#even if people know cyclops would they know who scott summers is...really

[sodrippy]

they need to stop making cool anime streetwear and start making cool xmen streetwear

[teenverseofmarveltvshows]

Spidey's relationships with X-Men's main team

If you read my post about Peter's life chronology, you know I wrote about that one time when he team-ups with X-Men and stuff, so anyway, here'll be the main team of X-Men

Scott Summers/Cyclops

Peter meets Scott with Kurt when he just arrived to Bayville High to find those mutants. Here he is, in this Highschool, pretending to be one of the students, hoping it's not illegal and won't cause him any problems. Thanks to his Spidey sense, because whenever Peter approched Scott or any other mutant it was warning him about something and soon he realizes that it was warning him anout the fact that they're mutants! (Spidey sense can do that in my au, yeh. Why? Yes.)

When the school day almost ended, Peter finally gets the courage to talk to Scott, so he approaches Scott and due to his lack of social skills, first thing he does is asks Scott if he's a mutant.cScott freaks out at first, but after little logical thinking he just admits it. Peter is shocked! Someone who's like him! With powers! Wow! (We're not mention his S.H.I.E.L.D. team cuz they're kinda meanies)

Without doubt Peter reveals his secret identity. At first Scott is skeptical, but after seeing him crawl on the walls, he realizes there's no joke. After that, awkward talk happens, Scott is curious why'd a Spider-Man, superhero from New Youk, forget at Bayville? And when he hears that Peter's here to find out about mutants, Scott quickly explained how yhings work here and who's good and who's not.

Such sudden turn from awkward conversation warms the both up to each other, making them quickly to become friends. Then Scott unquestiongly brings Pete to X-Mansion to introduce him to everyone and vice versa. Now they best buds forever!

Jean Grey

Although Jean does notice Peter as soon as he enters Bayville High, she decides not to rush things and introduces herself only when Scott bring him in X-Mansion. There she reads his mind, just for a bit, but enough to understand that there's topics he'd not like to talk about. Jean decides to warn everyone else about that, since she didn't want to make Peter feel uncomfortable.

After doing so, she's not participating in conversations with him. It's not like she doesn't want, it's just everyone else are much more eager to talk to New York's Superhero, so she waits untill the evening when everyone gets tired from talking so much. She finally gets her chance to talk to Spidey, and even though he's a bit tires of being so social, they have a nice small talk.

Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler

When Scott brought Spider-Man in their Mansion, Kurt and Kitty were the first who could introduce themselves to Spidey. The blue elf was really excited to get to know this cool guy from New York(Peter is kinda popular with his heroy thing yk). He was hoping that Spidey is someone who's also a mutant, and a freaky one! But then he sees how Pete looks and he's like: "........Oh....So that's how you look....Well....No wonder people can't figure out Spider-Man's real identity, you look so normal, can't even be suspected to be Spider-Man!"

He's kinda dissapointed that Spider-Man isn't exactly a Man Spider with Spider's head and fur or Humanoid Spider with just four limbs, but hey, Peter's still a cool dude! That's all what matters.

Kurt was really surprised by every information Peter's was revealing to him. After every thing Pete would say about himself, Kurt would ask many various qusetions, to the point it sounded slightly ridiculous. "Well, yes, I've got no problems with my grades, they're straight As" "Woaaaaaahhhh...Does it mean Spider are extremely intelligent in science, but can't show it since they, well, spiders, but since you were bit by that Spider you got it's intelligence?" "Um, no, I don't think so" "oh....well....Do you eat only spider's food now or human food is still good for you?" ". . ."

Kitty Pryde

Like I wrote, Kitty and Kurt are first to introduce themselves to Peter. Kitty heard a lot about Spider-Man so she quickly asks few 'important' questions she has, like, "How it's like in New York?", "There's a lot of criminals?", "Is Sinister Six/Seven are scary?", "How it's like to work for S.H.I.E.L.D.?" and etc.

Peter isn't her type of guy to talk to, they don't really have any similar interesr, so THANK GOD they have powers and her power to go through anything amazes him so much, he wishes he could do that. (It's not the most pleasant feeling to fly right into some wall while swinging somewhere, so Kitty's power could really be useful to Pete)

And since Kitty don't have much qestions to ask, Peter asks her questions about her power. She shortly explained how it works, and that pretty much explained everything what needed to be explained for Pete, so now he can move on and talk to other mutants.

Anna Marie/Rogue

She's not much of a talker and when she see new guy in Mansion, she kinda gets suspicious. Not exactly trying to be friendly, she says that she's busy in her Southern Accent to Scott that tried to introduce her to Peter. Inside his own head he imagine her encounter with Shocker. That would be funny, at least he thought so.

And since Rogue is being suspicious of Peter, even a little bit, she pays a close attention to him all the time he's in Mansion. Closer to evening Rogue stops being suspicious of Pete since he's such awkward guy that it makes her feel awkward just watching him encountering with others.

At the end of the day she tries to make a conversation with him, but Pete didn't feel like talking, so they just say few things to each other. This small talk was enough for them to forget about the awkwardness they noth felt, making them somewhat friends.

Evan Daniels

This dude isn't exactly the most curious here. He's not not interested, he's just a chill dude, so he just offers Pete couple of snacks and shows cool tricks with his skateboard and damn, that was enough for him to become friends with Peter. Evan and his undeniable skill to become friends with people needs to be studied.

They even exchange numbers at the end of the day, since, why not? You're cool, I'm cool, let's be cool together and do tricks. (Peter just wants to be as cool as Evan and learn not only how to do tricks on skateboard, but also how to be more like Evan, more social). For whole evening they'd pass each other, do a highfive and then meet each other again in few minutes, to just pass each other again and do highfive again. It's fun!

That's it for now. I've never wrote anything like that before(+Eng isn't my first language) so I hope you enjoyed it!

[ilovelosersandshortmen]

The Members of the X-Men reacting to a member of the Brotherhood joining them.

Honestly, I love this because I've always been a huge Kurt fan and I've never written about him before!! Also, I didn't specify the relationships so anyone can imagine what they want.

KURT WAGNER (Nightcrawler):

• He doesn't accept you right away, which makes sense. He still holds a few grudges against the brotherhood and even more so because of Mystique.

• But you guys spend some time together, maybe you bond over your hatred for his mother or something, and he starts to genuinely like you as a person.

• He is the first to come to your defense if anyone talks negatively about you.

• He'd probably be the only one who is willing to spar with you, because honestly, you scare a lot of the X-Men.

• You two become a force of nature. Anyone who ever has a problem with you is taken care of quickly.

• .. Not in a Mafia way or anything. They just "mysteriously" end up getting transported to random places.

• Also, you two would prank people all the time.

• Kurt is more sympathetic than anyone else because he knows what it feels like to be judged. He gets what you're going through.

• So he convinces everyone else to give you a chance after a while

• And you best believe he's always there to cheer you up with a cheesy joke whenever you're sad

• He leaves little gifts in your room while you're sleeping and then teleports away.

• Always making sure you're fed by bringing food to your room when you're avoiding everyone else.

JEAN GREY (Phoenix):

• We all know Jean is way too sweet for her own good. She sees the goodness in everyone around her, even when there is none.

• So she welcomes you with open arms, only being a little cautious when it comes to fighting and things like that.

• She's definitely a peace-keeper, the kind of girl who would help you calm down after a fight.

• She teaches you breathing exercises and is always a shoulder to lean on when you're feeling down.

• She's such a sweetheart honestly, I love her so much

• She would really encourage you to come out of your room. She takes you on a lot of walks in the garden and things like that.

KITTY PRYDE (Shadow Cat) :

• Lots of insults and snide remarks towards you.

• She's a bit judgemental, which I hate to say but I genuinely think it's true.

• But of course, once she realizes how amazing you are, you guys become closer.

• Which she adamantly denies, but everyone can see how worried she gets when you're angry or overly tired.

• She's a little bit of a Tsundere but that's okay.

• She's usually a very sweet girl but as soon as you get hurt, she's pouncing on people. It might take a while to pry her off, but she's still in denial about liking you.

SCOTT SUMMERS (Cyclops):

• Honestly, even though people think he would judge you, he would probably be more accepting than a lot of the members.

• I mean, he joined Magneto at one point, so he knows what it's like to be indoctrinated and judged for doing what you think is right.

• So he's just really cautious around you while still being friendly.

• Like with a child, you know what I mean? Watching you to make sure you won't cause trouble or something.

• Which can be a bit condescending, but he really does mean well.

• And he'll stop if anyone points it out.

ROGUE:

• .. she has no room to judge.

Sorry this took so long lol. I've had a lot of stuff to do and I honestly only saw this recently. Of course, I hope you enjoy! I've never written for the X-Men themselves before, so it's a bit out of my comfort zone.

[ewzzy]

I was reminded that the 1993 Topps Marvel trading cards had Unsolved Mysteries of the Marvel Universe and I just had to check if we've solved them in the intervening 30 years.

Starting off we’ve got the longest running mystery, but as with all of these the big question is “what were you hoping to find out?” We’ve seen Doom’s unscarred face in flashbacks and healed in the 1980s Secret Wars, but it was only in 2015’s reimagining of Secret Wars that we see what really lives under the mask. It’s nasty! A real “dead dove do not eat” moment.

This one I’m surprised was a mystery since it’s so well known now. When Cable first showed up he was a warrior from the future, but it wasn’t until 1994’s The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix that it was revealed that he was the time traveling son of Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Well, kinda... you see he’s actually the son of Scott and Jean’s clone Madeline and… go ask Jay and Miles if you want the X-Men X-Plained.

This is the one that got me started on this mess. Darkhawk wasn’t a huge character so this sort of went unresolved but also who cared? Basically when Chris Powell turns into Darkhawk his whole body is replaced by a drone robot from these space hawk warriors. Turns out the whole thing that freaked him out was that underneath the helmet it revealed that he wasn’t even human in that form. And yet, as far as I know we’ve never got a clear look at what he saw.

Hoo boy was this a mystery in 1993? So for background in 1990 we got Danny Ketch as the new Ghost Rider. He was more chains and leather than Johnny Blaze, the Evel Knievel-esque original. The mystery in question is “where did he get his powers and are they from the same demon Zarathos as the original?" After spending time too many wiki pages, I can now say that Danny was revealed to be Johnny Blaze’s secret brother and not powered by Zarathos. Looks like Danny at some point swapped his bike for a buster sword and started calling himself Death Rider. lol

This one is easy! It’s Thanos! Thanos is the sixth member! It got revealed in The Warlock Chronicles during Infinity Crusade. This mystery didn’t make it out of 1993.

Oh hey it’s my least favorite Spider-Man topic! That his parents were killed by the fake communist Red Skull is pointless at best. That they were seemingly brought back only to be revealed as Spider-Slayer robots is somehow worse. That whole mess got resolved in 1994 as a plot from The Chameleon. It’s right before the Clone Saga. Ugh!

This one is a case of dragging it out so long that no answer would be good enough. In 2001’s “Origin” we finally found out that Logan’s real name is James Howlett and he was born in late-19th-century Canada. The Logan name comes from James’ maybereal father from an affair and definite first bone claw stabbing victim Thomas Logan. This is all fine but I 100% of the time confuse “James Howlett” with “Jamie Hewlett” the artist who draws The Gorillaz.

A major thread in 90s X-Men was that Bishop came from a future where an X-Man had betrayed the team and ruined the future. He was pretty suspicious of Gambit in particular and there were hints based on this guy named The Witness that seemed to be Gambit from the future. All that got dropped when Charles Xavier became Onslaught and turned on everyone. Bishop even kind of got to save the day in that story. I guess it all worked out.

It’s our final X-Men mystery and the answer lies in one of the worst received X-Men stories of ALL-TIME! So your first thought should be “he’s a mutant what do you mean origin?” Okay, so starting in 1981 there were hints that Mystique was Nightcrawler’s mom. That started because people say they look the same. That’s a pretty wild thing to say since she has blue skin and he has blue fur and also she’s a shapeshifter so the idea of her real form is iffy at best. Well, it turns out Claremont wanted Mystique to have shapeshifted into a fella and been the father not the mother. Biologically speaking. He didn’t get to write that story, so instead Chuck Austen wrote The Draco…

I can’t believe this is going to a 2nd paragraph but here goes. Mystique in disguise as the wife of a German baron named Christian Wagner, but got pregnant by a mysterious Herr Azazel. The kid comes out blue and her charade is exposed. Flash forward to present day and Nightcrawler is investigating Isla des Demonas and he finally meets dear old dad. Azazel reveals himself to be a literal satan from the Brimstone Dimension. This very nearly broke Nightcrawler’s whole character. Instead of a kind man who is hated because of his appearance, he is a literal son of a demon. Don’t get me started on the woman who adopted Kurt. She’s green and has horns.

That's all the mysteries! If you think I got something wrong about X-Men then yes you're probably right. If there's a secret Darkhawk reveal I couldn't find them please please share it.

[tepkunset]

XMENTALITY: X-Men Evolution S01E12+13 - The Cauldron

(These two last episodes of season 1 are the same story in two parts, so I'm covering them together.)

