What To Do With a Problem Like Rachel

[Havok83]

When did this become the Rachel forum?

[bell]

And in Red she acknowledged Rachel as her daughter.

Red happens AFTER Gold. How are you not understanding this?

I didn't read red, how ever I did read the annual. Annual happen as soon as Jean came back Gold issue seem to be with Jean working with her owe team so that is a few weeks or more later.

She also would rather work with others kids then to take the time to bond with the only family she actually had left and that is Rachel. What excuse would that be?

[Tank]

I think a lot of Rachel fans are really ticked off with the "pain" and "trauma" angles. She already worked through those in UXM and Excalibur and it's really just the poor writing that keeps regressing her. She should actually be more powerful/experienced than Jean at this point given her training with Xavier and Emma and Jean has been dead for years.

Jean's treatment of her was initially understandable. In DOFPresent, she thought herself boxed-in with choices already made for her (marry Scott and give birth to Rachel) though she had no problem accepting baby Nathan (Scott's son with "another woman"). All this seemed resolved when Jean told Rachel she had decided to marry Scott (Rachel was flower-girl or maid of honor at the wedding). Rachel and Scott have never had issues when Scott found out she was his daughter (same time as Jean but Scott was accepting of it). The recent Jean/Rachel interactions could have been handled better on panel. With Cables death, Jean kept talking about family and reaching out to Hope while ignoring Rachel's own grief. Jean completely ignored the fact he only reason she actually got to raise Cable was because of Rachel.

As for Rachel's background being "complicated", IMO it's just a convenient excuse by writers. Cable's origin is arguably more complicated yet he has had his own solo books. As for derivative, how many Wolverine-Type mutants are currently on the X-rosters?

I agree with others that maybe she's better off either in another franchise group (Avengers) or a separate X-title with minimal ties to the mothership (Excalbur/Exiles) so writers don't have to worry about stepping on their precious Jean Grey.

Like her treatment is Jean’s fault. Rachel fans need someone to blame, but Jean wasn’t even in the same book for years so she has no bearing on what’s written about this character. Need I remind you Jean was dead for nearly a decade and rachel still offered nothing interesting. Blame it on her having nothing new or interesting narratively not on other characters.

[Snoop Dogg]

When did this become the Rachel forum?

And there came a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest Rachel fans found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, they took over the X-Board!

[Tank]

And there came a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest Rachel fans found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, they took over the X-Board!

There’s a dozen of them! Omg

[WallStreeter]

I think a lot of Rachel fans are really ticked off with the "pain" and "trauma" angles. She already worked through those in UXM and Excalibur and it's really just the poor writing that keeps regressing her. She should actually be more powerful/experienced than Jean at this point given her training with Xavier and Emma and Jean has been dead for years.

Jean's treatment of her was initially understandable. In DOFPresent, she thought herself boxed-in with choices already made for her (marry Scott and give birth to Rachel) though she had no problem accepting baby Nathan (Scott's son with "another woman"). All this seemed resolved when Jean told Rachel she had decided to marry Scott (Rachel was flower-girl or maid of honor at the wedding). Rachel and Scott have never had issues when Scott found out she was his daughter (same time as Jean but Scott was accepting of it). The recent Jean/Rachel interactions could have been handled better on panel. With Cables death, Jean kept talking about family and reaching out to Hope while ignoring Rachel's own grief. Jean completely ignored the fact he only reason she actually got to raise Cable was because of Rachel.

As for Rachel's background being "complicated", IMO it's just a convenient excuse by writers. Cable's origin is arguably more complicated yet he has had his own solo books. As for derivative, how many Wolverine-Type mutants are currently on the X-rosters?

I agree with others that maybe she's better off either in another franchise group (Avengers) or a separate X-title with minimal ties to the mothership (Excalbur/Exiles) so writers don't have to worry about stepping on their precious Jean Grey.

Cable did not use Jean’s codenamew or imagery, and was not created expressly to replace her. Cable has unique fighting skills and tech. While the XMen full of telepath/telekinetics. Oh, and Quentin Wuire joined the Avengers. So they already have a mutant psychic with his own unique character.

