Thought-Provoking Activity - A Session with Doc Samson

[sungila]

YES! Great idea.

I can't entirely suggest that psychoanalysis is healthy in an insurable sense, it could be as habit forming as any outlet for expressing and/or treating trauma and fractures in self-continuity by containing all-ness within a contextual concept of this-one-thing-ness and training a feral pain with controlled relief...but I do believe that in many ways the expression of grief is a primal element of story and language.

Sometimes it's as though the best X-Men stories somehow manage to generate a kind of transformative mutation of a 'new' self and separate self...one who survives the metamorphasis of becoming an independent adult...if must be, even shedding their inherited flesh. In psychoanalysis the story drifts, like a high or dream state, the meaning losses weight and the flow simply flows...but it's dangerous and damaging if it's not generative. The kicking or ending of the story is often a kind of death. No survivors and to walk away (Marjorie Liu's X-23 accomplished this) is to be supremely naked, supremely changed and yet, polished under the ash...fresh.

In sitting down and stopping the action the story becomes a supremely individual response to a collective societal and/or generational 'sickness.' It's a signal in noise of alarm...a break in the white noise. Starts like something broke, hooked on a repeat...but if listened to and heard...it's kinda like a beacon pulse or first syllable in a new language or name.

Hmmm...

Yes, I'd love to read this book.

But I don't know if the 'therapist' has to be there at all.
I don't know if there even should or has to be much spoken or lettered.

If it could be done in mostly penciled silence, even those pencils somewhat varied, many artists working on every issue, even using layering, cracked panels, wayward narrative that sways more than it threads or pushes from point to point...

Something like a collage of a character or team that we know...all cut-up and broken and used to make this story...that's what I want to see and read. And the X-Men are in cannon an incredibly potent and powerful founding medium to work with.

In the long run and short run...pain and pain relief is necessary story telling...and in many ways the fiber of transformation, growth and our conversation with ourselves and one another, and that conversation is kinda what we are made for, and what we are made to do..it's what cells to become multicellular (talk, share, sit in a circle).

Great idea, and lots of great discussion here.


I haven't been reading the Domino series but this was shared in these forums from the Annual and, well, I think it's great...but I'm speaking and sharing totally out-of-context...still, this feels really true to me as a place and happening and important conversation outside the danger rooms and battlegrounds and aftermaths and staged podiums and events - for a current relatable X-book

REJEX-1.jpg

[Paleo_Rage]

Storm would be interesting because of her emotional control and compartmentalization.. Maybe he could find out she was repressing so much of herself and thats why her powers were underwhelming over the last few years esp during Xmen Fool's Gold.


Iceman would be interesting.. I wonder if he likes muscluar men..


Magik and Pitor would be a lol.

Kitty Pryde def needs it.

Emma, Scott and Jean would be an interesting take on couples therapy

[BroHomo]

I've wanted to see a Doc Samson series done in the style of the old Dr. Katz for a while now. Bonus points if they mimic the art style.

Dr Katz!!!!! Kinda lessen the effect with it just being animated IMHO

[Ricochet Rita]

Good reflection, sungila.

I extremely love this premise, and I can say I would buy every issue of a 'Doc Samson meets--' series. Those about characters I like as well as those about characters I dislike.

For instance, I think Mekanix was probably the last good X-thing CC has written.

So, I ask you guys: For your favorite characters, or any characters, what do you think they would talk about and reveal about themselves in a therapy session with Doc Samson?

I honestly think that Longshot would be of the highest interest as a subject of psychoanalysis, because of lots of reasons, but also simply because of the fact: what do people really know about him? Himself included?



Let’s sum up several issues that he could deal with (and I mean 'issue' not necessarily as 'problem', but as 'subject').

- Tremendous procrastination: Longshot himself doesn't know the exacte range, limits nor nature of his gifts, because he doesn't pay attention to it (he rather plays or help other people instead of himself)

- Low frustration tolerance: luck being always in his favor doesn't do good to his assertiveness.

- Unusual understanding of friendship/love/sex: Longshot feels natural affection for, like, anybody/everybody, so he will not refuse any kind of proposal in order to please BUT he will not feel anything special for one particular person; this is obviously problematic for other people, as it causes misunderstanding, incomprehension, disappointment and embarrasing situations.

- Identity: Longshot was built thanks to bioengineering, he's not a born creature; obviously this causes him insecurity about himself, if he's 'real' or 'fake', what defines if he's really alive, and what's really 'his' and what's 'built'.

- Mindwipes: they're usually treated as a recurrent joke, but they're actually not funnier than Wolverine's; just add to previous point that he scarcely remembers anything about his short 'life', and that the simple act of the mindwipe is clearly traumatic.

- Slavery: Longshot was created exclusively to serve others and he's living in a neverending loop of fight and defeat --more PTSD.

I wish I was skilled enough to write a dialog about this with the voice of Longshot.