X-Characters you think have been handled badly over the years.....

[NewMutant]

Also lets talk about Anole...

Why is he on the New Mutants? I mean I'm glad to see him in a book, but the dudes been CEO of Worthington Industries during Wolverine and the X-Men.... where he also graduated.

[Saithor]

Also lets talk about Anole...

Why is he on the New Mutants? I mean I'm glad to see him in a book, but the dudes been CEO of Worthington Industries during Wolverine and the X-Men.... where he also graduated.

Why are any of the new mutants on the new mutants? At this point we’ve had how many “the next generation of mutants”?

[Mungho]

Beast, Beast, Beast. Beast, Beast, Beast. Beast, Beast, Beast. Beast, Beast, Beast. Henry McCoy.

THIS. They could do something interesting like finally address his SEVERE insecurity issues, that have been hinted at since the 70's. The fact he feels he has to be the smartest or he feels worthless and thus cannot admit his mistakes(that would mean, to him, he's not the smartest). Maybe have him snap and go catatonic, requiring Emma and/or Jean to get him to confront his issues and finally realize what a ******* he's been and try to make amends. Or as one member here suggested, have him die in a heroic sacrifice during this A.X.E. event and have him chill out awhile in the afterlife and have him confront his issues there, before coming back to Earth.
But with Percy's X-Force run spiraling into madness(as I've heard someone describe it), I don't have much hope. Especially when Percy's has multiple characters throughout the run mention how much Hank's changed and wish for his old self. Even Hank himself mentions this but feels he cannot go back. Constantly acknowledging an issue but then doing nothing with it just drives me crazy.

[Diammandis]

Beast is such a weird case cause like I want to say that he's being mischaracterized so bad but like he's been on this trajectory for so long. I kind of wish the writers would just bite the bullet and make him an anti-hero or something.

[Saithor]

Beast is such a weird case cause like I want to say that he's being mischaracterized so bad but like he's been on this trajectory for so long. I kind of wish the writers would just bite the bullet and make him an anti-hero or something.

He’s long been past anti-hero for a while. Last issue had him revealed as classist, prejudiced scum. Not sure what ist applies to not wanting mutants because their powers aren’t good enough for him.

[Alan2099]

It's not so much that Emma isn't a villain anymore it's the way they did it.

She used to be a pretty remorseless villain.
Then there was Generation X. She was still a darker character, but she was trying to move past that and it was obvious that it wasn't easy. She also seemed to be dealing with the fact that she was getting older.
Then she was brought into the X-men. Any trace of her trying to move past her darker side and being a better person seemed to be dumped. Basically they said she was on the X-men know, but she was going to act like a villain again.

That's not even getting into how may weird stumbling blocks her romance with Cyclops had.

[Grunty]

I feel pretty much every regular character has suffered under being badly handled at one point or another, especialy over the past 15 years when there was no clear line of development and progression for teams and characters anymore.

Basicly it became increasingly trivial for many writers and the editors to actualy explain why a team is formed, why characters join them and who they actualy are as people. Instead it became a draw and discard system.

Form a team on a random basis, pick some characters, use them for one or two years, series is canceled, leave. Next writer comes in (sometimes it's the same but given another shot), repeat.

Overall this harms even the constantly present favorits, as not only do conflicting characterizations and missing red lines in their histories start to pile up, but they also just seem to get dragged from one "big splash page" moment to the next without any of these actualy leaving a permanet mark, as they aren't the result of rewarding development over longer time anymore, but just quickly made showcases that lose all their impact because of repetition without substance.

[Ulysian_Thracs]

As much as I want to snipe Rift on Hellion, he has a much better command of the character's history than I do and will do a much better job, so I'll give him first crack. :c)

Frankly, X-23.

By and large, she's just plain been written BADLY by most writers. Most writers treat her as a gender-swapped Logan, all growling and snarling. Or worse, having her toss off pithy one-liners. They just can't grasp how to handle an introvert. Furthermore, very few remember how smart she's supposed to be, or that she's a scalpel, not a meat cleaver. Instead she throws herself head-first into fights rather than using the raised-from-birth assassin training that allowed her to put one over on CAPTAIN AMERICA. At thirteen!

