Poll: X-Couples Who Actually Made Each Other Better?

[Thievery]

Of the couples listed on this poll I would say Betsy and Warren, Emma and Scott, Layla and Jamie, and Rictor and Shatterstar.

For couples not on this poll I liked Colossus and Domino, Wolverine and Mariko, and Longshot and Ricochet Rita.

Did Monet and Synch ever become a couple? Its been a while since I read original Gen X.

[Ricochet Rita]

It's an interesting but difficult thread... It doesn't deal with your favourite couples, or those couples which made more X-history, but those couples who made each other better. This removes almost all of the X-couples, LOL, since 'drama' is the X and there are so many toxic and/or wretched and/or creepy couples.

I'm going for Moira & Sean, because you always can see them so happy and peaceful together, they seem to search and enjoy their mutual company. I can easily believe they honestly love each other, and they do no harm each other.

The same, more or less, goes for Lorna & Alex.

Rictor & Shatterstar clearly gained a lot as characters when they become a couple, so they deserve a mention as well.

I would say Warlock & Doug, who were an obvious example of 'the whole is bigger than the sum of their parts', but this couple implied a sense of personal dependency (from Doug to Warlock) which I guess is not healthy, since it was literally ravaging his own self.

Honorable mentions to Layla & Jaime and Lilandra & Xavier.

For couples not on this poll I liked Colossus and Domino, Wolverine and Mariko, and Longshot and Ricochet Rita.

Many thanks! You save me the obviousness of saying myself!

The same as I think Longshot & Alison did no good together (apart from great sex), I think Longshot & Rita brought out the best of each other. Actually, they were so alike that they not only understand and have such a good time together, but they worked as respective mirrors.

Rita was, in her own words, a 'misfit-running-scared', a wild stray, till she fell in love with Longshot and an unknown feeling shook her heart --up to the point that she choose a goal: to go with him to another world in order to join a slave revolution.

Longshot also met love thanks to Rita. His kind friendly heartfelt nature makes him feel immediate esteem for everybody...but it prevents him from feeling a special attach for someone in particular. Nevertheless, someway it went different with Rita: during his former miniseries, although they were separated in #2, he kept thinking about her, searched for her and was desolate when he found her in a catatonic state, pressuring Doc Strange to heal her. He showed himself much more emotionally involved and passionate than ever.

Then it was the Mojo/Spiral disaster and all, but that's another story...

I rather remember them walking hand in hand through the portal.

[Ulfhammer]

Jean brings out the worst in Scott. He abandoned his wife and newborn son for her, and when they were together they were written as lacking passion for a while. The only periods where Scott has been interesting or likable have been the periods where Jean has been dead. On the other hand, Jean herself isn't really affected for better or worse by Scott's presence. At least his marriage to Maddie was meant to show that he had matured and no longer needed the X-Men, before they decided to turn her evil because they brought Jean back.

As for couples that bring out the best in each other, I'd say Wolverine and Mariko. The honor aspect of Logan's character very important but often forgotten. Even in the movies his relationship with Mariko was so much better than the Jean love triangle.

I would prefer to say the circumstances they had to deal with were unreasonable. Having your soulmate die, then meeting a clone of her's and marrying her, then seeing your soulmate brought back to life. That's not bringing out the worst in each other, that's Claremont and Shooter painting each other into a corner. Everyone knows why these event came about and it had nothing to do with Scott, Jean or Maddie's characterization. I get that this is all canon but knowing why it was written the way it was changes my perspective. If you ignore that part and look just at the canonical facts of the period from the end of DPS to Inferno, Jean & Scott were both written as kinda horrible people. Therefore I choose to mostly ignore it.

I wish Mariko & Logan would have had more legs. His time with her is one of my favorite depictions of the character. It also would have stamped out the love triange that came later, which benefitted no one.

[Ulfhammer]

It's an interesting but difficult thread... It doesn't deal with your favourite couples, or those couples which made more X-history, but those couples who made each other better. This removes almost all of the X-couples, LOL, since 'drama' is the X and there are so many toxic and/or wretched and/or creepy couples.

I'm going for Moira & Sean, because you always can see them so happy and peaceful together, they seem to search and enjoy their mutual company. I can easily believe they honestly love each other, and they do no harm each other.

