univemma

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Peoples constant misunderstanding of Antonia Dreykov will forever piss me off

"She didn't speak" Yes cause her father took away her agency

"She doesn't have a personality" Yes because her father took away her autonomy

"She was boring" because her humanity was literally stipped away by the person who was meant to love her most.

THAT IS THE POINT

If Dreykov is willing to reduce his own daughter to a lifeless fighting machine what is he willing to do to everyone else? She is taskmaster to show how terrible a person he is.

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Antonia Dreykov after spending years under her father's control and literally being used as his personal guard dog/living weapon, finally being free of him and the red room and all it did to her and other women and girls.

Antonia Dreykov having no idea who she is without it all and without what he turned her into, so she relies on what she does have. Her skills. Her training. Her ability. She becomes even more deadly, with a precision that is borderline inhuman. Her mimicry so advanced none of her moves are her own anymore. She is a collage of everyone she has ever met.

She spends all her time being Taskmaster so she doesn't have to put in the effort to figure out who she can be beyond that. She doesn't have to face the fact that she doesn't even know if she would be able to Let herself figure that out, or if her father is so stuck in her brain that she can't shake him out to make room for Antonia.

Until she's in a vault, with three other people like her, and...some guy called Bob?

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Thunderbolts spoilers

The way the MCU took the Black Widow movie criticism and just Totally gave up on Taskmaster ??? HELLO ??

like yeah i get she wasnt a great adaptation of Taskmaster but she Could've been better if they put in the work instead of fucking JUMPING SHIP LMAOO. Like, also, Thunderbolts???The whole movie's theme and message and mental health stuff and you DO THAT ?? to the girl who was mind controlled for years, mistreated by HER FATHER DREYKOV??? and who, IMMEDIATELY after being released from the mind control shit, asked nat 'is he gone'?? THAT CHARACTER??? Girl could've HEALED

i know she wasnt a great adaptation of task master but they couldve put the work in and its SUCH A WASTE

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The ending of Thunderbolts* - welcome back 2012 Avengers towers fics.

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Thunderbolts sequel: Bob gets put on mood stabilisers

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when you FINALLY get into x-men comics and get SUPER into the O5, but you also adore the movie X-Men First Class, so because you pretty much pack bonded to movie alex and sean, you create an au where the two are combined (also featuring an OC because im nothing if not self-indulgent).

I love being cringe

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if they had made an xmen movie in the mid-80s, im conviced cary elwes would have ABSOLUTELY BODIED Warren. like maybe im delusional but i feel that in my bones

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gay as hell to be a mutant named archangel. what are you arching. your back?

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hello! I've been reading your Alex Summers fics and they're all so good. do you have comic recs for him? I have a list of (most of) his appearances but I'd like to know your recommendations (and anything you think I shouldn't read lol)

Hi!!! First of all, thank you! (And the fics in question, for anyone curious)

Second of all, yes, I have recs. I have strong opinions on recs. Short answer: read Claremont run and Hellions, do not read Uncanny Avengers

Long answer:

Alex first appears in X-Men (1963) #54-59

Alex is central to two arcs here—first him getting his powers, and then a reintroduction of the Sentinels and Lorna

I always love the way this starts with Scott being like “I am so proud of my baby brother he’s the most awesomest” and Jean being like “Scott literally only told us he had a brother when he invited us to his graduation. Weirdo”

I’m a big believer in going through Alex’s appearances in order, and I do think there’s stuff worth seeing about how he gets his powers, but I’d be remiss to skip a CW for weird racism about Egypt in this first arc

He keeps showing up, if a little less centrally, for #61, 62, 65, and 66.

Incredible Hulk #150 comes after the cancellation of X-Men, and it’s an important one!

Lorna tracks down Alex out in the desert. This issue sees him get some control over his powers for the first time, and establishes the two of them romantically

Of course, it’ll be revealed that they immediately got kidnapped in Captain America #172-175. Alex only appears in the last two issues, and he’s totally unconscious for both—you can skip this arc entirely

Next up is Giant-Size X-Men #1 and X-Men #94, and several more minor appearances

Claremont didn’t figure out what he wanted to do with Alex and Lorna for a good while, so he just let them go to school and be happy together for a good while. Maybe get kidnapped by some bad guys to let them touch the plot

