more diverse as far as their ideals. Cyclops, Rogue, Psylocke and Logan are all very different but there's very little conflict that can be had over ideals between them. But throw in someone who has a different background and outlook but also the same credibility as any long term X-Men and it makes the group dynamic much more interesting. By know means am I saying we should just do random shake ups and ignore continuity in favor of something that may or may not pan out as being interesting....but I will say that in Emma's case her character reboot kind of did work out for the better.

I agree and support the idea of some former X-villains becoming X-Men. I have always been a proponent of Magneto coming into the "mentor" role Xavier used to have, though, some writers always insist on having him do some dastardly things to the point where the X-Men wouldn't affiliate with him anymore. However, in the case of Magneto, it's a complex argument, his background with the Holocaust, the death of his child by bigots, it's a very debatable, controversial topic on why he can be redeemed.

As for someone like Mystique, up until the point where she worked with X-Men in the 90s, she had never really done anything that outright terrible...she attempted to kill Senator Kelly, but you could argue she was attempting to preserve her peoples safety, she tried to kill Xavier, but that was sort of a misunderstanding as she thought Xavier was some radical that brainwashed her daughter into his militia. Both characters like Magneto and Mystique were never presented as loveless, friendless, sociopaths who just wanted more power......like a certain character......let me think now.....oh yeah, Emma Frost was one of those ;) Sp, you can kind of see where I am coming from.

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Where do you stand when it comes to unnatural changes in a characters direction?

I prefer these sudden changes to be done on-panel, or at least accompanied by a satisfactory explanation. If the change goes against fundamental aspects of the character, or is a contradiction in light of the last time the character was seen, I think it is creatively lazy to handle those off-screen, with otherwise intelligent characters accepting the changes without more than a snarky comment.

For example, Emma Frost under Morrison was actually quite consistent with not only her original portrayal, but also the developments that occurred during the New Mutants era, and the Generation X era. While some readers would say that her discovery of an interest in educating the future generation didn't fit her earlier persona, I disagree. I think that it is quite in line with what we've seen of her, especially given that Kitty's first introduction involved Emma being set up as a rival school trying to recruit new students in competition with Charles Xavier's mission. This interest is quite easily squared with her villainous activities in that she sought to build a strike force of trained superhuman mutants for the Hellfire Club that would be personally loyal to her. A character with such intelligence could get bored of being a villain since they aren't necessarily evil, mainly being interested in accumulating power and resources, so her about face isn't really a pivot. And it also is consistent with what she experienced in Bobby's mind - she saw how under-developed his powers were, and how he under-utilized them, and as a future educator, this is consistent with her prior experiences mastering her own powerset and her general annoyance when someone possessed of such power failed to master them. Morrison merely took a character that could easily be demonized, and more fully developed her POV.

Honestly, I think many readers don't really understand Emma's motivations, because she always seemed like a generic super villain to them. Most barely thought of as the Hellfire Club as more than a bad guy team, not really acknowledging the fact that their stated goal was wealth, power, and influence - not really the same goals as generic bad guys a la Dr. Doom. So the idea that a character's motivations could lead them to be either a hero or a villain is confusing to readers that prefer characters to make a clear decision to be good or bad, while the Hellfire Club is really on the gray side of the alignment spectrum. Emma Frost, IMHO, is a chaotic neutral character more akin to a character from Dynasty then a psychopath - Claremont and Morrison wrote her to be that way. So to me, it isn't surprising that an individualist like Emma wakes up one day, realizes that the organization she helped establish almost got her killed and definitely got her students slaughtered, and is motivated to take another path. http://easydamus.com/chaoticneutral.html gives a good description of the character type.

This is in contrast to Polaris', Magma's, and Dazzler's treatment.

  • Unfortunately for Polaris, she is well-known enough to make appearances in many stories, but not considered a frontline X-Man. As a result, all sorts of traumatic events are heaped upon her by writers so they can claim a big change has been made, or to make a relatively recognizable character a part of some major event without threatening the primary cast.
  • Magma, OTOH, literally went from being a primary cast member of the New Mutants to being written out (and sent to the Hellions) for basically no reason. Then we learn years later in "New Warriors" that she was being emotionally manipulated by Empath, and that her real identity was Alison Crestmere. Then this is retconned off-screen when it is revealed that Empath created the Crestmere identity to make her maintain her love for him. Then this was retconned again, this time on-screen, when Amara finds her father, who is said to be a legitimate person of Roman ancestry. This is all tied into Selene's story, as to creating Nova Roma, yet this has been alternatively retconned and re-establishing along with Amara's identity. Basically, by the time we meet Magma, she generally has no personality or character development, but just pays lip service to events that happened off-screen.
  • Poor Dazzler had major character developments dropped on her without any comment for years. After making an appearance after the team re-formed during the Jim Lee era with Longshot during which it was announced she was pregnant, and then years later, appears on the mansion's steps just in time to join Jean's team of emergency X-Men, but no mention is given to her lack of a child. In fact, we spend years in the complete dark about that, only to have some other book tie that loose end. Then she re-appears seemingly with immortality, hair dyed pink, and a very different perspective on life. She appears again as a blond with a more positive outlook, more in line with her original personality, and then again, a few years later a very negative set of developments took place which saw Mystique take her place while she was incapacitated leading to another fashion change. Basically, there are negative changes to her character that get such short shrift that all you see is the fallout and no actual development.

