Originally Posted by
Grunty
With "Personal Reboot" i mean that instead of a whole universe or timeline getting reset to a previous status quo or being restarted from scratch, it only happens to either a singular or a small handfull of characters.
Let's face it, continuity in any long running series or franchise can become a double edged sword both for the world and the characters.
Obviously it's still very important for long runners since it creates consistency and rewards being invested, something which greatly helps retain viewers/readers/listeners. And yet it often feels like there are characters for whom continuity has not been kind and infact detrimental.
So let's have a little hypothetical scenario.
There is a storyline or mini-series which involves events that result in a partial timeline alteration of certain characters. All major events still happend. The timeline just bend itself back into shape to adjust to their new selves.
Who do you think would profit from this kind of opportunity?
Two potential examples that come to mind:
1. Partial Reboot: Beast.
Even before Percy got green light by the X-editorial, to do... what ever he thinks he is acomplishing with the character, Beast has largely been on a bad streak for the past years. Which arguably started with Morrison, who seem to have set a certain example that was then often followed, with each next incarnation seemingly becoming worse.
However because Beast has what i call "The good times montage", a long series of stories and moments which defined the core aspects of the character and will be more likely remembered over the bad ones, the character can easily do well with a relative small reboot just removing these bad years from his personal canon.
2. Full Reboot: Marrow.
I like this character. She is my favorit among the C-listers of the X-men. But...
if i had to use actual stories and continuity as basis for why someone else should like the character, i feel i would have a hard time providing a convincing argument. To say nothing of having to provide a list of "go to issues" to do so and not having much to show for it (X-men #72 and...). Because her great visual and thematic potential aside, she is frankly a MESS of a character.
Let's start with her creation. She was meant to die. That was her entire purpose. Show up, be a unhinged killer with no inhibition and a misguided grudge against Storm and normal humans, have a knife fight with her to immitate the classic "Callisto vs. Storm" scenes and then get killed by her in typical 90's fashion.
For added bonus, the writer wanted her as unappealing looking as possible and gave her powers inspired by being weirded out over seeing teenagers with piercings.
To make matters worse her origins are also extremely intervowen in very specific and partial outlandish events, which cuts off any "down to earth" potential that usualy serves as good foundation for lineage independent new characters
If her origins were simply "Morlock kid who survived the mutant massacre and grew up to be a violent and angry young woman" everything would be fine. But actual comic continuity doesn't provide such a simple yet explorable origin story.
Instead it involves a reality warping insane cosmonaut brother of an X-men, a pocket dimension, time acceleration, the Age of Apocalypse, Beast evil version from said alternate timeline and a bunch of conflicting informations.
Most of the successfull X-men either have very easy to sum up backstories, which stand alone without need to know major X-stories or events and those with complicated ones tend to be directly related to major X-men (Rachel Grey, Cable, etc.) creating the constant need to be present and remembered.
So strike one against her.
Then came the brief 3 year run when she was a X-men. Which is basicly the only time in the sun the character ever had or is remembered for. But even that wasn't really a golden time for her.
Because all to often it felt like the writers just weren't sure what to do with her (no wonder given her presence was an editorial mandate).
Case in point, rather than focus on her violent upbringing on The Hill and trying to give her some sense of redemption for her murderous past, they instead focused on her body image issues. At some point it felt like the argument the writers made was "Oh she is just violent because her powers make her unpretty".
And when she got her "makeover" it all went downhill even further.
And then came Chris Claremont, kicked her from the team with no explanation and then she just drifted from appearance to appearance, with each instance somehow making the character worse.
1. Spiderman/Marrow gave no explanation, but gave her a split personality disorder. 2. Weapon X made her betray mutantkind for another makeover. 3. Decimination removed her power. 4. X-force gave her the powers back, but Spurrier felt he should just write her as unhinged madwoman who lost her baby.
And then she only had tiny little appearances with no explanation of how she changed again, what she has been up to or what her personality is actualy anymore.
So let's summarize.
The character is by now 27 years old. Has a completely messy and unusuable on pannel origin story. Only ever had 2-3 good years of any relevance. Spend the remaining 22 years appearing with erratic characterization. Doesn't actualy have a very stable characterization. Doesn't have even one truely stand out moment.
And that's why i feel she might be better of getting one good full reboot.
Cut everything off except: Was a Morlock. Survived the Mutant Massacre because Gambit carried her away.
From there just have her survive on the street, maybe with Gambit occasionaly showing up trying to steer her into the right direction or teach her some tricks and the end result is a angry young mutant woman with a big grudge against the world and freakish power which constantly makes her run on a mixture of adrenaline and natural pain killers.
They still could imply that she ran with the X-men for a bit. But everything else might aswell go to give her a fresh start.