First love doesn't mean only love, which is something too many writers don't realize. One problem is that none of these relationships the two had really lasted more than one writer.
Pretty much this. It's why over in the Spider-Man corner of the Marvel Universe, there are pros and fans alike who still can't get over Gwen Stacy and will forever resent Mary Jane Watson(-Parker) for being the one who ultimately married Peter/Spidey and became his most recognizable love interest in outside media. And to tie this back to X-Men, if Kitty Pryde is so attracted to guys named Peter . . . well, why not a swing with the Amazing Spider-Man, like their Ultimate Marvel counterparts?
The spider is always on the hunt.
that is betty erasure
I don't blind date I make the direct market vibrate
Nick Spencer would write an amazing SpiderKat relationship.
Apologies. Betty was his first girlfriend, yes, but she does sadly tend to be forgotten compared to the likes of Gwen, MJ, and Black Cat.
Yes, he would. Hell, I was all for whatever he was building up to with Ultimate Kitty in the first post-Death of Spider-Man Ultimate X-Men series before he got replaced by Brian Wood.
You raise a very good point.
The spider is always on the hunt.
all is forgiven
hickman is but a herald sent to prepare this barren franchise into a fertile soil so spencer may one day descend and make it flourish, before devouring it whole
it will be glorious
he
is
inevitable
I don't blind date I make the direct market vibrate
I am a Colossus fan and I am so tired of this (at this point) forced relationship. Both characters have moved on, I don't think the mayority of their fan bases want them together (from what I have seen in forums at least), and it really makes writers become tone deaf to what the audience wants. There is nothing left to explore with the 2 of them except for the nostalgia factor, which really proves that writers cannot create stories that are not rooted on stuff that they read as children and teenagers. Both Callisto and Domino were better prospects for Piotr, they actually made for more compelling stories. As for Kitty explore something with Karma or Yana for all I care. I think it would be good for both characters to be far away as possible from each other.
Really, for me the big issue isn't how many partners each has has, it's how one's treated the other. And between leaving her for the alien healer, going along with letting the whole "let's let even let other X-Men think we're dead" biz, the defection to the Acolytes, beating up on Kitty's then-current beau, and just a lot of generally creepy behavior on Piotr's part, writers have been using the nostalgia goggles to justify sweeping a lot of not-great behavior under the rug in favor of the whole, unhealthy "first love = true love" narrative.
And on the other hand, writers have used Piotr poorly because of their infatuation with Kitty, even Ellis admited to not writing the character fairly when he was pushing Wisdom as her new beau (and that opens a whole other can of icky issues on the part of the writer, since Peter was pretty much Ellis inserting himself into the series). Also, a lot of the issues that you mention happened after Kitty and Piotr were done, and really had nothing to do with her (All of the X-men agreed to pretend to be dead, not only Colossus). Him defecting to the Acolytes made sense within the story, and he was hardly a "villain" when he was with them, and really, a bunch of X-Men have done worse than that, and it hardly was a thing he "did" to Kitty. There is one thing I agree with you though, I want kitty as far away as possible from Piotr.
Last edited by Technopriest; 05-12-2019 at 06:40 PM.
Basically this. I find it hard to have a rational argument about them as a couple to some people here because it's easy to point to a clearly out-of-character point of canon (Piotr falling in love with an alien healer who he can't even talk to, Piotr beating the shit out of Wisdom) because they're very very clearly done not in good faith. Ellis wanted his self-insert character to pair with Kitty (much like how Bendis paired her with Star Lord, despite her just dying and being trapped in a giant bullet in space for a few years.. a trauma which was mostly ignored for the sake of shipping), and Zsaji was just because the editor was concerned about! the kids! because like some people right now think somehow it's a felony for Piotr to be kissed by Kitty, when she thinks she's dying, as he turns down her advances, because of their age differences. Because that is somehow criminal, in any way. But this is what people point to when they say they don't like the characters together. It's pretty irksome.
Especially when you take the characters at face value, they compliment each other pretty well. Kitty is more analytically minded; Piotr more emotionally so. Kitty is expressive and extroverted, Piotr is not very good with words, very introverted, but good at showing emotion through art (which he allows her to peek in on, which is something that really only Illyana and Kitty have done.. the two most important people to him). They are different people but they share values and morals and both generally want to do the right thing, have very different skillsets to do those right things, and generally have always worked together well on any team they've both been on.
But instead we get Piotr being written like a creeper, Kitty leaving him at the altar for no good reason, etc etc it's like such a waste of character potential. At least Kitty is popular enough she gets exposure in tons of books, Piotr basically is used as 'That guy Kitty keeps coming back to' and 'mopey, sad russian'. You don't get to see him do much else.. ever. Which is why seeing him away from kitty and being a teacher to Ellie in Deadpool 1/2 is so good, also.
But I'll forever root for them to be written well, even if some people don't like whedon's writing, it's very obviously better than *most* other comic book writers I'd say, and he did them right.