Dave's perspectives on X-Men

[SamKarns]

Do I need to ask her this question somewhere else?

[Paty]

OK...lets clear this up. Dave you said you were unhappy about what was done with some of the X characters... that is what the question was referring to...not Wanda and Quickie...

Magneto in his original incarnation by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby was a crazed, mindless villain... simply a foill for the X brats to fight. Stan didn't write deep villains... he merely wrote for the tenor of the times....which if you look at comics of the fifties and early sixties was anything but serious.. or deep... that came later.
Then you had younger writers coming in like Roy Thomas.. who were trained in english compositional literature...ie storytelling... and who started to give more depth to some of the characters...including Magneto. We first see his face, drawn superbly by Neal Adams, in the original title's run...and at this point, coming out from under the helmet and having a real face, he becomes a person...not just a raving costumed looniebird. He is still maniacial, though... cuz it was how he had always been portrayed... but there was something there... something different.

OK.. now I am gonna diverge for a moment here, to talk about comic book publishing reality. To retain trademarks and registrations on characters, their likenesses and their Logos, or trade names, you have to use them in print every so often.... otherwise the trademarks on costumes and names and logos expires. Copyrights are on stories and last much longer. Anyway, if you want to retain trademarks and registrations...which are a more formal way of trademarking... you HAVE to use them. This is why every so often you see a one shot featuring this character or villain or that character or villain...prominantly displayed in costume with Logo included. It is to protect a name, character or costume or logo design. Marvel Girl as a name for a female character SUCKS ...moose... sideways... with a straw! But if Marvel wants to hold onto the name, they gotta have her in print once in a while. Actually the tenor of the offices is males only and these little yoyos really seem to want to put female characters down... so "Marvel Girl" is a tootaie name.. and not to be taken seriously... whereas Phoenix as a name implies power. You just gotta look at that inane costume, geared for tittilating juvenile pub pullers to see where the impetus to rename her "Marvel Girl comes from... and no amount of "I am doing it to honor my mom" bullshit will wash, either...not with the female readership who care about such things. You wanna look like Brittany Spears and act like a wimp.. fine...Marvel Girl says it all.

OK.. back to Magneto.
Several other writers used him off and on for years as a foil... a villain to throw in and have a battle with... until one day the only way to stop him was to devolve him into a baby! which they did. And we saw no more of him for years. Until, later, they wanted to use him again so they had to have him reevolved back into an adult... which they did. Ain't comics wonderful? LOL anyway...When Chris took over writing the X book, he treaded carefuly for a while until he got his literary feet under him and started to run with the characters, fleshing out characters who had been superficially written and incorporating the new insights into the storylines. The fans loved this new dimension and eagerly bought his books and fell in love with his characters as he developed them into real poeple.
I had many discussions with Chris when he worked with Dave... cuz I was working on staff at Marvel at the time and often did messenger service between Chris, the offices and Dave when schedules were tight. The general tenor of discussion about Magneto was that his actions to this point were inane.. UNLESS he had a reason for doing what he did. Roy and Neal had shown us Magneto in a reasonable light in several panels in a Savage Land story and the character had possibilities...especially in light of Chris's growing understanding of the character's potential power range.
I knew Chris wanted to do more with Mags, but Dave went off the book and Byrne came onto it. Byrne hated Magneto and thought that Mags as a mindless, one dimensional character was just fine... but then Byrne never wrote as deeply as Claremont did, so they were at odds right there with sotry and character development capacity. Claremont is a beta personality and Byrne thinks he is god... so Chris simply waited until Byrne wanted off the book and Dave came back on to do what he wanted to do with magneto , cuz he knew if he tried it with Byrne doing the art it simply wouldn't work... Byrne would fight him all the way to get HIS viewpoint ascendant.
Uncanny 150 was an anniversary issue and after Chris had written the plot for a single issue the bigwigs upstairs decided it was gonna be a double sized issue and Chris was called in to expand it into a double sized issue... which he then gave to me to take out to Dave that night when I went home from the offices. I asked him if he minded if I read it and he said "go ahead and tell me what you think" Chris knew that in spite of being shoved into merchandising, I had real editorial capacity and would give him my honest opinion. Half an hour later, on his way out, he stopped at may office and asked what I thought. "You threw away your real story on page four" sez I..."What?Where?" sez he... So I told hem that the scene with Magneto .. where he had Mags asking where Jean was and who was this woman with Scott? Scott says Jean is dead and Mags says I am sorry I know your grief... and Scott tells him what do you know of grief and Mags says I know grief., boy.. my whole family was slaughtered...! THAT SCENE! wHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT? yOU DON'T ALLUDE TO IT AGAIN IN THE STORY AND THAT IS YOUR STORY RIGHT THERE! You got another inane battle going on with the X men and it's just another big battle like all the others. This is a double sized issue ...and this should be your story. You have been wanting to develop Magneto as a character and you have a double sized anniversary issue to do it in. This issue's story shoud be about Magneto! Who is he? Why does he do what he does? Why is he fighting the X kids? There's gotta be a reason... now's the time for you to tell us what it is! .....or words to that effect...LOL... Chris grabbed the script outta my hands and ran out of my office. I hoped I hadn't offended him and went back to work. Two hours later, he came back in, thrust papers at me and said "Read THIS!" It was the story you see printed in Uncanny 150 and the start of Chris developing Magneto into the brilliant character he is.. or could be if they would give him back to Chris to write... today.
I didn't know what Chris had planneed for Magneto, but he used the point of his being turned into a baby to begin his reconstruction of Magneto as a rational being, driven mad by a backup everytime he used his powers until Moira McTaggart manipulated his gnetic structure, opening the floodgates of his power. This part of the story didn't come out until later, explaining the change in Mags from nutball villain to reasoned adversary. But the whole thing WORKED! Logically! Which is what good storytelling does.
Chris embellished Magneto's backstory as he went along, developing a history of Holocaust survival, a woman he rescued form the camps, a daughter named Anya, who died in a fire where her father was kept from trying to rescue her and this tragic event kicked off his true magnetic powers... killing the people who were restraining him and so terrifying his wife, Magda, that she fled from him, never having told him she was preggers with what turned out to be the twins, Wanda and Pietro... who up until that time had no backstory at all. Chris created a birth on Wondagore mountain , Magda's death in childbirth and burial there, and the twins adoptioon and life with the gypsies until their mutations surfaced, got them in trouble and they were rescued, coincidentally, by magneto and inducted into the Brotherhood. ..."of Evil Mutants" is an abberration of Stan's need for things to be black and white rather than shades of gray...and has no bearing in reality cuz people don't think of themselves as "evil"...unless they wanna be socially dark and gothic and are adopting a "personna". stan just wanted his mindless readers to KNOW these were the "bad" guys...
In any event, Mags at that time was still being nutso and he did not know their relationship tohim.. which was created and revealed by Cris years later... so he made life so miserable for basically good kids that they left the Brotherhood for the Avengers. Mags has meanwhile still been serarching for the love of his life, Magda, and has come upon Wondagore mountain and forced the cow-woman, Bova, to divulge what happened with the woman who came to he one snowy winter night. She tells him about the birth of the twins, Magda's death and their adoption by gypsies and Mags realizes that Wanda and Pietro are his kids! Things get interesting from there vis a vis the familial situation. Mags has a very strong family feeling... his family having been slaughtered, literally, in front of him...so he tries to make it up to the kids...but has such a bad history with them that they reject him...if not exactly wholesale. They do keep tabs on him cuz as Avengers they may have to deal with him sooner or later...

