Starfox Appeciation!

[Dermie]

Because the She-Hulk storyline basically made him unusable.

I don't think that's true. The SHE-HULK storyline made it explicitly clear that he was NOT a rapist, and that it was Thanos' tampering with his mind that had damaged his powers causing those unintended effects. It ended with Eros making a heroic sacrifice to give up his pleasure powers so that nothing like that would happen again, and him vowing to make amends to the people that were unintentionally harmed.

So, all in all, the SHE-HULK storyline left him in a positive place--his reputation restored, him being the hero and trying to make things right, and (for those people who found him 'creepy') the removal of the powers that people misunderstood. In a way, that SHE-HULK storyline was inevitable--and even necessary. The character already had a bad reputation among some readers due to misunderstanding of both his powers and his personality (just because Eros has the power does NOT automatically mean he is abusing it). The SHE-HULK arc addressed those issues head on, and cleared the matter up once and for all by showing specifically that he does NOT rape people.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about the removal of the pleasure powers. On the one hand, I appreciate that Slott was trying to get rid of an aspect of the character that was being frequently misinterpreted in order to get rid of this "date rapist" image that some readers were determined to cast him in. However, I really liked the pleasure powers in that they were something very unique to Starfox, which made him stand out from the other strong-guys-who-fly, and I thought it was a rather positive thing that he was able to resolve conflict in a NON-violent manner sometimes.

Perhaps they can find some sort of middle ground, to bring the pleasure powers back, but have them be less subtle and more blatant--to get rid of the notion of him manipulating people without their knowledge. Perhaps they could bring back his pleasure zap as something similar to the power zap of Orgasmo (from that parody movie of a superhero who disables his enemies with a ray gun that gives them a burst of orgasmic pleasure).

I think everyone knows that Starfox is my favorite character and I basically have a PhD in Starfox. (Not that it's hard since he's had less than 200 appearances.) Drawn him, written stories about him, cosplayed as him, had a custom shirt made . . .

You've cosplayed as him? Cool! I don't think I have ever seen a Starfox cosplayer at any of the cons I've been to.

I love how he's so bubbly but really by all accounts shouldn't be given how traumatic his back story is. It's gotta make you wonder what's going on in his head.

Yeah, Eros makes a deliberate effort to counter-balance his brother, both in term of physically opposing Thanos' schemes but also in terms of how he lives his life by the complete opposite philosophy to Thanos' destructive ways.

Like you say, Starfox is so refreshing with his positive and fun outlook to everything. Despite some of the darkness in his background, he's not one of those grim-n-gritty
characters; he's just looking for the thrill and excitement of new adventures!

In no canon appearance other than the She-Hulk storyline does he have the ability to make people attracted to him or like him in any way - he can only make them feel good.

Well, the things were somewhat linked together. We saw in Stern's AVENGERS run him using his pleasure power on criminals in a "I'm your friend; you don't want to fight me" sort of way. You're right that the power itself was specifically stimulating the pleasure centres--but it sometimes manifested in different ways, depending on a) how he was using it and b) how strong a zap he gave them (sometimes we saw people lose consciousness completely because he overloaded their pleasure centre).

I love that he's an empath (Solo Avengers #21, Silver Surfer Annual #5, Avengers: Celestial Quest #4) and so has that connection to emotion and that potential psionic power. His brother and his father are so powerful but he doesn't seem to be. Maybe he is - or maybe there's some other reason why he's not. We've seen him do some other crazy one-off psionic stuff (Avengers: Galactic Storm, SSA #5 again, ugh whatever the issue number of Avengers where he single-handedly takes out Nebula and her crew by staring at them until they pass out . . .)

Yeah, that would be the example I meant of his overloading people with pleasure. We didn't usually see him zap people that hard though.

Also, I love how funny/light his sexuality is played up. Which of course leads us to is he really, like, cishet? 'Cause I think he's way more like Jack Harkness, you know - pansexual flirty space explorer. That's what he's all about, after all, Greek god of love and all that. Except hotter. Like, he's supposed to be sexier than the sexiest man you can possibly think of, and that's awesome. It's a fun way to throw the women a bone - an alien from an egalitarian society who just likes hooking up, no strings attached - he very much respects women in his appearances and is shown to be absolutely capable of forming meaningful, non-sexual relationships with them (even when they do have sex - like with She-Hulk). He could totally be played up as the male beefcake version of all the T&A cheesecake gratuitous sexuality we see the female characters posed up in.

Absolutely agreed on all counts! As for Eros' possible bisexual/pansexual nature, I have often wondered if Eros had anything to do with Living Lightning accepting his own sexuality and coming out as gay. After all, prior to serving on the Avengers Asteroid Base, Miguel had girlfriends. But after his stint on the asteroid base--where we were told Eros was going to visit and keep them company from time to time--Miguel ended up coming out as gay. I've often suspected Eros and Miguel had some off-panel fling that made Miguel realize his true self.

UGH I just love this character so much AND THEY'RE BRINGING HIM BACK I'M SO EXCITED Eros! Eros! EROS! EROS! EROSSSSS!!!!

LOL. Yeah, that pretty much sums up my own reaction when I saw that announcement. I think I scared my dog with my sudden shout of joy. lol