Did Emma Frost ever apologize to Firestar?

[Brian B]

since when? Jean gets blame and takes responsible for the DPS. This was acknowledged as recently as 3 months ago

Marvel has never gone back from Kurt Busiek’s solution to Dark Phoenix’s D’Bari mass murder and Jean Grey’s “resurrection” in Fantastic Four #286. Now, Jean says things like she feels what Phoenix did, or that Phoenix and her other selves are integrated into her personality and maybe memories. But, Marvel has never backed off from making clear Phoenix blew up the D’Bari’s sun, not Jean Grey.

Personally, I think it’s a cop out, and I wish they had left her dead. But Phoenix not Jean flash frying the D’Bari is Marvel canon.

[BobbysWorld]

Really really really can't undersell how much I dislike people harping on inherently unreal comic book actions like Dark Phoenix destroying a star system, in direct response to people wanting accountability/acknowledgment of actions that DO have real world implications that resonate for readers since they reflect forms of victimization that can and do happen in reality.

Its completely disingenuous to try and put an outlandish act that can ONLY happen in comic books on an equivalent level with acts involving deliberate violations of another person's sexual agency and personal autonomy. Its gross. Stop doing it.

Sexual harassment and assault is something that affects millions of people. Survivors read comic books and partake of discussions on comic book forums too. And its entirely possible and REASONABLE for people to feel strongly about seeing characters engage in sexual assault without narratives acknowledging that for what it is or building repercussions for it into the narrative. Especially because that ends up then mirroring the way it all too often plays out in the real world. Where victims receive no justice or support or just end up having people try and turn things around on them and make it a question of were they really harmed, do they deserve justice, have they ever done anything wrong themselves....and an endless stream of other nonsense one hundred percent aimed at just keeping attention shifted off of and away from the actual perpetrators of assault and any discussion of accountability or justice.

Which, y'know, in turn makes it all the more ugly when people then do the exact same thing with comic book characters and essentially treat the entire concept of sexual assault as a joke or like an abstract hypothetical thought experiment...such as when they try and make things about false equivalencies like 'well if we have to treat this one character as a rapist on account of his raping then we'd have to treat this other character as a genocidal mass murderer on account of an action taken by a fictional god-power that for decades has been kept deliberately ambiguous as to whether its actions are reflective or the fault of a human character largely because no two writers can even fucking agree to interpret the basic premise of the story the same way and so it flip-flops every time a new writer or editor comes along with an opposite take from the one before.'

No. You don't actually have to do any of that. You can listen when people say "Hey its kinda fucked up that nobody treats this character who acts like a rapist and also rapes other characters...as though he's a rapist and that's bad and should be treated as such within the narrative and when talking about the narrative. And if for some absurd reason we can't talk about rapist characters and treat them as such in a narrative or out of them, maybe characters need to not be written as rapists then. So we don't end up literally writing and reading stories about how rapists can't and shouldn't be held accountable for rape, since that's literally the story you get when you let characters be written as rapists but don't let other characters be written as regarding and treating them as such."

But whatever, all that's just me tossing some suggestions out there. Since a couple of you couldn't seem to see any alternative to telling readers they're wrong for reading a story where one character manipulates and violates a character perceived both by his character and by readers of the time as a woman with agency of her own that he was deliberately scheming to circumvent in completely predatory ways for completely predatory reasons....and then thinking, oh yeah. That's rape. What's happening in that story is rape which makes the guy doing it a rapist and that makes people who don't like that guy because they view him as a rapist....completely reasonable for viewing him that way on account of the raping he was written as doing and they read about him doing in the story where he was, in fact, a rapist.

Just saying, the "Well, actually" energy in this thread is strong, actually. "Well actually, Mastermind's not technically a rapist because he got catfished by the Phoenix and didn't realize that the person he was basically trying to roofie telepath style was not in fact a real live girl. Whew, he really dodged that morality bullet, but lulz you all sound dumb for thinking he raped a person instead of a cosmic entity that technically doesn't count because cosmic entities aren't classified as having personal agency under the New York penal code and you can't violate agency if you can't prove that agency in a court of law. LOL try some reading comprehension, am I right, fellas?"

