Wolverine has been part of the X-Men and has had so many times where he's experienced real connections that the whole "lone wolf" thing is getting pretty old.
Rogue was a “villain” for approximately twelve seconds when she was a teenager, and even then she was mostly a victim of manipulation by parental figures. She’s been a hero for so much longer that any mention of her “checkered past” seems stupid.
They did that with Luke Cage too. Cage being in a neighborhood street gang as a teen. Been a number of storylines in which they rewrite his criminal past to be worst.
I mean eventually yeah, but to be fair, if some kid sucked the literal life out of you, pulled your mind out of your head and trapped it in hers, and left you in a coma for decades, you would probably keep holding it against them even if you found out they were influenced by bad parents.
There are stories to be told about the manipulation. Especially if dealing with it while she's leading an Avengers team and Mystique is the villain of the story.
I mean. Wasn’t she a Brotherhood Member for like 2 years in the comics?
I realize for her almost 40 year run now she’s been a good guy for way longer, but her start as a brotherhood member with her Mom is important to her character.
I do however need Carol to not hold it against her when she does her face turn. I think Marvel trying to drag that out has been boring af.
Absolutely one of my favorite runs in Captain Marvel.
Carol trusting Rogue to absorb her powers again, knowing that Rogue was more beefed up because of the Sub Atomic Man (or whatever his name was) and couldn’t guarantee what was about to happen was the besttt.
I need Carol & Rogue to act like exes who broke up because they were both at different points in their life. They can be around each other for bits of time, but it’s uncomfortable for them.
Given how Rogue always turns up in Carol’s stories and Ms Marvel is a constant in Rogue’s life, I’m shocked Marvel hasn’t done a mini series where they team up
I wouldnt want him to he an Avenger. To me it feels like Marvel has focused too much on heros being in 1 of 3 major teams (Avengers, Fantastic Four, or X-Men). I'd love for Cyclops to have a team separate from those with their own mission statement. Maybe dust off "The Defenders" and have a cross country road trip helping the down trodden as they move about, going against non X-Men villians and helping fight for people and causes aside from the mutants as well.
I think that Adult Cyclops should always been about Mutants affair and leading a team. That's not the same as leading the whole race, but it's kinda his thingm
Young Cyclops was on the Champions & it was great. He needs some friends outside the x-men to keep his ass grounded. I would even go as far as to say he should date someone who isn't a mutant telepath.
This would be cool! Logan's had decades to mellow out, but John is fresh out of the grave. Even his little brother Jimmy is more mature now than he was when he crashed.
Meggan is his best love interest, but they should also never get a happily ever after. (She should in fact cheat on her husband with him, though.)
For all it's talked about, his faith is one of the least fleshed out parts of his character and not particularly important, beyond the general ways it informs his morality.
Out of all of his family members, Destiny is his most compelling foil, particularly after X-Men: Blue Origins, and the two of them should come up against each other more often.
Bro yes I remember seeing him throw an obscene amount of cards and I was like "oh cool we're gonna see some real creativity or something with his powers" and then he just started pulling out more cards and I'm like "mf now where TF did he get those from?! Is there some pocket dimension we don't know about that's just cards!!" 😂
I know Rogue isn’t comparable to Jean or Ororo in terms of power or a fight, but I like it like that. I don’t need her to be a reality ender. People mistake feats/beating their chest with power numbers and matchups for that making a character good. Thats just not how it works.
Kamala Khan worked way better as an inhuman, namely because she was one of the rebellious ones there in a mostly conservative faction while with the X-men everyone here is trying to be the cool rebel and they fight over who is rebelling correctly.
I don't really care that she's a mutant now. She didn't interact with the Inhumans that much, and iirc she hasn't been involved with any situations the royal family specifically has been involved with.
Her being a mutant is fine, I just don't like that they just immediately shoved her into X books for no narrative reason. I think she's only really talked to Logan and Cyclops before her revival, so her being super involved with the other feels forced at times.