SUMMARY: Toad attacks Jean out of the blue, then when Jean bests him, is kidnapped in a metal ball. Meanwhile in Hawaii, Alex Summers's powers manifests, alerting Cerebro. However, Magneto finds him first and invites him to his new base, Asteroid M. Left behind when Xavier and Wolverine take Scott to go fetch his bro, the rest of the X-kids decide to go to the beach, where they are attacked by the Brotherhood, while Mystique takes on Storm, Sabretooth takes on Wolverine, and Magneto kidnaps Xavier. The winners of the battles are taken to Asteroid M as well: Avalanche, Quicksilver, Blob, Rogue, and Storm. Alex convinces Scott to join Magneto on his own, shocking Xavier before Magneto puts him into a sleep pod thing. The losers of the battles (Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, Spyke, Toad, Mystique, and Wolverine) all head to Asteroid M to save the others, or in Mystique's case, to get revenge because she doesn't like being rejected. On the asteroid, Magneto explains that he's built a machine to advance mutant abilities, but doesn't reveal it also brainwashes you until after Scott and Alex go through it. The losers show up to Asteroid M and a grand battle ensues. The X-Men and Brotherhood all flee. Jean is able to snap Scott out of his brainwashing just in time for them to escape too, and they use their powers to blow up the asteroid. With the destruction of the mutant enhancement machine, everyone reverses back to normal.

Toad honestly thought he had a chance fighting Jean, LMFAO.

Amazing that this show makes me not hate Alex. This version of him is actually alright. It's also pretty rare to see a character with explicit chronic pain like he has in the show. "My joints are on fire. I've been to a bunch of doctors, but nobody could tell me what it was." I think that's probably relatable to a lot of people.

Scott's first reaction to finding out Alex is alive is, of course, blaming himself for not knowing. I feel like this is really in character for him.

Somehow Kitty knows that they're going to find Alex, even though Scott was only just told before they left? So I'm wondering, does that mean Xavier literally told everyone before telling Scott? WTF, would not put it past him.

Imagine how different things may have gone with Scott, had Xavier told the kids anything about Magneto beforehand. Yet again, the secret-keeping endangers everyone.

Mystique doesn't even flinch to Kurt calling her mother. That's one cold-hearted bitch, I love her.

You know who else is a cold-hearted bitch? When Wolverine asks Xavier "what about the boys" in reference to them abandoning Scott and Alex, his response is just "they'll do what they must" and rolls on by. I hate him.

Speaking of, I find it hysterical that Havok and Cyclops are transformed into these grown men, but they still have voices like they're teenagers. And I love the part where Magneto says "let's see the colour of your eyes" to Scott, and then he takes off his glasses and it's just black dots.

Magneto is so fucking dramatic, and I feel the need to say that with every sway of his cape, every clenched fist, every smirk. I adore him.

The ending gets me so bad. Scott apologies for "making bad choices" and Xavier corrects him, saying "more like misinformed choices." BITCH, YOU ARE AT LEAST 50% TO BLAME FOR THAT! FUCKING TELL YOUR STUDENTS THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT THEY'RE AGAINST FOR A CHANGE! YOU SHOULD BE APOLOGIZING TO SCOTT!

Ugh, but this is one of my favourite Scott-centric plots in the entire show TBH, because it humanizes him so much. He's so intense about being the perfect model leader in Xavier's eyes, seeing him question Xavier for even a moment, seeing him switch sides for even a moment, is so good.

[anxiousnerdwritings]

Ooooookay, after that post about worst yanderes I Please & TYSM need general hcs for yandere Scott Summers so I understand your roster, like, I'm with you in all other, SO tru damn it but I would have said Apocalypse, Legion, Ultron, Cable... note, the Summers-Grey gives dangerous yandere do Not mix.

Also, don't write cyclops hcs if you don't feel like it, but I just notice you have seen Invincible, like give me five 🙌👍there we can get good inspo for yandere, yep 😚

Anyway tsm for open requests hopw youre having nice holidays, take care of yourself dear!!

Yandere Scott Summers/Cyclops (general)

Scott keeps himself pretty reserved and sometimes comes off cold, at least early on. But when his obsession begins to form he’ll be more interactive with his darling. Opposed to before his obsession when he would just take to watching his darling, now he would actually go out of his way to be in their presence and strike up conversations, even if it’s bits of small talk throughout the day. And of course he’ll still be watching them. He can be very charming and overall appealing when he wants to be. He does have genuine care for his darling but his obsession causes him to think and behave a little offhandedly.

Scott is an excessively jealous person. He doesn’t like it very much when his darling gets attention that’s not from him. He would much rather spend his time alone with his darling, not having the nuisances of other people around, just him and them. Scott has never really liked the idea of his darling interacting with others, he just doesn’t trust the other people with them. He will definitely hover around his darling at all times. Never too far but just close enough to intervene if he thinks it’s necessary.

Honestly, no one would be safe from Scott’s jealousy. He has to really try and reign himself in to keep himself from using his optic beams to blast through anyone he sees as a threat, whether friend or foe. Scott can’t help this overwhelming need to hurt those who are just far too close for comfort. He at least he has a good excuse when it comes to taking his anger out on the bad guys during missions and whatnot but he can’t really come up with a good enough reason for going off on any other X-men. It even scares him a little at how easily it is for him to lash out at his friends and comrades, or how willingly he is to hurt anyone for his obsession but then again if it’s for you then he’s willing to do anything. As long as it’s for you, Scott can justify doing just about anything.

He can also be extremely possessive, always feeling the need to keep an hand on you or be touching you in some sense of the word. It may come offf as controlling and it is to an extent. If he doesn’t feel like the situation is appropriate for it then he’ll just stand close enough, not to the point of touching but still being as close as he can to you. It’s more for him than it is for you but he likes to reason that it’s to better keep you safe and protect you if anything goes awry. When really he just needs to be by you at all times.

Scott doesn’t do anything without thinking about you first. Whether it be what action he needs to take while out in the field on missions or just going through day to day situations, Scott’s main focus will always be you. His obsession is his top priority.

Scott would be extremely doting towards his darling, he would wait on them hand and foot really. But that doesn’t mean Scott isn’t still a force to be reckoned with. He will lose control of himself and he will end up hurting his darling in the process but he doesn’t mean to. Not really. Maybe in the moment but afterward he’s an apologetic mess. Scott can’t help himself when it comes to his anger. He’ll breakdown and beg for your forgiveness. He has and will continue to use this as a way to manipulate you into feeling bad for him or to keep you from trying to leave him.

His biggest fear would be losing you. Scott wouldn’t know what to do with himself if that were to ever happen. He’d probably lose it, honestly. His obsession is his everything, he would both live and die for them, so to not have them at all would break him. He needs them just as much as he needs air to breath. They are his life line, his world, and to lose that would be the end of him.

If he could have it his way, Scott would take you far away from everyone and everything just to be fully and completely with you. No one else. No more nuisances. No more people trying to take up your time and attention. Just you and him. That’s all he could ever want. It’s all he would ever need.

[anaer]

Who's that marvel dude you're obsessed with. Scott?

YEAH I LOVE HIM and also hi I'm back

First Impressions:

So I think I first remember being aware of Scott in X-Men Evolution (though, really, it would’ve been the movies, but my mind is BLANK from that), and like. I loved Scott. I’ve pretty much always liked Scott. But then…something happened, see. And that something was Gambit. And I completely forgot about Scott completely because, like, Remy existed, and he was catnip to Young Me and the only thing I cared about, hahahaha.

Impression now:

Oh my god, I love him so much. Apologies to Gambit (I still love him, ngl, he my no 2), but like Scott is bar none the very best character in all X-Men. Nay, in all Marvel, I might even be tempted to say. (No, actually, Matt might be a more solidly consistent character) Whatever, he’s my favourite. Would murder for him. I would kill SO many characters for him, he deserves the world. #Cyclopswasright

Honestly, I was bored one day and my mind was like “hmmm, I used to really love Cyclops, but I haven’t seen or read him in a while, I wonder why not” and went on, like, full deep binge reading mode about…four? Years ago??? And reread everything, and read a lot that I had not yet read, and by the time I came out of that binge he was once more firmly reestablished as my number one fav. Everything about him! He’s a big ball of anxiety. So much trauma!!! His backstory is SO TRAGIC, I swear he has the most fucked up backstory out of all the main X-Men.

Scott's the ultimate get shit done guy. He won't necessarily like what he does, but he'll do what needs to be done. He tries to stay as morally upright as he can, and he's really the core and the heart of the X-Men. When others have left, Scott never really has except when he's super lost (largely after Jean dies) because his whole life is the X-Men. He represents what they should be at any given moment, and he's the best leader they have.

I love him.

Favorite moment:

Oh, so many. Every time Larraz draws him using his powers, for one. Every time he wore cut off booty shorts back in the 80s. One upping Captain America. But honestly I will have to go with this one, which to me is the essence of Scott Summers and who he is:

Idea for a story:

Way too many to count. I have so many half-finished on my computer. The one that’s my favourite is probably the crack fic where Scott and Remy team up to try and murder Sinister together. They deserve it.

Unpopular Opinion:

Scott is not super closed off!! He’s not! He’s actually quite open and obvious about how he feels most of the time with regards to his personal life!!!!! He’s ALWAYS SAYING how he feels to the people close to him, and if he’s not, they’re at least BLATANTLY AWARE of it because they know him well enough to tell!! They just ignore him! Constantly! Every single time!! Except, like, Wolverine, funny enough.

My other unpopular opinion is that Scott is not? A cheater? He left Maddie because she told him to leave, and he constantly tried to get back in contact with her until he finally came back and thought she was dead. He didn’t even try to get back with Jean until after he saw Maddie’s “dead body” which was set up for him to find. And he went to Emma for help with things between him and Jean, and Emma dressed up as Jean in his mind for the whole psychic affair, which consistently showed him getting more uncomfortable with it until he tried to call things off. There’s a lot about New X-Men that I hate, but the one thing I do agree with is Jean tearing Emma apart for taking advantage of Scott. He was traumatized, and everyone knew it, and Emma jumped on that opportunity to get what she wanted with no regard for him. Also, important to remember that as good as their relationship turned out (thanks to good writers), Scott didn’t decide to get with Emma after Jean died. Scott decided to leave, but future!Jean reached back in time to change his mind and get him with Emma. It was telepathic shenanigans, and it was ultimately fucked up. There was not at all a lot of real consent in the beginning of his relationship with Emma.

Favorite relationship:

The impossible question. All of them? None of them? Scott needs a break from telepaths, but also Emma and Jean are both perfect for him. Logan and Scott have been in love, lbr. The polycule is DEFINITELY the ideal, and Marvel needs to stop being cowards and be more explicit (even though they’ve honestly been much more explicit than I ever at all expected from them.)

Scott/Ororo is also GREAT and COMPLETELY UNEXPLORED. I’m still angry about Bloodstorm, they promised to give me everything I wanted and then MURDERED HER on their DATE. That was so fucked up, I just want Scott and Ororo to make out a little, is that such a hard ask? They both deserve it! But aside from that, I do also really, really, really love their friendship and their general vibe with each other.

Then, of course, Scott+Prof X is one for the ages. Complicated. Scott deserved to kill Prof X, I will maintain.

Oh, wait, no. My favourite Cyclops relationship at all?

Scott+Sinister. It’s so, so fucked up. Mr Sinister is somehow creepier to Scott as an adult than he ever was as a child, and that’s saying something. Dude needs to stop caressing Scott’s face and talking about Scott’s baby-making (but also I’m gonna need him to keep doing that, and Krakoa has taken that from me. Not pleased, me. How has Scott not expressed any discontent about Sinister being on the Quiet Council??? That is not the kind of thing he would just go along with, but haha, what is continuity, am I right).

Favorite headcanon:

Not really so much a headcanon as a thought, but since orphanages are outdated, Mr Sinister as Scott’s foster parent is an idea that’s been sitting in my mind because it would fit more with the way that timeline fits with the culture change, and I think it has the potential to be even more potentially fucked up.

Also, Scott and Logan were definitely fucking during Utopia, what can I say.

[bamfdaddio]

X-Men Unabridged: Proteus

The X-Men, those beautiful mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. We’ve been untangling that history for a while, but sometimes, you really want a more in-depth look. Interested? Then read the (un)Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 125 - 128) - by Chris Claremont and John Byrne

Fun* fact: this particular issue is the oldest comic I physically own.

* for a given value of fun

Something sinister lurks on Muir Isle…

This arc is very much set up like a horror movie. It starts out as a regular X-Men narrative, where Claremont is weaving along several plot threads. We check in with the X-Men in Westchester, we check in with Magneto who has retreated to Asteroid M and we even check in with Xavier in space, who finally learns more about the true scope of the Phoenix and its nature. Finally, we’ve got Jean stationed at Muir Isle, where Moira is investigating the sheer scope of her powers. (She has realized how strong Jean truly is; akin to a god. Her theory is that Jean’s recent power dampening is the result of her human mind trying to cope with her massive power level.) It’s about as everyday as it gets for the X-Men, but, well…

I always thought Jean molecularly restructured her own outfit into the Phoenix-costume whenever she needed to change, but here, she just… wills it away? Also, why did you need an outfit change for this, anyway? Does the costume simply appear whenever she exerts too much of her powers, like an angry forehead vein? So many questions. (X-Men 126)

Other residents at Muir are Polaris, Havok and the Multiple Man, all of them blissfully unaware that something skulks about in the shadows: the remains of an unfortunate captain, whose body has been taken over by something… other.

