Rachel Summers/Grey Appreciation 2019

[Askani's Flame]

The reason I mention Emma is that right now there is no room for Rachel in the X-Men. With Jean and Betsy as the top tier telepaths, Rachel would be continued to be sidelined or be shown to be subpar on everything again. And we know that the X-Office has no interest in having Rachel and Jean interact in a meaningful manner on page unless it serves the purpose to promoting Jean (sorry, that's just how it looks and feels). Whereas Emma has a vested interest in saving and supporting mutants. I think that as much disdain she finds in Rachel for the grief and childish behaviour thrown her way by Rachel, she is genuinely interested in making her a competent psi. It also would feel like a redemption for not saving Blink before Selene got her grips into her, or saving Christian sooner. And it would be something for Emma to hold over their heads: "So you watch as your teammate/best friend/lover/daughter leaves under the thrall of a madman and then do nothing to save her...for months. Not even mentioning her name, nevermind actually looking for her. But after I rescue her and help her finally free herself of this conditioning, you say that I'm the villain and she needs to come home? Who's delusional?"

I think Emma would provide good tutelage and be helpful in ways the X-Men have chosen not to.

All this is up in the air as we don't know where and when Rachel will show up in X-Force, and if she's even freed. I will say that if her first panel in X-Force is of her in a pen with a leash on I will lose my ever-loving mind.

[RachelGrey]

The reason I mention Emma is that right now there is no room for Rachel in the X-Men. With Jean and Betsy as the top tier telepaths, Rachel would be continued to be sidelined or be shown to be subpar on everything again. And we know that the X-Office has no interest in having Rachel and Jean interact in a meaningful manner on page unless it serves the purpose to promoting Jean (sorry, that's just how it looks and feels). Whereas Emma has a vested interest in saving and supporting mutants. I think that as much disdain she finds in Rachel for the grief and childish behaviour thrown her way by Rachel, she is genuinely interested in making her a competent psi. It also would feel like a redemption for not saving Blink before Selene got her grips into her, or saving Christian sooner. And it would be something for Emma to hold over their heads: "So you watch as your teammate/best friend/lover/daughter leaves under the thrall of a madman and then do nothing to save her...for months. Not even mentioning her name, nevermind actually looking for her. But after I rescue her and help her finally free herself of this conditioning, you say that I'm the villain and she needs to come home? Who's delusional?"

I think Emma would provide good tutelage and be helpful in ways the X-Men have chosen not to.

All this is up in the air as we don't know where and when Rachel will show up in X-Force, and if she's even freed. I will say that if her first panel in X-Force is of her in a pen with a leash on I will lose my ever-loving mind.

This is exactly what I want. I want Emma to find out Rachel is being held captive in Transia and use her Hellfire Club and Frost International resources to rescue Rachel. Then a few months later they can have the X-whomever searching for whatever happened to Rachel and they show up at Frost International offices and Rachel is there working with Emma all these months. I would love it if Emma could throw that in all their faces, that Emma dropped everything to rescue Rachel personally as soon as she found out Rachel was taken by Ahab and the Transian military.

I just want a story where someone makes them feel guilty for shafting Rachel over and over. Since Rachel and Emma have a fun sarcastic relationship I think they would be good working together on the same team (occasionally insulting each other, but still getting along).

I doubt Marvel will ever do this because they need Jean, Scott, Logan, Cable etc... to all look noble and selfless, so they won't ever throw it in their faces that they let Rachel stay in the hands of a horrible torturer for months.

My fear in all of this is that Marvel turns her into a villain outright. They did that to Lorna for years, so it wouldn't be the first time that they did a character assassination like that. I think what upsets me most about having Rachel go through all of this is that as a character she has lived a horrible life, I feel like adding this new Hound stuff on her again without addressing it would be a huge failure to the character.

There are three ways they can go with the hound programming and torture of Rachel:
1. She becomes a villain working with either Ahab or Stryfe
2. She recovers in the next comic issue after being rescued and they don't even address the serious mental health consequences at all. Either writing her out or keeping her as a sideline character on one of the X-Comics.
3. This would require good writing (which I am not sure Marvel is capable of), on par with what was done with Jessica Cruz's ongoing anxiety issues in Green Lanterns, they would actually address the mental health consequences for Rachel and have her cope with this over the course of a longer period in the comics.

I expect Marvel will go with the #1 or #2 option, Rachel will either turn into a villain for a while, or she will be sidelined in a team or written out entirely.

[Vaishakh]

This is exactly what I want. I want Emma to find out Rachel is being held captive in Transia and use her Hellfire Club and Frost International resources to rescue Rachel. Then a few months later they can have the X-whomever searching for whatever happened to Rachel and they show up at Frost International offices and Rachel is there working with Emma all these months. I would love it if Emma could throw that in all their faces, that Emma dropped everything to rescue Rachel personally as soon as she found out Rachel was taken by Ahab and the Transian military.

I just want a story where someone makes them feel guilty for shafting Rachel over and over. Since Rachel and Emma have a fun sarcastic relationship I think they would be good working together on the same team (occasionally insulting each other, but still getting along).

I doubt Marvel will ever do this because they need Jean, Scott, Logan, Cable etc... to all look noble and selfless, so they won't ever throw it in their faces that they let Rachel stay in the hands of a horrible torturer for months.

It would be hilarious if Rachel were to lose her memory and has Emma become her gaurdian and she ends up rejecting Scott and Jean as her parents since she considers Emma as her mother now.