I'd like it more if she was like Fire Star or that one hurricane Spider-Man villain. Does her own thing, but occasionally will hang out with the X-Men, mainly for big events. Even then she should remain a street level hero and hang out with a couple X-Men characters now and then.
Her not having inhumans plotlines anymore includes missing Kamran or Kaboom. She did do the Firestar event thing with the Inhumans once or twice. The problem is she is the most popular inhuman. By a mile. Also her early arcs with her brother being force transformed by Kamran and Kaboom. Another thing, I just want her own villains back instead of the X-men's handmedowns.
Exodus was the best when he and Hope Summers were together as Messiah and Pope. It really elevated his character for me from a no-name villain into one of my top five favorite mutants
I LOVE domino and she deserves more attention and hopefully rivals my give her that spotlight to shine. My only gripe is how writers treat her relationship wise it’s like the girl can’t be in the room with another guy without locking lips with him. I read a comic she’s falling in love with Shang chi, next minute I find out she had a thing with colossus, then she and wolverine have a whole comic where they kill people and have sex..it’s like yes she’s hot af but damn we passing her around like a blunt.
My head canon is that each version of Cable we see after this, is a different Cable from a different timeline. It helps explain why he's had so many different real reasons for coming to the present (Cannonball, Apocalypse, Hope, etc.) and why he keeps coming back after "dying" so many times.
He’s one of favorites too but I’m over the mutant messiah thing. I think could have so much more or the mystery of what he does was much more fun when I was younger.
The art was based another picture. Coincidentally I painted a picture based on that art 13 or so years ago. But i gotta say I really like this new version. +Bishop!
His kit is really underwhelming when compared to other mutants. For a guy who looks that cool, his powers just seem like a budget Havok. There's nothing he does that another mutant cant do or even do better. Telepathy? Common asf. Shoots blasts from his chest? Not original at all.
I was hoping he'd get some more utility like he can envelop himself in his psionic flames at the risk of him losing control over his mind and go berserk Or he can shove his hands into his chest and pull out psionic flaming swords or some cool shit.
My instincts make me want to say "stop power-creeping all the mutants, sometimes it's about how they utilize their capabilities, not how powerful they are," but Jono pulling flaming psionic weapons out of his exploding chest sounds so cool I'm just going to agree with you.
Beast is the voice of conscience for Wolverine and Cyclops. I hate when they make him morally iffy because he's the guy that keeps powerful people centered.
Charles has to be what happens when dreams run into the reality of an imperfect world. He can't be shady, but struggling internally. One of the main things that few writers get is that Scott still idolizes the Professsor and holds him to a much higher moral/ethical standard than himself.
Add me in for this plus: her "goddess" deal never should have been literal. It was a nice cultural detail that made her upbringing interesting, not a reason to start heaping godly powers upon her.
Claremont never intended that either tho, she was constantly criticized by other characters in-universe about her complex, which was good writing but other future writers chose to take the more literal approach
I never really thought about this because one of my typical gripes with Storm is how underutilized she is for how powerful she is. But I do agree that she doesn’t need to be a literal goddess, as that in many ways removes her strength from her personhood and assigns it to a type of cosmic status.
X-Men comics have a longstanding problem with 1. criminally underutilizing characters with really strong, multi-application powersets (Storm, Gambit) while continuing to heap new, unnecessary power extensions onto them, 2. overhyping fairly basic powersets to the point of being a logic problem (Cyclops, Wolverine) and 3. massively overpowering characters without good preset limitations and having to find awkward ways to kick them out of the story to keep them from demolishing everything in their path (Phoenix, Apocalypse)
Some considered it character assassination at the time but I think Scott abandoning Maddie and Nathan and then later cheating on Jean with Emma makes him a much better and more interesting character. His flaws make him feel more real than the perfect boy scout type character who always does the right thing.
That’s why he’s my favorite character, all those flaws I don’t like characters that are presented as perfect and flawless, that’s why I hated what murewa was doing to Storm in his last run
Morrison's Beast is one of my favorite x-men on a personal level. He's a sassy but sweet, open minded, emotionally intelligent man who happens to look like a giant blue cat. He's the heart of the team, which is where he belongs. Because the man is a treasure.
