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You had me at make-believing the fast forward symbol never happened

no i will not draw the fast forward symbol on his chest

[ID waist-up painting of Pietro Maximoff. Pietro is shrouded in shadows, his hands clasped together at his chest like he’s holding something within them. A light glows from his clasped hands, lighting up his chest and face. end ID]

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Love this!

Quicksilver by Bill Sienkiewicz

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Am I about to Tumblr again? ....I'm going to Tumblr again, aren't I?

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Will you be picking up Quicksilver: No Surrender? It's out next week.

Judging by the previews I've seen online... naw. It doesn't feel like a characterization of Quicksilver that resonates with me (too childish, no wit, no EDGE). Unfortunately it also didn't strike me as partucularly well-executed, which at the least I had hoped for. Pass.

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If you had to guess,What relationship overall do you think luna has with her parents ? We barely see her interacting with Crystal or the other inhuman royal family.

True, but to be honest, Crystal bonding with her young child probably isn’t a story most comic book readers would be interested in.So we can assume there’s interaction between them happening off-panel, or we can assume if their interaction is so rarely featured on-panel than it must be insignificant compared to whatever else Crystal is up to - or, we can make some logical conclusions based upon context which in this case would probably end up somewhere in between the first two options.

It’s reasonable to postulate that Inhuman society and familial structure -especially for a Royal- would be rather different than say, pick any other modern first world country. So it could well be that for a young Inhuman princess, naturally Luna spends most of her time with nannies or tutors or being groomed alongside other highborns her own age - who knows.

For Crystal’s part, there have been instances through the years where her behavior could be construed as let’s say “less than selfless”, so I wouldn’t call it a stretch to presume she would be perfectly happy to spend more attention on her own self-interests than on those of her child. Which again, could be culturally expected of her - who knows.

Interestingly, a recent issue of Uncanny Inhumans seems to portray the end result of more or less just that: Crystal is shown distracted with her work while Luna has been boarded away at a school, and they are depicted as slightly at odds and clearly accustomed to being totally out of sync with each other.

As for Pietro, during the times when he was capable of having a relationship with his daughter (i.e. not insane), he either tried his best, or was restricted to “visitation status” due to his estrangement with Crystal.

At the end of the short-lived QS solo series, we saw Pietro assert his right to be a part of his daughters life, and over the following years he made heroic guest appearances in various titles between then and Son of M ... wherein all of a sudden he and Luna were portrayed as virtual strangers for some reason.

Then SoM kicked off another long horrible bout of insanity for Pietro, and at this point in canon realistically he should NOT be deemed fit to have contact with his daughter period. But we’re talking about comics and a character most writers care little for, so, judging by its last portrayal, Pietro’s relationship with Luna seemed pretty healthy.

As a fan (or a sympathizer... it’s really hard to consider myself a fan of a character who’s been consistently, repeatedly handled so badly), I’d like to think that Pietro would have been a good father if he had had the opportunity.

(By the way, I apologize for the delayed reply, Anon - Tumblr randomly stopped pinging my app with updates at some point so I didn’t see your question until now!)

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On top of that, I was trying to do a book that was very new reader friendly. I’ve spoken to a lot of comics fans who don’t like or are turned of by lots of back story. That’s why they like Image books because it’s relatively easy to get caught up to date on any Image book. You buy a couple of trade paperbacks and you’re off to the races. Whereas you get into some of these Marvel books and they’re so dense with continuity that they’re appealing for a certain kind of comic fan, but they sometimes run the risk of alienating new readers.

True...

So I’d love to involve the Vision and Simon Williams, who is one of my favorite characters, but I wanted to limit all the confusing and contradicting continuity. I’ve had to deal with some of that in my exploration of Wanda’s roots and hopefully they were clear elements so new readers weren’t completely alienated by stuff they didn’t understand. I hopefully made it so they could understand what happened so far. I’ve tried to keep the ties to the past very simple so we can move on with the actual plot and mechanics of the storyline.

...wait, what?

The solution for an already-convoluted backstory involving one set of dead foster parents, one set of false biological parents, plus one newly false biological father was to create an entirely different dead biological mother and un-kill the foster mother?

Not to mention that Bova was a living witness to the twins’ actual birth by Magda with no incentive to make up complicated stories to hide the truth, especially since the twins already believed a false version before she interjected.

Storytelling like this is precisely why most Marvel books are dense with continuity and alienate new and old readers alike.