However, the big distinction is that while Polaris was treated negatively, there is generally time given to explaining the state of the character - her feelings, thoughts, and new motivations are given on-screen attention beyond a cursory glance so we know where she stands. She was a key player in the Shadow King crossover involving the Muir Island X-Men, and had the benefit of being in the same book - we see her in X-Factor, and years later, did see her reaction to M Day and later on, during the Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire, we get to see her development in terms of her thoughts on her relationship, and how she feels about her new powers. In contrast, Magma appears on a whim, and barely gets more than a handful of panels to comment on what happened off-screen. As a result, Magma always appears to be a jilted semi-character who barely registers a reaction to things she has seen. But at least she gets a panel to at least comment on the events...even though the panel was in a relatively unrelated book a decade or more later. Even worse is a character like Dazzler who has a somewhat well-developed personality to draw from, yet writers either treat her as a vapid joke (forgetting that she's quite intelligent, could have been a successful attorney, but chose to follow her talent) or a sad sack who wallows in her emotions, at times with no comment.

And when do you feel it's ok to change a character without development?

The only time I think this is acceptable is when it makes sense from a storytelling perspective. If you are dealing with a relatively unknown character who has a secretive background or mysterious past, I don't think it is too bad to have them re-appear with drastic changes in their design, and outlook. It is also worth it to examine how established the characters' personality is, which isn't always consistent with their level of fame. If Fantomex re-appeared with a drastically different personality, I don't think there is as much as an issue as there would be making drastic changes with Dazzler. The difference is that we know Dazzler's background, her personality, and her worldview - she may not be as popular as a more established character like Scott Summers, or Kitty Pryde, but I think she is more developed than Fantomex, and moreover has a generally normal background. An extremely traumatic event can lead her to a breakdown, but such an event should be explored more thoroughly than we generally see her given.

I highly dislike it when a writer takes a character that is generally consistent with an established personality and background, and then proceeds to railroad a bunch of changes through to make the character into who the writers needs them to be to make their story work, instead of who the character is. I thought Husk's treatment, for example, was horrendous, because it was treated as a morbid joke that wasn't consistent with who she was in prior stories. That's not development - IMHO that is taking a character, putting them through a ringer, and then having a laugh at the characters' expense.

I think Psylocke is an interesting case - Ninja Psylocke is a much weaker character than the British version, both in terms of potential and personality-wise IMHO, but it can't be said that her changes occurred with no development. She got screentime, and some writers really delved into what her transformation entailed. Scott is somewhat similar - he's one of the senior level X-Men who was trained to be Xavier's heir apparent, so the idea that he go through a process where he realizes that Xavier's methods are flawed is understandable given the amount of alternate realities we've seen with the dream failing by leading mutants to genocide or mass incarceration or just being ineffective - for Scott, it's very much a growing up process. He's been the focus for so many years that I don't think you can honestly claim he didn't get development from the key events of the past decades. Focusing on him to the extent they did is ridiculous, but he's clearly on a progression of development.

Jubilee is another interesting case. She was introduced at the same time the X-Men were being re-formed into a superhero/paramilitary team concept alongside Psylocke, yet neither character has much long term viability as consistent characters, relying on power-swaps, storyline driven ridiculousness, and other tropes to remain relevant. I found it hilarious to read an info blast on Twitter basically announcing that Marvel "finally" had an Asian American superhero, which goes to show how weak a presence both characters have on the overall universe. But she received profound progression during Illyana's Legacy Virus death storyline and then later, Synch's. That progression was cut short after M Day, and her vampire powers were obviously created during a resurgence of the vampire fad inspired by Twilight and True Blood, but at least she appears more often than she did after the end of Generation X. She has gotten some character development since becoming a bloodsucker, but it's neither memorable nor consistent. It can be argued that Jubilee was redundant from her first appearance, having less developed powers than Dazzler, and filling a role that was inconsistent with the Blue Strike team's type of missions.

TL;DR basically, if a character is developed enough to have expected ways of reacting, then they deserve on-panel character development. If they are a character with a more forgettable background, such as some generic secret agent, then you can make massive changes and just explain them away as being a result of their adventurer lifestyle.

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@cattlebattle: I think everytime I've read Gen X I've wished she had just been revealed to have something else going on....though that could just be my unhappiness with the series as a whole. The same could be said of Astonishing, which as you and someone else alluded could've been made better by having her really be colluding with the HellFire Club during the Cassandra Nova arc. But I think Gen X era Emma should've remained full on evil teammate or just be in Xaviers pocket....because really it didn't work.

Idk if Emma in 00s, could be as easily replaced as you put it...especially by Diamond Lil... I mean you could find someone of a similar temperament to replace anyone, but she's been a major part of the X-Men if not for what her history brings then from what her perspective brings to most events.

Lol I think its different to say that Shaw and Colossus have the same level of relevance because their on different sides. Shaw doesn't have to be present in every issue And that's the problem. If Colossus loses relevance then you can use one of the next 20 issues he' featured in to rebuild him slowly, quickly or whatever and then when he's benched he's relevant again. Shaw shows up for maybe 3 issues and losses control of the HellFire Club, then he comes back again and loses control of the Hellfire club. And then by the next time we see him he's being locked away and mindraped by Emma Frost. Its one thing if you bench a character and bring them back for a run, but if you bench a character after destroying them then expect them to be a threat again it doesn't work.

To me a lot of the writers comments over the years over the redemption of Magneto have really avoided the truth which is that he's too valuable as a villain to be completely redeemed or reformed as a final end to his character arc. But I understand that he always had that potential because of his motivations being the betterment of mutants. It just whether or not the redemption would stick.

That said I get what you mean, since Classic Emma was more likely to trade Mutant Equality for the HellFire club ruling the world. Now that you mention it though...Mystique and Emma almost traded characters when no one was looking.

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#21  Edited By cattlebattle

@koays said:

@cattlebattle: I think everytime I've read Gen X I've wished she had just been revealed to have something else going on....though that could just be my unhappiness with the series as a whole. The same could be said of Astonishing, which as you and someone else alluded could've been made better by having her really be colluding with the HellFire Club during the Cassandra Nova arc. But I think Gen X era Emma should've remained full on evil teammate or just be in Xaviers pocket....because really it didn't work.