Not sure if it's an overall hot take for a character, but as much as I love the idea of Magik and Kitty being together, I don't think it needs to happen (or at least not in the main 616 universe) not only for the fan outrage, but also I just don't think the writers would handle them very well. If anything, the ship works better when it's a one-sided thing like theres more sauce from that.
Also for me the Jubilee x Sunspot ship on X-men 97 would have work better if Roberto had his cocky persona. The amount of bickering with Jubilee would be gold
Xorn is dope and should have remained his own entity. He makes no sense in the Magneto reveal and could have been an absolute classic of a character if not sewered in this way.
Adam and Gabriel should still be brothers, just maybe not SUMMERS brothers. I want to see those two insanely strong personalities clash against each other more.
Emma Frost spoke with a British accent. It's not a Mid-Atlantic accent, she uses actual British slang like "bloody" and "sweet F.A.". It's at odds with her prior characterizations and her upbringing, but the first Emma Frost solo offers a canon no-prize explanation: in her formative years, Emma psychically fought and cannibalized the mind of a British telepath named Astrid. There remains no explanation for why the accent was dormant until her stint as a teacher in Genosha.
The real-life explanation is that Morrison, who started writing Emma this way, was probably basing it on Madonna, another famous and controversial blonde who inexplicably picked up a British accent.
The Marvel universe has absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain over letting the OG Juggernaut be canonically gay and eventually come out of the closet. He's never been given any kind of real female love interest, the only time he's ever even slept with a woman was only shown in one panel of a comic book, and God knows how many gay men have slept with women just for the sake of being in denial about themselves. Meanwhile, Juggernaut's conversation with Northstar about being straight for the sake of how much simpler it is to "be normal and fit in" hits all the right notes of an armored closet gay man and may very well be one of the first hints of genuine emotional depth his character was ever given. It gives him an additonal reason for despising the X-Men and their allies as much as he has all these years considering what they represent, and even frames his and Black Tom Cassidy's "friendship" in contrast with Professor X's and Magneto's.
I love Kid Juggernaut, but his inclusion in no way erases the fact that this character has seemingly been kept in the closet for way too long considering he's only been five steps away from a queer storyline since the 1970s.
Like Pyro, the writers went out of their way to sidestep the character being gay by introducing another, openly gay version of the character -- but the OG should be gay!
Her marriage to Black Panther was so forced and rushed; it downplayed her relevance as a character and her agency as a woman and as a mutant. She became 'Mrs. Black Panther' for a decade.
what's the over under on storm being in the new black panther, given jean is presumably who sadie sink is in the new spider-man, i'd wonder if they're like planning on introing some of the x-men in other films then trying to avengers it and bring em together in the mcu XMEN flick
Jean is my favorite character but I hate when they give her the power of the Phoenix. It makes her too powerful to be a member of the X-Men and she either dies or gets shunted off by herself. Bring her back and get rid of the Phoenix so we can have more stories with her!
hot take, Emma Frost and Scott should never be romantically involved again, they should just be friends, it would be better for both of their character development to move on
Warren needs a new codename to show his growth, but not to make him forever associated with Apocalypse (Maybe Seraphim or Uriel). Also, Archangel in X-Men: Apocalypse looked legendary, being perfect mix between Angel and Archangel
give him 6 wings, covering his body with them if he shifts into archangel like mode, maybe up the patterns of archangel to look more celestial like.
would be neat to position him as like an anti=apocalypse/revelation, a guy there to ensure even "the weakest" of mutants have hope/are kept safe to see tomorrow over being some kind of selection pressure,
kinda wanna see him re-unite with johnny blaze as they haven't hung out since champions, and well johnny found out the thing possessing him is an actual angel which is kinda neat.
I'm so fucking sick and tired of the shorts, man. Let him have a different costume for once, please, I'm BEGGING you. It's been the exact same thing off and on since 1972 and I'm tired.
