Bishop: The Last X-Man Appreciation 2020

[Killerbee911]

Love story and pairing are overrated in comics imo, They don't want characters to be happy couples so they always break up because drama sells. Plus comic writers suck at love story in general so you don't have any good stories of couples in general I mean good luck finding the story were Peter and Mary Jane,Clark and Lois, Reed and Sue, Gambit and Rogue,Cyclops and Jean actually fell in love. Now think about actually good love stories where you can pin point the moment the couple start to fall for each other.

Don't get me wrong I would love for Bishop to get a love interest but too often in comics they are pretty superficial pairings that writers like to destroy for sheer drama. But since we are talking about it I wouldn't minding a Bishop ,Sage and Ceceila Reyes triangle with him ending up with one of them.Also I was trying to think of character who could power Bishop powers that would make for interesting dynamic sort of how Banshee and Dazzler complement each other powers.

[superjosh]

Love story and pairing are overrated in comics imo, They don't want characters to be happy couples so they always break up because drama sells. Plus comic writers suck at love story in general so you don't have any good stories of couples in general I mean good luck finding the story were Peter and Mary Jane,Clark and Lois, Reed and Sue, Gambit and Rogue,Cyclops and Jean actually fell in love. Now think about actually good love stories where you can pin point the moment the couple start to fall for each other.

Don't get me wrong I would love for Bishop to get a love interest but too often in comics they are pretty superficial pairings that writers like to destroy for sheer drama. But since we are talking about I like Sage and Ceceila Reyes that would be an interesting triangle.

Oh I agree, I'm not really into love interests all that much. But it shows what characters writers value (or know how to write) and take time to develop. POC characters in media are often written asexually and in sidekick, token ways. Taking a closer look at this lack or romance for certain characters, it becomes more apparent which characters are historically written with care and interest and which ones are not.

I like that Bishop is a tough and strong character. But there's no denying all the stereotypes of the cold/hard black man that have limited him. He's always just the militaristic, tough guy. Unless it's a time travel/ alternate universe storyline, he has almost never served any other purpose. Like how in movies when they want to add diversity, they make the cop, police chief, judge, soldier, general, pilot, or captain a black person. Never the love interest though because <gasp!>.

That's Bishop.

[Steroid]

While I normally don't care about love interests, I definitely would like to see Bishop and Sage together. It's just a perfect pairing.

[dkrook]

As if he would ever even get a real love interest. I can barely think of POC x-characters that have had meaningful romantic relationships established for them besides Storm. Storm was introduced in 1975 and didn't have a real love interest until Lifedeath almost a decade later. Her contemporaries... Wolverine, Banshee, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Kitty all had romances right away.

Sunfire, Moonstar, Karma, Sunspot, Jubliee, Bishop, Monet, Cecilia... where's the Jean to their Scott? The Alex to their Lorna? The Rogue to their Gambit. Dazzler/Longshot, Kitty/Piotr. Beast has Trish Tilby. Warren has Candy, Charlotte (finally some diversity!), Betsy (complicated). Nightcrawler/Amanda Sefton. Scott was never single after the Dark Phoenix Saga. Emma got into a love triangle the second she joined up in New X-Men.

It's pathetic, but I think most of know full well why black male mutants are held back from their true potential. In this medium we are conditioned to just consider the artistic merit of what we read. Truthfully all art is based in some reality. In reality, in America things are tilted toward the perspective of white guys, why would this be any different for comics. It's a hard sell for the average white male to see themselves when considering black men being heroes and lovers. Heck, I observed that with white friends i had growing up. Sadly it takes a truly exceptional individual that can understand the common humanity in all of us and not care about skin. When we get that exceptional individual to write X-Men books, we may have a chance to see our guy ascending and....just maybe get a lil action on the side!

[Marvell2100]

Too true bro! X-Men writers could have picked so many other morally ambiguous mutants, and straight out villains to pursue hope and Cable. We all know that Cyclops has been around so long that he had narrative capital to go bad, and then swing right back and be accepted as a hero again. The difference between Cyclops written bad, and Bishop written bad is infinitesimal. Cyclops is the reflection of the men that write him and because of that relatability they will, with care walk him through everything being intentional to bring him back to a better place than his start. Bishop was shoehorned into a bad fit, then they meandered for a while, then left him in filth. Picked him up, dusted off and put him back in play in the most half-hearted way. That's where he's at now languishing on Marauders.

Writers go out of their way to redeem/repair after problematic runs or at worse try to explain Cyclops actions which a character like Bishop didn't get the very story that Cyclops was brought back in, The writer went out of his way to make Cyclops go my past actions where wrong or something to that effect basically ignore the Rightclops era. You are not completely wrong about Bishop being a smaller character as comparison to Cyclops the X-men poster child as reasoning why he might not have gotten character repair.