Gen X is sort of an over rated series. I think people tend to romanticize it because of Bachalos beautiful artwork in the first 25 issues, after he and Lobdell leave, the books takes a huge dive, but thats because not that many interesting things were set up in the first place. I actually think it might of been one of Lobdells intentions to have Emma turn on the team as she was teased to be conspiring with other people and generally up to no good.
@koays said:

Idk if Emma in 00s, could be as easily replaced as you put it...especially by Diamond Lil... I mean you could find someone of a similar temperament to replace anyone, but she's been a major part of the X-Men if not for what her history brings then from what her perspective brings to most events.

I just used Lil as an example. Emmas perspective is usually written to be more outwardly cynical, and opposed to the standard good guy train of thought in the way of morals, it's not really that unique of an archetype. Her past connections to the Hellfire Club are used sometimes, but the X-Men have had a bunch of connections to those guys before she joined anyways.
@koays said:

Lol I think its different to say that Shaw and Colossus have the same level of relevance because their on different sides. Shaw doesn't have to be present in every issue And that's the problem. If Colossus loses relevance then you can use one of the next 20 issues he' featured in to rebuild him slowly, quickly or whatever and then when he's benched he's relevant again. Shaw shows up for maybe 3 issues and losses control of the HellFire Club, then he comes back again and loses control of the Hellfire club. And then by the next time we see him he's being locked away and mindraped by Emma Frost. Its one thing if you bench a character and bring them back for a run, but if you bench a character after destroying them then expect them to be a threat again it doesn't work.

I would say a character is more ridiculous if because he is present all the time, he has to be put through all these extreme situations, like joining the bad guys, dying, coming back to life....all because the writer can't figure out what to do with him because they get stale more quickly. If Shaw is just showing up once in a while at least you know he has been up to other things in between stories, the writers just forget to do that, it's almost like they forgot the characters live in a larger Universe with super heroes at every turn....that's just editorial not giving a crap.

@koays said:

To me a lot of the writers comments over the years over the redemption of Magneto have really avoided the truth which is that he's too valuable as a villain to be completely redeemed or reformed as a final end to his character arc. But I understand that he always had that potential because of his motivations being the betterment of mutants. It just whether or not the redemption would stick.

That said I get what you mean, since Classic Emma was more likely to trade Mutant Equality for the HellFire club ruling the world. Now that you mention it though...Mystique and Emma almost traded characters when no one was looking.

Well Magneto was meant to become a good guy at some point, in fact, it was one of the best character redemption stories in comic history, it starts in X-Men 150 and plays out over several years in different series all over the Marvel Universe before culminating in issue 200, and if Claremont hadn't been stifled creatively, would have been fulfilled in issue 300, it's just that Bob Harras thought being a good guy "emasculated him" or whatever. I personally don't think he has any value as a villain anymore, that stance has ran it course--long ago. He has realized that his villainous ways are contradictory in nature and essentially any acts he commits against normal humans only make things worse for his race......he can accomplish so much more as a leader of the X-Men. Look at the Age of Apocalypse time line......motherfuc*er destroyed the biggest despot the world ever knew and the people he trained liberated that reality.
Classic Emma didn't even care for mutant equality let alone trade anything for it. Most of the students at the Massachuesetts Academy and people in the Hellfire Club didn't even know she was a mutant she didn't advertise it because it wasn't important to her, her mental powers were just another means to do horrible things evidently. She just apparently was power hungry and would take anyone out human or mutant to achieve her goal.
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#22  Edited By HexThis

@koays said:


@hexthis- I can also agree with your way of putting it. But in the interest of discussion... Are you willing to say that if a writer has a great story but the character he wants to use, lets say Rogue, doesn't completely line up with the way he wants portray them he shouldn't write the story? Even factoring in the tragedy that occurred prior to Uncanny Avenger's, the Rogue isn't the one we saw last, but she is needed in order to show another perspective to the ideals of Havok and the other side of team. It's tough to find a character with enough credibility to fill that role, and regardless of the extent that it panned out in the story, going into the first issues Rogue is a good choice to be the voice of opposition. Should the writer have trashed the idea because Rogue didn't fit the role neatly?

Rogue is a pretty good example because what's commonly misconstrued is that she switched from being for to being against Wanda overnight (even myself). But what we forget is that Children's Crusade occurred before AvX and so, somewhat like I said, this is an instance wherein Rogue was grieving and disenchanted by just about everything. Rogue had a few different functions 1) she was a living reference to the contentious relationship the X-men had with the Avengers at that time and 2) she was a reminder to Wanda that the mutantkind still hadn't forgiven her completely regardless of more recent developments. Because of that, Rogue actually made sense in the group dynamic. But she doesn't fit in "neatly", no.

I like the risk-taking anyways though and I like Uncanny Avengers because it's more realistic that the Avengers and X-men would try to work together rather than fight eachother like in AvX. That was just silly. Also, Rogue and the fights she had with Wanda needed to be had so the issue would finally be addressed on both ends. I'm so damn tired of seeing these standoffs between Avengers and X-men where they make snappy remarks at eachother.

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@phoenixofthetides: Your remarks about Polaris, Jubilee and Dazzler are bang on. Great commentary there, for sure.

@koays said:

@ms-lola- Lol you really didn't lose me, and I agree generally but just to play Devils Advocate again.. Emma Frost (i should really find another example) and the changes in her character are like ordering a pizza and getting Chinese food instead. You would've been happy with what you ordered but what you got was just as good. I'm not looking for more writers to do the same but isn't it worth something that Emma panned out? Morrison may not have been the best writer for the characters(being generous here) but the choice led to a character who is now championed by a large portion of the readership. What makes Emma's change any different then Jubilee's vampirism, which was "bandwagon jumping at it's finest" as @hawk2916 put it, but has now sort of grown to be just another part of the character, alongside motherhood, being willfull and her ingenuity?