The same, more or less, goes for Lorna & Alex.

Rictor & Shatterstar clearly gained a lot as characters when they become a couple, so they deserve a mention as well.

I would say Warlock & Doug, who were an obvious example of 'the whole is bigger than the sum of their parts', but this couple implied a sense of personal dependency (from Doug to Warlock) which I guess is not healthy, since it was literally ravaging his own self.

Honorable mentions to Layla & Jaime and Lilandra & Xavier.



Many thanks! You save me the obviousness of saying myself!

The same as I think Longshot & Alison did no good together (apart from great sex), I think Longshot & Rita brought out the best of each other. Actually, they were so alike that they not only understand and have such a good time together, but they worked as respective mirrors.

Rita was, in her own words, a 'misfit-running-scared', a wild stray, till she fell in love with Longshot and an unknown feeling shook her heart --up to the point that she choose a goal: to go with him to another world in order to join a slave revolution.

Longshot also met love thanks to Rita. His kind friendly heartfelt nature makes him feel immediate esteem for everybody...but it prevents him from feeling a special attach for someone in particular. Nevertheless, someway it went different with Rita: during his former miniseries, although they were separated in #2, he kept thinking about her, searched for her and was desolate when he found her in a catatonic state, pressuring Doc Strange to heal her. He showed himself much more emotionally involved and passionate than ever.

Then it was the Mojo/Spiral disaster and all, but that's another story...

I rather remember them walking hand in hand through the portal.

I agree that most of the x-couples have destructive relationships of varying degrees. That's probably par for the course when your dealing with two people in a relationship who are both superpowered, hunted and discriminated against on a regular basis and likely have terrible experiences to deal with. It's arguable that these relationships did more harm than good in general but I couldn't imagine Jean and Scott, or Rouge and Gambit never having got together. It's just such a large chuck of those characters legacies. Would they have been better off if they hadn't? I don't think so, but I think this poll has more to do with head canon than anything else.

Thanks for the background on Longshot & Rita. I'm pretty foggy on the details. That's the Longshot mini? I've never read it but I think I will see if I can find it on MU.

[MYCMTSC]

RicStar are both charming and hilarious and illuminate its individual components' personalities.

Jean/Scott, while not typically enjoyable or enviable, gave each character depth.

Sean and Moira were easy to root for and seemed very real.

Idc for the rest.

[sunofdarkchild]

I would prefer to say the circumstances they had to deal with were unreasonable. Having your soulmate die, then meeting a clone of her's and marrying her, then seeing your soulmate brought back to life. That's not bringing out the worst in each other, that's Claremont and Shooter painting each other into a corner. Everyone knows why these event came about and it had nothing to do with Scott, Jean or Maddie's characterization. I get that this is all canon but knowing why it was written the way it was changes my perspective. If you ignore that part and look just at the canonical facts of the period from the end of DPS to Inferno, Jean & Scott were both written as kinda horrible people. Therefore I choose to mostly ignore it.

I wish Mariko & Logan would have had more legs. His time with her is one of my favorite depictions of the character. It also would have stamped out the love triange that came later, which benefitted no one.

Abandoning your wife and child is bringing out the worst in the character. It set Cyclops characterization back years, undid the maturity he had gained, and turned him into a despicable person. Had Jean either stayed dead or Cyclops decided that he was happy with Maddie and the baby and didn't need to go back to his teenage crush his character would have fared much better, and there would never have been a need for the 'Maddie was a clone all along' retcon. They were together, and then they weren't. There's nothing wrong with that. Spider-Man went through a similar plot the previous decade and his choosing current girl-friend MJ over supposedly resurrected ex-girlfriend Gwen was used to show how he had grown and matured since her death. They did exactly the opposite with Scott and Jean, and it ruined Scott for several years.

[JeanGreyForever]

Abandoning your wife and child is bringing out the worst in the character. It set Cyclops characterization back years, undid the maturity he had gained, and turned him into a despicable person. Had Jean either stayed dead or Cyclops decided that he was happy with Maddie and the baby and didn't need to go back to his teenage crush his character would have fared much better, and there would never have been a need for the 'Maddie was a clone all along' retcon. They were together, and then they weren't. There's nothing wrong with that. Spider-Man went through a similar plot the previous decade and his choosing current girl-friend MJ over supposedly resurrected ex-girlfriend Gwen was used to show how he had grown and matured since her death. They did exactly the opposite with Scott and Jean, and it ruined Scott for several years.

