Lucas Bishop: The Last X-Man Appreciation 2021!

[dkrook]

I don’t think it was character assassination. The fact is, bishop was never very popular in the 90’s. He was considered a “reject” character for a long time by the fan base. So marvel took a different route with him to try and make him more interesting. Overall, i have always really loved bishop. I think the reason he was not very popular was because his convoluted backstory paired with he was at odds with gambit who was a fan favorite. This is just my interpretation of events and it may be because i get rather offended when people attack the creative teams in willy nilly fashion so yeah i will admit some bias there. The good news is bishop is getting some much deserved respect to his name. Also, i would like to add i sent marvel fan mail for a while telling them to do something big with bishop because he has so much potential to explore so if you really feel that certain things are not to your liking it is really easy to mail the x office. This has been a tried and true way for decades to get the teams brains simmering on ideas like this so i highly recommend it.

Lol, yo my "G " Bishop made it into the cartoon. With all the X-Men they could have picked, he made the squad. Had his own series, was written into "The 12" mini, was central to Age of Apocalypse...dude wasn't some d lister. At a certain point writers just started ignoring and progressing him as a character. Far from minor league!

[dkrook]

Just out of curiosity, are there any hard metrics or data to support the claim that 'Bishop was never very popular in the 90's' or was considered a "reject" character? I might be slightly biased but this in honestly the first I have ever heard those two statements about the character. In fact, I thought he was at his peak of popularity in the 90's due to the animated series if nothing else. He also was a mainstay in both Uncanny and eventually adjective-less, and had multiple limited series. I'm not seeing the asertion that he wasn't popular during the 90's. Maybe I'm missing something so I will gladly accept any solid insight you could provide.

As for the character assassination aspect....well, yeah I'd have to agree that's exactly what it was. The characters personality, motives and even origin were altered just for the sake of bolstering up Hope Summers and Cable. I don't see how we went from the character shown in the 90's and then X-treme X-men to the character we got in Messiah Complex. Attempting to assassinate an infant, accidentally shooting Xavier, and betraying the X-men didn't make him more interesting. It erased all of the progression that the character had accumulated over the years in heavy handed and illogical manner.

Tip of the hat to you! Spot on analysis and breakdown for the facts of the matter.

[Steroid]

Just out of curiosity, are there any hard metrics or data to support the claim that 'Bishop was never very popular in the 90's' or was considered a "reject" character? I might be slightly biased but this in honestly the first I have ever heard those two statements about the character. In fact, I thought he was at his peak of popularity in the 90's due to the animated series if nothing else. He also was a mainstay in both Uncanny and eventually adjective-less, and had multiple limited series. I'm not seeing the asertion that he wasn't popular during the 90's. Maybe I'm missing something so I will gladly accept any solid insight you could provide.

As for the character assassination aspect....well, yeah I'd have to agree that's exactly what it was. The characters personality, motives and even origin were altered just for the sake of bolstering up Hope Summers and Cable. I don't see how we went from the character shown in the 90's and then X-treme X-men to the character we got in Messiah Complex. Attempting to assassinate an infant, accidentally shooting Xavier, and betraying the X-men didn't make him more interesting. It erased all of the progression that the character had accumulated over the years in heavy handed and illogical manner.

Absolutely gotta co-sign everything you laid out.

[LukeCagefan]

Now if only they can start the jean and bishop story of how they will be a romance. bishop/psylocke is still my otp, 2nd bishop/rogue, 3rd bishop/sage, 4th bishop/jean and 5th bishop/valerie cooper. give my buddy some sexy lovin. it will make a nice change when he isnt always on the battlefield.

I'm all for Bishop/Psylocke ❤️❤️❤️

[Marvell2100]

Bishop not a popular character in the 90s? That has been proven otherwise. Bishop's problem is the same for just about every mutant who came after Giant-Size: writers tend to focus on the OG5 and the GS team. Everyone else gets a sprinkle here and a sprinkle there.

As for paring Bishop with someone, if I have to come in here one more time and say that Bishop and Sage are the spice, heads are gonna roll!

[dkrook]

Bishop not a popular character in the 90s? That has been proven otherwise. Bishop's problem is the same for just about every mutant who came after Giant-Size: writers tend to focus on the OG5 and the GS team. Everyone else gets a sprinkle here and a sprinkle there.

As for paring Bishop with someone, if I have to come in here one more time and say that Bishop and Sage are the spice, heads are gonna roll!

Eeeeeasy, O.G., triple O.G. True that match was teased quite a bit, but I'm not gonna say no to a Psylocke hook up! Don't hate me for this but....I would put Jean and Bishop in a cool third place.

[Steroid]

Bishop not a popular character in the 90s? That has been proven otherwise. Bishop's problem is the same for just about every mutant who came after Giant-Size: writers tend to focus on the OG5 and the GS team. Everyone else gets a sprinkle here and a sprinkle there.

