I hate that lust gets such a bum rap. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a relationship built on lust, as long as all parties are up front and honest about it. Honest with their partners. Honest with themselves. They say love is deeper, but so, too, are the graves that it leaves when it departs. It's love that fills graveyard after graveyard with shattered hearts, souls and dreams.
I'm fine with lust. It's Scott and Emma that I'm not particularly fond of, whether individually or together. Sadly, putting the wrong two people in the right situation doesn't do it for me.
I find some posters are almost afraid of passionate sex in a comic. Like it frightens them or something. Emma admitted pretty early on that she was in love with Scott, and Scott was torn between his feelings for Jean and Emma. Typical affair story. People fall out of love all the time, it happens for various reasons. Part of it was Scott's fault, part of it was Jean's fault, and in the end their relationship was probably doomed anyway even if Scott didn't start having an affair with Emma. Scott and Jean weren't talking to each other, their communication had completely broken down because neither wanted to share their pain with the other.
Emma isn't a saint but neither is Scott and neither is Jean. They are written as flawed people who make mistakes. This is no different than real life, sometimes there really isn't a villain in the story at all, just three people going through their pain in different ways.
People forget that something that brought Scott and Emma together was sharing their traumas. Emma had just witnessed and been connected to millions of people killed in the worst genocide in 616 history. Scott had endured possession by Apocalypse and it had left him traumatized. Shared trauma can bring two people together quite easily. Jean was also going through pain, but she wasn't perfect either she was becoming progressively more paranoid about Scott and reading his mind without his permission. Personally I think this has more to do with the chaos of the Phoenix Force and how it amplifies emotions, as the Phoenix Force was growing stronger in Jean it was also amplifying her emotions and making it more difficult for her to be logical with her partner.
One of the things that always drew me to Marvel was that the characters are flawed and make mistakes, sometimes bad mistakes. What I get upset about is that the editor and writer didn't follow Jean's story through the breakup, instead they made her disappear. Heck have Jean leave the X-Men and join the Defenders or the Avengers at the time, have her start up a relationship with someone else. They just didn't want to explore the full story, typical from a male writer and editor that they just wanted to write the man's story of the affair and then make the ex-wife vanish because it was inconvenient to tell her story too.
We are MUTANT..Krakoa, FOREVER!!! “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”
Scott and Emma isn't portrayed as lust based, it's portrayed as love. It certainly started as lust based, but it's typically portrayed as moving beyond that.
Last edited by LordUltimus; 02-17-2022 at 01:12 PM.
It's love.
As you are a Jean Grey fan, I do have an honest question. Would you be happy to see Jean Grey have an ongoing relationship with a character other than Scott? Do you think her character could be explored more deeply if she had a chance to be with someone else for once? Every single time Jean has returned she has somehow ended up being back with Scott, when I keep hoping they would let her date someone else. I am not sure Logan or Bishop is my first pick, but someone different at least who allows Jean to have a story separate from Scott for once.
We are MUTANT..Krakoa, FOREVER!!! “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”
Its more like one of those Hallmark movies lol: Rich, no time for fun businesswoman falls for small town man, with dead wife, raising his teenage(?) daughter
I think all these characters need to move on to new romantic dramas.
Jean and Scott, and Emma and Scott were amazing couples in their time, but the times have changed and pairing them all together prevents them from becoming more complex.
Jean and Scott's marriage had become more of an obligation and a keeping up of appearances. Initially, Emma was a bit of excitement for Scott and she enjoyed the thrill of getting one over on Jean. Maybe, in a way, it was her way of proving to herself she could get anything she wanted-even over Queen Jean Grey.
However, it did grow into real love. In "Here Comes Tomorrow" Jean even approves of the relationship, saying that Emma was good for Scott. Jean even said all she did was keep dying on him. I love Jean, but I think Emma and Scott had a better dynamic as a couple. Scott and Jean are more interesting when they're not together.
Mutant and Proud!
None of it was Jean's "fault." Moreover, I don't recall Jean ever reading Scott's mind without his permission. Hell, she wouldn't read his mind with his permission (see below). Lastly, she did try talking to and sharing her pain and trauma with him (see below).
Ultimately, what redeems Jean in this storyline is threefold: Although she was fully bonded with the Phoenix Force, which certainly heightens its hosts' emotions, (1) Jean didn't kill Emma, despite the latter purposefully antagonizing her and also aiding Mastermind in psychically and physically raping the Phoenix clone, which set off a chain of events that would continue to affect Jean for decades; (2) she plucked Emma from death, acknowledging that Emma loved Scott, even though she had no reason to do so; and (3) as the White Phoenix, to save mutantkind, she rewrote reality and pushed Emma and Scott together because Scott wouldn't have gone and didn't go with Emma of his own accord.
As for Emma and Scott as a couple, I really can't comment on their relationship because I never bothered reading those stories since Jean was gone. However, I have read a number of panels and pages in which Emma both implied and stated that Scott thought about Jean religiously. She also seemed preoccupied with not being able to "compare" to Jean. Moreover, during Scott's time displacement, Emma controlled his mind for a spell, tried rewriting his personality, and "changing him into the man he is supposed to be," which I think forever changed Scott's feelings towards her. In the end, I find all of this very telling regarding the strength and nature of Scott and Emma's relationship.
While I have longed for Jean to be single or with someone else--even Logan--I am intrigued by how Duggan has depicted her relationship with Scott, both in Cable and X-Men. Some of the issues that plagued their relationship were certainly addressed during their time displacement as teenagers. I also suspect that their individual experiences of death and bonding with the Phoenix Force brought them closer together. Scott was finally able to understand what Jean had lived through, and Jean was able to seek solace in finally being fully understood.
Jean Grey in the words of Walt Whitman, from his masterpiece Leaves of Grass, "Song of Myself" (51 and 52):
"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
"Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you."
Jean Grey in the words of Walt Whitman, from his masterpiece Leaves of Grass, "Song of Myself" (51 and 52):
"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
"Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you."