(They’re with Eric the Red in #97, 104-105. 119, 122, 125-129 have them hanging about on Muir Island in the aftermath. Also in the mix here in Marvel Team-Up #69-70, but that’s another Living Monolith of racism problems story, and entirely skippable)

(Uncanny #145 and 146 have the reserve X-Men saving the main team—it’s cute! #158 and 159 see Scott, who went on an adventure with Corsair (and realized that was his dad) in 154-157, making a family reunion happen. While much more interested in Scott, obviously, there is still some Alex Material TM)

(163 only features a momentary Alex, and 168 only has him on the last page—as Scott stares, stunned, at Madelyne Pryor, who could be Jean’s doppelgänger. He’s clearly not seeing the resemblance, which I find fascinating in terms of Alex-Maddy dynamics, if clearly unintentional. 172 has a brief convo between him and Scott, 173 has his face pop up at Wolverine’s wedding, and 175 has him playing best man at Scott’s. In 177, Corsair takes off, and Alex is… present, but not speaking, as Scott says goodbye for both of them)

Joining up for Alex starts in Uncanny #218, with a car accident!

From there he’s pretty consistent in the main title, but I’ll try to make a highlight reel

219 is a must-read—Claremont is really laying the groundwork for who he thinks Alex is here, and it’s when he actually joins (or rather, is forced to join) the X-Men

X-Men Annual #11 has a demon playing the “fondest desire” game—again, right into my guy’s psyche

221-223: Alex has his first encounter with Malice-Lorna and learns about Scott’s abandonment of Maddy, setting up the quadrangle that’ll define the shape of his relationships at least until Inferno, if not into the present day

Fall of the Mutants is 225-227 (or: everyone dies)—I’d especially recommend 226 for Alex. It has him yelling at the press and my beloved “You’ve got no brains, but the heart of a grizzly” in it

232-234: the second brood saga. A real heartbreaker, as Alex struggles with killing brood-infested humans in culmination of his constant fears about his powers’ destructive nature

Annual 12–while there’s a bit of annoying High Evolutionary stuff in here, Alex is really Saying Some Words and showing off his self-hatred, while also looking cute in a parka!

This is followed by the first Genosha arc (aka, Madelyne Pryor experiences the horrors of apartheid and, understandably, snaps). Alex is mostly in the background except in 238

239 is a real alexmaddy issue as well, and that’s followed by Inferno kicking off full blast—Alex doesn’t appear in every issue, but I’m just gonna say read the whole event because uh. It’s good? At the least the Uncanny/X-Factor issues are necessary to follow the plot where we get Goblin Prince Alex saying “I support women’s rights AND wrongs” with his whole chest and what was supposed to be the resolution of his Scott complex, but the stuff happening with the kids is really solid too

245–“Men!” Depressed Alex is forced to deal with… Boys’ Night. We’re dealing with the aftermath of Inferno here, featuring stubble and grumpiness and… alien invasions?

(Skip Marvel Comics Presents #24-31 (if you can find it). Another Living Monolith arc, and not one with any substance. Read Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown—Alex and Logan go on a bender in Mexico, Alex looks like James Dean, a redheaded woman with nefarious intent appears. It’s weird but it’s fun)

Alex’s psyche remains at an uncomfortable simmer in 246-7, before seemingly killing Storm in 248 has him hitting his limit in 249-251, an adventure in the Savage Land followed by Psylocke splitting the team up via the Siege Perilous (a judgment gem that gives you a new and fitting life, in these comics, not a dangerous chair)

I know, I said the highlights and then I’ve listed almost every issue. But things get a lot thinner for a long while after this

Alex makes his post-gem return in X-Tinction Agenda, as a Genoshan Magistrate

This is some pretty rough early 90s material—I’d skip to just X-Factor #60, Uncanny #271, X-Factor #61, Uncanny #272, and X-Factor #62 if you’re just reading for Alex. The arc of “I was brainwashed until Scott hit me hard enough” works fine

Alex then becomes a main in X-Factor, starting from #71

For some reason, Alex is now a leader (Lorna swiftly becomes really in charge) (like it’s… nepotism? I think?)

