It is actually good that Hickman doesn't deal with so much personal stuff, the best hope for Jott to return and become like Reed and Sue is for the writers to put them back together and let that become a secondary thing, I would love it if they could dedicate at least from time to time an issue to a date like they used to do in the old days, but now the ongoings are rebooted so constantly that you rarely have those kinds of chapters.
And if he isn't going to deal with personal lives so much (and Scott and Jean are almost certainly going to be in his future ongoing, he has praised how cool and important they are going to be under him) they aren't likely to be in a triangle, that's more of the soap opera kind of comic and that's the opposite of what he does
HoX4.jpg
Love how he has them fighting side by side, could be a good sign
Nah, if Hickman wanted Scott & Jean as a couple, or at least he wanted them together at the start of the story, then Marvel would have put them back already; all you needed was have her not go go AoX, and you know JDW would love to bring back the status quo of them together, plus add a love triangle with Logan in Rosenberg's UXM if they could.
In fact, like I said before in another thread, I have my suspicion that the main reason, or at least a big part of it, for this whole Age of X-man non-sense is that Marvel's plan was put Scott & Jean back together right away when he returned in Extermination, but Hickman didn't want them together, either at all, or at least at the start of the story, and they panicked because they had no idea what do now- never mind the fact that part of the point of the two most popular runs of the X-men in the 21st century was Scott moving on from Jean, and that it would be very easy to keep them apart by simply have Scott with a secret, X-force style type of team and the world not knowing he's alive (but JDW and Rosenberg clearly want boyscout Cyclops and not the Rightclops). And, even if you want them back together already, certainly wouldn't be good for Scott's mental health to jump to a serious relationship right away (and yes, I would say the same thing about getting back with Emma immediately).
Mind you, I have no proof of that, but it fits too perfectly- even with AoXM, why wouldn't Marvel exploit the chance of pushing Scott & Jean back together in a book, with Wolverine no less, to gather some sales and hype before Hickman takes over, right before a DPS movie is released? I can see no better explanation than their nostalgia-infused version of the X-men doesn't see why Scott wouldn't want to get back together with Jean immediately, even if it wouldn't be good for him.
Last edited by Omega Alpha; 06-11-2019 at 03:06 PM.
According to Hickman's comments in that interview a while back, what Rosenberg and the Age of X-Man writers are doing is independent of him. That is, he's not directing them. Therefore, any direction they are receiving is presumably coming from JDW and Marvel editorial.
The current UXM run is because Rosenberg, and presumably JDW, felt Scott needed a degree of redemption before the Hickman relaunch. Based on how the stories have played out, what Rosenberg is doing in practice is providing a coda to the "Extinction era" of the franchise that began with Morrison. He's revisiting the era's core themes and tying up loose ends. This is similar to what Scott Lobdell did back in 2001 in the months leading up to the Morrison relaunch.
Scott and Jean aren't back together because Marvel doesn't want them back together. For whatever reason. Given the X-writers' comments in this week's X-Men Monday, my suspicion is that: 1) the push over the couple of years, with Tyke and Jeen then Phoenix Resurrection and Extermination, to have Scott and Jean gravitate back together was a Paniccia initiative; 2) that push ground to a halt once Paniccia left and JDW took over as editor; 3) Age of X-Man was a stopgap pitched by Nadler and Zac Thompson and approved by JDW to, at least in part, forestall a Jott reunion as long as possible or even entirely.
We won't know exactly what Hickman's plans for Scott and Jean are for at least another month. If the covers are any indication, they'll at least be working together.
I've said it before; I'm saying it again: Marvel is really, really not interested in portraying a married Jott. It ages the characters too much for the current editorial regime's tastes and, in their opinion, limits too many potential story avenues. Their preferred mode for Scott and Jean is will-they-or-won't-they. If we get any Jott at all under Hickman, that's what it will likely be. That, or they won't be romantically involved at all.
"This is starting to sound like a bad comic book plot"
-Spider-man
“Evil is evil...lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same."
-Geralt of Rivia
I agree. Much of the tone felt very anti-Scott specifically. Many of the creators seemed to buy into the narrative that Scott was just an impediment to Jean’s success as a character. Silly given how high her profile has always been in the X-Books. These are the people who should really know better.
Both Rosenberg and JDW said Scott's need redemption, but provided no reason as to why- because, of course, there isn't any, and that's why all the rants by Havok and whining, including by Scott himself, are ridiculous, since they are extremely vague. Hickman, based on how he wrote him in the one AvX issue he wrote, plus in New Avengers, clearly sees no need for any redemption and will just ignore whatever Rosenberg wrote.
JDW already said Scott & Jean is his favorite couple (and he's clearly an illusion of change kind of guy), and it's pretty clear Marvel was moving towards them together and everything back to the status quo (including Emma and Magneto as villains) before JH was signed on. If Hickman wanted them together at the start of the story (and I don't mean MARRIED, because they won't), they would be together in UXM, and they would explore the will they/won't they before putting them together again by the end; so yeah, AoX is partially a stop-gap to not have them as a couple at the start of HoX.
The problem, of course, is that the stop gap was completely unnecessary- they could not be together because it would be unhealthy for Scott to move to any relationship right now, and even be in different teams simply because Scott wanted to explore the advantage of the enemies of the X-men not knowing he's alive, while Jean made her business to be a very public figure.
The issue really is this view that Scott needs any sort of redemption & has to want to be with Jean (and she with him) if he's alive, which goes back to this heavily nostalgia inspired view that JDW seems to have, that "all the X-men need to be heroes" bullshit, which wasn't true ever since Wolverine joined the team, and even more in the Mutant Massacre/Outback era..
Last edited by phoenixzero23; 06-11-2019 at 04:40 PM.