But someone else is skulking around in the shadows, too. Jean isn’t aware of it, but a familiar stranger is manipulating her from the sidelines.

I’ve been gaslighting a cosmic force, ask me how! (X-Men 126)

1979 marks the first appearance of the Hellfire Club, though we only meet one member for now: Jason Wyngarde. (Maybe all of this could have been avoided if he’d had a Barbie doll to dress up in black lace as a child, but alas.) ‘Jason’ is a pseudonym and though most people these days know that he’s a familiar villain from the X-Men’s past, the reveal of his true identity will follow later.

Meanwhile, Beast finally gets off his ass to check on the Xavier mansion, even though the X-Men must have been tripping intruder alarms for months now. Still, we do get this sweet moment out of it:

Of course she’s going to be surprised at the sheer amount of plot contrivances that were thrown up to keep all y’all apart for a full year. (X-Men 126)

Beast knows that Jean went to Muir, so Scott immediately goes for the phone. Lorna picks up, but during the call she starts screaming, leaning heavily into the horror genre. She fends off the withering remains of the captain, so instead, ‘Mutant X’ jumps into a duplicate of Jamie Madrox and promptly flees to the mainland on a boat.

Guuurl, that body is snatched. (X-Men 126)

The X-Men (sans Beast) hit Muir Isle, where Moira debriefs them. Moira reveals who Mutant X is: his name is Kevin MacTaggart, her son, who has the terrifying power to warp reality. Because his power is so vast, he burns through bodies at an alarming rate. He can only be contained - or killed - by inorganic metal. In an effort to contain him (and, presumably, help him at some point), Moira locked him in a metal cell. He was kept there, alone, for god knows how long, until Magneto accidentally freed him. They know he escaped the island and, because of his parasitic need for fresh host bodies, Moira posits that he’ll be heading for a big city.

Kevin - who dubs himself Proteus - racks up an impressive body count in the country side, killing 7 people in total. (6 people and 1 dupe? Eh.) He’s a terrific villain, because he’s powerful, has a well-defined weakness and, even though it’s not impossible to emphasize with him -- isolation tends to drive people mad -- the way he discards his victims is truly chilling.

The X-Men chase after him, Wolverine picking up the scent. When Proteus tries to claim him, Logan’s adamantium skeleton repels him. In response, he unspools reality.

I’ve had this trip. I think they call this strain Dragon’s Dynamite. (X-Men 126)

Storm intervenes, but Proteus leaves Nightcrawler and especially Wolverine rattled. Logan’s heightened senses root him in reality more than most, and when Proteus uses his powers, everything is just screaming wrong at him. But nobody is safe: little Kevin MacTaggart turns gravity against Ororo, taking her out as well.

He tries to claim Storm, but Moira repels him, sniping at him from afar. Proteus fears (metal) bullets, knowing they can kill him. When Cyclops realizes Moira’s shooting to kill, he intervenes - X-Men don’t kill, after all. Moira knocks him out with her gun, but Kevin escapes in the confusion. Moira finally realizes where her son is headed, while the X-Men regroup.

In Edinburgh, Moira pays Joe MacTaggart a visit - her husband, Kevin’s father.

The MacTaggarts are definitely in the running for the Xavier/Marko-award for Fucked Up Family Dynamics. (X-Men 127)

There’s a calculating coldness to Moira’s character that I’ve never responded well to, but I like how Claremont fills in the blanks here. It’s part unhappiness, part a deep frustration with her inability to help her own son. I wonder how Kevin was a child, before his mutant gene activated: was he a sweet boy, or one with a cruel streak? Did she fear what he might become?

There’s a few gaps in Claremont’s narrative, but Hickman has drawn on this very well, I think: the Moira X in HoXPoX is equally calculating, equally cold. But how can she not be? How often has she raised Kevin? How often has she had to kill him? How many times has she watched these people, these X-Men, die?

Anyway, Moira’s warning is as effective as anger management therapy for Sabretooth, because Kevin comes by Joe’s office a little while later and snuffs out his dad. Phoenix hears Joe screaming telepathically across the moors, allowing the X-Men to pinpoint him. Claremont also makes sure to show that Jean’s power is steadily growing:

Polaris be like: “No, no, I’m carrying my own emotionally stunted Summers boy, thank you.” (X-Men 127)

Proteus takes Moira hostage as the X-Men confront him. They fight.

Ordinarily, I don’t pay a lot of attention to the fight scenes, because recapping those usually boils down to “Cyclops conks Magneto in the helmet” or “Wolverine snikts Pyro in the gas tank”, but this one is truly great. John Byrne delivers some excellent work, showcasing the scope of Proteus’ powers through his art, his panelling. Don’t just take my word for it:

I love how trippy all of this is. Pivoting gravity, changing an optic beam into flowers… Sure, Proteus might be a callous and cruel SoB, but he’s also one imaginative motherfucker. (X-Men 127)

One by one, Proteus manages to distract or take out the X-Men, either by endangering passers-by, encasing them in amber (Storm) or burying them alive (Banshee). One of my favorite details is how afraid they all are: especially Wolverine and Nightcrawler hesitate before jumping into the fray. For them, this villain is truly beyond their scope.

In the end, it’s Phoenix who manages to drive him back, outside of the center of Edinburg and up an old castle, where there are fewer civilians to threaten. There, on the ramparts, it’s Colossus who makes the final stand: he destroys Proteus’ physical body and realizes that right now, there’s only one thing they can do to stop him. All it will cost is Piotr’s innocence.

Showcasing an ancient Japanese truth: Psychic Pokémon are weak to Steel attacks. (X-Men 128)

Proteus scatters to the winds and the X-Men emerge victorious, though Moira has lost both her son and her husband after this ordeal. Moreover, I think this is the first villain that the X-Men explicitly kill, simply because they have no other options left. This marks the first time that their ideal of mutant rehabilitation fails. What’s worse is that Kevin MacTaggart was essentially nothing more than a supremely screwed up boy who got access to way too much power way too quickly.

I wonder if it would have turned out differently had Xavier been there. (I also wonder if it’s a coincidence that this takes place right before the Dark Phoenix saga.)

I think this might be Claremont’s best arc yet, heightened by John Byrne’s excellent art. Chris deftly mixes horror, action and his usual soap opera elements, serving one cohesive narrative that (for once) doesn’t leave much hanging. Proteus is an excellent villain whose powers work visually (pay attention, MCU) and whose entire being touches on one of the same aspects as Krakoa: can and should every mutant fit into any sort of normal society?

If you have someone who’s interested in vintage X-Men and you want to recommend something that doesn’t require a confusing explanation of all the necessary backstory (and perhaps a crude sketch of the Summers and/or Lensherr family tree), I would recommend this arc.

And the rest, as they say, is Hellfire. 1980 is gonna be a doozy.

[crystalnet]

Current X-book Mood-Ring Guide

There are an awful lot of X-books on the shelves right now. They are most of my monthly haul. No joke it is at least 12 books at this point. So, in order to cope with that, I’ve organized all the books into one of four different categories, aka “booster-pack” themes. Click through if you want to jump aboard the best X-men run since Morrison before the boat pushes off for the Hellfire Gala this summer! These are the 4 categories:

-Mainline Blue/Gold-style 

-Jr. Mutants Academy 

-2nd-Wave Krakoa Niche (aka “the good stuff”)

-Cetera

#1. Mainline Blue/Gold-style

Mood-color/vibe: Actually 90s-style Blue/Gold and like bright primary colors (but also muddy-ass colors from X-factor). 

Books included: X-men, Excalibur, Marauders, X-force

Typical Pokemon: Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Betsy Braddock, Kate Pride, Beast, Black Tom, Storm, Bishop, Emma Frost, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee, Kid Omega, Domino, a Pyro, Iceman, Avalanche. Rare drops: Apocalypse, X-23, Synch, Darwin, Kid Cable, Fantomex (in that Giant-Sized!)

These be the books for someone who wants those direct, mainline, core-members-style lineups. On the main book (adjective/word-play-less X-men) Hickman/Yu have worked wonders with their run, but it hasn’t been a stable team, instead focusing on Scott and his adventures dealing with some of the more prominent threats to Krakoa. 

So it’s essentially been a revolving door of a book with Cyclops sometimes leading assaults against major problems and sometimes just being a dad to teenagers from the future, and it’s been generally great. 

Meanwhile, the teams we find on the other 3 books could basically be a main X-men team if you just throw Jean/Scott/Logan onto them (except for X-force because Logan is usually on that one, actually, and Jean sort of is..)

X-force: Wolverine usually, Kid Omega, Beast, Jean (quitting?/back-up), Domino sorta, Sage, Black Tom Cassidy, Colossus once? Forge sorta. [Lot’s of backup or sometimes-members on this team but kinda centers on Beast, Omega, Wolverine and Jean or Domino]

Excalibur: Betsy Braddock, Rogue, Jubilee, Gambit, Avalanche, baby/dragon Shogo, Apocalypse (honorary, mia)

Marauders: Kate Pride, Storm, Emma Frost, a Pyro, Iceman, Bishop

On X-force, you get a little Morrison-homage energy going on what with Beast being sus, Quentin Quire having a character arc and dating a cuckoo and then all the body-horror. This one hasn’t been amazing and the art sometimes has issues for me but it’s been a solid expansion on Krakoa-Era lore. 

On Marauders, you get a book centered on Kate Pride and the Hellfire Club. It’s been aight but I’m not the biggest Kate fan. Definitely has heart and the art has been beautiful. 

Excalibur started a little weird for me... I lack the references or attachment to Otherworld or Davis/Moore-era Excalibur so I don’t think I’m even really the target demo, but I will say it recently, post-X of Swords-- which it set up single-handedly basically [along w/ one ish of X-men]-- has gotten more interesting in recent months. The Betsy + Kwannon stuff was great! And Howard did great with Apocalypse before he went off to another dimension. (points off for iffy color-palettes sometimes). 

#2. Jr. Mutants Academy

Mood-color/vibe: Pastel

Books: New Mutants, X-factor, Children of the Atom, Cable

Common Pokemon: Magik, Cable, Rachel Summers, Doug, Warlock, Armor, Boom Boom, Scout, Dani, Warpath, Karma, Glob, Beak, Daken, Eye-boy, North Star, Rachael, Prodigy those Children of the Atom kids, Magma, Rahne, and a lot of lil kid mutants runnin’ around in Akademos/the Wild Hunt area of Krakoa whose names I don’t know yet.

This is the junior-crew club. New Mutants would be in the Blue/Gold books practically due to being part of the first wave of post-HoX/DoX books, but its basically been 3 different books/teams over its run and along w/ Children/Cable/X-Factor, it feels like there a whole handful of books offering up junior-crew shenanigans specifically. 

So New Mutants has been all over the place, starting with a lineup of OG Claremont era New Muties, then focusing on a team consisting of Glob, Armor and Boom Boom (perpetual...”young adult” I guess?), now settling on a new team under Vita Ayala with Magik and Warpath heading up a squad of young ‘uns (beautiful art on the recent stretch). Hopefully it’s settling into its self now, because I can see longevity for this new squad... maybe. 

I still have to read the 2nd issue of Children of the Atom,  but am intrigued by it. X-factor meanwhile seems to be focusing on queer representation with people like Prodigy, Daken, North Star and Rachel on the same group together. Polaris started out the lead of that title only to be plucked out by Duggan (or the fanbase) for the main X-team coming up. This honestly makes sense, because even though she isn’t drawn this way, shouldn’t Polaris be considerably older than someone like Rachel? Eh. 

Also, in issue #4 of X-factor we had a beautiful homage to the Academy X mutants, with several cameos, so it seems like Marvel is intentionally using these junior-crew books to acknowledge all the various junior-crews, whether it be OG Claremont kids, Generation X people, the kids intro’d under Morrison and Whedon, or even the dang ‘ol Academy X ones, they seem to all be getting at least some representation in some book. 

Also Cable owns. Didn’t know I’d like the Kid-Cable guy until this book and his appearances in the main title, but now it’s confirmed. Him dating Esme, Kid Omega dating Phoebe? These crazy telepaths! Anyway, I hope Duggan’s main-team book is more like Cable than Marauders, in terms of pacing and characterization, but they both have beautiful art!

New mutants: Karma, Magik, Mirage, Scout, Warlock, Warpath and Wolfsbane

X-factor: Daken, Eye-boy, Polaris (quit?), North Star, Rachael, Prodigy

#3. 2nd-gen Krakoa Niche aka “the good stuff”

mood-color/vibe: purples, metaphysical/cosmic pallets, tertiary colors

books included: Hellions, S.W.O.R.D., Way of X

common Pokemon: I mean they’re basically all rare drops

This is the good stuff! Who would have thought. And when I think about it,  Way of X and S.W.O.R.D., as part of the second wave of Krakoa-era books that started with Cable, both address some of the core issues and ideas that the whole HoX/DoX mini kicked off better than-- or at least more directly-- the other books. So I guess the non X-men, first-wave Krakoa books feel “mainline” in terms of their team lineups, but in terms of content, these newer ones almost feel more relevant by design. S.W.O.R.D. focuses on the cosmic context of the mutants post-Krakoa and Way is Kurt’s first spot-light moment in the era and is expressly concerned with Kurt’s addressing of the deeper moral quandaries that a people who have conquered death will be faced with. I mean, it's expressly about religion and like, spirituality-- a very tall order, but first issue pulled it off super deftly.

