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

[Krakoa]

I have to heavily disagree with Emma. I think as a character shes evolved so much from being a villain, shes been fighting for mutants and teaching them for well over 20 years. Pushing her back into the category as a villain would do such a huge disservice to her character, watching her character arc over these past years has been great so itd be terrible to see her start back as a villain.

However i do think i will somewhat agree that she has been handled “badly”, I think a lot of writers now dont know how to fully utilize her character, as much as I am glad that writers have moved past her actions in IVX and forward I do feel like her character has been lacking a little bit lately.

Agreed. Emma hasn’t been a villain really since the early 90s, and she hardly did anything that villainous for the 5 or so years before that either, she was more of a morally ambiguous character. The vast majority of her history has been heroic.

[salarta]

Polaris for almost her entire character history.

During the Claremont era, she was treated like a punching bag that had no depth beyond being Havok's girlfriend. Most writers since then act like she has nothing to offer besides being Havok's girlfriend, and never bother to look at what she was meant to be when she was created and what actually fits. Because of that, Marvel's repeatedly taken things away from Lorna and acted like they never happened to reduce her to the pitiful perception they have of her. Things she's had ignored or taken from her:

• Second woman to join the X-Men
• More of a feminist personality than other women at the time she was created
• Complex struggle on whether to align with Xavier and Magneto philosophies
• The fact she's existed since 1968, before many characters created after her
• History with Jean Grey and Iceman in particular, back to their O5 days
• Lorna having survived the Genoshan genocide, and having been seen as its sovereign princess in its final moments
• Just in general, that she's done anything in her entire life that wasn't X-Factor

In the past decade, certain people at Marvel with tons of nostalgia for the 90s are very insistent on acting like Lorna didn't exist until 90s X-Factor, and like being Havok's girlfriend is all she's ever done in the franchise. They're basically a modern day Dick Giordano, who looked at Supergirl purely through the lens of "what does she add to Superman," felt she added nothing, and decided to kill her off.

You can see the impact and evidence up to present. Marvel people were apparently surprised that Lorna won the X-Men vote, only had her in half the run, and didn't even have her on the cover for the single issue that put a lot of focus on her.

But what's most damning to me about Marvel is their quiet yet total erasure of Lorna being a genocide survivor. We constantly get to see characters who weren't even anywhere near Genosha talk about the genocide, yet it's over 15 years now and Marvel acts like Lorna doesn't even know what Genosha was. It's incredibly obvious that they're doing it because they don't have a single shred of respect for Polaris and what that event meant for the character, and they prize their oh so precious nostalgia for things they liked 30 years ago over what's actually relevant and appropriate today.

[Big Joe]

Over the past 20 years, at least, there are no characters who have been treated worse than Banshee.

[Grunty]

Maybe this topic needs to be reversed. Which character hasn't been handled badly over the years?

[davetvs]

Kwannon has been handled well since she got her body back.

[Nicoclaws]

Maybe this topic needs to be reversed. Which character hasn't been handled badly over the years?

Maybe Jean Grey ? But she's been dead a lot.

Of the major characters I would maybe say Cable, but I'm pretty sure tons of people disagreed with Teen Cable. The rest of the character's story has been pretty good with no real low point.
Iceman has not been treated that badly, maybe a bit redundant and inconsequential but nothing really bad.
Magneto has been pretty consistently great, except also that one time where it was him but not him but him (Morrison's Magneto was pretty much the thing I disliked the most, although they were trying to make a point. But they took too much of the Ultimate/Movie version).
...

Well it's hard to be a major character and not be missused at some point, isn't it ?

[danielsan52]

Betsy Captain Britain. She was a better Captain Britain in 1986 than she is now. Return Brian to Captain Britain and Betsy to her lavender costume.

Changeling. So much potential. He could become 616 “Morph” and keep his minor telepathic and telekinetic abilities.

Mimic. This character need to overcome his mental handicaps and join a team.