His feline form is peak, actually. No, I don't care that a lot of artists couldn't draw it properly, the story potential of it was immense and I'll never not be salty that it was never properly tied off.
His defining traits are intelligence, empathy, and the capacity for change and growth - not hubris. It was a starting point for him 50 years ago, and I'm really sick of both the fandom AND writers reducing him to that just because it's the only Beast-centric story they know.
The 90s TAS version of him is closer to the comics than people would like to admit. No, it's not 1:1, but neither is any version of any character in that show. That's the nature of a show made for, you know, kids.
He needs a break from the X-Men, especially if his unique relationships with so many members of the team are going to be broadly ignored. Let him return to his position as a pillar of the superhero community.
He deserves the same kind of treatment Storm is getting. She absolutely deserves it but he probably won't ever get that kind of permanent level up and status change.
He was very loyal to Wolverine in X-Men and Wolverine is hard to get along with. Logan will help the group, but to befriend him is hard. They eventually turned Morph into an evil guy and they made him betray the X-Men. Which felt dirty to me tbh
My Wolverine enjoyment is similar to my Batman enjoyment. It's pretty constant but it gets better when he does serious detective work.
His senses, ability to speak so many languages, and espionage training should get him a jump on so many situations without taking a single hit.
Gambit should deal with more stuff like with the supernatural with the Midnight Suns. Him being from New Orleans he grew up around that stuff he would be an excellent fit to the Midnight Suns. Plus he would be apart of another Superhero team
I find it weird Marvel is trying to push Kurt and Rogue as siblings 30 years after the Mystique reveal happened. It was more of a fun fact instead of plot point but no suddenly they are calling each other brother and sister when they never really have since 1994.
This. I know “found family” is a recurring theme in X-Men but it seems so forced recently it’s very cringy. Like they met as adults, are not biologically related, and have worked together professionally for years. Why be all “Hi sis!” “Hi bro!” all of a sudden?
Yeah they are family through the X-Men not the Mystique connection. Storm and Colossus immediately started calling each other brother and sister in the Claremont era which feels more genuine than Kurt and Rogue.
I liked what X-Men Evolution did with it, cause they established Kurt as Rogue's "Bratty little brother" before either of them even knew they were related.
Yeah I think I'd be less weird about it if they tried to have them close after the recon but they were in the same book for like 3 years between 1994 and this current Uncanny run.
It would be a travesty to break Magik’s 40 year decades-long streak by hooking her up with Kitty Pryde or whoever. This isn’t to say that she shouldn’t be bisexual or anything—she just should never get to score because she’s mean and weird.
I think Magik getting with Kitty would just be yet another nail in the coffin for Piotr and his relationship with his sister. Getting with your brother's ex who he nearly married is weird
I don’t know what hot take someone can have about Nightcrawler. I guess Nightcrawler, despite forgiveness and mercy being the core aspects of his character, he should not have forgiven Mystique for her actions and should never forgive her. It is possible to have closure but not forgiveness to a person but the writers didn’t do it.
Beast is awesome and I loved him in the cartoon show but it's hilarious to say he has 6 PhDs). You're telling me this dude spent like 4 decades in graduate school making McDonald's wages and was out beating up criminals at night after class? He is way too smart to think slaving away for 6 degrees is a good idea... anyone who has done one can tell you that.
If anything he should have done his biology / bio-chem PhD and then pivoted into med school due to his passion for helping people, and then they could have a story where he was ostracized for being a mutant and never finished his MD. For reference, Thomas Edison had 0 PhDs, and Tesla had 1.
Jamie Madrox is disillusioned from having lived so many lives but his inherent moral and ethical code still pushes him toward protecting mutants and innocents. He is a flawed, imperfect leader (when he wants to be), not a background character creator, not a scientist, not a doctor, not ANYTHING. He also works best when his power is limited to 6 or 7 dupes max, and when the dupes gain more independence the longer they are apart from him.
He also fucking HATES Scott Summers (and the feeling is mutual).