You make a good point about how Emma has been pulled forward through Morrison's focus on her during his run. Better or for worse, it did take her out of relative obscurity and put the character in position to be developed to what she is today. I'm not too sure on the comparison with Jubilee, in terms of what each character brought to the franchise as a whole but I can see what you mean about how a previous writer's license with a character can end up being okay later down the road when taking into consideration everything that's transpired in between.

Someone mentioned Mystique and Emma switching up as the evil femme fatale with the capability of being "good" in one of the posts above (or something along those lines) and I can agree with that. One thing both characters have (and most "bad guy" characters have, who are mutants), is that mutant protection has always been a shared principle amongst them.

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#24  Edited By HAWK2916

@tikhunt: I don't think there's anything wrong with going backward if it erases bad history or retcons the not so favorable or illogical developments in xmen history. I agree with the sentiment that the xmen comic franchise is broken. Sometimes in order to clean up and fix this stuff we might need to go back in order to move forward. But that's just my opinion on it.

Lol on a side note..... With the Emma and Mystique talk, maybe it gets retconned that it was Mystique disguised as Emma all along for all these years lol. But seriously I do think @PhoenixoftheTides is on to something with the explanation of Emma's transformation. I'm just curious though for those that think Magneto is done as a villain and that his development was on a redemption type of arc with leading the xmen considering the lessons he's learned. How do you feel about his solos series? Is it a step back or more like him personally taking the risk on his own and carrying out his own missions by night so to speak while being a mentor during the day?

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@hawk2916: I'm a fan of Scotts lot so I wouldn't want them to go backwards and fix it but that's just me.

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@cattlebattle- Oh yea, I completely agree about Bachelo. To me he sort of is more associated with that book then Lobdell, which says something when you consider how other acclaimed books with similar cast almost always have their writer championed. Not that Bachello doesnt deserve it because he really does for giving that book a unique feel with just the colors, but to me Gen X will always be the mediocre X-school story that didn't really do much.

When it comes to Shaw and villains in general, I just feel like there's only so many times you can completely and utterly defeat them without, as Harras would put it, "emasculating" them. Colossus could go through a period where he gets smacked around every issue and has unnecessary crisis' of consciousness, but there's always the ability to develop him out of that in the next issue. I just haven't taken Shaw serious since Sunspot took over the club from him and other villains like Apocalypse who always came back bigger and stronger then before... become 5 issue villains for a small team when they were reality altering and future conquering threats. So (and this was a long drive to the point) I just have very little faith that had Emma Frost stayed evil she would've stayed relevant....which is a shame because the X-Men sort of needed a villain like her during the early and mid 00's who wasn't a Uber mutant or the government.

I don't disagree that Emma had no business as a good guy when she was turned. But i have to admit, I like her far better as a good guy after I suspend my disbelief on her transition....or lack thereof... into a hero. Magneto's journey though is something i look at as having been so complex, that when he joined(replaced?) Xavier it would have fit as an end for him. But it fits with him even more nowadays that he would give a try to a new idea and eventually find it not as effective as the separatism that he seems to employ whenever he is in charge of something. I think that he's more interesting now as a character who's outgrown heroics and villainy twice over and is instead taking a middle ground that could actually help, then he would've been had he basically gone through similar hurdles as 00's Emma did with acts of villainy, deception and distrust being the contributing characteristics. He just seems more well thoughout now then he did then, despite the damage done to the character in the early and late 90's.

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@koays said:

@cattlebattle- Oh yea, I completely agree about Bachelo. To me he sort of is more associated with that book then Lobdell, which says something when you consider how other acclaimed books with similar cast almost always have their writer championed. Not that Bachello doesnt deserve it because he really does for giving that book a unique feel with just the colors, but to me Gen X will always be the mediocre X-school story that didn't really do much.

When it comes to Shaw and villains in general, I just feel like there's only so many times you can completely and utterly defeat them without, as Harras would put it, "emasculating" them. Colossus could go through a period where he gets smacked around every issue and has unnecessary crisis' of consciousness, but there's always the ability to develop him out of that in the next issue. I just haven't taken Shaw serious since Sunspot took over the club from him and other villains like Apocalypse who always came back bigger and stronger then before... become 5 issue villains for a small team when they were reality altering and future conquering threats. So (and this was a long drive to the point) I just have very little faith that had Emma Frost stayed evil she would've stayed relevant....which is a shame because the X-Men sort of needed a villain like her during the early and mid 00's who wasn't a Uber mutant or the government.

I don't disagree that Emma had no business as a good guy when she was turned. But i have to admit, I like her far better as a good guy after I suspend my disbelief on her transition....or lack thereof... into a hero. Magneto's journey though is something i look at as having been so complex, that when he joined(replaced?) Xavier it would have fit as an end for him. But it fits with him even more nowadays that he would give a try to a new idea and eventually find it not as effective as the separatism that he seems to employ whenever he is in charge of something. I think that he's more interesting now as a character who's outgrown heroics and villainy twice over and is instead taking a middle ground that could actually help, then he would've been had he basically gone through similar hurdles as 00's Emma did with acts of villainy, deception and distrust being the contributing characteristics. He just seems more well thoughout now then he did then, despite the damage done to the character in the early and late 90's.

I honestly completely lost my steam with this argument because it's been so long :( I just think that if you were to start reading X-Men tomorrow with no knowledge of anything current or anything like that, I just think the Emma Frost development would be kind of a jarring one. She is just one of those villains that seemed irredeemable.

I understand that things are the way they are, and nothing can change it, and I understand there is people out there who love Emma Frost as an X-man and love the current climate and direction of the franchise, but, I think everybody also has their own "head canon" in which they pick and choose developments or have their own ideas for what should have or should have not happened. So, yeah, just not a fan of her being another perpetual X-Man. I am always a fan of times when people write the X-Men like a team of outcasts, like when they just interact and know other mutants who aren't super heroes or have any desire to be, I dislike the fact that almost every mutant run into eventually becomes drafted on to the team. It makes them feel like the Avengers.