But I mean, whatevs. Now, if you can find me a person who wants to have a similar discussion about the way comic books write and reference the Dark Phoenix story and Jean because they truly unironically and with complete seriousness feel it does a disservice to people who's entire civilization was wiped out by an extinction event perpetrated by either an act of god or the act of a being possessed by a god or godlike force? Like, yeah, for sure. Do that and I'm totally down to talk interchangeably about the problem of characters being rapists and the problem of characters being possessed, subsumed or Single White Female-d by cosmic forces who later go nom nom on stars just so everybody knows its dick is bigger than that one dude who only eats planets.

Until then though, maybe we could try thinking hey should I act like this conversation is completely ridiculous because this ridiculous thing happened in comics and can't be taken seriously and thus all things that happen in comics and I personally don't want to take seriously should like, not be taken seriously by anyone ever?

And then deciding nah, maybe I could just not.

[Brian B]

Really really really can't undersell how much I dislike people harping on inherently unreal comic book actions like Dark Phoenix destroying a star system, in direct response to people wanting accountability/acknowledgment of actions that DO have real world implications that resonate for readers since they reflect forms of victimization that can and do happen in reality.

Its completely disingenuous to try and put an outlandish act that can ONLY happen in comic books on an equivalent level with acts involving deliberate violations of another person's sexual agency and personal autonomy. Its gross. Stop doing it.

Sexual harassment and assault is something that affects millions of people. Survivors read comic books and partake of discussions on comic book forums too. And its entirely possible and REASONABLE for people to feel strongly about seeing characters engage in sexual assault without narratives acknowledging that for what it is or building repercussions for it into the narrative. Especially because that ends up then mirroring the way it all too often plays out in the real world. Where victims receive no justice or support or just end up having people try and turn things around on them and make it a question of were they really harmed, do they deserve justice, have they ever done anything wrong themselves....and an endless stream of other nonsense one hundred percent aimed at just keeping attention shifted off of and away from the actual perpetrators of assault and any discussion of accountability or justice.

Which, y'know, in turn makes it all the more ugly when people then do the exact same thing with comic book characters and essentially treat the entire concept of sexual assault as a joke or like an abstract hypothetical thought experiment...such as when they try and make things about false equivalencies like 'well if we have to treat this one character as a rapist on account of his raping then we'd have to treat this other character as a genocidal mass murderer on account of an action taken by a fictional god-power that for decades has been kept deliberately ambiguous as to whether its actions are reflective or the fault of a human character largely because no two writers can even fucking agree to interpret the basic premise of the story the same way and so it flip-flops every time a new writer or editor comes along with an opposite take from the one before.'

No. You don't actually have to do any of that. You can listen when people say "Hey its kinda fucked up that nobody treats this character who acts like a rapist and also rapes other characters...as though he's a rapist and that's bad and should be treated as such within the narrative and when talking about the narrative. And if for some absurd reason we can't talk about rapist characters and treat them as such in a narrative or out of them, maybe characters need to not be written as rapists then. So we don't end up literally writing and reading stories about how rapists can't and shouldn't be held accountable for rape, since that's literally the story you get when you let characters be written as rapists but don't let other characters be written as regarding and treating them as such."

But whatever, all that's just me tossing some suggestions out there. Since a couple of you couldn't seem to see any alternative to telling readers they're wrong for reading a story where one character manipulates and violates a character perceived both by his character and by readers of the time as a woman with agency of her own that he was deliberately scheming to circumvent in completely predatory ways for completely predatory reasons....and then thinking, oh yeah. That's rape. What's happening in that story is rape which makes the guy doing it a rapist and that makes people who don't like that guy because they view him as a rapist....completely reasonable for viewing him that way on account of the raping he was written as doing and they read about him doing in the story where he was, in fact, a rapist.

Just saying, the "Well, actually" energy in this thread is strong, actually. "Well actually, Mastermind's not technically a rapist because he got catfished by the Phoenix and didn't realize that the person he was basically trying to roofie telepath style was not in fact a real live girl. Whew, he really dodged that morality bullet, but lulz you all sound dumb for thinking he raped a person instead of a cosmic entity that technically doesn't count because cosmic entities aren't classified as having personal agency under the New York penal code and you can't violate agency if you can't prove that agency in a court of law. LOL try some reading comprehension, am I right, fellas?"