Also Hellions is better than it has any business being! Read this if you want savagely dark humor and some very obscure mutants + Havok/Psylocke/Sinister. But if I had to reccomend one, it’d be a tie b/w S.W.O.R.D and Way. First issue of Way was exceptional and got right into things and Kurt’s very well-written and will surely prove a meditative lead for a book like this, whereas S.W.O.R.D is epic in scale while still have sick character moments/dialogue. Manifold had a great issue or two and is now my favorite new mutant, even in the context of a somehow-actually-good King in Black tie-in. Damn! And everything going on b/w Magneto and Fabian Cortez (who was made to argue for why mutants should be allowed to murder “flatscans”/humans to the whole Krakoan council this week whilst naked. It’s fantastic. Hell, even the Snark-War sounds...interesting? What’s happening to me. 

S.W.O.R.D.: Fabian Cortez, Magneto, Abigail Brand, Peeper, Manifold, Wiz-Kid, Mentallo, Fenzy

Children of the Atom: Cherub, Marvel Guy, Cyclops-Lass (?), Gimmick, Daycrawler

Hellions: Havok, Psylocke, Empath, Orphan-Maker, Nanny, Wild Child, Sinister, Greycrow

#4. Cetera

Mood-color/vibe: colorless, “normal” element

Books included: Fallen Angels (complete 6-ish mini), All the damn Wolverine books, the uh Sword of X “guidebook” and the new Peach Momoko Demon Days books and whatever X-men Legends is.

These are titles which are either complete or don’t fit in with other things or in Demon Days or the X-men Legends’ books’ case, I think don’t even occur in-universe. And per usual of course there are multiple Wolverine books... the main one seems fine. 

Anyway all-in-all, these books are doing weirdly well. Mutants as a concept shouldn't be able to be spread this thin story-telling wise, but the books don’t really feel redundant and most are filling a specific niche or purpose. I may be dropping some of the first-wave Blue/Gold style books (Marauders and X-force I'll probably just check in on from time-to-time), but S.W.O.R.D., Way, the main book under Hickman or Duggan and Hellions all have me verrrrrry satisfied. Even standard stories in the Krakoa era feel special, and that speaks to the power of Hickman’s vision. Hellfire Gala, here we come. 

[noelclover]

Off The Cuff 12/03/2022

WI was thinking about Western comics and the constant reboots and it lead to thinking about when the Japanese do it and why I don’t mind them anywhere as much in comparison. As this is written off the cuff, I will sometimes type in Bahasa Melayu or some other language. If I do, I will do my best to add in a translation after, though it’s gonna be a bit loose because direct translations won’t necessarily make sense. Translations in []

X-Men, rebooted for the umpteenth time, this time featuring Jean Grey, Scott Summers and Logan in a polyamory relationship and the mutants are pretty much down with terrorism and threatening the world into “leaving them alone”. Now, this is interesting, but in all honesty, it’s really weird for someone who’s enjoyed X-Men over the decades. The Cyclops and Wolverine I know would prefer to punch each other for about 7 issues instead of sharing a bed with one another, much less Jean Grey, though they most certainly work well together as a team.  While I understand the desire some people have to sometimes push boundaries, I realized that there’s generally a severe disconnect from people doing the reboots, the thing they want to reboot and the audience who love the series.

I have no issues with short what ifs mind you, but I find it perplexing when people given the power to write something with Bruce Wayne decide that the best course of action is to make him Asian and place him in... a Young Adult fantasy novel style Crazy Rich Asians setting. There’s a lot of “whys” flying about in my head because kalo la diorang mau tengok tu Crazy Rich Asians, diorang gonna watch Crazy Rich Asians, bukan Batman!

[If they wish to watch Crazy Rich Asians, they will watch Crazy Rich Asians, not Batman!]

And while I understand the whole argument of representation, I find it insulting that a minority race ((Gua Cina dari Malaysia, korang jangan babi.)) has to ride on the coat tails of an already present and popular series, hijacking the name and setting. Are we not worth the effort of a new series? If there’s that much demand, then surely making a new IP is worth it.

[I’m Chinese from Malaysia, don’t you start] There’s a certain image in everyone’s head when we think of certain iconic names, and an issue is that when you infringe upon it, distort it too far from what it is, the fans who know it for what it is get upset and your “new fans” that you’re banking on will generally raise a brow if it’s too iconic a thing.

On the flip side, the Japanese seem to bring series back time and again as well, but for some reason it feels very well done for the most part.

Let’s take Mazinger Z for example, Kabuto Kouji is gonna be a hotblooded and intelligent guy who has a girlfriend named Sayaka. Mazinger Z will be a black and white/grey robot, it will have yellow eyes and a “crown” where the Pilder docks. It’ll run with Photon Energy, he’ll have the super iconic moves “Rocket Punch” and “Breast Fire” no matter what. In some series, Great Mazinger will appear and if it does it’s always gonna be Tetsuya piloting it.

The cast is always the same, their relationships are generally the same, and while there may be some differences and what ifs, the things you know about Mazinger and Kabuto Kouji will not change.

Even his suit will never change.

In every Mazinger series he’ll be fighting his usual enemy Doctor Hell and his forces, Baron Ashura is still the body of two lovers cut in half and stitched together. In some, Doctor Hell has won and there’s only pockets of resistance left, in others, Doctor Hell has just started the fight.

And despite the little changes, such as the introduction of Zeus, Mazinger being able to turn into a gigantic Rocket Punch, the series will have a general outline and most importantly: end.

There’s a certain sense of respect you get from these... I suppose you could call them reboots, and while some may claim that it’s boring and dull because things don’t change too much, I’d have a laugh because they often change just enough, and the story is usually always well told enough that it’s interesting.

I suppose that there’s one core issue here, and that’s the series don’t seem to like change for the sake of change. It takes the formula and introduces something new, that we can all explore, enjoyable what ifs and routes, all while staying to it’s roots and treating it’s fans’ love for it with respect.

[paradox-psyc-hoe-sis]

Ain't No Sunshine - Part 1

Logan howlett x reader x Scott Summers

Word count: 1.1k

A/N: Part 1 of a 5 part series!!! I'm so excited to be writing these - the chapters aren't going to be that long each, but once I've written + posted them all I'll be compiling them into an entire fic and posting that. If that makes sense...aha. anyways, enjoy!! - Honey

(Also, this is written about James Marsden's cyclops but I guess it could work with both!)

"YES! I DID IT!" You screamed, turning to Scott; he bore just as wide of a grin as you. Excitedly, you wrapped your arms around him, and he did the same - you had been trying to master an aspect of your powers for months, and you finally got it right. You pulled away slightly to look up at him and lifted a hand up to cup his face, running your thumb across his cheekbone.

"Thank you for helping me..." you whispered, basking in his warmth. He placed his hand on top of yours, stroking your knuckles.

"It's my pleasure." He spoke softly, a smile curving at the edges of his lips.

You had been working at the school for just under a year, teaching combat & self defense. Charles knew you had powers, so he enlisted the help of Scott to aid you in your journey. Four months ago, you and Scott discovered what your powers were - the ability to control and manipulate mutations. You could temporarily take people's powers away, heighten and weaken other's mutations, and even 'borrow' somebody else's abilities. Despite this, you were struggling with the latter; but today you finally managed to steal Scott's power and shoot 1 laser blast at a target, something you've both been working on for such a long time.

Both smiling like idiots, you suddenly realised that your faces were centimetres apart. Though before you could do anything, somebody cleared their throat from the doorway. Quickly stepping away from each other, you felt heat rise to the tips of your ears. Logan stood at the door of your training room, leaning an arm against the door frame, glaring at Scott.

"Xavier wants to see you, y/n." Logan growled, not taking his eyes off the man next to you. Luckily, you made your escape - you could probably cut the tension between Logan and Scott with a knife.

When you joined the school, you could've never guessed that you'd be pursued by not one, but two romantic interests. The first person you met upon entering the academy was Logan, who consequently had to give you the tour; he was pretty solitary when you first met him, yet he warmed up to you as you spent more time at the school. You had met Scott shortly afterwards, while exploring the grounds; one of the children accidentally pushed you down the stairs, causing you to fall what felt like hundreds of feet. Thankfully, Scott was right underneath and managed to catch you, holding you bridal style. (Sure, it may not have been the best way to meet somebody, but it's the cause of a lot of inside jokes between you both.)

Once you were out of earshot, walking down the seemingly endless corridor to Xaviers office, Logan closed the door.

"You two having fun?" He asked, brows furrowed. A slight chuckle escaped Scott's lips as he crossed the room, facing the wolverine. "What's it to ya, grandpa?"

Logan sneered as Scott opened the door and walked away, leaving him in the empty gym.

As you made your way up the large oak stairs, you thought long and hard about what had just happened. You weren't oblivious to all the jealousy the two men shared, you had simply gotten used to it; but making a move on either of them, choosing between two of your closest friends - it was torture. You knew that if you didn't talk to them soon, then other girls would snap them up in a second...yet if you were to make a decision, you wouldn't even know where to start.

Reaching Professor Xaviers office, you gave the door a few knocks before entering.

"Good afternoon, y/n. Take a seat."

Smiling, you walked over to the small leather chair on the other side of his desk and plopped yourself down. Professor Xavier was in an oddly good mood...why?

"I'm very pleased to hear that you've completed your training."

"How did you know?"

With a smirk, he tapped his head.

"I know everything."

☆☆☆☆☆

Despite it being a chilly evening, that night you felt incredibly warm. Surrounded by all of your friends, Ororo had arranged a small party to celebrate you finally grasping your powers; you, Scott, Logan, Jean, Charles, Kurt, Ororo, Peter and Hank were all in the common area, music humming from the record player. You sat on one of the brown leather sofas, a beer in your hand, next to Hank. He was talking about something scientific, but you weren't really listening - your gaze was focused on Logan, who was seemingly leaving. Apologising to Hank, you followed Logan out of the lively room and into the gardens.

"Leaving so soon?"

He turned to see you leant against one of the stone pillars, your hair blowing in the wind. He laughed slightly, and took a step back towards you.

"Yeah, parties were never really my thing."

Now it was your turn to laugh, hearing your favourite song come on from inside.

"Well, we aren't at a party now...would you dance with me?"

Instead of answering, he took a few more steps towards you until you were pressed together, chest to chest. He gripped your waist, motioning for you to wrap you arms around his neck. You both swayed slightly on the spot, your dress flapping with the breeze.

"I wish we could have more moments like this," you whispered. "Where it's just the two of us."

He hummed in agreement, searching your eyes. He looked down at you with such adoration, the moonlight reflecting off your gentle face.

"There's just always something that needs doing. People to save, mutants to protect." He replied, sighing. "I'm surprised we managed to escape without being caught..."

Just as he said that, you heard Charles's voice in your head.

"Y/n and Logan, please meet me in my office."

By the look on his face, clearly Logan heard it too. You gave him a knowing smile.

"You were saying? I guess we weren't the only people who left."

As you and Logan sat down in Professor Xavier's office, Charles began explaining why you were there.

"We've had news about the MRD. Tomorrow, there'll be an attack a few miles from here, and I'd like to send the two of you out to protect any vulnerable mutants."

"I don't think I should go." You replied, tucking a stray hair behind your ear. "My suit is still damaged from the last mission, Hank hasn't had time to repair it."

Charles smiled at you. "Suits won't be needed, y/n. You two will be going undercover as husband and wife."

[ssummerscyclops]

“YOU HAVE A DREAM ; I HAVE A PLAN.” 

BASICS 

NAME | scott summers AGE | 35 OCCUPATION | former teacher at the xavier school, former leader of the x-men. currently, scott functions mostly as a pilot and offers tactical advice where he feels it’s useful.  ALIAS | cyclops GENDER | cis male SEXUALITY | bisexual  AFFILIATION | x-men, the nomads by extension.  SPECIES | mutant / metahuman 

POWERS / ABILITIES

+ scott’s mutation allows him to shoot red rays of force out of his eyes, made from the cosmic rays that his body is continually absorbing and metabolizing. he can control the trajectory of these rays to varying degrees of success.  + he is immune to the powers of his younger brother, havok + scott is an expert level pilot, like his father christopher, and an expert level hand to hand combatant. 

