Originally Posted by
Adam Allen
One of the details that got lost in the condensed cartoon version of the story. I liked the episode, but really thought it was weird to see "Inferno" having nothing to do with Illyana, when it was (in the comics) the culmination/continuation of a years-long character arc for her, that dominated the New Mutants title and in Inferno crossed over to all the Marvel titles at the time. Most of the heroes dealing with magical/demon-possession stuff during the crossover had it happen more or less out of the blue (like I recall the Daredevil and Power Pack Inferno issues).
Maddie's becoming the Goblin Queen wasn't quite as out of the blue, as Claremont was writing both titles (X-Men and New Mutants) this whole time, and was looking for a way to resolve the problem of Jean having been brought back and Scott being used in X-Factor, which ruined the happy retirement he'd wanted for Cyclops, and made him look like a jerk for abandoning his wife and infant child. So he made Maddie a clone created by Sinister, and because Sinister allied with the demons from Limbo (who had turned on Illyana, who they'd served since she defeated Belasco) in their plan to open a gateway permanently to earth, magic/demon possession was used to turn her evil, unlock her previously non-existent powers (Maddie had initally just been a human who happened to look like Jean) and in Inferno have her basically fridged, leaving baby Nathan with Scott and Jean over in X-Factor.
Rushed as the story was to get squeezed into one episode ... and while the Illyana Easter Egg I guess was nice, it was also kind of jarring to see her versions pop up in randomly in this story, when her struggle with and ultimately becoming Darkchild in Inferno was the central story to the whole crossover, in the comics ... I really liked this version better for both Scott and Maddie. In the comics, both were kind of screwed by editorial/real-world decisions that made the characters look bad, where this version could avoid having Scott abandon his family and Maddie treated like a problematic dangling subplot, done away with through the problematic tropes of woman-turned-evil-by-power, evil-from-spurned-love, and killed-off-for-male-character's-story-arc.
Baby Cable was actually with X-Factor for a bit before being shipped off to the future (not with Bishop) in the comics. Their losing him immediately this way is also I think less insult to Maddie. And while Nate Grey eventually brought her back to life in the comics, that was years later. This version, where she is not killed but is allowed to choose to go and live her own life, is again much better. (Even if folks might prefer to have had her stick around for the romantic-triangle-drama.) Yeah, her randomly deciding her names are Maddie Pryor and Goblin Queen don't have any context in the cartoon, but meh. Same as all of the magic and demon possession ... I guess they tried to make it make sense by playing up Sinister's monstrous/demonic appearance, and having his lab appear more like Frankenstein's than modern science. I guess we were meant to infer the magic/demon stuff was his influence, but yeah, made less sense in context here than in the comics.
Still liked the way the characters were all treated better in this version, so willing to give a pass for all the random. Plus, supposed to be a kid's cartoon, so not like realism is the goal. Giving the series an A+ so far, personally.