Yes, she got to have the Wolverine name, but Marvel didn't let her actually DO anything with it. There's many missed opportunities for stories that could connect her to the larger Marvel universe. Wolverines could have laid the groundwork for a major role in Secret Wars (Destiny predicted that without Wolverine the multiverse was screwed) but she appeared in one panel IN THE ENTIRE EVENT AND ITS TIE-INS. She was the Unipower's chosen heir, and this has never been mentioned since. She was one of Kingpin's favorite assassins, and yet despite a story arc that seemed like the PERFECT setup to bring them into conflict, (Orphans of X: Laura vows to bring everyone who used her as an assassin to justice) it was Emma who got to face Fisk in Devil's Reign. Even when Logan was DEAD she still played second-fiddle, with Old Man Logan getting the multiple team books. Her "big" arcs in recent books pretty much involved reduced her to a prop for Synch to angst over.

Laura has been utterly wasted on the X-books pretty much since Second Coming.

I loved Laura when she was first introduced and I loved where they took her in OWL. I'm not a big fan of everything in-between for most of the reasons you stated. it just isn't the same character! They turned her into everything BUT what she is supposed to be when they developed her. It's not just that they want a wolverine with a tiny waist and DDs, which they turn her into all the time. It's that they seem to want her to be everything to everyone so they can shoehorn her into every story, but she is constantly changed her to fit the other people or be a plot device. Then, at the same time, they tend to shaft other characters to elevate her and her screentime. (Watch out, Synch! I don't recall one love interest who wasn't pushed aside to raise her profile...)

I think this is because the writers just have no idea how to do a proper character arc for her. They want to stretch out her progression from the scared, broken animalistic little girl to the HBIC OWL who took all of the bad stuff and turned it into her strengths, but they can't do it in a steady and consistent way because they want to use her at all these various points in the transition at once. So, every time she makes some progress as a 'person', they inexplicably drag her back to a prior state to make her fit the plot of whatever they are dumping her in now.

Monet St. Croix

She's mostly just been wasted. But PAD really derailed her character into a dumb brawling hypocrite. If she's not depicted as a reckless brawler, she just kinda character flips to whatever bit part writers want her for.

She is such a wasted opportunity! She is such a great character for her personality and the background of trauma she suffered that they turned into a generic flying brick.

At this point most of the major characters have had some sort of character assassination.

What I like about Emma Frost is that all of her variants (as I suppose were calling them) all still felt within the switch of the relm of the origin of the character. Claremont's grew into Lobdell's who grew into Morrison/Whedon and so on. IvX was certainly down point. And in a book about evolution! But at that point it was also the all-time low point of the franchise IMO anyways.

My issue with Emma isn't how she's written. I really like her as a character. It's fun to watch her scheme and manipulate, which she is constantly doing with absolutely zero down time. Even the closest thing to a pure relationship ever shown was Emma manipulating Scott for years to maintain her own power, and she might've truly loved him. The way she treated/treats everyone else, from her retainers (she doesn't have any real friends) to the Cuckoos to the rest of the original Hellions and Academy X kids she supposedly cared so much about and hasn't even spoken to since they were kicked out of the Academy in Messiah complex or resurrected on Krakoa...she is a sociopathic, manipulative bitch! Her redeeming quality is that she is really effective at it and an integral part of making Krakoa work because of it.

So, the failure in the writing that I see is how everyone else fawns over Emma as if they don't know exactly what she is after decades of her showing her true colors over and over and over again. HOW THE HELL DOES ANYONE EVEN PRETEND TO TRUST THIS WOMAN? It seems so forced and so badly written for her to be treated as a hero after she has screwed over all these characters time and time again. It would be more realistic and satisfying (to me at least) to see grudging respect and necessary alliances rather than adoration, respect and friendship.

[Saithor]

As much as I want to snipe Rift on Hellion, he has a much better command of the character's history than I do and will do a much better job, so I'll give him first crack. :c)



I loved Laura when she was first introduced and I loved where they took her in OWL. I'm not a big fan of everything in-between for most of the reasons you stated. it just isn't the same character! They turned her into everything BUT what she is supposed to be when they developed her. It's not just that they want a wolverine with a tiny waist and DDs, which they turn her into all the time. It's that they seem to want her to be everything to everyone so they can shoehorn her into every story, but she is constantly changed her to fit the other people or be a plot device. Then, at the same time, they tend to shaft other characters to elevate her and her screentime. (Watch out, Synch! I don't recall one love interest who wasn't pushed aside to raise her profile...)

