Your Unpopular/Controversial Opinions on the X-Universe

[Sisterhood Of Mutants]

I'm not overly fond of Kitty. When I started reading the X-books in the 90's, she was on Excalibur, which I didn't read. The first time I read something really featuring her was Whedon's Astonishing, where she was treated like a very big deal, and I remember not getting it at all. Skip ahead a few years to post-Schism, and it's the same thing. She co-ran the Jean Grey school with Logan and was one of the core characters who everybody respected and never questioned. Same thing when Bendis took over in his books (All-New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy). And it's continued like this over the years throughout different writers and editors.

I don't hate her or anything, it's just weird to see all these writers absolutely love her and act like she's the beating heart of the X-franchise, when I don't see that at all. To me, she's mostly come off as judgemental and full of herself over the years I've been reading her.

I couldn't stand comic-Kitty up until Astonishing. Everything before was everything you said - "she mostly comes off as judgmental and full of herself" - preach. She's a character used to show how empathetic other people are, like Storm and Wolverine, but she lacks empathy. I think she earned her fighting chops, but I don't think the canon respect of leadership she is given by teammates and other X-Men was earned or deserved at all. And I think a lot more characters have reason to resent her than they are willing to allow, for some reason.

Still a cool ability though. Simple yet effective.

So happy to have found my people. The actual embodiment of the Arrested Development “…….her?” gif as a fictional character tbh.

“Cool powers, but— wait? Why is everyone genuflecting?”

Like… don’t get me wrong, the problem definitely started with her creators. But by the mid-‘90s (or whenever Ellis hopped onboard), grown men who still wanted to date this fictional teenage girl were first put in charge, and there’s been a revolving door of them ever since.

(She had minimal screentime in the Fox movies, yet this was becoming an issue even there before the merger. She was primed to get a solo movie before Storm, for God’s sake.)

What annoys me most is the whole Chosen One role always given to her (Whedon reference intended). I groaned at the “Krakoa’s gates won’t open for me!” bit because I knew it was going to lead to another version of that. The funniest part is the eternal “but wait she’s actually the most underestimated leader/fighter/teacher/hacker/ninja/pirate/dancer/bartender/future president of the United States!!!” narrative, which feels more aimed at readers themselves for not fanboying over her the way her writers want them to, since the protagonists sharing her stories are never allowed to actually feel that way about her.

(Which is what the constant code name and nickname and costume changes feel like an extension of: “But do you like her the most now?” It always feels disingenuous and tryhard, which is super off-putting.)

Up to and including outgoing editorial repeatedly giving her stealth solos and shoving her front and center (and putting her on the Quiet Council?!… lol). Other A-listers died (or went into magical comas) during Krakoa, and it’s simply ignored by everyone for months, or not even acknowledged by their families, if not treated as mere inconvenience. Kitty “dies”… and everyone shows up for her Viking funeral before all the side characters from her stealth solo run off to ~avenge her.

Still kinda dying to know why she’s leading yet another team if Brevoort allegedly dislikes her so much. Push from Cebulski? (Aka the Asian superstar creative behind her Shadow & Flame solo!) Push from Feige? (Kidding. But also… he’s apparently an OG Excalibur fan…) Was this originally the premise for JDW’s/Duggan’s New X-Men announced aged ago and Marvel didn’t want to waste months of work despite the office changing faces? Or is the new editor just mature enough to not sideline characters he personally dislikes if a writer is interested in them? (That would be refreshing tbh.)

The sad part is, a geeky sapphic-coded fashion disaster with an inventive power set and close ties to most of my favs? On paper, she should be one of my favorites.

But maybe Eve Ewing will finally spin straw into gold. Who knows.

[marhawkman]

That's true. Storytelling always requires arche- and stereotypes to some degree. Familarity tends to make things easier and comfortable for the audience. Even trying to be different or subvertive usualy require an established baseline to be compared to.

The question then becomes what role/arche-/stereotype suits a character the best? Especially when said character was allready established in a different story/medium.

yeah the old "evil Superman" trope... needs you to define what Superman is first.

[Android 17]

- I get that everyone loves the Krakoa era, I dig the concept and some of the new costumes we got out of it, but I don't like that they made most of the mutants between the X-Men and the Brotherhood all kumbaya with each other. There should be a division and not so much blurred lines.

- There aren't too many mutants (because too much is never enough), but I feel like there are too many X-Men.

- Never got the hype either about Kitty Pryde, I'd much rather prefer Jubilee.

- X-Men 97 is by far the best adaptation of the merry mutants, and I'm including the live action movies in this.

[Refrax5]

It is weird to have a book with evolution as a central theme, be one in which the cast is never allowed to evolve. (Either as characters, always being reset back to factory settings, or as a culture, or as a species, in the passing on of their genes, values, legacies, etc.)

The problem is that whenever anyone tries to introduce a new generation of mutants, they don't really seem to catch on. You get the occasional new character that works, but you're never gonna get a passing of the torch because nobody cares about the new generation.

I also think legacy characters are, with rare exception, kind of lame. It's just trading off another character's name and gimmick and creating a kind of lineage of derivative, nepo-baby superheroes. I don't feel like having the characters be something like Wolverine VIII or Nightcrawler Jr or whatever is especially interesting either.

[anyajenkins]

To be fair, the books themselves have terrible grasp on evolution to begin with, lol…

[ARkadelphia]

- I get that everyone loves the Krakoa era, I dig the concept and some of the new costumes we got out of it, but I don't like that they made most of the mutants between the X-Men and the Brotherhood all kumbaya with each other. There should be a division and not so much blurred lines.

- There aren't too many mutants (because too much is never enough), but I feel like there are too many X-Men.

- Never got the hype either about Kitty Pryde, I'd much rather prefer Jubilee.

- X-Men 97 is by far the best adaptation of the merry mutants, and I'm including the live action movies in this.

Art thou high?