X-Men Monday 215 Gerry Duggan

[Master of Sound]

Seems like wil het a team simular to UXM, right before Age of X-Man and HoX/PoX, with all the remaining X-Men available who are not dead, missing or on another team.

Juggernaut, Talon and Synch are save Betsy, as they were selected on the team and ShadowKat of course. Rest could be anyone who lives, escaped and not on another book

[TheDeadSpace]

He feels like an actual person for me.

Fair enough.

I can't say I find his current characterization completely consistent, but some parts had merit. I definitely feel like some parts were a wasted opportunity. If the writers were going to give him everything he wanted, I think that should have been highlighted a bit more. He lost bits of his family as time went by and there was little reaction or consequences. At this point, it's starting to seem like there wasn't a purpose for any of it.

[R+R]

Fair enough.

I can't say I find his current characterization completely consistent, but some parts had merit. I definitely feel like some parts were a wasted opportunity. If the writers were going to give him everything he wanted, I think that should have been highlighted a bit more. He lost bits of his family as time went by and there was little reaction or consequences. At this point, it's starting to seem like there wasn't a purpose for any of it.

One of Cyclops' stories on Krakoa was about him being happy living with his family but there's no real development there. When was the last time he spoke to Rachel? Did he ever talk to old Cable in this era? He seemed to want to get closer to Vulcan but later that seems to have been forgotten. Jean said that Madelyne is part of the family and Cyclops says nothing. When was the polyamorous relationship decided? How does Scott feel about Logan? Why was Scott rejected by Emma when she was supposedly with him off-screen as well? Most of his Krakoa-era history seems to have taken place off-screen lol.

And apparently we should be satisfied with that.

[Nicoclaws]

Reading the interview, the bootlicking from the interviewer is a tiny bit embarassing.

Also I see Ev is back to that awful ugly costume, not in the red gala one. That's disappointing.

[Wiccan]

Well, if the stans of Gambit, Betsy and other characters can be "mad" with what is being done, why can't the stans of Cyclops also be "mad"?

You can, but my point is that a lot of people appreciate Duggan's Scott and Jean. Hardcore Scott fans who seem to have become a fan of him after he got with Emma and Jean fans who just hate Scott and/or ship her with Logan seem to be the majority of the haters. I don't agree with the Betsy complaints either, and for Gambit I don't really care about him to get into it, but I feel like he has been sidelined a lot more than Scott at least.

The problem isn't that he's not with a "hot cheerleader girlfriend", but that there's nothing really good and exciting about him right now. Cyclops summed up his 13 year history in "Only Jean can judge me", he had a chance to make amends with Madelyne and nothing was done, after that he was just getting beat up and being useless. Can you really blame us for being "mad"? For the next few months all we know is that he will continue to be tortured by Orchis and will likely get his ass kicked by Carol Danvers.

I mean, even before Duggan, people have been complaining about him since Hickman's run began, simply because he wasn't the revolutionary Scott anymore and back with Jean and in good terms with Xavier. I don't really understand how that seems to be such a turn off when it's how he character existed for like 4 decades.

Being captured by Orchis seems like a big thing which will lead to some character development. But it envolves him being vulnerable and in pain so of course fanboys don't like it.

[Jwyatt]

I'm very bored by Duggan's continued insistence that people are 'misunderstanding his job as a storyteller' when they dont get that he's here to just make bad things happen to beloved characters. Nah. Of COURSE bad things have to happen to characters SOME times but defaulting to that as the only way to write is just relying on garnering sympathy for characters as a quick and easy way to get readers to emotionally invest in them. Its a very limiting and (IMO) immature approach to storytelling. Stories are about conflict, about characters facing and overcoming obstacles, struggling with morality, learning things about themselves and the world....there are so many more aspects to storytelling than just 'bad things happen to beloved characters' and its very annoying that he's so convinced everyone else just doesn't get how being a writer works because he simply has no choice but to dream up worst possible scenarios for characters like Scott, its his JOB, see.

*rolls eyes*

Suddenly, I understand why his character work is awful.