He’ll hang on with this team until book’s end. Again, there’s some good stuff in here, including an attempt to move him out of reluctant heroism, but eventually it gets pretty bad, the nineties at Marvel being what they were

I’d go until you stop enjoying yourself and then hit up X-Factor #-1 (which comes between 135 and 136 during a ‘he’s really evil, it’s not brainwashing (it turns out to be undercover)’ arc) before heading to the last few issues, where Alex comes back, gets a firm ‘no’ from Lorna about restarting their relationship, and then blows up

-1 gives us our only Alex-backstory issue, explaining that his adoptive parents—who’d he’d referenced previously just as ‘good people’—were actually grieving their dead biological son and forcing him to act like him. Also, his powers did come in at thirteen and kill a guy, and Mister Sinister repressed both the memory and the powers. It’s so fitting and so fucked up

This leads us to Mutant X, Alex’s adventures on Earth-1298. This whole book is weird, wild, and Alex-centered. I would highly recommend

Alex wakes up in a world where everything is the same—except it isn’t. He was a member of the O5 (and kind of a douche) and married Madelyne Pryor, Marvel Woman, and had a son, Scottie. Beast’s an amphibian, Ororo’s a vampire, etc

Eventually Alex gets to finally be the hero instead of the failed white knight, sacrificing himself for his wife and son. This leaves him out of publication for the next several years

X-Men: the Hidden Years also happens here—Alex appears intermittently, but I don’t think Byrne really gets him, and there’s not much substance to his appearances. It’s not a must-read, but it’s not a must-skip either

And then comes Austen Uncanny

I’m a Chuck Austen defender, tbh, because once you filter everyone through a specific lens of dramatic and comedic they’re… pretty okay. But this stuff is still fucking nuts

Nurse Annie Ghazikhanian realizes her comatose John Doe is actually Havok, and helps get him home and woken up. Her son, Carter, is a powerful mutant who’s been trying to help his single mom be happy, leaving her and Alex with a weird history of shared dreams and telepathic dating. Lorna, fresh off the Genoshan genocide of New X-Men, turns up and fixes on Alex as her one point of stability, leaving him in a bit of a Spot

#411, 412, 418-421, and 425-426 are Havok-heavy issues

We transition to Milligan after that, and he keeps some of the Austen-brand madness going in adjectiveless X-Men, but we don’t really get another Alex moment until the Decimation, iirc.

X-Men (1991/2004 depending on who’s counting) #177-187: Lorna loses her powers, and Alex brings back the “where you go, I go” she’d once thrown at him, and then it turns into an arc about Apocalypse. I’d really recommend only 177-180 and 187

[sighs heavily] this is followed by Deadly Genesis. I don’t care for that comic, and I don’t think Alex’s appearances in it are worth much but it leads into…

Space!

Starjammer!Alex is an odd era, and truthfully there’s not much being done with him during it, but it’s not… bad? It really feels like they just needed something to be happening and so this happened to him and Lorna and Rachel

Uncanny #475-486, X-Men: Kingbreaker, War of Kings, etc., all go here

Alex (and co) return to Earth in the tail end of X-Men: Legacy and then he and Lorna stumble over into X-Factor just before AvX—not a lot happening here, again. Not bad, but really just cleaning stuff up and getting it in place before…

Please, by all things, don’t read Uncanny Avengers (2012)

I think it was the Cerebro podcast host who said this book feels like being gaslit. He wasn’t wrong

Remender writes a book about having an integrated team of superheroes and refuses to acknowledge mutants are in any way parallel to real-life marginalized people at all. He has Alex give the famous ‘M-word’ speech in #4, which was reprinted to be argued against as assimilationist bullshit in All-New X-Men (2013) #13, and has haunted him ever since

And here’s the thing: Alex is an idiot with awful politics. This is in-character, if at a real low point in his grasp of things. The problem is Remender thinks he’s right, and he’s painting Alex as the next great mutant leader

I could not finish this run. It hurts

Anyway, Alex ‘leads’ these guys through Axis, there’s a bit where he and Wasp hook up in the future and now have a kid who’s lost in the time stream, and then in Axis he finally decides he’s had enough of being manipulated by and used as a token mutant by Cap and quits

Axis was, of course, the big ‘morality swap’ event. Alex remains evil afterwards for some time, which isn’t really used to any great effect

He gets put back in control in X-Men: Blue #28, where he makes some remarks about other Alex still being in there and such, and also gets the big ol’ facial scar Remender gave him erased because facial differences are obviously only for villains (/sarcasm)

Then Matthew Rosenberg picks up Alex

First for Astonishing X-Men #13-17, a semi-comedic miniseries. Personally, not my favorite tone, and Rosenberg and I clearly disagree about how Alex should be characterized, but it’s not a bad little piece about Alex hovering down around rock bottom