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I honestly completely lost my steam with this argument because it's been so long :( I just think that if you were to start reading X-Men tomorrow with no knowledge of anything current or anything like that, I just think the Emma Frost development would be kind of a jarring one. She is just one of those villains that seemed irredeemable.

I understand that things are the way they are, and nothing can change it, and I understand there is people out there who love Emma Frost as an X-man and love the current climate and direction of the franchise, but, I think everybody also has their own "head canon" in which they pick and choose developments or have their own ideas for what should have or should have not happened. So, yeah, just not a fan of her being another perpetual X-Man. I am always a fan of times when people write the X-Men like a team of outcasts, like when they just interact and know other mutants who aren't super heroes or have any desire to be, I dislike the fact that almost every mutant run into eventually becomes drafted on to the team. It makes them feel like the Avengers.

Yea sorry about the delay on that, phone typing, work and keeping strange hours had me procrastinating on writing three long responses.....and then i only wrote one medium sized one (drops to ground and swears to do better).lol

But yea like you say reading from the beginning would definitely jar someone when it comes to Emma. And longer tenured and/or more informed readers sort of have to bite a bullet when it comes to her because she really is "Emma Frost in name only" when compared to her classic self but at the same time this person who stole Emma's ID has brought some cool moments to the team...even though they just don't make sense within her history. I'm confident that one day someone will be arguing classic X-23 vs Post Bendis Laura in the same manor as we debate Emma.

I can respect the idea of mutants who aren't destined to be X-Men from the moment they appear. And maybe if they fleshed out the mutant community once again and gave it sides, characters and angles with the X-Men only being a single part(if the most important) of the greater picture it would prevent them from going back to the well so often with the "Guess who just join/rejoined/reformed and joined the X-Men" angles that require them to force characters into a roll they may not be write for. It's bad when it's a new character but for older ones it can be disrespectful to the readership.

I can respect the idea that the X-Men are complex and so their membership can come from any angle, but if that's the deal then they need to act more like this complex team and less like a random super team using the same cliche's.

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@koays said:

.

Yea sorry about the delay on that, phone typing, work and keeping strange hours had me procrastinating on writing three long responses.....and then i only wrote one medium sized one (drops to ground and swears to do better).lol

But yea like you say reading from the beginning would definitely jar someone when it comes to Emma. And longer tenured and/or more informed readers sort of have to bite a bullet when it comes to her because she really is "Emma Frost in name only" when compared to her classic self but at the same time this person who stole Emma's ID has brought some cool moments to the team...even though they just don't make sense within her history. I'm confident that one day someone will be arguing classic X-23 vs Post Bendis Laura in the same manor as we debate Emma.


S'okay.

I agree. It's like a different character, and frankly, with the lack of good villains these days, I would be interested to see maybe a story where Emma is revealed to have some sinister purpose on the X-Men.

@koays said:

I can respect the idea of mutants who aren't destined to be X-Men from the moment they appear. And maybe if they fleshed out the mutant community once again and gave it sides, characters and angles with the X-Men only being a single part(if the most important) of the greater picture it would prevent them from going back to the well so often with the "Guess who just join/rejoined/reformed and joined the X-Men" angles that require them to force characters into a roll they may not be write for. It's bad when it's a new character but for older ones it can be disrespectful to the readership.

I can respect the idea that the X-Men are complex and so their membership can come from any angle, but if that's the deal then they need to act more like this complex team and less like a random super team using the same cliche's.

My point was....andI know I always bring up and clamor on about the Claremont stuff......but, it is the stuff that basically made the X-Men what they are anyways, so, I do feel bringing up his stuff is valid, but I just liked how there would be a story arc that featured half the roster of the New Mutants or something like that, and they would team up with random mutants like Dazzler, Lila Cheney and Guido (Strong Guy), then you have this interesting story arc for about 3 issues with these new, fun characters running around with different powers. Then, the New Mutants eventually reunite with their teammates some issues later and it would be back to what the status quo was for that time. I just like the idea that not every mutant has to become an X-Men--another reason I dislike the early 90s X-books actually-- the expansion of the franchise drafts all these unaffiliated characters onto random teams for seemingly no purpose....isn't there mutants out there who just want to be normal people??

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@koays said:

I can respect the idea of mutants who aren't destined to be X-Men from the moment they appear. And maybe if they fleshed out the mutant community once again and gave it sides, characters and angles with the X-Men only being a single part(if the most important) of the greater picture it would prevent them from going back to the well so often with the "Guess who just join/rejoined/reformed and joined the X-Men" angles that require them to force characters into a roll they may not be write for. It's bad when it's a new character but for older ones it can be disrespectful to the readership.

I can respect the idea that the X-Men are complex and so their membership can come from any angle, but if that's the deal then they need to act more like this complex team and less like a random super team using the same cliche's.

My point was....andI know I always bring up and clamor on about the Claremont stuff......but, it is the stuff that basically made the X-Men what they are anyways, so, I do feel bringing up his stuff is valid, but I just liked how there would be a story arc that featured half the roster of the New Mutants or something like that, and they would team up with random mutants like Dazzler, Lila Cheney and Guido (Strong Guy), then you have this interesting story arc for about 3 issues with these new, fun characters running around with different powers. Then, the New Mutants eventually reunite with their teammates some issues later and it would be back to what the status quo was for that time. I just like the idea that not every mutant has to become an X-Men--another reason I dislike the early 90s X-books actually-- the expansion of the franchise drafts all these unaffiliated characters onto random teams for seemingly no purpose....isn't there mutants out there who just want to be normal people??