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I just want to point out that Pietro finished eating before everyone else and has moved on to straight liquor. (Seriously, look what he’s holding. That’s a shot glass or I’m a DC fan.) Also, @quicksilverfans clearly Crystal isn’t present because she’s off cheating on her husband at the moment. (AKA this panel could have occurred at almost any point in time.) ;-)

So they get some family time in The Vision #7, drawn by Michael Walsh

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The baffling thing is, it wouldn’t take much effort to create a similar conundrum through circumstances that actually make sense.

While Blackbolt was imprisoned, what if the council did attempt to sterilize him but it just didn’t take - or they condoned his marriage under the condition that they avoid pregnancy, but it happened by mistake? Just the threat alone of not knowing if her child would be suffered to live after the genetic screening could take place would be more than enough to send Medusa running for the hills all the same - and it would be coherent at the same time.

I appreciate the ‘political drama’ aspect of this traditionalist Council that works partially in collaboration and partially in opposition to the more progressive Crown Rule.... this is just pretty terrible execution of the whole concept is all.

From the Inhumans graphic novel of 80s….so we can all be reminded that the Inhumans are really weird and can never be analogs to mutants.

The story starts with an Inhuman committing suicide because the council wouldn’t let her marry the person she loved. Then, we have this scene:

That’s right Medusa, the council is AWESOME! Let’s all forget about the inhumans killing themselves because your news are clearly more important than the plight of your people.

I got to be honest, reading the first few panels, I thought maybe the council was shocked to find out Medusa was having sex with Black Bolt…I mean, he’s a guy who can’t even whisper because he’ll level cities, so you can just imagine how stressful sex might be for him. Way to torture your husband Medusa. anywoo…

Turns out that when it affects her personally, Medusa starts to have a problem with the council. She runs away, grabs a spaceship and goes to Earth…mind you, at the time, the air on Earth was poisonous to Inhumans, so that’s not exactly a good idea. Cut to this scene between Crystal and Pietro.

So here’s the deal with this graphic novel: it’s published after Pietro became a bad guy due to Englehart’s awfulness, however the story takes place before that. o the writer retroactively adds some meanness to Pietro’s character and makes his relationship with Crystal a bit worse than it actually was at the time. 

Crystal gets Lockjaw to take her to Earth, and her three royal cousins go along for the ride…because in this story they’re more loyal to Medusa than Black Bolt.

Pietro, seriously, you need to watch what you’re saying when you deal with Black Bolt. Do you have a death wish or something? (Actually, I do find it pretty funny that Pietro apparently doesn’t give a shit about Black Bolt’s destructive powers)

Meanwhile, on Earth, Medusa progresses through nine months of pregnancy in a few days, Maximus trie to mess with her mind, and Crystal fucks up the environment as she says here:

And it’ll only go downhill from here on out Crystal! 

So Black Bolt decides to go after Medusa, they make up and everybody goes back to the Moon

So the story ends there: we don’t know what the council plans to do with Medusa and Black Bolt’s child, and the council doesn’t change its ways, which makes the Royal families excursion on Earth all the more pointless. Also, Pietro makes a cryptic remark about his relationship to Crystal. So it’s kind of a pointless story that only serves to bring Ahura into the world of comics (where he will promptly be forgotten for decades) and highlight the fact that Inhumans REALLY are “inhuman”.

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This, achem, plot (such as it is) really begs the obvious question: if the Council had already decided that it would not allow Black Bolt to procreate and apparently has the final say on the matter, then why was his marriage to Medusa permitted in the first place? (Obviously they have no qualms with prohibiting unsanctioned unions since that exact thing literally just happened.)

It’s as though none of the adults in this entire society put two and two together this whole time. “What? After getting married you’ve been having SEX together?” “What? We weren’t supposed to get pregnant from having sex after our MARRIAGE?”

In fact, married or not, if Black Bolt is indefinitely Forbidden To Breed, wouldn’t it make more sense to have him sterilized rather than abort any pregnancies, intended or otherwise?

How DOES that work in a oligarchical society anyway? If an uber powerful King is prohibited from producing an heir for that same reason, who does that leave next in succession after the Queen? Whether Royalty is determined by bloodline or by 'might’, it’s kind of shooting the proverbial Ruling Class in the foot to prohibit the most powerful member of Royalty from producing an heir.

Ahhh, comic book logic - you make telling comprehensible little stories seem so impossibly difficult.