Then for Uncanny (2018), starting with #12. This is the brutal ‘everyone keeps dying because it’s right before Krakoa’ run, but I’d recommend the first couple issues—there’s some good Summers bros material—and the last couple, right where Alex dies

So. Krakoa

Alex has some brief appearances before and outside of Hellions, but nothing hugely substantial

Hellions—after dissociating on a mission and going into a violent haze, Alex volunteers himself for a demolition team of Krakoa’s violent rejects, mutants for whom rehab is a doubtful prospect as best. Supervised by Mister Sinister, Alex finds himself running into Maddy on the team’s first mission—and then coming into conflict with the Quiet Council as it refuses to recognize her individual personhood and resurrect her

This book really brought Alex back from where he’d been dug in by Remender, and it gives us him as a traumatized golden retriever with all kinds of autonomy issues without focusing on the Scott of it all, which I love. It reintroduces him for a modern audience as someone who can very much be written independently

I will say we definitely don’t get into his head a lot and he’s more subject of pity than POV character we can be angry alongside sometimes but. No one’s perfect. And really, who can blame Zeb Wells for caring more about Maddy?

Alex joins the X-Men after the second (I think? I can’t keep track of those lol) Hellfire Gala, and appears in X-Men (2021) #13-16-ish, including A.X.E. This is mostly connective tissue, but it’s alright

Dark Web is his next Moment TM, getting locked in Maddy’s basement and then deciding to stay there. This event is delicious and delightful and all sorts of messed up

(Side note: one probably wants to read the New Mutants (2019) “Labors of Magik” arc after Hellions and before anything else, just to know what Maddy’s got going on!)

As Maddy’s boytoy, he gets chewed up through the whole of Dark X-Men (2023). It’s lovely, it’s terribly abusive, I just want to hug him

Alex gets his ass out of there with Lorna’s help in the X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #7-9. I have mixed feelings on how Madelyne especially is characterized here, but it’s useful to understanding where he’s at when you get to his present setting in

X-Factor (2024), where he’s again a government mutant

I’m enjoying myself, and Alex is definitely this book’s lead in a way I really like, and I think it brings him back to the government in a way that respects everything he’s been through—no longer pure bootlicker, thinking he can make the system love him, but just someone who thinks being part of the biggest group possible maybe means survival, and maybe means helping others survive

That makes this book sound really dark lol. It’s definitely got heavy themes, but it douses them with bright colors and bad jokes. Also, a lot of the heaviness is about social media

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Ough Wilson Bethel... Wilson Bethel's white hair.... The white hair on Wilson Bethel's temples... Ough....

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such a sad wet cat of a man

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do not speak to me. unless it is about him

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what if you were contracted for a job to KILL by the wife of your WORST ENEMY and got told that he is not part of it, you agree but then get DRAGGED into the DARKNESS again even though you are trying to get BETTER, then you carry out said job for this woman only to then get put in JAIL and then you meet this lawyer and you tell him that “‘Cause that’s what good men do, right? Defend their worst enemies”, then you ESCAPE jail and have the chance to KILL your WORST ENEMY the man who HAUNTS you and INFECTS your thoughts he is TRAPPED in your mind but you can’t ESCAPE him, so you take the shot, but then some guy (aka the lawyer) SAVES your enemy and so now he’s ALIVE and NOT DEAD, you NEVER miss a shot and now you have to live with the fact he is still ALIVE walking around the city as MAYOR no less. even though people say it’s nothing to do with him, deep down you know he is ALWAYS part of it, that he is always part of YOU!

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Dex being so doped up that his (bullseye’s!!) coordination and fine motor skills are that impaired…. Ough, I’m gonna be sick

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vanessa holding dex’s hand and calling him ‘benjamin’, withholding his meds all when he is trying to get better and be good but she’s dragging him back down the path of evil again. his hands trembling uncontrollably. him being beyond exhausted mentally and physically. his suffering just fueling her to easily drag him into the darkness again. her “your history with my husband isn’t any part of this” and his “he’s… always part of this”. vanessa when I find you you better RUN

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toxic yaoi enjoyers stay winning i guess

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Saying this now before episode 8 is out but i hope one day, possibly season 2, we get a scene where we get to see Dex's spinal scar. LIKE, I dont care how, face him away from the camera and switch shirts or something IDGAF just SHOW IT TO US