I can see that, and honestly I've thought about the idea of an "X-Men World" book that would be a cool way of doing that and showing the diversity of the X-Men mythos beyond just the X-Men. I think even more so then having the X-Men writers try to integrate that into their stories (which given some of their difficulties with just balancing the school and hero aspects i don't think they can handle) it would be interesting to have a book that focused solely on just the mutants that dont dedicate their lives to fighting sentinels or who are indirectly effected by the actions of the X-Men. Sort of like NYX, Nation X or the book set in Mutant Town which deal with ordinary problems but with familiar settings or elements including the myriad of characters both X-Men and not who aren't in focus but can be used to explore the Utopia's, Genosha's and Madripor's from a different and independent perspective.

For my taste the expansion in the 90's wasn't enjoyable for the same reasons you mentioned, but even moreso because they're was a big lack of "human interest stories" as a whole. Everything was about a super powerful being that they had to stop before fighting the next superpowerful being and as a person who had to go back and read those issues following the 80's stories which intermediated that type tale with down to earth issues it's a bit weak to go back to. The 00's expansions handled it a bit better with X-Factor and story arcs that effected the entire mutant race but they eventually fell back into that as well. It can be enjoyable when there's a reason in storyline for certain characters be helping the X-Men or even living with them (post Decimation for example) as it lets different aspects of the world intermingle but there needs to be a feeling of something bigger then the heroes as well. Everything should effect the X-Men, but not neccesarily revolve around them.

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#31  Edited By HAWK2916

@koays: That's not a bad idea to have more fleshed out stories involving other mutants, who are not xmen and are in different locations. It could be kind of interesting to see the seeds planted in this way with a more rich background for places you mentioned like Genosha, Utopia and Madripoor. This way when something rooted in those places grows and ultimately affects or involves the Xmen and/or to a certain extent the world, the story ends up being that much more profound. Lol maybe they could call it X-Chronicles or the Mutant Chronicles or something. This may even be a fresher perspective on a title like Xmen Legacy, where you could see his what the Xmen do affects other mutants who just want to live normal lives and maybe blend in or stay out of public focus and who are not necessarily protected by the school per say. This could also be a decent new and interesting take on the name Xfactor. Since the defining trait of characteristic that links the different stories together is the x-gene. The title just seems like it could in that type of definition of the word type of way

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@hawk2916: Yea definitely, especially as a spin on the "X-Factor" name. I mean its obviously not in any way likely to happen, in large part just do to there not being that much attention to detail or interest in delving deep into the X-Men world at the moment. But still in a world with so many diverse characters not associated with any other parts of Marvel, it would be cool to even just do something where they have two or three stories by different writers in a book or just a book where they pair 2 or 3 characters up to interact every issue. I mean really it would be cool to even have a issue where (lesser used) students from the school get a little focus and then do a dramatic flip halfway through to some new guy who just gets his powers. And well recieved stories could lead to greater interest in characters so that a story about Surge and the New X-Men kids deciding whether they want to become X-Men or whatever else with their adult lives; and a story about Joe mutant as he develops powers and has to decide where that big change will take him if anywhere; can both lead to people requesting more of a character or a story element.

There's just so many different aspects of the franchise that can be tapped, that even now when the books are all arguably coming out of slumps it feels like the only part that's really being explored is the "super hero" aspect...which isn't bad, but seems very wasteful.

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#33  Edited By HAWK2916

@koays: I agree. That would be an excellent platform for the New Xmen/Academy X. Or like we discussed in another thread, this would be a good premise for a revamped or relaunched New Mutants series. In my opinion something like this would have been a better direction for some of the depowered mutants after M-day like Jubilee instead of the contrived Vamp thing

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Wow, I'm lost at where even to start..

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@hawk2916 said:

@koays: I agree. That would be an excellent platform for the New Xmen/Academy X. Or like we discussed in another thread, this would be a good premise for a revamped or relaunched New Mutants series. In my opinion something like this would have been a better direction for some of the depowered mutants after M-day like Jubilee instead of the contrived Vamp thing

Oh yea. Like that group of mutants that was camped out on the X-Mansion lawn during the Decimation. Considering how all the X-Books were showing the X-Men and and side teams adjust to being de-powered or having the mutants numbers be reduced.... it would've been cool to have some one showcase the ground floor of that struggle. I mean considering we know that after they left they felt the X-Men weren't helping them, but managed to congregate in San Fransico and then again on Utopia.....it would've been cool to look at them with a few familiar faces like Jubilee, Aurora or even Dani Moonstar leading the book during that time.

@adamtrmm- I'd start by agreeing that the OP is totally right about Emma Frost and just move from there....but thats me

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@ec2277: OP = Original Poster of the thread

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Clearly a lady that has
Clearly a lady that has "future hero" written all over her /sarcasm

Sure does. It's called changing your motivations. And killing has been done by other anti-heroes, ranging from the consistently psychopathic, occasionally homicidal, and the ones who just suggest it because it's convenient. Not everyone starts and stays on a moral high ground.

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#39  Edited By cattlebattle

@phoenixofthetides said:

Sure does. It's called changing your motivations. And killing has been done by other anti-heroes, ranging from the consistently psychopathic, occasionally homicidal, and the ones who just suggest it because it's convenient. Not everyone starts and stays on a moral high ground.

Well, thanks for ignoring the whole conversation I had where I was making my point about Emmas history. I am not saying a character can't change their motivations, if you would have read further you would have seen that I support characters like Magneto eventually reforming. It's just that, as I delineated, I don't think Emmas reformation was handled that well and most other characters that reform have sort of a more sympathetic, relatable reasons for being a killer. Emma was depicted as a petty, sociopathic, power hungry, corrupt, murderous witch who cared for nothing but herself. Sometimes a character can go beyond the realm of being believably redeemable.......that's what my point was.

As for the images that you used to prove your point.....Magneto killing Zaladane and the Agent that betrayed them or Wolverine killing hand Ninjas is nothing really that debatable, they killed for a greater good, to save their own lives or prevent catastrophe. Magneto pulling Wolverines skeleton out or Wolverine suggesting to kill Havok was something each character felt they had to do to protect themselves. If there is an arguable reason for an action it is not hard to see why a character might do something, no matter how deplorable...Is there really an arguable reason for Emma trying to kidnap children and turn them into her private assassins?