[raidensix]

Like her treatment is Jean’s fault. Rachel fans need someone to blame, but Jean wasn’t even in the same book for years so she has no bearing on what’s written about this character. Need I remind you Jean was dead for nearly a decade and rachel still offered nothing interesting. Blame it on her having nothing new or interesting narratively not on other characters.

Need I remind you, there was Hope and then Jeen which resulted in Rachel getting side-lined in said decade. I'm not blaming Jean. I don't think anyone really is. It's the poor writing and inconsistencies across the X-Books and ignoring character histories.

[PsychoEFrost]

When did this become the Rachel forum?

Around the time Extermination hammered home what might be the worst year of character assassination in X-history?

We're talking Planet X Magneto here.

[Tank]

Need I remind you, there was Hope and then Jeen which resulted in Rachel getting side-lined in said decade. I'm not blaming Jean. I don't think anyone really is. It's the poor writing and inconsistencies across the X-Books and ignoring character histories.

Those characters Hope and Jeen had their own stories. How is it because of them she got sidelined or whatever?

Answer is: it’s not.

[raidensix]

Those characters Hope and Jeen had their own stories. How is it because of them she got sidelined or whatever?

Answer is: it’s not.

That's your opinion.

[WallStreeter]

Like her treatment is Jean’s fault. Rachel fans need someone to blame, but Jean wasn’t even in the same book for years so she has no bearing on what’s written about this character. Need I remind you Jean was dead for nearly a decade and rachel still offered nothing interesting. Blame it on her having nothing new or interesting narratively not on other characters.

Every since the 80s Rachel acted like she wanted Jean to breast feed her whenever she saw her. That’s one reason Jean seemed to find her repulsive. Upon her first meeting Rachel wouldn’t tell Jean she was the daughter of an alternate timeline Jean and Scott. She acted like she was her nursing mother. That’s when Jean rejected her. Rachel had no sense of Jean having her own problems.

[ColossusFan]

My problem with the results of Extermination is that once again Rachel is the victim and we know exactly where the plot will be. She once again has to be freed from being a slave and face the shame and trauma of being abused and likely harming her friends and family while being mind controlled.

Maybe Kid Cable will free her and we can finally get some quality Nathan/Rachel interaction.

While I do want to see Rachel/Nathan interaction - the problem is Rachel will once again need to be saved.

The idea of strong female character isn't just this:


Rachel isn't strong because she can go toe-to-toe with Thor. She's strong from being able to carry on after everything she has endured. And that's a far better message to readers, especially kids and a far more compelling story.

Perhaps the idea is to just rehash over again Rachel recovering from the trauma she endured. But that certainly hasn't happened the literally dozens of other times Rachel has been mind-controlled and enslaved.

Marvel wants to appeal to female readers, then makes stories where over and over and over the same character is mind-controlled, victimized and enslaved and needs someone else to save her. You'd think this would be a complaint in the 1970s or 1980s, not 2018.

This
build characters up instead of tearing them down

And unfortunately everyone at the x-office has a boner for the 80s and 90s where complaints like these were completely ignored

[spirit2011]

Like her treatment is Jean’s fault. Rachel fans need someone to blame, but Jean wasn’t even in the same book for years so she has no bearing on what’s written about this character. Need I remind you Jean was dead for nearly a decade and rachel still offered nothing interesting. Blame it on her having nothing new or interesting narratively not on other characters.

Jean was dead for 14 years. Jeen was on books for 6 years.
Clearly it has nothing to do with Jean, but the nature of the Rachel character

[CRaymond]

but the nature of the Rachel character

Quoting so people can focus on the issue at hand.

Rachel Summers has a problem and it's not another character. It's not writers, it's not editors. It's the DESIGN of the character-- from original intent to persistent characteristics --that have positioned her into her present circumstance. This isn't victim-blaming. This is examining the weaknesses of the character outweighing her strengths.

[WallStreeter]

Jean was dead for 14 years. Jeen was on books for 6 years.
Clearly it has nothing to do with Jean, but the nature of the Rachel character

Once Jean was featured in TAS and Rachel wasn’t, it secured her place as a bigger character. Revisits to the Phoenix storyline in films and cartoons made it tied to Jean in ways it isn’t to anyone else and ultimately the comics were forced to respond. Rachel has nothing going on for her and the only reason she got this far was faded 80s Nostalgia.