But I mean, whatevs. Now, if you can find me a person who wants to have a similar discussion about the way comic books write and reference the Dark Phoenix story and Jean because they truly unironically and with complete seriousness feel it does a disservice to people who's entire civilization was wiped out by an extinction event perpetrated by either an act of god or the act of a being possessed by a god or godlike force? Like, yeah, for sure. Do that and I'm totally down to talk interchangeably about the problem of characters being rapists and the problem of characters being possessed, subsumed or Single White Female-d by cosmic forces who later go nom nom on stars just so everybody knows its dick is bigger than that one dude who only eats planets.

Until then though, maybe we could try thinking hey should I act like this conversation is completely ridiculous because this ridiculous thing happened in comics and can't be taken seriously and thus all things that happen in comics and I personally don't want to take seriously should like, not be taken seriously by anyone ever?

And then deciding nah, maybe I could just not.

I have some bad news for you.

While godlike beings destroying civilizations are as fictional as Mastermind psychically projecting illusions into Jean Grey’s mind to rape her, in fact genocide is real.

Civilizations have been destroyed and whole peoples murdered out of existence.

Why do you blame people like me, your fellow readers, who have zero control over the stories or events in the comics? All I’m pointing out is what Marvel has done. Maybe you should take up your problems with Marvel editorial, since they are the ones creating the stories.

Don’t mistake apathy on my part for approval. I do not appreciate what Marvel has done with the X-Men. I’d like to see Mastermind pay the price. I’d like to see Mr. Sinister face justice. I’ve been waiting 40 years for Marvel to correct Jean’s resurrection.

Place blame with those who cause the upset, Marvel Comics. Your fellow readers like me aren’t making evil villains into heroes.

[ExodusCloak]

Well its kind of the same story that has happened with Kitty, Dani, Storm, Rachel and Magik. Which is why Ellis wad like can we just skip the sniping bit cause its getting old.

Emma you were so eeevil
Disappointed Ms Frost, Astonished Ms Pryde

Then Dani...I can't believe you let her do blah blah
Then Oh Emma you are so unbelievably good with Wither

Rachel mumumumymummmy....
Could you train me Ms Frost (Gambit v3)

Magik...you so bad but so am I lets be friends

Storm. EMMA...HOW COULD HE...HE LET YOU JOIN...AFTER...EVERYTHING...
Later...thank you for making him so happy

Jean...please Emma, we need your brilliance...join us
Emma...No thanks...

Its the exact same story over and over especially with Firestar. Its happened like 3 times now

[Brian B]

Well its kind of the same story that has happened with Kitty, Dani, Storm, Rachel and Magik. Which is why Ellis wad like can we just skip the sniping bit cause its getting old.

Emma you were so eeevil
Disappointed Ms Frost, Astonished Ms Pryde

Then Dani...I can't believe you let her do blah blah
Then Oh Emma you are so unbelievably good with Wither

Rachel mumumumymummmy....
Could you train me Ms Frost (Gambit v3)

Magik...you so bad but so am I lets be friends

Storm. EMMA...HOW COULD HE...HE LET YOU JOIN...AFTER...EVERYTHING...
Later...thank you for making him so happy

Jean...please Emma, we need your brilliance...join us
Emma...No thanks...

Its the exact same story over and over especially with Firestar. Its happened like 3 times now

The problem is they never leave bad guys as explicitly bad guys in comics these days.

[ExodusCloak]

The problem is they never leave bad guys as explicitly bad guys in comics these days.

Well if by these days you mean August 1994. I mean Rogue was pretty malicious to Dazzler.

[OldManLogan]

We're not fishing... We're simply pointing out canonical facts.

