Originally Posted by
Jumpyshark
I'm not blind to why people think Carey might have used Magneto as a self-insert, but I really think it's a reductive take, which is why I wanted to go into some reasons why he might have used Magneto as he did as that's more interesting to me. (English Lit nerd, sorry - plus monthly comics are a fascinating medium to unpick with the various pressures of continuity, serialisation and time etc.) Moving past the Legacy can of worms, I totally agree that the self-insert accusation is thrown around on the X-board frequently, and I rarely agree. Most Marvel writers are passionate and/or professional at minimum, and while they may cling to certain "versions" of characters, to assume that Marvel writers don't have the craft to write a character differently from themselves is quite unlikely.
To take an example, the idea that Tini Howard doesn't have the perspective to write men also holds no weight with me, considering you'd be hard-pressed not to get male perspectives from media, politics, sports, entertainment etc, let alone one's own life. Until she writes about Gambit descending down the stairs dickfully, with his boxers clinging to his pert buttocks in coquettish fashion, as per myriad failed male writers writing women, we can safely assume that she's experienced various forms of masculinity and can reflect that as such. As ever, it's in the execution (and Gambit is a tricky character to write I would imagine! I hope that Howard gets the hang of him soon.), but I think that assuming the worst of writers when writing is, frankly, very hard, is unfair and not conducive to any interesting discussion.