[R+R]

I mean, even before Duggan, people have been complaining about him since Hickman's run began, simply because he wasn't the revolutionary Scott anymore and back with Jean and in good terms with Xavier.

If we are complaining it is because there is a reason for it. Hickman's run was marketed as "The Cyclops saga" but most of the issues were not about Cyclops. No wonder he got the nickname "Captain Cameo" lol.

I don't really understand how that seems to be such a turn off when it's how he character existed for like 4 decades.

Because Cyclops has changed after his first 4 decades and there really has been justice to him as a character in that time. What are Cyclops' iconic moments in Duggan's run? Being useless on Dark Web? Being useless in Fall of X? Sum up 2 decades of your development in "only Jean can judge me"? I can't enjoy a material written by someone who explicitly has no interest in writing the Cyke.

Being captured by Orchis seems like a big thing which will lead to some character development. But it envolves him being vulnerable and in pain so of course fanboys don't like it.

I'd be surprised if Cyclops was actually getting character development after the torture.

[Ra-El]

I think the answer is pretty simple. The writers of the current era may even like Cyclops, but they don't have any story to tell about him, so he is in the books, maybe by editorial mandate maybe because Duggan likes him, but he is just a side character.

Take Marauders for example, Gambit, Bishop and Bob were there just to fill space, but Marauders was the story of Kitty and Emma (ironically X-Men just become the story of Kitty and Emma). Nothing wrong with that, unless you are a fan of Gambit, Bishop or more recently Cyclops, picking up a comic for your favorite appear in 2 pages and do nothing.
But, it's the way comics works sometimes, when Fraction, Whedon, Gillen and Ellis were given Cyclops a lot of development I loved, but I bet fans of the "side characters" weren't big fans.

So, I'm not reading X-Men comics for now, I just come here to know what's going on until I hear something that makes me want to start reading again, until there I have the Superman comics, where my fav is always the focus and is currently having some of the best runs coming out.

[Sutekh]

I'd be surprised if Cyclops was actually getting character development after the torture.

Yeah, the whole point of 'deconstruction,' IMO, is to bust the character down to their lowest, *and then build them back up, stronger than before.*

But todays writers do the first part, competing with each other to be the most egregious and spectacular in the 'break them down!' phase, and then **** off to another book, never bothering with the second (harder) part, the actual payoff to the story they started, where the hero is re-forged into something leaner and stronger and more determined than before.

It's like being told 'Hey, we're going to Vegas, hop in!' and then being pushed out of the car somewhere in Nebraska, while they speed away.

[Nicoclaws]

Yeah, the whole point of 'deconstruction,' IMO, is to bust the character down to their lowest, *and then build them back up, stronger than before.*

But todays writers do the first part, competing with each other to be the most egregious and spectacular in the 'break them down!' phase, and then **** off to another book, never bothering with the second (harder) part, the actual payoff to the story they started, where the hero is re-forged into something leaner and stronger and more determined than before.

It's like being told 'Hey, we're going to Vegas, hop in!' and then being pushed out of the car somewhere in Nebraska, while they speed away.

I feel like the "break them down / rise them up" in a continuing series format is almost impossible, otherwise it becomes very repetitive and stale (see long forms mangas too often too). After a point whether you keep the character but you have to use him after the end of a character arc, which is really difficult, or retire them.

[Sutekh]

I feel like the "break them down / rise them up" in a continuing series format is almost impossible, otherwise it becomes very repetitive and stale (see long forms mangas too often too). After a point whether you keep the character but you have to use him after the end of a character arc, which is really difficult, or retire them.

That too. It might have worked once, for a character who wasn't exactly burning up the charts at the time, to sort of tear them down and build them back up (as Miller, IIRC, did with Daredevil), but doing it to a character (or team) that has a regular established book, and a new creative team every couple of years, who might want to do it *all over again,* seems like an exercise in dumb.

[cranger]

I feel like the "break them down / rise them up" in a continuing series format is almost impossible, otherwise it becomes very repetitive and stale (see long forms mangas too often too). After a point whether you keep the character but you have to use him after the end of a character arc, which is really difficult, or retire them.

At some point some writer decided to deconstruct 'protecting a world that hates and fears them' and we are still stuck there.