I wasn't talking about you, sorry for the confusion. I thought that keeping that bait part above your quote would make that message clear.
But there's a post above yours that starts with "I wonder if Firestar knows..." then follows with a bunch of shady Emma stuff that have absolutely nothing to do with Firestar (so Angelica obviously wouldn't know about that, basically intended as a jab instead of anything related to the topic). That's the trolling I was refering to.
I don't have a problem with trolling by the way. If I spent more time here I would troll Jean a lot, as she kinda represents everything I see wrong in the comic industry. I do have a problem when people complain about other people trolling their favorite character but then proceed to do exactly the same to others. Glass ceiling and all.

Yes, and that's my point. Some people want it both ways when they imply that Jean Grey destroyed an entire inhabited solar system in a fit of unprovoked rage while conveniently ignoring the fact that if not for the Hellfire Club, specifically Emma Frost and Jason Wyngarde, that tragedy would have never happened. Yet, when pointing fingers they are quick to remind us of the destruction of the D'Bari star system and how Jean Grey was solely responsible for the event while simultaneously saying that wasn't Jean Grey.

Some people... but not the poster you replied to, nor anyone that replied to the thread. That's what I'm talking about. You are discussing "The fandom and it's unfair opinions of Jean Grey" in a "Emma Frost did Firestar wrong" thread. There's no correlation there, unless you're assuming that just because that poster took Emma's side on the discussion he/she shares those unfair opinions about Grey.
In the X-Men #5 thread there was a discussion about double standards and how unfair it was that Emma was celebrated for being shrewd while Jean meddling with Polaris' answer was being frowned upon. For starters, as this thread clearly shows and as any Emma fan knows, she isn't universally praised for her actions, as I said before she's always been polarizing. Second, in that very thread there were quite a few people with Emma Frost avatars, only one of them had anything against Jean's actions, all the others were OK with it and even defended her. Yet the notion that Emma fans are the ones juding Jean persists. I just don't see how this thread has anything to do with the D'Bari or why the need to bring it up.

Considering how Kate Pryde practically fawns over Emma considering their history?? It is more than plausible.

I think that's quite the exaggeration, but honestly Kate is the only character Emma previously antagonized I can see and actually want to keep growing as a friend of hers. Astonishing X-Men ended on a high note, with Frost hand-picking Kate herself to keep her in check and also being in touch with her mind and comforting her until she was out of range. They buried the hatchet on that space bullet. If Joss Whedon, who's probably one of Kitty's biggest fans (he even created Buffy after her), saw it in-character for those two to develop the way they did, I don't think it's out of character at all, for either of them.

[Brian B]

Well if by these days you mean August 1994. I mean Rogue was pretty malicious to Dazzler.

How about what Rogue did to Ms. Marvel?

[ExodusCloak]

How about what Rogue did to Ms. Marvel?

I think they've gotten passed that 4 or 5 times. The same story over and over.

I don't recall a Dazzler one

[Micabe]

The problem is they never leave bad guys as explicitly bad guys in comics these days.

Agreed... However, I feel it necessary to point out that the more recent "bad guys/gals", never stick around long enough to make a lasting impression. Remember some of the bonified, mutant villain teams that Marvel has forgotten all about or made heroes?

The Mutant Liberation Front
The Resistants
Fanatix (Earth-1191)
The Upstarts
The Hellions (*Emma Frost's original students)
Freedom Force (original team)
The Acolytes
The Marauders (original team)
The Neo
The Sentinels (Robotic mutant hunter-killers)
Brood Mutants (Robert Delgado, Blindside, Brickbat, Lockup, Temptress, Tension, Dive-Bomber, and Whiphand.)

If I missed any group(s) please feel free to list them accordingly

[BobbysWorld]

I have some bad news for you.

While godlike beings destroying civilizations are as fictional as Mastermind psychically projecting illusions into Jean Grey’s mind to rape her, in fact genocide is real.

Civilizations have been destroyed and whole peoples murdered out of existence.

Why do you blame people like me, your fellow readers, who have zero control over the stories or events in the comics? All I’m pointing out is what Marvel has done. Maybe you should take up your problems with Marvel editorial, since they are the ones creating the stories.

Don’t mistake apathy on my part for approval. I do not appreciate what Marvel has done with the X-Men. I’d like to see Mastermind pay the price. I’d like to see Mr. Sinister face justice. I’ve been waiting 40 years for Marvel to correct Jean’s resurrection.