TRAITS

+ selfless, intelligent, resilient

- overly cautious, control issues, emotionally closed off 

THE PAST

in a very literal sense, scott summers is born before his father’s plane ever begins crashing. there is a life lived, a happy little boy eager to grow up beside his younger brother, to see the world from above, parting clouds without effort--scott cannot remember that life, that little boy, but he’s there somewhere, forever just beyond the tips of his fingers. for the man who would become the cyclops, would become the face of a struggle that had been fought for years before he was even born, the world began in fire, in pain. the world began the moment scott summers opened his eyes, in an effort to save his own life, and saw red for the first time. 

he did his best to keep alex safe after that--got them to a hospital without injuring anyone, refused to leave his younger brother’s side to get his eyes looked at, but it wasn’t enough. the younger summers would be the first and most bitter failure that scott would swallow down, would lock away. they were seperated due to the influence of a man who called himself by many names, but who scott would come to know primarily as mr. sinister--alex to a nice family who would protect him behind their white picket fence, and scott to the state home for foundlings where he could be subjected to any number of tests on sinister’s whim in an effort to unlock the full extent of his power, his potential usefulness. 

scott endured physical and psychological abuse from mr. sinister throughout his early teenage years, as the older man continued to test and experiment with his power. it wasn’t until an uncontrolled blast erupted from scott’s eyes, hitting a crane and sending its payload swinging towards a crowd of people, that scott managed an escape from the orphanage by fleeing. he was once again alone, only this time his eyes would not, and could not save him. they could only hurt, they could only continue to paint the world in shades of red. 

it was charles xavier that saved him--wrapped his hands around scott’s wrists and gently moved them from where they pressed into the sockets, brought him home and gave him the first prototype of the visor, the thing that would allow him to see, to breathe again without the searing pain in the back of his skull. it was charles xavier that gave scott summers something to continue living for, something to hit with the pain and anger that burned red inside of him. under the professor’s guidance he became the cyclops--he became so much  more than the boy who fell to the earth that day could have ever hoped to be. 

he was barely a man, still twisting his limbs in an effort to rid them of growing pains, but the professor trusted him with the team, trusted him with the dream they had come to share--if xavier was the head, scott summers, the cyclops, was the red right hand. it was as close as he had ever come to being happy, it was as close as he had ever come to being able to forget everything that had come before--he had a goal, he was finally making up for not being able to save alex, to save himself when it mattered. he didn’t need to be liked, he didn’t need to be loved, he just needed to be good at what he was doing--he just needed to control his life for once. 

but like most things scott had come to love, had come to cling to, the x-men had an expiration date. with no team to command, with magneto’s arm draped firmly around the professor’s shoulders, scott had nothing left, scott was exactly where he had started, alone with the earth around him razed and smoking. but he was older now--he was more now. he tried for six months, to live just as himself--but the cyclops did not allow himself to get knocked to the ground, the cyclops may stumble but he always got to his feet. so scott made his way to sokovia, made his way to what remained of his family, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t see it through to whatever end it takes--because while red would always be the color of blood, of fire and chaos and destruction, it was also the color of rebirth. 

THE PRESENT

scott retired, after the x-men dissolved--tried living just as scott summers instead of cyclops. he tried just teaching at the school, helping emma where he could--but he’d been a soldier ever since he was a teenager, and he knew in the back of his mind that peace, as someone once said somewhere, was never truly going to be an option. he was miserable, his eyes ached from behind his visor--he needed to be on the front lines, he needed to know that he was doing everything he could to keep the dream alive, even if charles had given up on it for his own version of peace. so he packed up, wrapped his visor carefully in familiar yellow and blue, and he headed for sokovia--for the only family and the only cause he’s ever known. 

HEADCANONS

+ scott favors his visor, but even he knows it’s not exactly a fashion statement--he has a couple of pairs of sunglasses with ruby lenses in them that he wears if he goes out in public.

+ the only person he trusts completely is alex, but even then he finds himself wanting to give his younger brother a certain amount of distance--alex didn’t ask to walk in his shadow, and alex has his own issues to work through without getting caught up in what scott deals with.

+ scott is a secret history geek--he has a couple of podcasts that he listens to religiously, and his personal library is very thorough. his favorite movie is lawrence of arabia, and his ideal day is being left alone to watch all four hours of it by himself. it comes from being on his own a lot, with only books to keep him company.

+ scott, in reality, has a hard time controlling his eye beams thanks to some brain injuries sustained after falling out of the plane as a child--because of this, he’s prone to getting really painful migraines. not that he would ever tell anyone he was suffering. 

+ scott is a very skilled pilot, but part of his reasoning for learning how to fly is that he is on some level scared of it--he’ll never forget the accident that changed his life. his stomach always drops for a half a second before he boards a plane.

PLEASE don’t hesitate to break down the door and throw your lovely characters at him <3 

[popculturebuffet]

New X-Men Xtrospective Part 3: Imperial (NXM #121-126)

To me all you happy people! And welcome back to my X-Citing look at Morrison’s Masterwork on Marvel’s Merry Mutants!  Part One is HERE, Part Two is HERE if you feel like it. 

If not... to catch you up on last time....

All Caught up? Good. Join me under the cut as our heroes head into this old woman’s hedd to see what’s wrong and fight off an alien army while horribly ill. 

Silent, Psychic Rescue in Process:

So we pick up not long after we left off: Thanks to Beast waking up from his bat induced coma, the X-Men now know Charles is trapped in Cassandra’s body and she pulled a Freaky Friday on him, with marginally less bullets. 

And thus we get this issue. This one was part of Nuff Said, an incredibly clever theme month by Marvel and one I wish they’d try and do again at some point in some form. 

The gimmick was simple but amazing: Every issue would be mostly silent, with at most some dialouge at the start and finish to bookend it. So far i’ve only read two issues of this, this one and the X-Statix one, but it is a genuinely great idea. I do think forcing it on the entire line was a bit much, but as I said I do wish they’d do this again just make it optional: have some books opt in or do some annuals with the theme. It’s just a fun break from the usual and with this issue resulted in one of the best single issues of x-men period. 

Naturally given the name, which is cleverly displayed on a sign the x-men have because of course they do, it’s exaclty that: Emma and Jean after readying themselves (Jean kisses Scott goodbye and Emma downs a bottle of jack because why not do an alchol before doing delecate mental surgery), head in. 

Inside they find horrific old lady head doors, stone ol dlady heads around a tower that shoot lasers, and said doors also bite and puke weird goop because it’s Grant Morrison. This is his chance to just go full balls out weird.. and given last time involved skin flake golemns.. and this isn’t even the weirdest he’s done. As mentioned last time he once had a supervillian run for president using a super LSD Bike that made everyone high. 

And just to prove he can reach that level of weirndess we find charles alone, naked and with an overenlarged brain.. before he transitions Jean to a field of sperm. 

Yeah... but this DOES have a point.. as it turns out it’s a meaphorical transition into his gestation as a baby.. and how he had a twin. Yeah turns out Cassandra was not lying he did try to kill her.. but as you can probably tell by the fact she’s a genocidal sociopath, she lied by omission to screw with Hank: In the womb she tried strangling Charles to death with his own umbilical cord..only for him to use baby’s first psonic blast to send her reeling and his mom tumbling down the stairs and well.. you can probably guess the rest. Yeah.. Cassandra’s entire origin story is concentrated 

And I love it. The sheer audacity is nice and everything but what makes it really work for me is the simple concept: An evil version of charles, one almost born at the same time whose every bit as evil as he is good.. granted there���s a TON of Morally Grey in Charles Xavier ESPECIALLY post decimation and even more so now with Krakoa. But he’s sitll at his heart a well meaning person, while Cassandra at her heart is a racist genocidal nightmare. She is pure evil, with enough personality to not make her boring.. and more importanlty all the power charles has but NONE of his restraint. Part of what makes Charles noble is he only uses his powers when necessary. Cassandra.. has no such restraint and will happily mentally snap necks all day. 

So with this our heroine’s leave and we end on the iconic line “Professor Xavier killed his twin sister in the womb. We Really ought to talk. 

This issue is an utter classic. It finally explains Cassandra a bit while still leaving a ton of questions, Frank Quitely is at his best here, and he and morrison are incrediby good at non verbal storyteling. The result is surreal, unsettling and awesome. Check it out. Seriously seek this one out it’s worth the trip. It’s so famous it was homaged with a spirtual sequel in the recent Giant Size X-Men one shots. It’s excellent stuff

Imperial:

So with our first issue we open with things going terrible on that flag ship Cassandra took off on with Lilandra, empress of the Shiar and Xavier’s space wife. She’s revealed herself, is ravaging the ship and mind rapes a the helmsman into crashing it, so with no other options Lilandra sends Smasher, not the one from the avengers run earlier version, to earth to send a warning to the X-Men. 

At the School things are actually going well for a second. In an intresting move the school is changing things up with no officla timetable.. which I think means there’s no rigid class schedule and you can just do them as you please or as necessary for your power. The plan’s the same, they just want to learn from each other in building mutant society and the future. It’s ideas like this that are the bedrock of the current run and were sadly never fully realized here.. but I don’t blame this run for that. Morrison had 2-3 years and it was cut short early, leading to a rather disapointing ending we’ll get to. They never had a chance to really dig in because they were kicked out by morons and then their whole grand design was undone until Hickman un-undid it in 2019. And even then some of this like the idea of mutant culture and what not hasn’t been picked up on yet. I do mean YET, as given the sheer NUMBER of x books touching on all sorts of subjects, it’s only a matter of if not when. 

As for who’s behind this it’s a combination of Jean and Charles: Jean is using charles notes and is going at full tilt. Scott is concerned though.. both about her since she went Phoenix and Logan told him about it and because these plans may alarm the humans. ON the former Jean just brushes him off which is not right.. given what happened with the phoenix force copy of jean, which granted had her personality, memories and powers and Jean later got a set of her memories so it might as well of been and only MAYBE the genocide is something Jean wouldn’t of done under the same circumstances, he’s understandably concerned. He lost her to it last time and it did weird shit to poor Rachel, who hif you don’t know is their daughter from an alternate timeline... because the Summer’s family tree is a WAKING NIGHTMARE. Thankfully I don’t have to untangle it because there’s a handy chart right here to do it for me that was recently released in X-Men Legends, a new series featuring legendary x creators telling stories in the cracks... and given we’re getitng storys by the simosons and peter motherfucking david, yeah good stuff.

And why yes there are more than one clone in this tree and several alternate timelines. , not to mention several clones and a sexy cat lady, it’s complicated is understnading it and i’m not sure what properly states it honestly. Also if your wondering about Adam there he’s the genetic son of Cyclops mom and the ma Shiar empreror who killed her for not sleeping with him through. Again it’s complicate REALLY feels like understatement. 

Point is he DOES have a right to be worried about the thing that lead to her being cocooned for a while and left their daughter in the future at the time of this... just in case you needed a reminder after that wonderful clusterfuck of a chart up above athe x-men are really fucking weird. 

So Jean brushing that off is not okay. She does however call him out on the second one and rightfully so: This isn’t some dominate the humans manifesto: this is simply changing the course of the future and how they teach their students to create a better one instead of adhering to human norms to try and appease “the republicans’, as jean puts it.. which has only gotten MORE RELEVANT, 20 years on: Attempts to appease the norms of society and things “just because that’s how it’s been” have never been a good thing. It’s why the very writer of this comic took several decades to properly identify themselves as non binary because people were too stuck int heir ways to try and see if there really were just two genders. Fighting against the grain, finding new ways to express things that have always been there... it’s what humanity needs to do and certainly what comes after us would need to do. i’ts how we get better as a race. If something’s not working we change it, quickly or slowly. And given Scott’s huge amount of emotoinal repression lately.. I can see why she’d see the former complaint as just him being a dick as opposed to the genuine concern it is. 

Short Version: Jean Grey is fucking awesome and while he’d be the last to write her for decades, no one did it better than Grant and no one has since.  Hopefully Gerry Duggan can clear that bar. 

After this fight we get a fuller verson of what happened both at the end of issue 120 and in the big reveal last issue: Turns out Hank awoke because Charles piloted his body like a truck and needed it revealed fast. Hank’s regained control of his body and facilities by now, but in a twist of irony he helpfully points out, had Cassandra not gone a needlessly cruel and sociopathic tangent and had Beak beat Beast into a coma, Charles wouldn’t of had a body. 

As for Charles in cass’ body he’s now in a tub of goo created by it. 

It acts as a shield as well as melding him with Cerebra so he can talk to jean telepathically as his thoughts are very weak.

Thanks to this and her psychic Jaunt, Jean now knows just what the hell cassandra is: She really is Charles twin sister. As for how the hell she surivied outside of the womb and how Charles never knew, she created herself a clone body using his cells and didn’t fully manifest till now. And while she has plenty of intellegence, at an emotional level she’s fully convinced, much like an infant that only she and charles are real and thus destroying him means gaining domance over her world. So in short she’s both utterly insane and now has an interstellar empire at her fingertips. 

And the news SOMEHOW get sworse: She booby trapped her body and charles only has days before he’s vegatable, having put every psychological disease possible in there, and she’s probably responsible for their colds and the u-men. So in short their pretty scrwed but at the very least Charles plans to try to flip things, use the fact their now public (a clear tactic to weaken them) to share his manefesto, his last will and testiment if you would. 

Scott meanwhile figures since their sick a healer might be a good idea and goes solo to fetch Xorn... who just sorta disappeared after the annual and didn’t return till his arc. 