I would hardly call Cyke disappearing from the X-Books much development/characterization especially because with or without Jean, it's safe to say that some other writer would have brought him back eventually. Using Spidey as an example is a moot case considering that his marriage was literally dissolved. Marvel doesn't like their heroes to be married for some reason unless you're a Richards/Storm. Cyke got the same treatment not once, but twice even if both times was with the same woman technically. The Maddie clone thing was bound to happen anyway considering all the connections Jean and Maddie had before Jean was even brought back. If not during Inferno, then I bet during the 90s Clone Saga Era, X-Writers would have done the same. You could argue they already did a similar storyline with Psylocke and Revanche, not to mention Magneto and Joseph.

Also you keep talking about how Scott got proper maturity from leaving the X-Men and this was without Jean. However you ignore that Scott and Jean left the X-Men together after Operation: Zero Tolerance, so that displays that Jott too had this "maturity" and "development" you speak of.

[JeanGreyForever]

I'm going for Moira & Sean, because you always can see them so happy and peaceful together, they seem to search and enjoy their mutual company. I can easily believe they honestly love each other, and they do no harm each other.

The same, more or less, goes for Lorna & Alex.

I wouldn't say that for Lorna and Alex. I used to like them together until I realized how much harm they've done to each other (basically the harm Alex has done to Lorna). After Lorna is possessed by Malice, Alex mopes about missing her but never does anything to find/save her. I suppose you could apply that to all the X-Men at the time, but Lorna was never a big part of the team...on the other hand she was a big part of Alex. He feels betrayed by her even though she was an unwilling participant in her possession and becoming part of their big enemy team at the time so instead he starts a relationship with Maddie because he thinks she won't betray him. I think in a few limited series at the time, Alex even has brief relationships with at least two other women, all the while he is with Maddie and should be with Lorna.
Honestly, I almost wish Alex and Lorna wouldn't have been on the same team during PAD's X-Men, because by that time, both had pretty much cut ties and they may not have been paired off again. Considering that while they were healthy in the 90s (under the pen of someone who did not neglect them), by the time it came for their wedding, new drama presented itself. Leaving someone at the altar is a douche move especially when that same someone just watched a whole population brutally murdered around her. Lorna wasn't without faults either here such as explaining that she was marrying Alex more for his genes then actually loving him or even the sex, and then going off to sleep with a Gambit stripper.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

Well we don't know for sure that she slept with the stripper, as for the wedding...that was more Austen pushing his favorite character Nurse Annie, patterned after his own wife, so Lorna got left to look like the crazy one...as for Maddy, I think that a good chunk of that was an attempt to whitewash what Scott did to her and keep Alex forever in Scott's shadow...

Betsy really got nothing good from anything with Fantomex, Layla was such a blank slate that PAD wrote her as the perfect woman for Jamie, she told him that they were going to get married very early on, then she had to get aged up a bit first...Colossus and Domino doesn't work in the long run as anything more than friends with benefits, he'd be a wet blanket to her and it only happened as the writer REALLY wanted it and went out of his way to keep Domino and Cable apart, as Domino is better off with Cable...

[JasonEsta]

Out of the list..maybe Layla and Jamie. They used the very intriguing Layla to prop up Jamie Madrox..literally made her a young adult just so he could struggle to sneak off to have sex with her.

[CuteClops]

Cyke, Maddie, Jean and Emma... blah blah blah

Well, well... That's why Daredevil is a despicable character.