Place blame with those who cause the upset, Marvel Comics. Your fellow readers like me aren’t making evil villains into heroes.

Its cool if you want to play stupid, its not me it makes look dumb, so like, get down with your obtuse self I guess? Weird flex, but hey.

Extinction events and genocide are very real as well, but there is no real world equivalent to the Dark Phoenix's actions on a scale deliberately meant to be portrayed as cosmic and bigger than just a single planet. The destruction of that solar system isn't a random event that was pulled out of a hat for no reason even if you've chosen to disregard its context within a deliberately scripted narrative because it doesn't serve your false equivalency. That event was written into the narrative in large part to bring about the ultimate conflict with the Shi'ar, as well as referred back to in Phoenix stories since then. In order to establish the Phoenix as a threat bigger than any one world and make the X-Men each face a hero's dilemma as they struggled with whether they even had the right to defend Phoenix from the Shi'ar based on their feelings for her when the Shi'ar pointed out the threat the Phoenix posed all throughout the galaxy.

Its completely disingenuous to treat a story that was deliberately crafted with nonreal elements in order TO distance it from the only possible comparisons that could be made to the real world.....as though its an actual stand-in for such superficially similar atrocities. Earth's past extinction events or genocides are either the result of extreme events that while called acts of god, don't actually involve a figure that can be literally put on trial for that crime as was again fundamental to the overall Dark Phoenix Saga...or else they're the result of human hatred, bigotry, and oppression on a scale that requires cooperation and multiple aggressors, even if they're united by a single leader. The Dark Phoenix Saga was very deliberately written to not be a story about those things. The destruction Dark Phoenix caused was not an allegory for human bigotry against other cultures, and once again you're reaching to make an equivalency that isn't there, at the cost of treating real world atrocities as having any weight or mattering outside of this need you feel to render everything abstract and this just an idle intellectual argument that you can feel you've won.

That's the part that I'm annoyed about, but I'll make this my last post and go because I said what I said and my points stand. I don't actually expect I can stop you from having fun playing Devil's Advocate on a subject that you clearly don't care about either way. I just think its ugly, here's why, and that's as deep as it goes. So to recap one last time for posterity and pettiness, (look I said I'd be done after this, not that I don't still think you and this merry-go-round of BS aren't annoying)....Mastermind's predatory actions and choices are reflective of real world behavior even if he used telepathy to do it, and real life contains plenty of people who act like him. Things don't need to align perfectly for the connection between character and real world behavior to be apparent to anyone not pretending to miss the point in order to call that hashtag winning. Readers who have known people like Mastermind or been preyed on by someone like that are often informed in their view of/towards him by their feelings about events in the real world. In turn, how Mastermind is viewed and treated in story and by other fans in discussion of that story, informs how some readers engage with those stories or those discussions with other readers.

That's literally all that's happening here. This is a discussion where how Mastermind is regarded came up, in which you chose to take a stance divorcing his in story actions from the real world contexts twined with those for some readers for whom such things are NOT abstract. From there, you attempted to claim that trying to regard him as a rapist for his deliberately scripted as predatory behavior, requires also regarding Jean as a genocidal mass murderer for the actions of an ambiguously connected cosmic figure deliberately scripted to be on a scale IMPOSSIBLE to fully relate to the real world or the demise of real civilizations. I in turn said no, that's stupid, its not you being clever and insightful dismissing others for seeing real world parallels with the one character's behavior via drawing a parallel nobody else is actually trying to draw because nobody else actually sees the Jean/genocidal parallel as adding anything to the discussion OR reflective of the real world or comparable events. We're not actually missing the disingenuous connections you keep trying to make happen, we're saying stop fucking trying to make fetch happen, Gretchen.