[CRaymond]

It would be hilarious if Rachel were to lose her memory and has Emma become her gaurdian and she ends up rejecting Scott and Jean as her parents since she considers Emma as her mother now.

Ewww.

Rachel should become Stryfe.

[RachelGrey]

It would be hilarious if Rachel were to lose her memory and has Emma become her gaurdian and she ends up rejecting Scott and Jean as her parents since she considers Emma as her mother now.

I actually kind of like this idea, something new to try and it forces Jean and Scott to actually try to help her remember that they are her parents.

[Havok83]

It would be hilarious if Rachel were to lose her memory and has Emma become her gaurdian and she ends up rejecting Scott and Jean as her parents since she considers Emma as her mother now.

She's like 22 or so. She's too old for a plotline like that which would be more fitting for a preteen

[Askani's Flame]

She's like 22 or so. She's too old for a plotline like that which would be more fitting for a preteen

Yeah, that wouldn't work for a variety of reasons, while it might be funny. It's frustrating to be in a wait and see mode when the track record by this office has been so shoddy with her characterization over the past 3 years.

[RachelGrey]

Yeah, that wouldn't work for a variety of reasons, while it might be funny. It's frustrating to be in a wait and see mode when the track record by this office has been so shoddy with her characterization over the past 3 years.

I would be ok with Rachel being an X-book again as long as they actually address the relationship with Jean and Scott more often. I went back and read the X-Men Red Annual #1 and they actually had Jean deliberately seeking Rachel out when Jean returned and they spent some time in that issue together. I just want to see the mother / daughter relationship explored more, or if they aren't going to do that then just give Rachel something to do out of the regular X-books.

Since Rachel isn't in the AoXMan universe, then her only options are to pair her up with Cable on X-Force, Scott on Uncanny, or with Emma on something else. In this situation I wouldn't mind having Rachel back with Scott, but on the other hand I would much rather her be paired with Cable for a while and explore the brother sister relationship for a while. If I were writing it I would have Cable rescue Rachel and then pull her into the future with him and then have them working as a team together from that point forward. If you go to all the trouble of rescuing your sibling you are going to want to keep them close for a while to make sure they stay safe and ok.

My actual expectation from Marvel: Cable rescues Rachel from Ahab, Rachel decides to quit the hero game and go back to university (again), and she is written out of the X-Books until the next time Jean dies. This is always the way Marvel works, it's either Jean in the X-Books, or Rachel, but very rarely do they have both at the same time. It's a shame really, put them on a book together for a while and explore the mother / daughter relationship on an ongoing long term basis. I would love to see a five issue mini series just called The Grey's and put Jean and Rachel on a mission together for 5 issues. Have Scott and Cable pop up in the series as well so it's sort of a family comic.

Technically the X-Men have their own variation of the Fantastic Four, if you had a mini-series with Jean, Scott, Rachel, and Cable, that might actually be really interesting. Play up the whole "first family" of the X-Men.

[Havok83]

Technically the X-Men have their own variation of the Fantastic Four, if you had a mini-series with Jean, Scott, Rachel, and Cable, that might actually be really interesting. Play up the whole "first family" of the X-Men.

Would you ignore Nate bc Disassembled reinforced his relationship with Jean which I can only imagine is going to be explored in Age of X-Man

[Askani's Flame]

Would you ignore Nate bc Disassembled reinforced his relationship with Jean which I can only imagine is going to be explored in Age of X-Man

You can't after Disassembled. They made it very clear that Jean wants to have a better relationship with Nate. Unless he dies at the end of all this, you can't have a book that focuses on the Grey-Summers "kids" without him. At this point it very clear: Cable>>>>Nate Grey>>>>>>Rachel for Jean. Switch Nate G and Rachel and you would have Scott's thoughts.

[RachelGrey]

You can't after Disassembled. They made it very clear that Jean wants to have a better relationship with Nate. Unless he dies at the end of all this, you can't have a book that focuses on the Grey-Summers "kids" without him. At this point it very clear: Cable>>>>Nate Grey>>>>>>Rachel for Jean. Switch Nate G and Rachel and you would have Scott's thoughts.

Yeah, I just don't expect Nate G to stick around with Cable active. They may have Nate G end heroically in the end when he realizes that he was wrong and Jean was right (maybe).

You are correct about how the writers portray it though. For Jean it's Cable>>>>Nate Grey>>>>>>>Rachel and for Scott it really is Cable>>>>Rachel>>>>>>>Nate Grey. I wish a good writer would take these characters and do something interesting with them to explore the family dynamic for once.

[Vaishakh]

She's like 22 or so. She's too old for a plotline like that which would be more fitting for a preteen

They can just deage her before she was a Hound for this whole thing to work. A full reset of character like that is necessary for both Rachel's continued existence in X-Men franchise or her complete exit from it. As it stands the current version of Rachel has no place within the X-men or rest of Marvel. So either make a large change or delete her for good.

[Snoop Dogg]

There is a third option. The one Claremont envisioned.

[RachelGrey]

There is a third option. The one Claremont envisioned.

Can you remind me again what he wanted to do with Rachel? Was it the relationship with Kitty, or was it something else?

[Snoop Dogg]

Can you remind me again what he wanted to do with Rachel? Was it the relationship with Kitty, or was it something else?

Liking girls, getting her a mini-series, and killing a zombie.