But Bishop wasn't a "minor" character until Second Coming he was consistent used character part of the rotation and even more he had more mini series than Nightcrawler, Beast, Angel, and bunch of other X-men many fans think as X-men mainstays or core characters. You can do a check but about roughly every 2 to 4 years since Bishop has been around he has gotten small miniseries or extended miniseries. And that streak continue after he was brought back with Prisoner X. Bishop has been more of an assets to franchise than most characters and pretty annoying for him to be brought back with no attempt to repair the mess and they had an easy out with demon bear. And writers never would have never missed that chance with Cyclops.

Since Cyclops is being mention it reminds of something I have said in another thread one of the most annoying thing about Bishop treatment is that Bishop was gone in the period where Xavier,Cyclops and Wolverine was gone and the X-men could used a prominent male lead. And the one thing missing from Bishop resume and one of the thing hold him back from being bigger is leading the X-men and without those characters mention he would mostly likely have prominent role as leader or at worse field leader. Bishop wasn't this small character with no potential, he was character on cusp on breaking into A-list zone. And one of things holding back is he has the same character archetype as Cyclops. Think about it



Both for known wearing a yellow and blue standard Xmen suits, Both are tactical minded, Both are boyscout clean cut types, Both shoot out concussive red blasts, Both have hook up with Jean Grey(sorry I couldn't resist). Now I am not saying Cyclops is the reason for Bishop being held back by writers I mean some writer could have easily made him a leader they are plenty of X-books BUT Bishop imo is best suited to do the some of the same things that Cyclops does so it is understandable why he hasn't taken off when one of roles he is best suited for is held by a character with more popularity. This is not problem exclusive to Bishop I think characters like Moonstar, Cannonball,Sunspot or Gentle, Pixie, Prodigy have this issue as well. So in addition to character assassination Bishop was off the board in period of time where he could have possible done good and be establish as bigger part of the X-men lore.

You guys are so right. Scott had years to rehabilitate his character, to have him do things to redeem himself to everyone else and to fans. And he did it in the main X-men title.

Bishop didn't get that chance.

[Marvell2100]

I honestly hope they have the balls to just eschew what so-called "superfans" think and change a bunch of white characters to BIPOC. As a lifelong fan, I shamefully used to be the type that was like "I don't mind if they make Johnny Storm black" but then deep down want my X-Men to look like the comics. But I'm over that now.

Sony should have picked Miles Morales instead of a THIRD franchise with Peter Parker (and only 3 years after the previous franchise!!).

I've waited too long for representation to arrive and it's just not happening. The superhero movie universe still plays by the "as long as the leads are white" rule (unless it's a movie specifically about non-whites). If race is not important to a character's back story, then f*ck it.

I heard one rumor that the X-Men film might include John Proudstar, and Sunfire in the cast (to go along with Storm). I hope that is the direction MCU X-Men goes in before eventually introducing Bishop.

My fear of race-bending is that actual POC characters from the source material won't get used.

I hope we get to see some serious diversity for the X-Men in the MCU.

[Jackraow21]

You guys are so right. Scott had years to rehabilitate his character, to have him do things to redeem himself to everyone else and to fans. And he did it in the main X-men title.

Bishop didn't get that chance.

I want to see a Bishop-Cable (adult OG version) team up now to undo the crappy damage done to the character during that Swiercynski Cable run. Which I actually enjoyed, but IMO they could’ve used Fitzroy as the villain instead of assassinating Bishop’s character and it would’ve worked the same. Better actually.

[Rang10]

I think that Bendis Luke Cage was ahead of time and did a lot for the character. I think he even sexualized him a bit, but the end game of him as father and husband made it worth. Netflix Cage was good too.

A negative example was James Olsen on supergirl. They already racebended the love interest on Flash and went along with it. But on supergirl they made James end his relationship with his wife and started dating supergirl, then from nowhere she ended with him without any reason. They barely started to date, writers got cold feet and did that. The funny thing is that they weren't with cold feet pairing her with two a-holes later.
Years later and i still think about this.

It's time to stop the "token" use for POC characters.

[Steroid]

It's pathetic, but I think most of know full well why black male mutants are held back from their true potential. In this medium we are conditioned to just consider the artistic merit of what we read. Truthfully all art is based in some reality. In reality, in America things are tilted toward the perspective of white guys, why would this be any different for comics. It's a hard sell for the average white male to see themselves when considering black men being heroes and lovers. Heck, I observed that with white friends i had growing up. Sadly it takes a truly exceptional individual that can understand the common humanity in all of us and not care about skin. When we get that exceptional individual to write X-Men books, we may have a chance to see our guy ascending and....just maybe get a lil action on the side!