You only DREW the Dark Phoenix connection INTO this conversation to point out how ridiculous you feel it is to treat Mastermind's actions as rape. That whole line of thought STARTED with you presenting it as absurd, in building on what you viewed as absurdity regarding Mastermind. YOU don't even buy that the Dark Phoenix is reflective of real world genocides, you just keep doubling down in order to try and present it as the inevitable end conclusion of my argument with Mastermind. Except lol. Its not. Don't try and sell me on what I must actually be saying about Dark Phoenix given what else I'm saying. I'm actually very clear on what I see happening in this thread, thanks. You can play this game all you want but your refusal to acknowledge what I'm saying is the difference between Mastermind and Dark Phoenix, when I explicitly say that I'm just not saying about the Phoenix what you're trying to cast me as saying by way of the parallel you keep trying to attribute to me specifically cuz you know it doesn't make sense, which is also the reason its not something I'm saying in the first place....

ahslkhlfkah. Like omg, is this actually how you think you win arguments? Does this actually work for you ever? How ridiculous. So nah, what people are saying about Mastermind is just not the same as saying that same thing about Dark Phoenix, and I'm not claiming it is. You can keep trying to insist its the same or at least that's what I'm actually saying via my argument, but hard disagree. I know what point I made here, and its actually totes cool with me if you don't get it or want to keep pretending you can't see it. Guess that means you win? LOL. I think? Idk, whatever works for you.

(LOL and for the record, that whole 'why blame me a reader who has no control over editorial' bit is always cute but uh. What? None of us have any control whatsoever whether Emma Frost apologizes to Firestar, but that doesn't stop us from having opinions on whether she should, shouldn't, technically has, or hasn't, so like let's not with the whole 'everything is Marvel's fault' the second you don't like how your own opinions start making you look. And I don't like how Marvel handles a lot of this. Obviously. I have my criticisms of them and their treatment of all this, I made that in part here, I've made it elsewhere, I'm sure I'll make it again in the future. Its not mutually exclusive of my criticism of the way you yourself as a reader chose to handle your part of this conversation. I don't blame you for anything other than the part where I said I think its a bit ugly to treat others' acknowledging Mastermind's actions as a depiction of rape as though its absurd to treat it that way because 'well technically.' I didn't like that, I said why, and that's that. Not totally sure why you think that part is something I should blame Marvel for, or where you felt I was blaming you personally for Marvel's....decisions on how they write Mastermind? Oh well.)

But yeah. The End! I'm done now, this was supes fun, we should totally never do it again, byeeeeeee.

[Brian B]

Its cool if you want to play stupid, its not me it makes look dumb, so like, get down with your obtuse self I guess? Weird flex, but hey.

Extinction events and genocide are very real as well, but there is no real world equivalent to the Dark Phoenix's actions on a scale deliberately meant to be portrayed as cosmic and bigger than just a single planet. The destruction of that solar system isn't a random event that was pulled out of a hat for no reason even if you've chosen to disregard its context within a deliberately scripted narrative because it doesn't serve your false equivalency. That event was written into the narrative in large part to bring about the ultimate conflict with the Shi'ar, as well as referred back to in Phoenix stories since then. In order to establish the Phoenix as a threat bigger than any one world and make the X-Men each face a hero's dilemma as they struggled with whether they even had the right to defend Phoenix from the Shi'ar based on their feelings for her when the Shi'ar pointed out the threat the Phoenix posed all throughout the galaxy.

Its completely disingenuous to treat a story that was deliberately crafted with nonreal elements in order TO distance it from the only possible comparisons that could be made to the real world.....as though its an actual stand-in for such superficially similar atrocities. Earth's past extinction events or genocides are either the result of extreme events that while called acts of god, don't actually involve a figure that can be literally put on trial for that crime as was again fundamental to the overall Dark Phoenix Saga...or else they're the result of human hatred, bigotry, and oppression on a scale that requires cooperation and multiple aggressors, even if they're united by a single leader. The Dark Phoenix Saga was very deliberately written to not be a story about those things. The destruction Dark Phoenix caused was not an allegory for human bigotry against other cultures, and once again you're reaching to make an equivalency that isn't there, at the cost of treating real world atrocities as having any weight or mattering outside of this need you feel to render everything abstract and this just an idle intellectual argument that you can feel you've won.