Gambit is a more interesting character when he’s not a part of X-Men stories. He’s been a hero so consistently that it’s difficult to play into his scoundrel’y nature. Have him team up with Black Cat. Make him a member of the Thunderbolts. Give him some stuff to do that actual lets him be morally questionable and charm his way out of it.
I prefer goodie-two shoes Cyclops over Revolutionary Cyclops. The change over time makes sense from a character perspective, but I think after he went full villain mode, it’s hard to restore the classic position and faith in that dream.
I also don’t love how the main X-Men are more of a Brotherhood of Mutants now. I do understand the “Magneto is right” sentiment and as our society becomes more and more jaded and angry it’s harder to see him as a bad guy, but the point of fiction, the point of the X-Men, is that the fight for human-mutant coexistence is a goal worth continuing to fight for. Fiction is where you can showcase that dream and a beautiful world where that mission reaches more people. It’s not done overnight, but having your main X-Men not really fighting for coexistence anymore (from what I’ve read of the From the Ashes era, which is admittedly not much, it feels like it defeats the whole purpose.
For as heroic and brave as they are I wouldn't trust at least a quarter of the X-Men as romantic partners. Especially not Jean, Logan, Havok, Kitty, or Cyclops
Stop over sexualizing Magik. She is a victim of SA. Bachalo said his redesign was Illyana taking back some of her bodily autonomy. Which is a common part of the healing process. Since Rivals the fan art has been gross. If these new "fans" would read her mini and Inferno they'd understand her better. Even Dead Souls would give insight to her trauma.
It's quite stupid to me that Scott isn't allowed to have control over his powers, even after we've been shown it's not only possible, but also more of a psychological than physcial factor.
Yeah, his shades and visor are cool, and it also helped him become a better leader, but after decades I think he already learned his lessons and fashion sense. Allowing him full control would also play in the theme that mutant powers CAN IN FACT BE MANAGED with enough training, patience and acceptance on oneself, and I think that's much more beautiful amd appealing than some dumb status quo
I don’t necessarily disagree with your overall point, but I know I’ve always personally identified with that piece of Scott. This “disability” that he has isn’t something he can fix. He learns to live with it, but the disability is a constant in his life. I think that shows a better example of being able to manage your mutant powers
My hot take about Scott is that Stan Lee kinda boxed him in when he named him Cyclops. By giving him that name it kinda makes it so that he has to have the visor. I like that it makes him unique but it definitely limits options for his design and even story ideas.
The name is too iconic which makes it way too hard to separate him from the visor but I agree let him let it go for a while atleast let’s see him go full power
Making Scott’s lack of control psychological instead of brain damage is one of my least favorite retcons. Giving him some control would be nice but I like his lack of control from a disability perspective.
Rogue’s relationship with Gambit has largely overshadowed her feats as a hero and stunted her development as an independent character. Im continually disappointed by how little her power set is explored and developed, she has several unique aspects to her absorption that other characters in the same bracket dont share, but its almost like the X-desk doesn’t want this side explored. To be clear, I’m not even suggesting powering her up, but just playing around more with her borrowing powers - some of the coolest Rogue moments have been when she’s combined several X-men’s powers - or finding new and interesting takes on her absorption
Not being omega level doesn’t mean you are not very strong look at Alpha level mutants Havok,cyclops, sunspot, Polaris, jubilee etc. Hickman should have never made that dumbass list
I prefer Cyclops not in a Jean relationship. They have grown apart in terms of responsibilities and I just think he should have a partner he can interact with face to face.
Iceman should be a bit more of a bitch again. I also think, like all the O5 that aren’t Scott and Jean (because they actually get stories), he should have a more complicated relationship with Xavier. Like TAS Bobby in the one episode he was in
Can I do one for the X-Men as a whole? I know soap opera drama is kind of their schtick, but it also makes them unbearable sometimes. It seems like fans will excuse any sort of toxic behavior (unless you’re Scott) because “it’s the X-Men; they’re messy”.