Dropping straight knowledge here.

[Jackraow21]

It's pathetic, but I think most of know full well why black male mutants are held back from their true potential. In this medium we are conditioned to just consider the artistic merit of what we read. Truthfully all art is based in some reality. In reality, in America things are tilted toward the perspective of white guys, why would this be any different for comics. It's a hard sell for the average white male to see themselves when considering black men being heroes and lovers. Heck, I observed that with white friends i had growing up. Sadly it takes a truly exceptional individual that can understand the common humanity in all of us and not care about skin. When we get that exceptional individual to write X-Men books, we may have a chance to see our guy ascending and....just maybe get a lil action on the side!

I think that’s changing though. Maybe I’m just an optimistic, overly naive privileged white guy here, but I will say that I see my young son and his friends — white and black — playing superheroes and they don’t care so much what color the character is. If that’s their favorite, or who they want to be that particular day, that’s who they’ll be. My son loves Miles Morales, for example, and thinks his costume is cooler than Peter Parker’s. So he often plays as Miles. And I see white kids pretending to be Black Panther, just as I see black kids pretending to be Iron Man or Thor. It’s great to see.

Definitely different than when I was growing up, where my black friends’ favorite characters were all white guys, and so were mine and my white friends. Because there were so few options in terms of cool POC characters being pushed.

[Ra-El]

You guys are so right. Scott had years to rehabilitate his character, to have him do things to redeem himself to everyone else and to fans. And he did it in the main X-men title.

Bishop didn't get that chance.

While I agree with a lot of what you guys are saying, I just have to ask:

Why would Cyclops need to be rehabilitated? He was right. If anything the entirety of Rosenberg's run was an last attempt from editorial to get the last word over his fans.

Anyway, Bishop really needs to be part of a team book, not a team-up book between Kitty and Emma.

[Marvell2100]

It's pathetic, but I think most of know full well why black male mutants are held back from their true potential. In this medium we are conditioned to just consider the artistic merit of what we read. Truthfully all art is based in some reality. In reality, in America things are tilted toward the perspective of white guys, why would this be any different for comics. It's a hard sell for the average white male to see themselves when considering black men being heroes and lovers. Heck, I observed that with white friends i had growing up. Sadly it takes a truly exceptional individual that can understand the common humanity in all of us and not care about skin. When we get that exceptional individual to write X-Men books, we may have a chance to see our guy ascending and....just maybe get a lil action on the side!

Well said bro. Sadly it's not just comics books with this problem.

Go back to when Bishop was involved with Deathbird. Alien, exotic, not human. That's the longest, most involved relationship that he's been in that wasn't platonic.

They would only hint at relationships with humans/mutants and only one was Black. And I don't count Storm among them.

[Marvell2100]

While I agree with a lot of what you guys are saying, I just have to ask:

Why would Cyclops need to be rehabilitated? He was right. If anything the entirety of Rosenberg's run was an last attempt from editorial to get the last word over his fans.

Anyway, Bishop really needs to be part of a team book, not a team-up book between Kitty and Emma.

Whether Scott was right or not wasn't the point. He did some things that resulted in a very vocal, heated discussion with some people for and against the things he did. Nobody condoned the horrible things Bishop did, even his most ardent supporters. He wasn't given the benefit of having a discussion on the merits of his actions. They were horrible.

[Steroid]

Whether Scott was right or not wasn't the point. He did some things that resulted in a very vocal, heated discussion with some people for and against the things he did. Nobody condoned the horrible things Bishop did, even his most ardent supporters. He wasn't given the benefit of having a discussion on the merits of his actions. They were horrible.

Exactly, it can actually be argued that Cyclops did the right thing for his people. Bishop on the other hand has a zero percent approval rating for what he did. It amazes me that people can't see the difference between the two. Not even gonna go off on one of my rants as my feelings about the treatment of Bishop and all Black male mutants is known. I just hope Bishop get's far away from the Marauders book and actually gets a chance to make that Captain title mean something.

[Marvell2100]

Exactly, it can actually be argued that Cyclops did the right thing for his people. Bishop on the other hand has a zero percent approval rating for what he did. It amazes me that people can't see the difference between the two. Not even gonna go off on one of my rants as my feelings about the treatment of Bishop and all Black male mutants is known. I just hope Bishop get's far away from the Marauders book and actually gets a chance to make that Captain title mean something.

I feel the same. Right now, he's just being wasted in Marauders. It's funny how all the Captains had a role in X of Swords except Bishop.