That's the part that I'm annoyed about, but I'll make this my last post and go because I said what I said and my points stand. I don't actually expect I can stop you from having fun playing Devil's Advocate on a subject that you clearly don't care about either way. I just think its ugly, here's why, and that's as deep as it goes. So to recap one last time for posterity and pettiness, (look I said I'd be done after this, not that I don't still think you and this merry-go-round of BS aren't annoying)....Mastermind's predatory actions and choices are reflective of real world behavior even if he used telepathy to do it, and real life contains plenty of people who act like him. Things don't need to align perfectly for the connection between character and real world behavior to be apparent to anyone not pretending to miss the point in order to call that hashtag winning. Readers who have known people like Mastermind or been preyed on by someone like that are often informed in their view of/towards him by their feelings about events in the real world. In turn, how Mastermind is viewed and treated in story and by other fans in discussion of that story, informs how some readers engage with those stories or those discussions with other readers.

That's literally all that's happening here. This is a discussion where how Mastermind is regarded came up, in which you chose to take a stance divorcing his in story actions from the real world contexts twined with those for some readers for whom such things are NOT abstract. From there, you attempted to claim that trying to regard him as a rapist for his deliberately scripted as predatory behavior, requires also regarding Jean as a genocidal mass murderer for the actions of an ambiguously connected cosmic figure deliberately scripted to be on a scale IMPOSSIBLE to fully relate to the real world or the demise of real civilizations. I in turn said no, that's stupid, its not you being clever and insightful dismissing others for seeing real world parallels with the one character's behavior via drawing a parallel nobody else is actually trying to draw because nobody else actually sees the Jean/genocidal parallel as adding anything to the discussion OR reflective of the real world or comparable events. We're not actually missing the disingenuous connections you keep trying to make happen, we're saying stop fucking trying to make fetch happen, Gretchen.

You only DREW the Dark Phoenix connection INTO this conversation to point out how ridiculous you feel it is to treat Mastermind's actions as rape. That whole line of thought STARTED with you presenting it as absurd, in building on what you viewed as absurdity regarding Mastermind. YOU don't even buy that the Dark Phoenix is reflective of real world genocides, you just keep doubling down in order to try and present it as the inevitable end conclusion of my argument with Mastermind. Except lol. Its not. Don't try and sell me on what I must actually be saying about Dark Phoenix given what else I'm saying. I'm actually very clear on what I see happening in this thread, thanks. You can play this game all you want but your refusal to acknowledge what I'm saying is the difference between Mastermind and Dark Phoenix, when I explicitly say that I'm just not saying about the Phoenix what you're trying to cast me as saying by way of the parallel you keep trying to attribute to me specifically cuz you know it doesn't make sense, which is also the reason its not something I'm saying in the first place....

ahslkhlfkah. Like omg, is this actually how you think you win arguments? Does this actually work for you ever? How ridiculous. So nah, what people are saying about Mastermind is just not the same as saying that same thing about Dark Phoenix, and I'm not claiming it is. You can keep trying to insist its the same or at least that's what I'm actually saying via my argument, but hard disagree. I know what point I made here, and its actually totes cool with me if you don't get it or want to keep pretending you can't see it. Guess that means you win? LOL. I think? Idk, whatever works for you.

(LOL and for the record, that whole 'why blame me a reader who has no control over editorial' bit is always cute but uh. What? None of us have any control whatsoever whether Emma Frost apologizes to Firestar, but that doesn't stop us from having opinions on whether she should, shouldn't, technically has, or hasn't, so like let's not with the whole 'everything is Marvel's fault' the second you don't like how your own opinions start making you look. And I don't like how Marvel handles a lot of this. Obviously. I have my criticisms of them and their treatment of all this, I made that in part here, I've made it elsewhere, I'm sure I'll make it again in the future. Its not mutually exclusive of my criticism of the way you yourself as a reader chose to handle your part of this conversation. I don't blame you for anything other than the part where I said I think its a bit ugly to treat others' acknowledging Mastermind's actions as a depiction of rape as though its absurd to treat it that way because 'well technically.' I didn't like that, I said why, and that's that. Not totally sure why you think that part is something I should blame Marvel for, or where you felt I was blaming you personally for Marvel's....decisions on how they write Mastermind? Oh well.)

But yeah. The End! I'm done now, this was supes fun, we should totally never do it again, byeeeeeee.