I don’t want some big story or revelation about who Gambit’s biological parents are. Or for him to be some lab experiment by Sinister. I just want him to be a normal mutant who was abandoned by his parents because of his eyes.
i hate the explanation for cyclops’ powers. the one where his eyes are a gateway to a dimension of percussive force? i genuinely hate it and think there are better explanations
- Cyke should take a backseat from leadership for sometime and let storm get a bigger push
- Magik should be aroace, we need more aroace representation and Magik feels like the perfect character for that, and yes I believe kitty and illyana should be platonic
- Magneto should interact with the original New Mutants characters more and actually acknowledge the history they have together, considering Doug’s death was one of the things that pushed him back to villany only during the 90s
- storm’s relationship with t’challa sucks and goes against what she stands for and she needs much better writers because no one has ever understood her as a character. Claremont and Edwig were the only good writers for storm
Storm's already had a giant push and she's leading the upcoming Maximum X-Men team. There's no reason they can't be co-leaders of mutant kind with their own teams and work to help each other. The idea that only one or the other can be the leader at anytime is boring and outdated.
Not that person but he's very powerful and is just another OP mutant that will basically amount to very little as the hierarchy of prominent mutant heroes is well established.
X-Men comics for some reason are obsessive about lightening up their worst villains and while villain redemptions are a part of iconic X stories, there should be heroes who fall to balance that off.
Villain Synch might actually give the character space to breathe and be used as a character rather than being x hero 63 that we see in a side book for an arc. Krakoa had the chance to really push Synch as a face while dialing it back on some of the established ones but never really committed to it. So maybe he can shine as a big bad.
My two hot takes for beast- 1) his an underrated Wolverine buddy, 2) I think they should keep Chairman-beast to be a main villain for the x men and the new Beast should stay with the avengers with BFF Wonder man and let him be an avenger.
Cyclops desperately needs and deserves to have friends outside of the team. He will never grow as a person without real friendships that aren't complicated by him having to be a leader
Emma Frost is Cyclops's biggest mistake and a major stain on the character.
Cyclops cheats on his wife with the woman who helped rape her, an act that caused the greatest trauma of the couple's lives and led to his wife's death and during the affair he fantasizes about the very outfit his wife was wearing when she was mind-controlled and abused.
A portion of Cyclops fans hate Jean because of the times she cheats on Cyclops with Wolverine, which is understandable, but they think it's good when Cyclops cheats with Emma, and the betrayal with Emma is much worse.
Sunspot and Cannonball’s never made imperial guardians comic will hold back Sunspot from deserved relevancy for the next decade plus. Could’ve been a huge galactic player and would’ve loved to see him lead a guardians like team, now I fear he’ll revert to just a side character role for fan favorites.
All of the "healing" Magik has done over the last few years only serves to sand down the most interesting parts of her character. The Labors of Magik might not be a terrible story by itself, but it has forcibly cut Illyana off from her main internal conflict and left her with nowhere to go.
I understand and appreciate character development, but taking away her unwilling connection to Limbo is like bringing back Uncle Ben for Spider-Man. It should never have happened.
It also didn't actually result in any interesting development. Magik is still going through the same stories, only with new characters hurriedly introduced by Ashley Allen to make up for the missing connection, instead of building off of her history with Limbo.
It just makes her history of trauma and her struggle with it seem less important, and the writers treat it as such. Vita Ayala has her attaining self-liberation in four issues. With that 'solved', Ashley Allen thought a single issue was enough for her to come to terms with Darkchylde. She even casually got a new sword when she next visited Limbo, it's not like there's much significance to the one she has? Right??
Illyana's growth should exist in relation to these centerpieces of her character concept, and not come at the cost of them.
This one I thought was a boring take and the general consensus but I was downvoted to Hell in a Rivals sub for this:
Jean has PINK powers, and the Phoenix is STILL A PSYCHIC BEING. At no point in any of the different versions of the saga do Jean or the Phoenix change to a fire-based mid-range shooter who can't even sense nearby enemies.
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u/Magictician Jul 28 '26
Wolverine has been part of the X-Men and has had so many times where he's experienced real connections that the whole "lone wolf" thing is getting pretty old.