We get an utterly touching scene after this: With Logan staying on his hobbit like toes in case of another attack, Jean goes to talk to hank. Hank is still throughly traumatized from the attack, fearing Cassandra is right and he’ll just keep devlovling until he ends up in a metamoprhisis type situation. I mean it’s not ALL bad hank,.. I mean going through that guarantees a musical about you. 

But Jean reassures him: It’s okay to be afraid of her, they all are.. but as she puts it...

It’s a really powerful inspiring scene... and really afirms how well Morrison writes Jean from the previous arc onward. She’s confident, powerful.. but also caring and compassionate. Here hank’s at his lowest, disparing that this might get worse.. and she reaffirms that htis evolution is an upgrade.. he may not be the same.. but that’s okay. He’s better. It really speaks to the core message of the X-Men as a whole and why they’ve stuck around all this time: It’s not just okay your diffrent.. it’s WONDERFUL. Your wonderful for being you. Whatever meataphor you read into it, it’s at it’s core a message that no matter who hunts you or trys to shame you for what you are, they are wrong and you are wonderful. And you are not alone... your people are out there.. and they will go through hell to protect you. It’s moments like this that remind me despite the bad parts, the accidnetal transphobic metaphor last time, a subplot with Hank coming up, the affair storyline and Planet X, just.. Planet X.. this run is special to me for a reason. It has heart, character and truly gets how the x-men should work, what makes them great... while making something NEW AND FRESH from it’s bones. Pushing envelopes, chanigng things for good and shaking things the hell up after far too much stagnation. It’s just pure good comicy goodness and i’m proud to finally be talking about it after having always wanted to. 

So as we end the issue Scott grabs Xorn, whose been at a budist temple all this time, and Smasher arrives to warn earth... but his warning missed his intended target. 

Well at least he got to Hellcow’s coven.. maybe she can call in Man Eating Cow and the Chick Fill A Super Cows.. thought hey might not help. Their parent company IS pretty homophobic.. I doubt their high on mutants either. 

Testament Emma and Jean talk over things how i’ts going etc, with Emma unsuprisingly annoyed with most of the students and Jean optimsitc.

But Emma soon has bigger issues to deal with: TEEN ANGST!

Yeah 4/5 of the Cuckoos are upset Esme has a boyfriend. Their concerns in part are because without her their apparently powerless.. which given one will die and another will leave and they’ll be left with three is just factually not true, and either Morrison changed his mind later, or more likely their simply exagerating like teens do. Emma points out it’s pointless to fight this...

So... their in a domestically abusive relationship rife with sexual tension? Are you sure your not htinking of Sam and Diane, Ross and Rachel, Garfiled and Odie perhaps?

Meanwhile Angel’s sulking in a tree talking about how all the kids are stupid and she dosen’t fit in. That sort of thing. Wolverine naturally has a tactful and understandable response to this:

It’s here Angel goes from understandable, a bit hard edged and obnoxious becuase of a very rough life.. and just becomes annoying.  I do get what Grant was trying to do: he was trying to play with Wolverine’s habit of taking sassy teens under his wing by giving him a more hardscrabble one with a harder life pre-xaviers.. not that Jubilee’s was easy, but I get what he was going for.. he just dosen’t succeed. Instead of a realistic version of a teen sidekick she just comes off as an obnoxious brat whose rude to everyone including her one friend Logan and her later boyfriend.  It dosen’t help that ONCE AGAIN, Morrison flew directly into unfortunate implications without meaning to, by having the only major POC character (Bishop guest stars later and there are two significant characters during the Riot at Xaviers arc but both aren’t relevant before or after), be an abused teen with gross fly based powers and a teen pregnancy subplot. Seriously this isn’t even the LAST time Morrison shoves their foot in their mouth like this in this run. While I do like this run a lot, it’s still 20 years old and it’s still going to have a bunch of bits that have aged like harvarti left on a sidewalk, and handing out unfortnuate implications like their candy is tied for the biggest with their handling of Magneto when he finally shows up in person. It’s THAT bad a take on the character that it’s up there with accidental racisim and transphobia. 

So moving on from.. that we get Jean comforting the professor before meeting the press, giving a throughly lovely speech about how Charles got his powers 30 years ago and despite seeing the worst in humanity, used his telepathy to allow him to see past it and see deep down just how scared and alone we all felt. So she takes them into a psychic conference room and we get a very interesting exchange. 

It’s an interesting parallel to how real world disinfranchised groups, how it takes time.. but soon being a POC or LBGTQ+ goes from unrightfully perscuted to celebrated. How a group starts with hates whipsers on the fringe of things but grows to be accepted, like it always SHOULD have been. Take representation of Trans people in the media. It started with Trans people being almost entirely punchlines and sources of fucking horendous “DID DEY USED TO BE A MAN.” storylines and hurtful jabs at people who had transitioned, treating them as a sideshow instead of you know as fucking human beings. But now coming out as what you always were ont he inside is celebrated. Sure the right are dicks about it but they always will be: but most media gladly celebrates when someone comes out as trans. Same with being gay, or bi or pan or polamorus or nonbinary.  Hell I admire grant for showing i’ts not even 100% perfect once you are popular: you still have to grapple both with people wanting to copot your culture and those who still don’t understand you trying to speak for you. 

She also gets the standard question calling the X-Men an army, shoots it down with the normal global peacekeeping operation stuff.. then we get this bitch. 

Who quickly realizes she’s outclassed by Emma Frost, professional that bitch. And while Jean is understandbly going to have to erase that.. I can’t blame her for snapping her.

Just to tear this shit down.: The privacy thing is not something she’s doing. All she’s doing is spcyhic teleconfrencing, you harpy. They fight greek gods and monsters to protect your sorry ass and the last one.. just makes me absolutely livid and feels so much like a real world comment i’m suprised there isn’t a fox news logo next to her bigoted head. 

Trouble follows them everywhere they go.. because their mutants. They can’t help it. A LOT of shit like the demons, aliens, and gods and what not, I do not know if they actually did fight the greek gods but i’m not going to say for sure they did not, the norse gods defintely, not sure on greek. But the point is allt his stuff HAPPENS TO THEM half the time, or is a consequence of trying to PROTECT PEOPLE. I’m so nettled by this because this is how the marvel unvierse acts all the fucking time towards ALL super powered peoples. Mutants esepcailly but they blame the heroes and what not for being chased and harassed by guys in costumes or alien invasions or all the stuff they FIGHT. Sure sometimes they caused it but it’s either because of a monsterous person with a grudge or just because their powerful and some douche took an intrest. I’m just.. so fucking tired of asshole civlians in comics. It’s realisitc I know but it’s just hard to stomach after so many have turned their back on so many for such DUMB reasons. 

Jean recovers well pointing out the genocide and how 16 million people, 16 million possible einsteinss or mozarts are just GONE, and that their trying to focus on the future. She also brings up autistic savants who can talk to atoms and while I don’t like the use of the savant thing, as it brings to mind stuff like rainman I very badly want to see this autistic kid who can talk to atoms as someone on the spectrum myself. Also I just want the crew of HIckma’ns books in general to pour over this because there are a lot of intresting powers and personalities only MENTIONED we never saw proper that could be great characters. Just saying. 

Jean cocludes her speech to the world, including Logan whose wisely getting hammered at anearbye bar.. while Hank finds out what’s going on with their sickness.. nanonscopic sentnels in the blood. 

But while the press confrence ends well with Jean having won over the press.. things go sideways as not only is it clear Esme’s boyfriend is in fact something sinister.. but Jean falls over due to the nano snetinels, and senses Scott being taken in tibet, taken down by a group of the Shiar’s imperial guard.. picutre the legion of superheroes but blindly loyal to the goverment and far more likely to get killed. And the rest are preparing to attacking including Gladiator who if you don’t know him, has all the powers of superman as long as he retains his confidence. 

And it turns out Esme’s boyfriend is an advanced Scout, the shapeshifting amoeba blob thing Stuff, a new addition by morrison and good on him. And the Imperial Guard are here but with one goal

 Superdestroyer

On the Ship we find out both wha’ts going on with Scott and Xorn, they’ve been taken and why the shiar are attempting mutant genocide: Cassandra is puppeting ALL of them, has convinced them the mutants are infected and since Lilandra is a puppet, Scott’s words fall on deaf ears. 

Meanwhile Wolverine ambushes one of the squads, kiling one named Dinosaurer via claw to the brain, while Emma has had a dome thing put over her head and isn’t transforming into diamond to counter it because...

But the Cuckoos fight back, taking out oracle before easily handling stuff since his brain is fairly simple.. and given he’s racist against solid people and unlike the others reveling in the genocide just a tad.. yeah what he deserves. So now with a living weapon the Cuckoos make peace with Angel as they need all the help they can get. 

Jean ushers the press into the panic room, not happy about it but not having anothe roption for their saftey. Hank tells her to self distruct crebra if cassandra get sclose and goes off to join the fight and let off some steam over the situation. Hank easily routes two of them, and one , Manta tries to just fly right ot jtean wince their TK proof. How does that go?

Jean gets to saftey after that, not that she needs it and hank is quickly taken down by a batch of Superguardians.. only for Wolverine to arrive in the Sknitt of time and chop them up.. oh and as one of the puts it...

Bad. Ass. I also like the addition of the flight patch, a nod to the Legion, who the Imperial Guard were based on as those kids used flight rings. 

But while Logan and Hank easily tag team these assholes...

The SHiar call in the big guns.. Gladiator.. and I wasn’t kidding abotu the superman thing. While Logan TRIES to talk him out of it, the murders only confirm Cassandra’s bullshit and Gladiator breaks into the panic room throwing hank and wolverin’e before them having utterly decimated them off panel. I mean Wolvie is a badass.. but even he has limits. I also like recontecullizing the guard as a whole here.. showing just how TERRIFYING they SHOULD be as enimies to the x-men. Yes our heroes did win.. but barely and only till Gladiator showed up. In most cases thier clearly holding back out of affection but here hteir just at errifying unstoppable force, and also apparently used to doing genocides like this. It takes what was a cheesy shout out to David Cockrums other big artistic work, and makes it horrifying and it is AWESOME. I admit to not having liked this arc as much for the longest time but this reread, the sheer teror and hopleessness as an interstellar superman easily cuts through our mighty mutants like tissue... it’s awesome. 

Thankfully one of the Guard found smasher.. and thus the truth comes out so our heroes are given a stay of execution with Gladiator clearly horrified at what he almost did and our heroes now so sick they can barely move and Hank can’t think them out of this. 

Thankfully he dosen’t has to as back in space, Cyclops tires of it and points out something Xorn, not being as experinced nor having delt with the guard ahd thought of: G-Type, the glowly guy about to execute them, is made of solar energy.. and xorn can manipulate that thanks to his star brain. He does, they take out the rest.. and prepare to go save the day.

Losers: PIcking up shortly before where we left off we see Cassandra murder Lilandra’s advisor who figured out what she was just as our heroes escape.. and as Cassandra is having Lilnadra order all of the shiar ships to immolate themselves. 

WIth Lilandra not being any use, Cass tries to psychically force her to commit sucidie but jumping off a space ledge but Xorn saves her. Cass tries another turn at mentally breaking an x-man, pointing out all scott’s recent flaws, his increased repression his faling marriage and while it gets him to stop it dosen’t quite work as well as it did on hank, likely because at his heart Hank is simply a more emotive person. Though his REAL reason for stalling is he can’t kill charles.. which he muses just as the ship blows up real good. 

Meanwhile back at Campus the kids initaiate their plan, having Angel break in and take a dna sample. She also finds beak naked in a tank and decides eh why not and brings him with her. This ends up paying off as Beak suggests the obvious to get emma free.. just force the space guy they have over in the corner to do it. They do and it works

Back in the mansion our heroes prepare for Casssandra... but Jean and Logan object to saving her body, pointing out that getting hank to repair it is exactly what she wants, and that Jean feels she can save charles without uit, with Hank being understandably doubtful given their current condition.. but Jean’s real plan is to put charles in her head and it’s already too far in actoin to stop now: she’s been saving his memories as they flaked off and if she dosen’t do this now there will be no charles left. 

Hank evacuates the civlians to teh danger room, and has an encounter with trish who tries to apologize and get him back.. only for him to rightfully regjecter her..a and then goes a step further by capping it off with:

Yeah on it’s own it’s not TERRIBLE. Still very dated to claim your gay just to spite someone, but for the time it was acceptable and compared to some of Morrison’s other gaffes in the run it’s minor at best. But it leads into a rather annoying subplot we’ll naturally get to that’s a much bigger issue, so i’ll save talking about it in full for when it comes up again. 

Jean manages to shove Chuck into her head, but is naturally leaking a bit and barely holding it or him together and may of overestimated herself just a tad.. while on the lawn Cassandra easily takes out the guards. That said the scene of Jean taking Chuck into her head is REALLY damn awesome. Jean is the arc MVP by a mile and Hank is pretty dang good competition. 

All Hell: We open the final issue of the arc with Scott and Xorn escaping the spaceship using some teleport tubes taking Arakai and Lilandra with them. 

We open with Cassadra utterly humilating gladiator while the kid team prepares to fight her despite you know, the 8 billion to 1 odds against them. 