From the Inhumans graphic novel of 80s….so we can all be reminded that the Inhumans are really weird and can never be analogs to mutants.

The story starts with an Inhuman committing suicide because the council wouldn’t let her marry the person she loved. Then, we have this scene:

That’s right Medusa, the council is AWESOME! Let’s all forget about the inhumans killing themselves because your news are clearly more important than the plight of your people.

I got to be honest, reading the first few panels, I thought maybe the council was shocked to find out Medusa was having sex with Black Bolt…I mean, he’s a guy who can’t even whisper because he’ll level cities, so you can just imagine how stressful sex might be for him. Way to torture your husband Medusa. anywoo…

Turns out that when it affects her personally, Medusa starts to have a problem with the council. She runs away, grabs a spaceship and goes to Earth…mind you, at the time, the air on Earth was poisonous to Inhumans, so that’s not exactly a good idea. Cut to this scene between Crystal and Pietro.

So here’s the deal with this graphic novel: it’s published after Pietro became a bad guy due to Englehart’s awfulness, however the story takes place before that. o the writer retroactively adds some meanness to Pietro’s character and makes his relationship with Crystal a bit worse than it actually was at the time. 

Crystal gets Lockjaw to take her to Earth, and her three royal cousins go along for the ride…because in this story they’re more loyal to Medusa than Black Bolt.

Pietro, seriously, you need to watch what you’re saying when you deal with Black Bolt. Do you have a death wish or something? (Actually, I do find it pretty funny that Pietro apparently doesn’t give a shit about Black Bolt’s destructive powers)

Meanwhile, on Earth, Medusa progresses through nine months of pregnancy in a few days, Maximus trie to mess with her mind, and Crystal fucks up the environment as she says here:

And it’ll only go downhill from here on out Crystal! 

So Black Bolt decides to go after Medusa, they make up and everybody goes back to the Moon

So the story ends there: we don’t know what the council plans to do with Medusa and Black Bolt’s child, and the council doesn’t change its ways, which makes the Royal families excursion on Earth all the more pointless. Also, Pietro makes a cryptic remark about his relationship to Crystal. So it’s kind of a pointless story that only serves to bring Ahura into the world of comics (where he will promptly be forgotten for decades) and highlight the fact that Inhumans REALLY are “inhuman”.

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Yup, there’s ol’ “Mutant and Proud” Mystique, all right. {Until it’s time to pose dead center of a movie poster about a persecuted minority class. Then, be very white. And pretty. By American standards, of course.} 

By the way, anyone notice how similar Peter’s costume (yes I said ‘Peter’) is to the one that the real Quicksilver despised in PAD’s original X-Factor?

I’m taking this as proof positive that Singer is fully aware that an in-character Quicksilver would not approve of this film incarnation.  ;-)

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I would add:

Bob Harris (90s Avengers): thumbs up Kurk Busiek (2000ish Avengers): thumbs up Tom Peyer (QS solo series): neutral Joe Puett (Magneto Rex): neutral Fabian Nicieza (Magneto Dark Seduction): neutral

By neutral I mean that it wasn’t exactly standout Quicksilver characterization in my opinion (nor were the storylines strongly QS-centric, so that’s fair) but his portrayal was not offensive a la Hopeless nor an overt character assassination a la Englehart he-who-shall-not-be-named.

I feel like I’m missing someone important!

Okay followers

Have any of you ever watched Young Justice, Transformers Animted, Kim Possible or X-Men: Evolution? Or possibly played Harvest moon, Professor Layton, Animal Crossing or Rune Factory?

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I think you’re remembering this scene:

So in summary: her opinion is that Pietro is difficult, and although he was totally beneath her, she loved him anyway, He actually let his guard down for her, and she proceeded to hurt him more than anyone. And now, as a grown woman, she can’t tell the difference between feelings born out of love or guilt.

Oh, and why is she worried that she would seem pathetic to Vision? Because he walked in on this conversation:

That’s right; Crystal is afraid of seeming pathetic for having a conversation with her estranged husband (who was recently taking hostage and tortured in the defense of her people).

I feel like Harris liked Pietro, and while I generally detest when past stories are regurgitated for newer audiences, I think the aim here in having Crystal fall for another man (Dane this time) was to “do it right” and show her (as well as Pietro) in a more sympathetic light. Did it work though? ....uhm....

