X-men unlimited 38. I guess diamonds can break adamantium now ?

[Ambaryerno]

I'm with you on this one. The younger versions of her teachers (whom she'd never shown interest in before) seemed forced and pervy to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It works better when you consider the context:

Teen Scott was really given the short end of the stick, with everyone judging him for the things that his adult self did yet which he has no control over. He's also someone who at that time of his life was struggled interacting with other people. He was also fairly recently (from his perspective) in an abusive situation with Jack O' Diamonds, not to mention his difficult childhood in the orphanage. All of these things are something that he and Laura share in common and could connect over; victims of abuse, difficulties connecting with others, and the unfair judgment of their peers over things beyond their control.

Laura is also just coming off Arena, probably one of the more traumatic experiences she's had to deal with since escaping the Facility. It's made clear that what happened there, on top of her capture and torture by the Purifiers in the aftermath, (still annoyed this never got explained considering the last we saw of her in Arena was Logan personally loading her on a medical helicopter) left her in a bad place. Teen Scott comes along and is just...nice. When he first addresses her he doesn't try to push her, he just talks and tries to listen. And we've seen from her interactions with other characters Laura naturally gravitates towards people who show her any sort of kindness or empathy.

Over the next few arcs we see a bit more of this building, with Scott helping her through a breakdown when the Purifiers release the footage of her under the Trigger Scent on Murderworld, which gets a payoff when he starts to crack upon meeting his father again.

So this was far from forced, and instead was a development that got derailed when Scott left the book. WARREN, however, was absolutely forced, with him suddenly being interested despite their not interacting at all up to that point.

[Grinning Soul]

It works better when you consider the context:

Teen Scott was really given the short end of the stick, with everyone judging him for the things that his adult self did yet which he has no control over. He's also someone who at that time of his life was struggled interacting with other people. He was also fairly recently (from his perspective) in an abusive situation with Jack O' Diamonds, not to mention his difficult childhood in the orphanage. All of these things are something that he and Laura share in common and could connect over; victims of abuse, difficulties connecting with others, and the unfair judgment of their peers over things beyond their control.

Laura is also just coming off Arena, probably one of the more traumatic experiences she's had to deal with since escaping the Facility. It's made clear that what happened there, on top of her capture and torture by the Purifiers in the aftermath, (still annoyed this never got explained considering the last we saw of her in Arena was Logan personally loading her on a medical helicopter) left her in a bad place. Teen Scott comes along and is just...nice. When he first addresses her he doesn't try to push her, he just talks and tries to listen. And we've seen from her interactions with other characters Laura naturally gravitates towards people who show her any sort of kindness or empathy.

Over the next few arcs we see a bit more of this building, with Scott helping her through a breakdown when the Purifiers release the footage of her under the Trigger Scent on Murderworld, which gets a payoff when he starts to crack upon meeting his father again.

So this was far from forced, and instead was a development that got derailed when Scott left the book. WARREN, however, was absolutely forced, with him suddenly being interested despite their not interacting at all up to that point.

The main problem I have with this is, in essence, the problem I have with most of the characterization of the O5. Those were characters which already existed and already had their personalities. Bendis ignored most of it to tell his story, giving himself the excuse of "but they time-traveled and they learned about their future. This changes everything". It changes some things, but not everything.

Scott didn't connect with the other X-Men because they would shut him out. On the contrary, all of them wanted Scott to let them in. They were his friends and loved him. But Scott was very afraid of letting anyone in. And that suddenly disappears, as if it wasn't rooted in many traumas and his fear of hurting someone because of his power.

There is a Classic X-Men story about him that I don't know if it's canon, but shows a bit of his childhood in the orphanage. It shows his PSTD because of the "accident" that kiled his parents, how his self-esteem was impacted by the fact he wasn't adopted and his head injury and how Sinister was always manipulating him, to keep him fragile and dependent going to the extreme of killing a couple who was ready to adopt him, crushing his hopes of having a family again and reinforcing his fear of abandonment. On top of that you add the destructiveness of his power and the fact that he mastered controlling it early on, but he could never shut it down.

All of that? Ignored because time travel heals trauma, I guess.