[JustAnotherFan]

I really don't get why people say Jean & Scott! That relationship ultimately did both of them more harm than good. Cyclops was a boring boyscout who was annoying (he became far more interesting after he got together with Emma!) and Jean's character became non-existent. She was basically just "the wife of Cyclops" after they got married. She hasn't really had anything besides Phoenix stuff & being married to Scott. Those are her only real main characteristics to the point where she now has to be kept dead because writers can't think of anything else to do with her besides Scott & Phoenix. Which led them to bringing back a teen version of her whose main story points have been about Scott & Phoenix. Sigh. Shame they refuse to bring back the real Jean. Now that Cyke is dead (as is Wolverine) it would be a prime chance to give her something else that doesn't involve Cyclops. They would only have to keep her away from Phoenix (which I know they can't do). But then they wouldn't be able to have her deal with Scott & Phoenix again I guess...

And considering that Jean is the reason Scott abandoned his wife & new born son I'd say that Jean didn't actually bring out the best in Cyclops either...
Emma on the other hand allowed & even encouraged Scott to be the leader he was always meant to be. She supported him through some really tough times. She honestly made Cyclops the best leader he could have been for the X-Men (& mutants in general) at the time. And Scott managed to truly make Emma change her ways & become the most heroic version of herself. Honestly these two are probably the only couple that have been written as bringing the best out of each other. Only other couple is Domino & Colossus but they aren't really a couple that would probably work in long term since their relationship seemed more like a temporary fling.

[Wiccan]

Honestly, I really can't see how Scemma made each other better. Maybe better as in more insteresting to read to all the people here who love grim and edginess and hate the X-Men being more positive idealistic heroes, but surely not as people.

If we're talking about the story and the character's lifes though instead of whether you find them more interesting like this or like that, truth is that even with DPS, Madelyne, Wolverine and etc happening, Jott still managed to get through that together, have a lasting relationship, get married, raise a kid, and stay together with the X-Men as a family. While after Scemma, Scott's life only went downhill(Emma was already a mess anyway).

[Confuzzled]

Sorry Scemma haters but in a post Singer landscape, Scott would have been relegated to prissy boy scout constantly upstaged by cool guy Logan if it weren't for this powerful coupling.

It helped Emma as Scott helped her lower her walls a little and go from a stone cold cynic to a more nuanced pragmatic creature, and who was now in a position to move some giant pieces for the future of mutant welfare.

[JustAnotherFan]

Honestly, I really can't see how Scemma made each other better. Maybe better as in more insteresting to read to all the people here who love grim and edginess and hate the X-Men being more positive idealistic heroes, but surely not as people.

If we're talking about the story and the character's lifes though instead of whether you find them more interesting like this or like that, truth is that even with DPS, Madelyne, Wolverine and etc happening, Jott still managed to get through that together, have a lasting relationship, get married, raise a kid, and stay together with the X-Men as a family. While after Scemma, Scott's life only went downhill(Emma was already a mess anyway).

I already explained that. Yes, part of it is that they made each other more interesting to read but they also helped change each other for the better. Emma found redemption & Scott was finally able to get over his constant brooding & insecurities & was able to open up more & be a more confident leader which X-Men (& mutants) needed at the time. It has nothing to do with edgyness (where did you even get that?) but with the fact that X-Men in their stories at the time had to deal with a lot of **** and I really don't see Scott being as succesful a leader as he was if he had Jesn by his side instead of Emma.

And as I also already explained Jesn & Scott is the absurd answer when talking about couples who made each other better. Those two only managed to cause each other harm. Having their relationship end in Jean's death TWICE and having them deal with infidelity TWICE is not a sign of them making each other better. At least the relationship between Emma & Scott only got fucked up because of the Phoenix Force. Scott & Jean on the other hand managed to **** up their relationship twice & only once Phoenix was directly involved. And again, Jean led to Cyke abandoning his wife & new born child! Not a sign of a healthy & good relationship. And yes, Emma did lead Cyke to sort of infidelity (maybe?) but she also helped him deal with his various mental issues which his wife (who should have helped him) ignored completely. And Jean's character has become nearly irreparably damaged due to tanglements with Cyke & Phoenix. I doubt she will ever again be allowed to return in the main universe. At least not in the foreseeable future. And if she ever does I bet she'll be once again put together with Scott (the guy who is now a serial cheater) & forced to deal with the Phoenix

If we look at the story & the characters' lives then Emma/Scott was more rewarding for both characters (in & out of universe) than Jean/Scott ever was.

Oh, and other characters who IMHO made each other better through relationships are X-23/Hellion & Betsy/Warren I guess.