I think this is because the writers just have no idea how to do a proper character arc for her. They want to stretch out her progression from the scared, broken animalistic little girl to the HBIC OWL who took all of the bad stuff and turned it into her strengths, but they can't do it in a steady and consistent way because they want to use her at all these various points in the transition at once. So, every time she makes some progress as a 'person', they inexplicably drag her back to a prior state to make her fit the plot of whatever they are dumping her in now.



She is such a wasted opportunity! She is such a great character for her personality and the background of trauma she suffered that they turned into a generic flying brick.



My issue with Emma isn't how she's written. I really like her as a character. It's fun to watch her scheme and manipulate, which she is constantly doing with absolutely zero down time. Even the closest thing to a pure relationship ever shown was Emma manipulating Scott for years to maintain her own power, and she might've truly loved him. The way she treated/treats everyone else, from her retainers (she doesn't have any real friends) to the Cuckoos to the rest of the original Hellions and Academy X kids she supposedly cared so much about and hasn't even spoken to since they were kicked out of the Academy in Messiah complex or resurrected on Krakoa...she is a sociopathic, manipulative bitch! Her redeeming quality is that she is really effective at it and an integral part of making Krakoa work because of it.

So, the failure in the writing that I see is how everyone else fawns over Emma as if they don't know exactly what she is after decades of her showing her true colors over and over and over again. HOW THE HELL DOES ANYONE EVEN PRETEND TO TRUST THIS WOMAN? It seems so forced and so badly written for her to be treated as a hero after she has screwed over all these characters time and time again. It would be more realistic and satisfying (to me at least) to see grudging respect and necessary alliances rather than adoration, respect and friendship.

I think it’s possible for geniuses positive relations with Emma, it just feels like they sped up the process and keep on having to wallpaper the times writers walk it back. It doesn’t help that shipping wars, always fun, typically factor in as well.

[Rift]

As much as I want to snipe Rift on Hellion, he has a much better command of the character's history than I do and will do a much better job, so I'll give him first crack. :c)

Go ahead. I'm working the 7-3 shift all week and it's going to be brutal, so I don't have a lot of time.

[Dante Milton]

I agree with Bishop who went way off track in Messiah Complex and ever since he was brought back the work that has been done with him has been underwhelming. It's nice that they gave him a fancy new title, but that hasn't really changed the character's circumstances at all for the better.

Also agree with Monet, not because of PAD but because of Howard, X-Corp was bad for her.

Angel, for a long time after the first Archangel story mostly resolved it felt like writers didn't really know what to do with him, then Remender broke the character and he's never really recovered. On paper his role in X-Corp should have been good for him, but it was so poorly executed.

Colossus, another character where it doesn't seem like writers know what to do with him. I don't think Whedon should have brought him back after he sacrificed himself to cure the Legacy Virus, nothing done with the character since has been any good.

Husk, everything after Gen X has been pretty bad for Paige, particularly Aaron's work with her in WatXM.

Wolfsbane, the '00s and '10s were rough on Rhane, the character has been getting a lot better since the beginning of the Krakoan era thanks to Hickman and Ayala.

Havok, I don't necessarily think it's out of character but he's been stuck in this role of pathetic loser since Remender used him in UA. Wells found a way to at least make it interesting in Hellions, but it really seems like Duggan has no plans for him.

Rictor, I've been very vocal about how much I dislike every choice Howard has made with the character in the last couple of years, I'm sure people are tired of hearing it.

Jubilee, again pretty much everything after Gen X has been not great for her, I did like Strain's Gen X vol 2 and that seemed to be getting her back on track, but it was cancelled too quickly.

[H-E-D]

The link to the Crimson Dawn was interesting

Wow, as I live and breath. We found someone who liked the Crimson Dawn.

[Ambaryerno]

Why are any of the new mutants on the new mutants? At this point we’ve had how many “the next generation of mutants”?

And it doesn't even matter because the CURRENT generation of mutants will ALWAYS be the O5+, and none of the kids will ever be allowed to grow up because Jordan White thinks 40+ year olds aren't relatable to comic readers.

[Wolverine12]

Cyclops was handled pretty poorly during IvX, same with Emma.

[Ultramega1]

I can't think of many characters that have really improved over the last few years with the Krakoa era. most of them have become more cynical and more violent. but I think the worst is Iceman. he is pretty much solely defined by how he uses his powers and his sexuality. other than that not much of his character is really talked about anymore. I still remember this one issue where he ripped off the arms of a bunch of soldiers because he thought they killed kitty (they didn't) and when those guys came back later for revenge he said he regretted nothing and ripped them off again!