Jean, despite hte discknes and trying to keep an old man in her brain marches out , prepared to fight, for the kids sake. For the world’s sake. But Logan’s easily taken out and with Jean barely holding it together.. the kids prepare to fight.. likely being slaughtered even if they mean well.. onlyf or help to finally arrive with Scott and Xorn glowy porting in. We get a really sweet , short moment with scott and jean...

Scott not knowing the situation tries to have Xorn heal charles first but since Cassandra’s body is dead and unoccupied that’s a no go.. he’s still usefult hough, curing Jean of her nanosentital sickness and moving on to Scott and Hank while there’s still time. 

We find out more about cassandra: She’s a murrmadi, a bodyless parasite.. eseetinally the dark first test a person faces... she just stuck around because she was one for a telepath.. the world’s STRONGEST telepath. But really other than that part the rest just feels like stuff we alreayd heard LAST TIME, mildly repaackaged and seems enitrley like filler to pad the issue out. 

So while Jean takes cerebra, both to keep it away from Cassandra’s plans of mutant genocide and for whatever she has planned, Scott, Hank and Xorn prepare to hold the line.. and as Jean mentions.. emma’s still out in the wild. 

So we get our climactic showdown.. logan, hank and xorn veruss cassandra, with Cassandra trying to do eveyrthing she can, tear them down mentally, throw out the students with our heroes fighting back best they can. It’s good stuff.  

Eventaully Cassandra gets to Jean.. but she’s already inacted her plan, putting a piece of Xavier’s mind in EVERY mutant, and giving Cassandra one ohell ofa reason you suck speech. 

It’s an incapsulation of what i said earlier and what the runs about: alone we are weak but together.. we just might make it. More on that as we go. But thanks to Cass naturally going fo rcerberba.. she accidently restores charles and is left bodyless.

Emma finishes the fight with her own brilliant gambit, presending cassandra her body.. but it’s actually stuff , reprogrammed into a sentient brain for her to inhabit and leaving her trapped, with Charles hoping t teach the now mentally reset Cassandra.  So Cassandra is beat, the virus is stopped, and our heroes have one.. but naturally for this run.. there’s one last suprise in store. 

Charles can walk again.. and going forward will be a far more active member of the team. The team is complete, Cassandra is beaten, and the future.. is bright. 

Final Thoughts:

This arc is a mixed bag.. it has really good scenes with the first and last issues being the standouts, with the former being an utter classic with an intresting gimick and the latter being a rousing climax with tons of awesome moments, with some good mometns scattered throughout.

But that’s the arc’s issue.. it has good moments and ideas.. but they don’t quite work togehter. The idea of teh Shiar Imperial Guard nearly doing a genocide is good, but the Shiar are such flat characters.. it’s really hard to care. They just don’t have enough connection to the x-men to really have the betryal sting but aren’t callous enough for genocide protocols to maeks sense. It’s a good idea, I still support it being terrifying.. but not enough is done with it and it feels liek Grant is more concerned with throwing weirdos at the x-men than actually saying something. 

The biggest issue however is the art. While inconsitant art is an issue as they’d rotate artists.. but in previous arcs it was usually pretty evenly split but here it’s sloppy: Quitely does the first issue, van Sciver the second.. and the worst of the three Igor Kordey does most of the art. I gave him the beinfit of the doubt last time.. but this time not so much. His art is muddy and tries to be stylized but comes off confusing,ugly and not great. He’s probably a lovely guy but given he’s up against two legendary artists, his lack of style comapred to both shows badly.  And given the arc is alreayd a bit overly complicated, it makes things WORSE by giving us muddled art in a very complex storyline. The flip flopping art makes a fairly intricate story very hard to follow. It’s easily why this arc didn’t grab me in the past and even seeing some better moments, it’s not the series best. It’s not the worst either, Planet X easily takes that ground despite having far better art. It’s an incredibly muddled incredibly long feeling arc and really needed to be compressed by one or two issues but instead is just hard to get through. It’s owrth it for the rest of the runa nd the good moments within but all in all easily one of the weakest points in the series. 

Next Month on New X-Men:The X-Men soak in the new world order, and we meet fantomex, dust and the last surivivors of genosha. 

Next on this blog:Green Eggs and Ham is back!

If you enjoyed this review PLEASE join my patreon. The end of hte month is coming and I need eveyr cent I can get so join at patreon.com/popculturebuffet and i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

[xmarksthescott]

Hey! Can you help me with this... What would u recommend reading to truly understand Scott’s characterization and backstory?

Scott’s backstory is touched on quite a bit via multiple flashbacks over the years and all but you’ll get the gist with:

Classic X-Men #15 

as for scott’s characterization...it’s a bit of “see the journey to who scott summers is now”

X-Men First Class is great young scott content. especially if you dont have the patience/desire to sit through 60s comics lol. but its a great window into how he is as a kid.

the next “required” reading i’d say is the Dark Phoenix Saga because it has such a profound impact on his life.

X-Factor 1986 is good content to see Scott/Jean and Scott/Maddie. I wouldn’t say the whole thing is necessary just the Scott/Jean/Maddie bits and the Inferno arc because of Cable. ignore the weird backstory rewrite with his powers Sinister implies might be canon --scott’s classic x-men origin is still canon lol.

Apocalypse: The Twelve arc is Scott’s first death which goes directly into The Search for Cyclops. If all you know is “scott died because of Apocalypse” and proceed to read the Search for Cyclops that’s honestly fine. but the Search is basically the blueprint for Scott in the early 2000s because he feels out of touch with himself/lost. This is the basis for why his marriage with Jean ends and he turns to Emma for support.

Now we’re in my personal favorite era but Astonishing X-Men (2003) is leader scott running the school with Emma. It’s really good material for who scott is as a character. just ignore the weird backstory rewrite they imply might be canon because it isn’t. the classic x-men origin is canon.

then you have M-Day which happens, so knowing that happens leads into Scott relocating mutants to Utopia. Matt Fraction’s Uncanny X-Men run is excellent Scott material.

I’d say thats the gist of “great scott writing” because after that you enter the era of “Marvel hates the X-Men because they dont have the movie rights” and they try to character assassinate a bunch of them (including Scott). 

Matt Rosenberg actually writes a very decent Scott in Uncanny X-Men (2019) but the run has problems as a whole and i wouldn’t consider it essential reading for him. It’s just the last time he was even remotely in character/the first time he was in character since like 2010 lol.

How Scott --modern scott-- should be written is in line with Fraction scott. He has his own identity outside of Xavier and became his own man. He is a true leader who takes charge and does what’s best for his people. it’s the peak of his evolution and they’ve tragically regressed him for this current terrible run.

[stipethom]

I wrote some Cablepool fics some months ago but proofreading is such a bitch, so they were incomplete for now. I’m just gonna post some parts of it and hopefully there are more Cablepool people who loves mpreg as I do.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In summary, Mpreg theme uses pregnancy to describe how women and gender/sex minorities are impregnated with the unspeakable powers of patriarchy. Pregnancy is not just a biological phenomenon; it symbolizes embodied experiences, where women’s body is changed and exploited as it bear the burden of child labor. And by forcing such changes upon male body, it declares that any sex and gender that is seen less than a “man” can thus be a “woman”, and that whoever they are their struggles and pains are similar to that of women’s in this world.

In mpreg fics, there’ll be tears, fight, divorce, and broken hearts. It’s fan-favorite melodrama. It’s barnyard humor. It’s self-service to the writer’s own kink.

It is all of these. Or, it’s none of these.

-

They put all kinds of wires to link Wade with medical equipments. X-rays him, scans him, takes some blood from him. They declares that what’s inside Wade is not a parasite. Not another tumor nor a clog. It is, as the tag suggests, a fetus.

Some other X-students gathers as soon as the word is out: the Deadly mouthy ‘pool’s pregnant. The next session, Wade is unhappy with the amount of audience in the supposed waiting room, looking expectedly at him. From hindsight, it’s better they were there at the time, to spare Wade the horrors of explanation.

Unplanned male pregnancy should have been a comic relief since it’s Deadpool. But when the results indicate that it belongs to a certain Nathan Summers, who recently died, it is no longer a joke.

Cyclops, as his role in any other Cablepool fics, has to be the last one to know it. He learns of the identity of his future grandchild and immediately decides to rushe back to the mansion to confront whatever nightmare awaits him. He briefly talks to Hank, in order to prepare himself before talking to Wade. Eventually, a consultation team that comprises of Cyclops and Beast visits Wade’s at his apartment, who just comes back with discounted pregnancy tests from CVS.

“We must talk about your condition, Wade.” Scott says solemnly.

“Sorry, Grandpaclops, will remember to use protection next time. Guess I should never underestimate dicks from the future.”

Scott clenches his teeth. His expression is hidden under his ruby optics, but Wade can see the tiny creases around his mouth, and he gets the feeling that Scott is anxious. Ans so, so very tired. Hank clears his throat and starts talking about his discoveries. Half of his talk is explaining his daring theory of why life form can be conceived inside a male’s body, which Wade doesn’t listen to. The other half is some warmings on what a pregnant man should not do. Given Wade’s profession and personality, Hank makes 100% sure that Wade listens to him. Scott seems to be holding breath as the other mutant talks with a professional calmness.

The talk ends with “We still don’t know exactly how it happened, but It’s going to be a big responsibility—your responsibility.”

Scott tries again. He keeps his voice strategically even, a little raspy than usual, as if he practiced this conversation in front of a mirror too many times.

“It’s yours, as much as it’s Nathan’s. It’s up to you to ... keep it.”

“Or you can move into the X-mansion—”Hank stops promptly when Wade starts laughing.

“So your guys are what, showing parental support for the guy your son never actually married, and you never even doubt it’s a parasite?”

“We ruled out that possibility.” Hank says, “you know, you don’t have to do this.” He pauses briefly, making sure every sentence is carefully worded. “After what happened, you—in fact, nobody should do this alone. It’s unfair that you have to deal with it on your own.”

Great, now they think of Wade as some mourning ex-lover of Nate’s. He has to find something witty to say, or he’ll just embarrasses himself in front of these two good-intentioned, somewhat guilty-looking X-men. There’s a sorry somewhere that he can reads directly from the thin air, sorry we are so sorry for pushing you away, we are sorry we didn’t accept you—and ignored your feelings— now we are here to make it up for you. No, this ain’t right. They don’t know about him and Nate. All they see is this, which makes them assume all kinds of things about them, about Wade, that Wade doesn’t even want to think about.

He decides to take advantage of their out-of-no-where-guilt because it is better than pity, “OK, wait, is this the part where we hug and cry on each other’s shoulders? I have a feeling there’s always a but. Besides, Hank, you just violated the confidentiality agreement without my consent!”

“I’m truly sorry, it’s an unprecedented situation.” Hank tries not to look shameful. “And, no, no buts. All we’re offering is a place to rest before the, that is, if you want to keep it, It’s very important when it comes to—“

“Nathan’s spawn.” Wade helps him finish the sentence. “That’s why you X-men fucking care. “

Cyclops doesn’t say a word, but he thinks so loud, he is practically radiating sadness and anger, and worst of all, the anger is not even directed at Wade.

Wade snaps.

“Tell you what, I’m gonna fucking keep this little shit till it’s got eyes and fingers and then I’ll fucking abort it! I’ll put it in a filthy jar and sell it to Mister Sinister, and it will be none of your fucking business!”

—

Of course Wade didn’t abort it. And he did move into the X-mansion.

Everyone seems worried. After all, X-men are worried all the time—but they also look slightly relieved. If Wade ignores the eyes they are giving him, the whispers they exchange when they think he is not looking, he almost feels nothing has changed at all.

The big question, after the several years after Nate died, still hangs in the air. Every time someone looks at Wade, there’s a why in their eyes. A mutant like Nate, who is supposed to be a man of proper taste and good integrity, the reasons that he chose to be with Wade is unthinkable.

Any sane human would tell Nate what he did is ridiculous. Like the voice in the back of Wade’s mind. It tells Wade all the time that he cannot possibly believe that him and Nate could last any longer—or long enough to have any consequences.

Being pregnant is not the consequences. It’s the last one of the bad decisions he’s made after all the other ones. He knows the voice is right, and his life sucks mostly because he doesn’t listen to it. This time, he feels a certain remorse satisfaction in disobeying the remaining sense of reason in his head.

Keeping the baby to prove a point is as desperate as it’s poorly intended.

He knows how fucked-up this is.

—

In hindsight, it’s fucking creepy that Wade, Copycat, and Domino all slept with Nate.

Here she is, gonna pop open that can of worms.

Domino has to come to him at his most inconvenience. She knocks three times on the door, each time more curt and determined. She will probably shoot a hole in the wall to make a new door if he doesn’t let her in.

Wade opens the door, grimaces at the way she look at him and meet his eyes. He is a good few inches taller than Dom, but he never feels big in front of her.

She brings in an air of feline elegance and the fresh scent of hair shampoo. It’s endearing for her to allow people to see her like this, yet not entirely unguarded. He catches the innuendo of a more secret, private conversation.

Her eyes touch him lightly, hair flares with the effortless chic style many would be jealous of. There are a hundred things Wade lacks that she owns.

The night is getting dark and the wind is getting wild, he probably should close the window before the storm.

