THIS BETTER BE A FAKE-OUT!

[gryphonsegg]

New teaser image from Marvel: Storm/Cyclops kiss I didn't have a hat nearby, so I threw down a pillow instead. Then I got up just to grab a hat and throw it down. Now I'm telling myself that it's probably an in-story dream or hallucination or maybe one AU among many that will flash by in single panels and never be brought up again. I'm not at my most articulate right now, but this is all you need to know: I LOVE STORM. She is one of my favorite characters off all times. I HATE CYCLOPS. He is one of my most hated characters of all time. There is no history of romantic tension between them. There is no reason they should be kissing. I don't want him anywhere near her. The intensity of my feelings about this probably makes me a huge loser, but I can't muster up a damn to give about that. All my damns are being spent on nerdrage right now.

Comments

[lady_ganesh]

Is it bad if I think 'maybe she'd be out of that stupid marriage to Black Panther if it's real?'

[gryphonsegg]

It's not bad for you to think that, but the marriage to Black Panther never bothered me enough to make this preferable. Warning, Thoughts On Het below:

I've never liked the marriage, and I still don't, but don't hate T'Challa or the marriage itself either. My problem with that decision was that Hudlin had really sexist reasons for it and portrayed it in a sexist way, basically putting an end to Storm's individuality and making her an extension of T'Challa because the "best" black woman in the MU rightfully belongs to Marvel's most prominent black hero (even though Storm was then and might still be Marvel's most prominent black hero herself, Hudlin seemed to think that only men counted). After Hudlin's run was done, McDuffy and other writers let Storm return to working with the X-Men, having a mutant identity, and having a personal identity and personality separate from her husband, so the Storm/Black Panther marriage no longer bothered me. I'm neutral on that pairing and on Black Panther as a character. I hate Scott Summers more than any real person ought to hate a fictional character, though.

[lady_ganesh]

I like Black Panther, but the marriage pissed me off for the reasons stated above.

Doesn't everyone hate Scott Summers? It's, like, the natural state of things. One of the things that pissed me off about X3 was that the treatment of his character was so shitty even I was annoyed.

[gryphonsegg]

Doesn't everyone hate Scott Summers?

I wish. Scott stans make my brain hurt. Not just fans, mind you-- there are people on this very internet who loooooooove him and defend even his crappiest decisions. There are still people who defend his decision to abandon his first wife as soon as Jean came back from the dead AND his decision not to tell Jean that he had married someone while she was gone. At least one of them insists that Warren was the person who was being deceitful and a bad friend in that scenario because he repeatedly attempted to convince Scott to tell Jean and finally told her himself after Scott missed several opportunities. Add to them the Jean-hating Emma fans who argue that he was just poor little lost lamb that prudish harpy Jean drove away with her coldness and the Emma-hating Jean fans who argue that Scott was a good husband and canon Scott/Jean was a great relationship until that tricksy slut Emma stole him away from his true love, and you end up with a vocal minority of X-Men fans who like Scott no matter how horribly he behaves. Plus, the powers that currently be at Marvel seem to expect a significant portion of their customers to be rooting for him in the ongoing storyline.

Now, I'm not against liking characters who have behaved horribly-- Xavier/Magneto shipper here! Also, I'm quite possibly ATLA fandom's only Hama fangirl. But what gets under my skin about Scott is how many people, both online fans and the professionals at Marvel, apparently don't think that the horrible things he's done are bad in the first place.

Agreed about the offscreen death in X3. That was one of the many, many things wrong with that movie. Even I would have done better than that. Then again, that's pretty far down the list of the things that bothered me about X3, so if I caught the talking fish or whatever, I'd probably leave the mishandling of Scott's character as it is just because there's so much else I would change first.

Hmm . . . comparing his treatment in that movie to his treatment in the last X-Men comics that I read, and thinking some more about fandom responses to the character, I think there might be a problem with lack of middle ground. Lots of people, probably most former X-Men readers and perhaps most current X-Men readers and some of the people involved with professional projects too, hate Scott. Then there are other people who love him with the scary kind of love that won't admit jerktasticness when it's staring them right in the face.

[lady_ganesh]

That might indeed be the problem. Plus I generally don't read much for comics news/blogs unless it's already been filtered through someone else, so I don't have to deal with Scott stans.

And it would be way too optimistic to assume Ororo would get some better pairings if they broke up the marriage, how quickly I forget....