As for paring Bishop with someone, if I have to come in here one more time and say that Bishop and Sage are the spice, heads are gonna roll!

Yeah bro put me in the camp of Bishop & Sage being a couple. I've loved their dynamic since X-Treme X-Men.

[Jackraow21]

Yeah bro put me in the camp of Bishop & Sage being a couple. I've loved their dynamic since X-Treme X-Men.

Same here.

[Ra-El]

Yeah bro put me in the camp of Bishop & Sage being a couple. I've loved their dynamic since X-Treme X-Men.

Better than be thrown in the mess that is Jean-Scott-Logan, I want Cyclops to get out of ASAP. Bishop and Sage have the chance of having a relationship where he won't get get shited to make Wolverine or Cyclops look like a better fit.

[K7P5V]

Yeah, I know many will say that ship has sailed. But, I've always liked Storm+Bishop (XD)

[Leirus]

My two cents on his nineties popularity: I did not like Bishop at first. The oversized muscles. The kill first, ask never attitude. The big guns. I hated the punisher, and for me he was like the X-Punisher. But then! They actually developed the character. He relaxed around Storm (The snowball scene). He was there for Jubilee when the Sabertooth thing. And after Onslaught, it was even better. With the traitor storyline solved he felt lost in life, a feeling that resonated with me a lot back then. He actually made friends with Gambit. He found his calling, protecting his people. Claremont may be too verbose for today standards, but he actually developed him further as the x-cop-detective and started his partnership with Sage. Morrison cemented that in a couple of great issues. He was one of the very few characters (Psylocke being the other) who actually had an arc through the late nineties, early two thousands. He was one of my favourite characters before the Messiah thing started. Then they made him into a genocidal maniac many times over. I thought they were going to redeem him with that revenant storyline. Yeah possesion is a cheap device, but I would have accepted it at that point. But they did not redeem him, and that infuriates me. It is like he does not rate high enough as a character to deserve a redemption stroyline devoted to him. Now that he looks younger than ever, my headcanon is that he has been rebooted off panel. I think he needs a lot of attention to remind new readers what is great about the character.

[Jackraow21]

I like Bishop but think he suffers from having come after Cable as yet another gun-toting man-out-of-time character. He seemed redundant in a way. Now, having said that, I think there’s a simple solution: Upgrade his powers so that he doesn’t need guns at all, perhaps giving him a secondary mutation somehow (through some interaction with cosmic radiation that amps him up and unlocks this secondary mutation maybe?).

I’d make it so that he still absorbs energy and powers up, but make him even more like a human battery in that when he’s charged up he becomes more durable/invulnerable and physically stronger, faster and more agile. So he can redirect the absorbed energy as blasts or just turn it internally and power himself up and kick ass physically. In other words, make him less of a “shooter” and more of a “scrapper.”

Honestly I think this tweak would instantly make him more popular, as the scrapper H2H types tend to be the most popular (Logan, Gambit, X-23, Psylocke, etc.).

[Marvell2100]

Eeeeeasy, O.G., triple O.G. True that match was teased quite a bit, but I'm not gonna say no to a Psylocke hook up! Don't hate me for this but....I would put Jean and Bishop in a cool third place.

I don't mind him being with someone else for a minute but in the end, Bishop and Sage is where we should be at.

[Marvell2100]

Yeah bro put me in the camp of Bishop & Sage being a couple. I've loved their dynamic since X-Treme X-Men.

Y'up. They had chemistry and they worked so well together. I'd like to see a new X-Treme team with this line-up:

Bishop
Sage
Rogue
Gambit
Daken
Psylocke
Aurora

[Marvell2100]

I like Bishop but think he suffers from having come after Cable as yet another gun-toting man-out-of-time character. He seemed redundant in a way. Now, having said that, I think there’s a simple solution: Upgrade his powers so that he doesn’t need guns at all, perhaps giving him a secondary mutation somehow (through some interaction with cosmic radiation that amps him up and unlocks this secondary mutation maybe?).

I’d make it so that he still absorbs energy and powers up, but make him even more like a human battery in that when he’s charged up he becomes more durable/invulnerable and physically stronger, faster and more agile. So he can redirect the absorbed energy as blasts or just turn it internally and power himself up and kick ass physically. In other words, make him less of a “shooter” and more of a “scrapper.”

Honestly I think this tweak would instantly make him more popular, as the scrapper H2H types tend to be the most popular (Logan, Gambit, X-23, Psylocke, etc.).

I totally agree that he should ditch the guns. Bishop should be constantly absorbing energy so that he doesn't need a power boost from anyone.

We've seen him shoot beams from his eyes and direct energy blasts from his hands. He doesn't need the guns and it was just a cool prop back in the 90s. He doesn't need it anymore.