Dom is less of a coward than him, who could barely come up to people and tell them the truth. That he got himself into this long before he understood the true meaning of having someone and then losing them.

She is pretty and deadly as always, not jadded by battles and gunfire. She looks at him with a sadness of someone who think they have the pieces of a puzzle that Wade misses. Or at least they think they know.

“Why do you keep him, the baby—.” She leans against the wall, arms crossed. “He’s not going to be Nate. Nate is not here anymore.“

“Wow, wow, lady, now you’re just projecting too hard.”

“Wade, look. It took me a hell lot of drinking to accept that he’s really gone this time.” She keeps her voice steady and manages to be soft at the same time. “I hear you talk to him like, I don’t know. I don’t think I’m not projecting.”

“Just so you know, I talk to my tummy all the time. Totally healthy habit. Been like this since I’m in my mom’s womb.”

“You’ve been talking to him and you sounded like—never mind.” Now she is just being weird. Wade feels offended that someone dare to outweird him without his royal permission. “The baby—you are drowning him with things he’s not part of.”

“Drowning would be a damn boring way to die.” He comments. “In fact, I’m whispering murder thoughts to him so he can grow up into a killing machine. A cyborg one. Just like his dad.”

“Wade, I’m not trying to take anything from you.”

“Oh sure, you’re here to remind me to invite you for the baby shower, which I am seriously going to reconsider with the guest list.”

A strip of dark hair falls on her cheek as she hesitates.

“You know why I’m here.”

Honestly, Wade’s fed up with this. He didn’t respond, instead, he peels off his mask, challenges her to look directly into his eyes.

She looks flustered, but her thin shoulders are as still as granite. This close, Wade can see how her breast heaves under her loosely-fit shirt. It fucking hurts when he rips through her facade and finds something a lot like the reflection of his own pains. They both had Nate in the past, and now that Nate is the past, they are weirdly equal. They had different Nates, but Wade wants all the Nates.

The voice in his head is so loud that he can barely think his own thoughts. Is that why he came to her after Wade left Providence, for her is smart enough to ask for only what she deserves?

Does she come here to pity Wade, or is she seeking compassion from Wade? He feels an old, dull bitterness creeping up his spine.

Domino backs off a little, “I never liked you.” She says. They both know it, so it’s not really a confess. Something is blown in to the window, making a cracking sound. Both of them shiver. “I couldn’t believe it was you, of all people. “Oh, so she did care. She was not as nonchalant as she pretends to be. “But now you are-you are not just yourself-I don’t want to fight you anymore.”

It stings.

“Does that mean I can finally make your face my new bathroom tiles? Because I love baby poo on black and white.” He quirks a smile. “Oh, And by the way, I reject your nanny application. Bring your broom next time.”

“You hate me for a dead man.” She says dryly, “what does that make you...”

Her voice hitches.

“What does that make us. If we are still loyal to him.”

The wind is loud, and others must be awakened by the noises by now. If wind could talk, it must be full of broken sentences, murmuring and fleeing from the untrimmed trees, circulating in the flying dirt and the waving foliage. Some sleepless mutant girls on the second floor mutters in an annoyed voice.

Dom reaches out to him. Her arms are pale but firm. They are suddenly within the distance of a kiss. He feels his cracked lips nearly brushes hers like a breath.

She jumps back, hitting the nearest surface to her face. The window panes creak from the shockwave, sending the whole room whirls. For a moment they were close enough to dig out each other’s heart. The framed painting falls to the ground in broken pieces behind them. It is relatively intact until Neena steps on it.

“A hard loser, aren’t you.” Wade breathes.

Neena just smiles.

“It’s just you who can’t let go.”

She stubbles on the cracked frame before storming into the bathroom. Wade hears the hot water pours out of the faucet and makes maps of mist on the hanging mirror. Her reflection from the mirror shifts, and from Wade’s angle, he can see her tears.

A small sob sound leaks out of her beautiful mouth. Wade feels envious yet again. He doesn’t understand why it changes how Dom sees him, as if sharing pain with him would be some comfort for both of them. But it doesn’t, he wants to scream, and it shouldn’t. He hears other mutant kids are giggling through the wind, and he is so, so envious of them.

Before he closes his eyes, he feels a light patting on his shoulders, and then all the light runs out with the slapping of the door.

He knows this is fucked-up.

“Nate,“ he murmurs, “If you don’t plan yo come back, I don’t think I can survive this—your too-young-too-be-dad dad, your ex-girlfriend, and your very possessive and angry daughter who refuses to meet me yet—I now understand why you want to elope with me into the future. I’ll forgive you for never asking me to actually run with you, but I know you always wanted to.“

“It’s fucking worse when people try to care. They don’t know you. They don’t know how fucked up you are. All they want is to keep a memoir, and I’m their freaking memoir. What did we have, sweetheart, did we ever agree on anything, huh? Did you even think about what it would be like for us to be together long enough to have consequences?”

“You see, Nate, I’m the one living with the consequences now. Except that you’re not here.”

[fiercestpurpose]

hi u talked about how jean often gets overlooked as a mother, would u be willing to talk more about it? its really curious to me how scott is often associated with the role of 'father' and his relationships with nathan and rachel, how he 'failed them etc, gets talked about to death but people dont talk about jeans as much. anyways would love to hear what u have to say!

Hi! I really have three main categories of thoughts about this: Jean’s relationship with Rachel, Jean’s relationship with Cable, and Jean’s relationship with the idea of family/her own motherhood.

Jean’s relationship with Rachel is… complicated. First of all, Jean is incredibly important in Rachel’s life, but it’s not always our (616) Jean. Rachel is obviously the biological daughter of another woman, 811 Jean, and that woman raised her and was her mother until she died when Rachel was about 8 (well before the rest of Rachel’s X-Men did). Losing a parent that young is frequently very traumatic and defining, and it certainly was for Rachel, so she develops this relationship that is not so much with Jean as it is with Jean’s death. She comes to the 616 and she learns that Jean is already dead, and she vows to reclaim the name Phoenix and honour her mother’s memory (even though 616 Jean is not really her mother). And then, at least twice during the Cross-Time Caper, Rachel has to watch different universe’s versions of Jean die, trying and failing to save her. So Rachel has this whole relationship with Jean as a concept, with Jean dying and leaving her, before she and 616 Jean ever develop a real relationship with each other.

And sometimes, people (fans and writers both) use Rachel’s preexisting relationship with Jean As A Conceptual Mother as evidence that 616 Jean doesn’t really count as Rachel’s mother. However, 616 Jean and Rachel do have a relationship. It starts with Jean rejecting Rachel, denouncing her because she doesn’t accept the future that Rachel represents and doesn’t want to consider her as her daughter. She later apologizes for this, saying that she shouldn’t have pushed her problems onto Rachel because they weren’t Rachel’s problems to deal with. And we see them hug and make up and it’s clear that they consider each other family.

That relationship, the daughter viewing her mother as a concept more than a person, the mother pushing her problems onto the daughter and trying not to accept the future that she thinks the daughter represents, reads to me as a very believable mother-daughter relationship. The circumstances are a little strange, but the emotions are familiar. Many children have a hard time adjusting to seeing their parents as their own people. Many parents have a hard time recognizing their grown children as being their own people and also their children. It’s a very complex relationship that’s certainly worth exploring, and referencing it only when they want to make a joke of it (as X-Men Gold and All-New X-Men both did) is a sign of writers who are not really invested in the emotional lives of those characters.

Onto Cable! In some ways, Jean’s relationship with him is a lot simpler because he is actually and inarguably her child. To be clear, she’s not his biological mother, and we’re going to put her blood relationship to his biological mother aside because it’s not actually that important. Jean is his mother because she raised him. In X-Factor vol 1, she becomes one of his primary caregivers once his mother is out of the picture, largely because she is dating his father at the time. (I’m not going to get into the whole Sinister-creating-Maddy-to-breed-with-Scott thing or the Maddy-living-in-Jean’s-head thing. It’s messy and it complicates things, but it doesn’t change the basic facts of Jean’s situation.) Jean in X-Factor is a co-parent with a day job, a woman who’s responsible for feeding the baby and changing his diapers and helping teach him how to walk and talk and keeping him safe from harm (that time she takes him into a fight excluded, of course). The first manifestation of baby Christopher’s psychic powers is that he and Jean share a special telepathic bond. It’s hard to tell how long this goes on for (comic timelines are, as always, vague and difficult to pin down), but it’s at least several months.

After Simonson’s run on X-Factor, baby Christopher is removed from the picture by being sent off to the far-future — only to be raised by Slym and Redd, who are, of course, Scott and Jean. As a Scott fan, a Jean fan, and a Scott/Jean fan, I’m always surprised and frustrated by how little The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix gets referenced. This is years of their lives that they spend raising their son. Specifically, twelve years, which is quite a long time, and means that Cable is probably 13 by the time Slym and Redd have to leave. Redd is the mother that Cable remembers when he grows up. She’s the one who rocks him to sleep, who negotiates with his father about how to properly raise their son, who does everything in her power to protect him while continuing to participate in a secret rebel organization. And the telepathic connection he had to her resurfaces, so that they are able to fight together on the astral plane.

(If you ever want to cry about Scott/Jean or Cable’s childhood or the Summers family in general, I highly recommend The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. I will forgive Lobdell any number of crimes because he gave us such an excellent miniseries.)

But she isn’t just there during his childhood. Jean has a relationship with her adult son as well. They work together as X-Men many times, before and after she realizes that he is her son. Of course, there are those incredibly cute panels you may have seen of Scott and Jean and Cable all getting together to celebrate Christmas. And after the defeat of Apocalypse, when Scott is believed to be dead, Jean and Cable become especially close. It is Jean that Cable confides in, sharing with her his feelings, his loss of purpose now that his war is over, how hard it is for him to be vulnerable again. And when Jean thinks Scott is still alive but no one else believes her, Cable is the one who comes with her and helps her bring him back. Unfortunately, post-Search for Cyclops, Morrison comes in, and Morrison has no interest in love or families and does have an interest in killing Jean off to further his ship.

Prime Cable is dead now, of course, so I cannot hope that writers will explore that relationship any further. (EDIT: Oh, yeah, he maybe sort of came back again in a comic last month. Clearly that shocking turn of events made a big impression on me.) I did enjoy getting to see Jean and Hope bond after his death over the love they shared for him, and I can wish that the writers will carry that relationship forward. As for Bable (baby Cable), he’s an angry teenager who experienced the events of The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #4 about three or four years ago. He’s angry, he’s upset, he’s lashing out by killing his future self. There could be something really interesting there, in Jean’s relationship with Bable, if they chose to remember that he’s still the kid she raised. Her place as the mother of a rebellious teenager is complicated because he’s both the boy who brought her husband back to life and the boy who killed the adult son that she loved. If writers looked past the soap opera of it all to actually acknowledge the emotions involved, they’d see there was an interesting story there, one that is not just about the Scott/Cable relationship but necessarily involves Jean as well.

I’m sure there are things to be said about Stryfe and Nate Grey, but I honestly do not know or care enough about alternate versions of Cable to really have a coherent picture of Jean’s relationship with them, so I’m gonna skip that.

Next, I want to talk about Jean’s relationship with the concept of family. I would like to mention (as I always do), that Jean’s entire family — her parents, her siblings, and her siblings’ children — were murdered by aliens. How she feels about this is a mystery, as the comics have not addressed it at all, but she might feel guilty, because though it’s not her fault, they were killed because of her. She might also feel guilty because while family in the abstract is very important to her, her relationship with them was strained and she wasn’t as close to them as she’d like to be. She might also feel angry as hell that somebody decided to murder her family despite them doing absolutely nothing to provoke it. Any of those emotional responses would influence how she relates to her children and her granddaughter. Maybe she becomes a little more attached and attentive because she has no other family left. Maybe she distances herself from them out of grief. Maybe she rounds up her incredibly angry son and takes him into the stars to attack aliens so they can be angry together. I think any of those, done properly, could be interesting and in-character for her, and I just want some writer to acknowledge Jean as a character with her own history and her own relationships that shape her actions.

Finally, Jean’s relationship with the concept of her own motherhood. Jean is someone who wanted and expected to be a mother. I usually tend to read Jean as coming from a more traditional and conservative family, but I don’t think that’s an adequate explanation. I think Jean genuinely wants children. In X-Factor, she says, “I always thought we’d have a girl,” when talking to Scott, showing that she had thought about children being part of their future. When she talks to Rachel about her upcoming marriage to Scott, she mentions that she thinks it likely that another Rachel will be born. She wants kids, she’s seen them as part of her future for a long time, and then she got them! She got to be a mother, to Nathan Christopher and to Rachel, as explained above. I think a woman who wanted to be a mother and now is a mother should be allowed to have real relationships with her children. This isn’t like Emma, whose distance from the Cuckoos can be read as her viewing herself more as their teacher than their mother, since Emma always understands herself as a teacher. When Jean holds a baby in X-Men Red and winks at the mother and tells her that she’s implanted a psychic suggestion he not cry so much, that’s because Jean has been responsible for a baby before. Being a mother is part of who Jean is, just like it’s part of who Jubilee is or who Sue is, and I wish that writers and fans understood that.