Alright, so we all know that Marvel has been putting out more event stories every year for the past 10 years or so. The real question is if this is a good thing or a bad thing in regarding to allowing characters to grow as individuals? Lately, there have been so many event stories that states “things are never going to be the same again” or some other statement that it seems like we are not getting to know the characters on a personal level anymore. The problem with having so many events lining up next to each other is that it doesn’t allow the readers to find out how the characters in the story feel about the situations that are coming or it doesn’t allow the characters to be prepared for these events.

Probably the most popular example of this issue is of the current event that is threatening the X-Men universe called “Schism.” In this event, the X-Men are now split up into two separate teams because of a fight between Cyclops and Wolverine. While this event is interesting, it did have some problems in regarding to lack of character development. For one thing, even though Re genesis showed us the reasons why the X-Men members are choosing to side with either Wolverine or Cyclops, you sort of wonder about why would the other X-Men members even chose sides? I mean, when Utopia was being attacked by the Sentinels, the other X-Men members weren’t there to protect Utopia; actually they weren’t even on Utopia, so how could they know about how the fight between Wolverine and Cyclops went down when they weren’t there to see it? Also, the other X-Men members could have been hearing different versions of the fight between Wolverine and Cyclops, so they wouldn’t really know what was really happening and what the real conversation between Wolverine and Cyclops was. If there had been stories before “Schism” that prepared the X-Men for this event, then this whole event probably would have made more sense to the readers. Also, we would have seen how the X-Men characters really reacted to this situation and how they try to cope with this new situation. I also missed out on how the X-Men once treated each other like a family and even though they are in a great divide right now, I would have like to see more character interactions with the characters and how this situation has affected their long standing relationships with each other.

In regarding to characters changing their personalities over the years, the most popular example of a character who went through changes, but was not explored thoroughly enough was Wolverine’s character. I know I have already talked about Wolverine’s personality change in my past blogs so I won’t go into too much detail about this, but let’s just say that his personality in “Schism” was a bit awkward to any fan who has known Wolverine for many years and that this personality change in him was brought out a bit too abruptly without any history about whether or not Wolverine wanted to be a headmaster or has shown concern about making children soldiers in the past. This was a noble change in Wolverine, but it wasn’t developed enough to make his stance believable in “Schism” and this is a great example about what happens when a character goes through a shift in their personalities without any development leading to this change.

So basically, it is alright to have an event every once in awhile, but the characters need to be developed before the event happens so that way, the character’s change in their personalities would not seem so out of place. Also, the events need to affect the characters in some kind of way that will both affect them positively or negatively. Character developments are essential in providing the characters to grow as people and learn from whatever situation has taken place and they would also help the readers better understand the characters and sympathize with them during their times of despair and be happy for them during the times that they are happy.

So what do you think is the best solution for the characters in the Marvel Comics to get more character development? Should Marvel cut back on producing events or should each Marvel character have their own little series that could expand more on their character development?

yeah i also think that too many events are causing lack of character development esp for the lesser known characters(like dust,anole) i mean "Its COMING" next year and wolvie sudden personality change was a big shocker and it happened very quickly (though i think they only did that and schism and regenisis to fight back DC's new 52 ASAP)

IMO, I think it just really depends on how the writer make them all interesting. which i think is kinda difficult. I think, it really has to do with how good the story is.

"Character development? Pfft. The tie-ins will take care of that!" --Marvel writers, editors, and executives.

@jhazzroucher said:

IMO, I think it just really depends on how the writer make them all interesting. which i think is kinda difficult. I think, it really has to do with how good the story is.

Yeah, so far none of the writers could come up with an interesting story (there might have been an interesting story, but I haven't been keeping up with the Marvel comics for awhile).

Is it bad that when I look at Marvel now I think maybe Bob Harris wasn't so bad?

isnt part of why wolverine is doing this because he fought & killed his kids that were working for the red right hand??????

Instead of character development we see complete opposite. Idiotic fight between Cyclops and Wolverine? Butchering Hope's role? And let's not even mention the lack of development for most X-Men.

@Kairan1979 said:

Instead of character development we see complete opposite. Idiotic fight between Cyclops and Wolverine? Butchering Hope's role? And let's not even mention the lack of development for most X-Men.