Wasn't it stated that Magnetos powers had increasingly driven him insane during "Fatal Attractions"? Anyways, the point I am trying to reiterate is that Emma has attempted to or has murdered or has planned to murder people just for avarice or power, or for petty vengeance. In fact there has been numerous retcon stories throughout the years that are placed during her time on the Hellfire Club to attempt to humanize her because she used to appear so ruthless, like the X-Men Annual with Namor for one example that puts Shaw as the more villainous one that would goad her into more iniquitous activity, so, I guess I am not the only one who has noticed stuff like this.

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@koays: time for boy scout cyke to come back, im starting to like inhumans 0.0......also would like to see inhumans vs mutants

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[…]Anyways, the point I am trying to reiterate is that Emma has attempted to or has murdered or has planned to murder people just for avarice or power, or for petty vengeance. In fact there has been numerous retcon stories throughout the years that are placed during her time on the Hellfire Club to attempt to humanize her because she used to appear so ruthless, like the X-Men Annual with Namor for one example that puts Shaw as the more villainous one that would goad her into more iniquitous activity, so, I guess I am not the only one who has noticed stuff like this.

I think also the story of her origins was a way to make her less vicious, describing her as a sort of victim of an unhappy childhood.

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@ec2277 said:

I think also the story of her origins was a way to make her less vicious, describing her as a sort of victim of an unhappy childhood.

Exactly. She was such a callous character throughout the 80s and some of the 90s that they had to give her a more sympathetic backstory.

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@koays:

Characther deveploment makes me reader comics.

Emma as X-Member was good idea. Her relationship with Scott Summers was good thing because they improved each other characther. And her being a teacher help lot of students and x-mens.

I like Modern Magik, I like she tries to be a normal person but she tries to control her dark side and others, like Collosus was the avatar of Cytorrak and she was trying to teach him how to control it instead of just "healing" him of it or in current even Black Vortex. I think she was very underused on P5.

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#44  Edited By adamTRMM

@koays:

I actually can clearly see cattlebattle's point right here, and reading initial mischievous cold bitch Emma obviously feels like reading a different character from the one we have now (lol especially "NOW!"), but I also like what her character stands for in her "new" representation. I'm not talking about the way she is portrayed right now, but how she should've been portrayed acknowledging the change, and to satisfy continuity freaks also not forgetting the past.

Now has this shift actually worked? I think not perfectly. And Bemma is exactly why. She has no spark, no personality, no intrigue. Funnily enough, it maybe not even just Bendis, it started with Morrison. "But he is the one who brought her to the X-men", that's true, one of his only quality contributions, but it was him who prescribed for her all these little unnecessary "humanizing" parts like plastic surgeries and emotional vulnerabilities and above that her impossible competition with one and the only Jean Grey that was meant to be lost, thus forming a very down to earth "minor" inferiority complex. I mean it's obvious where this development comes from, but look how she can't move past that, is this what her character is about? From Whedon to Bendis, and that's not the part of the character that I grew to appreciate, these are just bounds, and right now, so is Scott. 32 issues to break them up when they could've been already a history even before that whole run? Why? Because cheap soap opera trollfest is better than character's potential for some.

Emma should be the face of mutant corporate superiority right now, not everybody and their mother's verbal punching bag.

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@adamtrmm said:

@koays:

I actually can clearly see cattlebattle's point right here, and reading initial mischievous cold bitch Emma is obviously feels like reading a different character from the one we have now (lol especially "NOW!"), but I also like what her character stands for in her "new" representation. I'm not talking about the way she is portrayed right now, but how she should've been portrayed acknowledging the change, and to satisfy continuity freaks also not forgetting the past.

Now has this shift actually worked? I think not perfectly. And Bemma is exactly why. She has no spark, no personality, no intrigue. Funnily enough, it maybe not even just Bendis, it started with Morrison. "But he is the one who brought her to the X-men", that's true, one of his only quality contributions, but it was him who prescribed for her all these little unnecessary "humanizing" parts like plastic surgeries and emotional vulnerabilities and above that her impossible competition with one and the only Jean Grey that was meant to be lost, thus forming a very down to earth "minor" inferiority complex. I mean it's obvious where this development comes from, but look how she can't move past that, is this what her character is about? From Whedon to Bendis, and that's not the part of the character that I grew to appreciate, these are just bounds, and right now, so is Scott. 32 issues to break them up when they could've been already a history even before that whole run? Why? Because cheap soap opera trollfest is better than character's potential for some.

Emma should be the face of mutant corporate superiority right now, not everybody and their mother's verbal punching bag.

good points especially with emma being in jean's shadow/competition

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@adamtrmm said:

@koays:

I actually can clearly see cattlebattle's point right here, and reading initial mischievous cold bitch Emma obviously feels like reading a different character from the one we have now (lol especially "NOW!"), but I also like what her character stands for in her "new" representation. I'm not talking about the way she is portrayed right now, but how she should've been portrayed acknowledging the change, and to satisfy continuity freaks also not forgetting the past.

Now has this shift actually worked? I think not perfectly. And Bemma is exactly why. She has no spark, no personality, no intrigue. Funnily enough, it maybe not even just Bendis, it started with Morrison. "But he is the one who brought her to the X-men", that's true, one of his only quality contributions, but it was him who prescribed for her all these little unnecessary "humanizing" parts like plastic surgeries and emotional vulnerabilities and above that her impossible competition with one and the only Jean Grey that was meant to be lost, thus forming a very down to earth "minor" inferiority complex. I mean it's obvious where this development comes from, but look how she can't move past that, is this what her character is about? From Whedon to Bendis, and that's not the part of the character that I grew to appreciate, these are just bounds, and right now, so is Scott. 32 issues to break them up when they could've been already a history even before that whole run? Why? Because cheap soap opera trollfest is better than character's potential for some.