“Pietro is an out-and-out lunatic. He abandoned me and my daughter! etc…” This from the woman who just a page ago left her daughter with a nanny for I don’t know how long and explained her daughter needed to function beyond the “personal”. The best part is how she doesn’t mention how Pietro wouldn’t have lost his mind if SHE hadn’t cheated on HIM. Her hypocrisy and self-centerednes are off the charts and the worst part : virtually NO ONE ever calls her out on it (except Medusa in these pages)…I just really hate Crystal.

So anyway, a fight ensues between the Inhumans and Fantastic Four.

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This isn’t an isolated incident, either. Crystal has consistently ignored her peoples’ customs, the will of her Liege, and acted beneath the expectations of a member of the Royal Family - all to satiate her own personal desires.

And so naturally the implication (from her extramarital lover) that she would break up someone’s marriage (other than her own) is infuriating to her.

I try not to hate Crystal because I try to ignore Englehart’s character assassinations in general - but judging her only in the context as written, wow, what a train wreck of a woman. It might be a fascinating character flaw, if we had any reason to root for her otherwise.

Now granted, I also feel it’s exceedingly creepy to be forced by your family to basically bed someone who repulses you - whether you had at one time been married to that person or not. At the heart of it, forced reconciliation isn’t much different than forced marriage, regardless that she was at fault for the estrangement. However, in the meanwhile Crystal has positioned herself in a professional capacity that is stressing another happy marriage unnecessarily, and she continues to pursue a forbidden relationship that even if her divorce were approved, her family would still have no reason to condone.

I wonder if Englehart actively disliked her, or if he really gave it much thought at all beyond “females is crazy, amirite?”

“Pietro is an out-and-out lunatic. He abandoned me and my daughter! etc…” This from the woman who just a page ago left her daughter with a nanny for I don’t know how long and explained her daughter needed to function beyond the “personal”. The best part is how she doesn’t mention how Pietro wouldn’t have lost his mind if SHE hadn’t cheated on HIM. Her hypocrisy and self-centerednes are off the charts and the worst part : virtually NO ONE ever calls her out on it (except Medusa in these pages)…I just really hate Crystal.

So anyway, a fight ensues between the Inhumans and Fantastic Four.

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Reblogging because 1) everyone really deserves to see Pietro, powers be damned, fiercely leading the charge against the enemy, once again despite that even his own allies don’t accept him. (And wielding a really big gun. This will probably never happen again, so seriously, let’s enjoy it.)

In later Avengers issues, Pietro’s military acumen is often commented upon in passing, but instances such as here where he actually stood out in this regard are buried in obscurity.

Come to think of it... maybe THIS is why Pietro stuck it out with the Inhumans for as long as he did. Those people were constantly under attack, and as poorly as they treated him he still fought valiantly in their defense. He’s not a masochist, he’s an adrenaline junky! :)

While the Inhuman Royal Family are  fighting the Fantastic Four, their people are fighting an actual foe. Interestingly enough, these foes are led by the High Evolutionary, which makes me wonder why Pietro was hanging out with H.E in his 90′s solo series. But I digress…

Here an Inhuman reminds Pietro that they still haven’t accepted him. Granted, after what he’s done lately, they probably shouldn’t, but that seems like an awful thing to say to the guy who at the moment is fighting alongside.

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OK.... so the serial dating scene was kind of lame in my opinion, because it doesn’t jive with Pietro’s historical attitude towards women and the ‘reason’ for the sudden change in behavior just isn’t logical.

That said.... this is probably the best portrayal of Pietro we’ve seen in a while. (Ignoring the hideous uniform, which is truly hideous.) And although he does get bested by the villain, I can tolerate succumbing to poison from what should have been a harmless scratch - at least he didn’t run at high speed into someone’s slow-motion fist and fall down unconscious.

In other news.... so now Johnny is suddenly Rogue’s type AND Medusa’s? I think these super teams are just forcing themselves to date internally whether they make a good couple or not. (Johnny with Rogue OK whatever.... but MEDUSA??)

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I love your Pietro\Crystal fanfics! It's been so long since you've written one, do you think you'll post another one soon?

Thanks! I’m glad you enjoy.Honestly I haven’t been writing lately, but I do want to start a new project. I need a plot bunny to hop by...

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At least he didn’t curb stomp the poor dears.... but of course he didn’t: this isn’t an Englehart story.

Freaking Leech man! Why you gotta suck the awesomeness out of everybody around you? 

I’m making a joke to distract from the fact that Pietro is getting owned by a bunch of kids. Will the humiliation for him ever end?