El Aguila. Mostly treated as a joke character. This guy can channel bio electricity through metal, usually a sword. This swordsmaster could use a costume upgrade and name change (Conduit). He could make for a great X-man if written properly.

[Mungho]

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.

Well, partly he was afraid of spies easily getting onto Krakoa since everybody and their dog seems to want to destroy it, but yeah, that was really classicist. At least the other characters mentioned in this thread are still heroes for the most part, but for 10 years now Hank, once one of the most compassionate of the X-Men, has devolved from amoral ******* to vile amoral *******. Any writer that tried to put him back to his previous heroic character has it immediately reversed by the next writer. I don't know if it's that most writer coming onto x-books hate Hank or just don't know how to write him.

[Hephoenix]

Husk. She has so much potencial, but she is underused. She is a cameo character. In HoX, when she was part of that shortlived X-men roster (that only last one issue) i was excited, but she was only there for a few panels and killed off panel.

Gen X characters did not get what they deserved. They are doing something amazing with Synch and Monet has presence. Thats it. But the one that should complain the most is Skin.

But I love Husk and they are not doing any justice to the character.

A cuestionable membership in Aaron X-men, the moustrosity they did to her in Wolverine and the X-men, and a secondary mutation that is just a mood change (What a Joke).

I liked her when Rogue form a team to fight Proteus.

7d3cd19712a4e7acb99d0d0d5db64c67--marvel-characters-xmen.jpg

[JB]

Husk. She has so much potencial, but she is underused. She is a cameo character. In HoX, when she was part of that shortlived X-men roster (that only last one issue) i was excited, but she was only there for a few panels and killed off panel.

Gen X characters did not get what they deserved. They are doing something amazing with Synch and Monet has presence. Thats it. But the one that should complain the most is Skin.

But I love Husk and they are not doing any justice to the character.

A cuestionable membership in Aaron X-men, the moustrosity they did to her in Wolverine and the X-men, and a secondary mutation that is just a mood change (What a Joke).

I liked her when Rogue form a team to fight Proteus.

7d3cd19712a4e7acb99d0d0d5db64c67--marvel-characters-xmen.jpg

Big agree on Husk. And it's a crime that Skin hasn't at least had a cameo appearance with his best friend over in X-Men.

[Uncanny Mutie]

Really, ANY X-Men character who has been around since the mid 90's or earlier; most of them have been very badly written out of character and INCONSISTENT character wise for the past 20-25 years...

[Uncanny Mutie]

Complaining that Emma isn't a villain anymore is like complaining that Rogue isn't, at this point.

I wonder if people feel the same way about Magneto, who has been neutered by having his power levels gradually weakened and being portrayed as a "hero" and a member of the X-Men for about 10-15 years straight now. Such a lazy, terrible thing to do with the franchise's greatest, most recognizable villain. It would be like toning the Joker down and making him a member of the Bat Family for 10-15 years.

[Saithor]

Imma throw out the freebie

The entire human race for never being allowed to develop and actively made worse by the writers so they can push the races war angle as hard and as fast as they could.

[Saithor]

I wonder if people feel the same way about Magneto, who has been neutered by having his power levels gradually weakened and being portrayed as a "hero" and a member of the X-Men for about 10-15 years straight now. Such a lazy, terrible thing to do with the franchise's greatest villain. It would be like toning the Joker down and making him a member of the Bat Family for 10-15 years.

I think there’s a world of difference between Magneto and the Joker as characters that makes Magneto work while the Joker is….the Joker.

[NewMutant]

Imma throw out the freebie

The entire human race for never being allowed to develop and actively made worse by the writers so they can push the races war angle as hard and as fast as they could.

The human ally is all forgotten with Moira death and then character assassination. Very important role.

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

Well the elder New Mutants are training the students. But also... is there a school? The actual structure of building Krakoa could be interesting except everything grows on trees.... sigh...

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.

We have to be reading different X-Titles because Emma is constantly being teased as turning. And even her villainy is less problematic than Wolverines heroism.