Come off it. Mastermind’s “rape” of Phoenix — and it’s portrayed as seduction, not rape — is about as realistic as Phoenix’s genocide.

Personally, I would prefer to see all these villainous characters defeated and punished. But go on, lecture me if you’re so flipping triggered. Does that make you feel better?

I don’t want to see Mastermind treated like he’s done nothing wrong. I don’t want to see Mr. Sinister leading a mutant paradise as part of the Quiet Council. I don’t even like the idea of an undemocratic and non-republican form of government, either.

You can continue to ignore what I’ve said, but it’s a fact. Marvel controls these things. I do not.

My opinion, which I don’t even know how it could be construed as upsetting and has little value because I’m just a reader, is that it is pointless to question or examine what Mastermind did, because clearly Marvel will never address his behavior.

[danielsan52]

This is everything….
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[Mercury]

Also LOL at Jean fans trolling Emma and no one taking the bait.

I wasn't trolling but simply stating and posting facts with a soupçon of snark. Considering you're such a huge fan of Emma, I'm sure you can appreciate that.

ABut that's the point, she isn't absolved. That's why even to this day there are trust issues with other members of the team... as it should be.

She is absolved. None of her crimes are ever brought up, her other questionable behavior is framed as being acceptable because [insert reason], and she's never really had to pay for either.

I wasn't talking about you, sorry for the confusion. I thought that keeping that bait part above your quote would make that message clear.

But there's a post above yours that starts with "I wonder if Firestar knows..." then follows with a bunch of shady Emma stuff that have absolutely nothing to do with Firestar (so Angelica obviously wouldn't know about that, basically intended as a jab instead of anything related to the topic). That's the trolling I was refering to. I don't have a problem with trolling by the way.

I posted those pages to illustrate that Emma went on to once more do exactly what Firestar had warned her not to do. I also posted pages praising Emma, again, with a soupçon of snark added for good measure.

If I spent more time here I would troll Jean a lot, as she kinda represents everything I see wrong in the comic industry.

I'm sure you would. Also, part of me feels the same way about Emma "represent[ing] everything I see wrong [with] the comic book industry." This is a character who has repeatedly--and, really, I've only recently, i.e., within the last 6-8 months, noticed this pattern--abused and violated not just adults but young adolescents and yet is praised and put on a pedestal for her "edgy" efforts. The normalization of child abuse--which is one of the topics of this thread--is not acceptable to me.

I do have a problem when people complain about other people trolling their favorite character but then proceed to do exactly the same to others. Glass ceiling and all.

For the most part, I stay in my lane. I make a great effort to not troll fans or attack other characters. I'll go back to doing just that. However, to be fair, my snarky reply was intended for ExodusCloak, who, on several occasions, has gone out of their way to smear Jean, even creating a thread or two to double down on their efforts.

I sincerely apologize if I was too snarky and it hurt or bothered any of you. It really was a low-blow and petty of me.

At least I can do that much.

[Micabe]

Come off it. Mastermind’s “rape” of Phoenix — and it’s portrayed as seduction, not rape — is about as realistic as Phoenix’s genocide.

Heh! This brings to mind the decades-old, erroneous argument that D'Ken raped Katherine Anne Summers and fathered Adam (Genetically engennered) Neramani only for it to be reviled that Katherine was never raped by D'Ken and the third Summers brother was actually Gabriel Summers.

Personally, I would prefer to see all these villainous characters defeated and punished. But go on, lecture me if you’re so flipping triggered. Does that make you feel better?

I don’t want to see Mastermind treated like he’s done nothing wrong. I don’t want to see Mr. Sinister leading a mutant paradise as part of the Quiet Council. I don’t even like the idea of an undemocratic and non-republican form of government, either.

You can continue to ignore what I’ve said, but it’s a fact. Marvel controls these things. I do not.

My opinion, which I don’t even know how it could be construed as upsetting and has little value because I’m just a reader, is that it is pointless to question or examine what Mastermind did, because clearly Marvel will never address his behavior.

But, Marvel did address Jason Wyngarde's behavior when Jean Grey telepathically mind-flog his dumbass.




Emma never apologized for her involvement in that debacle either... I'm just saying