Emma should be the face of mutant corporate superiority right now, not everybody and their mother's verbal punching bag.

I think it's an interesting part of Emma's character that she has so many interpretations, even when limiting it to the Post Morrison variation. She's incredibly deep an multilayored to the point that as deep seated as her inferiority complex might be, it still plays neighbor to her arrogance and need for acceptance....possibly even a superiority complex. When you consider the early days of Emma everyone goes to Whedon and her comically bashing heads with Kitty while hiding her own vulnerabilities distrust of herself. But at the same time as that she was in (Forgive me X-Gods) Austen's run on X-Men, where she essentially assigned herself to Havok's team and slowly began to maneuver herself into almost a co-leadership role on that team. In one of the San Fransico vignette's that focused on her she talked about how the senior X-Men all had a close dynamic that she wasn't a part of to the point of actually screaming at them. And even later when her problems with Jean are revisitied, it seems her problems are less about Jean being stronger then they are about her having worked so hard and their being someone better then her out there. All of these traits give her a more human aspect then she ever had as a villain, but I think the fact that she tends to manipulate and control situations the way she does and shows no vulnerabilities when trading shots with Kitty, Storm, Psylocke or whomever....it shows that she's just as much a quick witted, genius, fatale, in spite or her flaws as she would be without them.

I love Emma, but i think it's telling that so many people had a problem with Bendis' wall paper version of the character. I mean she had as much real focus as Mags did... What's telling about this is that even ignoring the lack of focus for everyone in exchange for dialogue... Emma hadn't really been doing much accept making snarky comments in the last run or the tail end of the one before that....the real difference was that it was made clear that she was always a part of decisions even if she wasn't speaking preBemma.

Even still, I think Bendis' run has sort of left the character a drift because her closest companions and relationships within the X-Men have all been thrown to the wayside, and the character herself hasn't done enough growing in 32 issues of "post-break up" to justify her changing into anything that would fit with the direction the X-Men seem to be going in as a team. So yea....maybe it is time for her to become the corporate leader in the mutant world. And I'll even concede to Cattlebattle's early point on benching characters in this instance...Because as sad as it will be to see the character gone from monthly print, i just don't have faith that another writer could find a place for her story to be told. (Though a X-Factor/Force or "White Queen" solo featuring her and the Cuckoo's would be nice on a list of dreams)

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@cattlebattle: No, I didn't ignore your conversation, but my point was that some characters can be motivated by vague philosophical beliefs, while others are motivated on a personal level - and it's completely rational and believable that an intelligent person wouldn't need to go through dramatic hoops to make a big life change. I don't necessarily think that someone who engaged in villainous activities to accumulate personal power is on a lower level than someone who killed for something they judged to be for the greater good. It seems to me that we just disagree on whether it was a believable swap or not. I happen to find an egoistic, selfish, passionate person deciding to switch gears to turn another leaf more realistic than a character like Wolverine, who likes killing and is quite good at it, deciding that he would become Buddha to the next group of mutant kids after 40+ years of being a violent hairball.

And I think Emma is more similar to Charles Xavier then different - she wanted to recruit young mutants to be loyal to her in order to build up a powerbase. While we would say that Xavier is in the moral high ground because he justified it as protecting humanity, to me it's just opposite sides of the same coin: they wanted to recruit loyal henchmen whom would adopt their worldview and become mentees. If I were to plot out a possible outcome of the Upstart competition, I think Emma would have had the same realization, switched allegiances or gone independent, and taken the Hellions with her.

Basically, Emma has killed or destroyed individual people (many of whom were already villainous themselves if you look at most of her history doing so) for her own ends, while Magneto has killed or set in motion events that would kill thousands or millions. I think that Emma comes out with less blood on her hands than Erik does, even though we saw more angst and hand-wringing from Erik over what he did.

And I liked Morrison Emma for her one liners, and the fact that there were storylines that dealt with her and Jean's relationship primarily, with Scott and other men not the sole focus. I can't say she's my favorite incarnation (I still like the ice cold manipulative version that was more grey than White breaking down when she found out her students died), but she got more attention than usual.

But I agree that I don't like the idea that most mutants are now X-Men in some fashion. I think there is a lot of room for factions, and HoM kind of pushed them in a clownish direction.

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HAWK2916

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@koays: This makes me think that it would have been so cool for Emma to have been somehow secretly involved in financing or part owning Serval Industries in All New Xfactor.

I still could see her going out on her own and recruiting a team and taking a corporate approach to mutant affairs. Sort of like her own hellfire club in the sense that they are after power and influence in order to better the mutants place in the world.

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Koays

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@hawk2916: Yea, Hellfire Club at this point would be pretty cool. Peter David has way too much going on with his series all tying into eachother and the 2099/Bishop future for me to see Emma involved directly. However reigniting the Club as a force for good, while still dealing with the shady evil elements (Political, scientific and potentially mystical) that come with that Hellfire territory would be great in the wake of her separation from the X-Men.

I mean that's all dependent on what the deal is with the "New World" strategy of the X-writers....but still a corporate powerhouse directly influencing the X-World could work out regardless of where the X-Men stand post- Stupid Wars

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HAWK2916

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@koays: lol yeah.

I'm of the opinion that this would have been an excellent direction to take her character in immediately after AVX. I'm just imagining a book with Cyclops taking the revolutionary/extinction team route, Magneto still in the team but clandestinely doing what he's doing in his solo, Magik with her issues, and Emma taking the corporate-political-new reinvented hellfire type approach to things. Each character seeking to establish their own view as far as a revolution is concerned and not necessarily blidly following Cyclops while still appearing to somewhat work with him to their own ends though. That would be a complex and character driven book that would truly fit the outlaw moniker that Marvel seemed to want. That could have made for some pretty strong storylines along with some powerful dialogue