I agree. The character development for the X-Men has definitely gone downhill over the years.

@Lonestar88 said:

@Rabbitearsblog: You think the X-men are a bad. Try reading any Avengers book, there is absolutely no character development at all. Anyway, I agree that the big events are killing character development, and characterization of the X-men has gone downhill, but it's actually worse outside of the X-men.

Oh yeah. Marvel really needs to cut back on these events. By the way, is Joss Whedon writing the Avengers books? I heard that he was thinking about writing for the Avengers, but I haven't heard anything from that for a long time.

Oh yeah. Marvel really needs to cut back on these events. By the way, is Joss Whedon writing the Avengers books? I heard that he was thinking about writing for the Avengers, but I haven't heard anything from that for a long time. 

I'm sick of the "Event" books. I had to stop reading X-Men a few years ago due to the fact I couldn't keep up and when I did catch up none of the characters made sense. I couldn't follow one comic due to the fact it would run through 3 other comic books between issues and when it did return all the characters, costumes and character personalities were just diffrent from the previous issue. Thppp...

@muhabba said:

I'm sick of the "Event" books. I had to stop reading X-Men a few years ago due to the fact I couldn't keep up and when I did catch up none of the characters made sense. I couldn't follow one comic due to the fact it would run through 3 other comic books between issues and when it did return all the characters, costumes and character personalities were just diffrent from the previous issue. Thppp...

I agree! I don't like it when writers change the characters without a logical reason or even referring to their history because it confuses me and frustrates me at the same time, so I just stick with the older X-Men comics and Joss Whedon's run of "Astonishing X-Men."

Bump.

It's been real hard to get into some of the X characters because of this.

Although I love the entire concept of X-men and have for over 2 decades I wont pick up stories that are badly written with horrible character development. For that reason for the time being I am only limiting myself to Uncanny X-men as it has the three X characters which I value most (Cyclops, Magneto and Colossus) and I'll watch the reviews for the others as time goes by.

They really need to stop with the "he's coming..." or "Are you afraid of whats to come"....events. Just write good stories.

@jhazzroucher said:

IMO, I think it just really depends on how the writer make them all interesting. which i think is kinda difficult. I think, it really has to do with how good the story is.

totally agree. i mean there could also be a lack if there is just one story arc for two years or so. if there are more short storys and they are good written so there could also be a great character development. but it takes a while and also is just for one or two characters in a story. you can not let so many people develope like a whole x-men team or so

I think that it not only stunts character development, but story development as well. For the past decade or so Marvel has had many many events, and what does the universe have to show for it? nothing, it goes like this; big event happens, heroes band together, fight tooth and nail, stop said event, a character or two dies, only to come back less than a year later, then it just repeats over again. So whenever i see a tagline that says "Nothing will ever be the same" or "The world will change forever" i know it's a load of bologna. 

@Kallarkz said:

It's been real hard to get into some of the X characters because of this.

Although I love the entire concept of X-men and have for over 2 decades I wont pick up stories that are badly written with horrible character development. For that reason for the time being I am only limiting myself to Uncanny X-men as it has the three X characters which I value most (Cyclops, Magneto and Colossus) and I'll watch the reviews for the others as time goes by.

They really need to stop with the "he's coming..." or "Are you afraid of whats to come"....events. Just write good stories.

I agree that the character development has gotten horrible over the years because marvel is so focused on doing big events that they don't realize that they are losing character development over this. I might read Uncanny X-Men because Colossus is in it, but I have to see how many good reviews it will get first.

@The Stegman said:

I think that it not only stunts character development, but story development as well. For the past decade or so Marvel has had many many events, and what does the universe have to show for it? nothing, it goes like this; big event happens, heroes band together, fight tooth and nail, stop said event, a character or two dies, only to come back less than a year later, then it just repeats over again. So whenever i see a tagline that says "Nothing will ever be the same" or "The world will change forever" i know it's a load of bologna.

I agree that the stories are getting hit hard because of lack of character development. Whenever Marvel comes up with "It's Coming" event, I just won't read it.

Big events have never had character development...at least from what I've seen.

@cody1984 said:

Big events have never had character development...at least from what I've seen.

Yep! It's like all they are focusing on is just the action, but not how it affects the characters. The only big event story that I thought actually developed the characters was the Dark Phoenix Saga.