The inclusion of Wanda and Pietro...who always looked like Magneto... from the get-go, so the connection was obvious... was brilliant. How Claremont did it, weaving the hints and denouments into storylines instead of just telling the readership, was brilliant storytelling...of the kind you don't see much today. It requires time, finesse and actual storytelling ability. Chris had it then and he stillhas it now if Marvel would let him run with his stories and characters. it took him seventeen years of good storytelling to build the X Universe..it took bad writing and stupid bigotry seventeen months to tear a good chunk of it down. but that's another rant...

There are factions at Marvel who hate Magneto's backstory. They want him not to be interesting but tyo be a one dimensional cookie cutter villain because that is the only type of character they are capable of writing. They don't want him to be a charasmatic adversary who is basically RIGHT in his view that you don't fight for your survival from a position of weakness or subserviance but from a position of power. They hate him being of Jewish stock, even if he isn't a practicing Jew... simply because he IS so powerful, charasmatic and yummy. He, a comic book character, gets more action from females than THEY do! How humiliating! Well... he, as Claremont portrayed him, is far more real and interesting and sexy than THEY are as supposedly real humans ...and that really enrages them. Hence the ongoing battle for the soul of Magneto...waged by his ardent fans...note my signature...the battle still rages...

"Nuff said?
Paty

[Paty]

LOL...no you don't have to ask me anywhere else...I am having trouble with the little "recieve email on replies" thingies. I check them and they don't send emails to replies...sigh...but Dave usually tells me when someone has addressed a question to me... and sooner or later I get around to peeking in to Nightscrawlers to see what is up...

Of course, you can always send me private emails off list... lots of people do... my addy is in my profile, I believe...
Paty

[SamKarns]

Thank you Paty and Dave. You two are the best. I have more questions for you soon.

[SamKarns]

Why has it been so difficult to give Jean Grey a proper codename to fit her abilities?

Have you guys heard Jean was killed off... AGAIN?

[Paty]

Yeah... last time she was offed, Morrison the asswipe did it... and now her Phoenix powers are being exhibited by her daughter from the future..Rachel...but if she's dead, she stillhasn't had a kid...so if Rachel is to exist, she is gonna have to come back isn't she?
but that is what Phoenix do, isn't it? they are the original resurrection story... rising from their own ashes. I wonder if that counts if you don't have ashes but are rotting away underground...?

I guess Stan thought Marvel Girl was just fine for a female...sigh... But then, in about the same time period you had things like the Invisible girl...later, woman... then along came Ms Marvel, She-Hulk...and over at DC you had Saturn Girl, SuperGirl, Duo Damsel...or triplicate girl, until she lost one of herselves... Lightening Lass...
I mean, the godawful list of "girl" names goes on and on...
as a codename, Phoenix is one of the better ones in my book. It is dynbamic and describes her power and visual personna. You cannot get much better than that... and there's no "she" or "girl" designation to stupidify the name.
Marvel Girl just sucks as a code name. Sorry, that's my take on it. I would rather not have a code name than be stuck with anything as stupid as that. I guess SpiderWoman is no worse than SpiderMan...but Marvel Girl??? gimme a break!
Of course, I guess it flew for a while... but those were simple minded times... no pun intended, either. the whole industry talked down to women and didn't take them seriously... and that is still the case in most comic venues today... both in characters and in staff or creators. Women are window dressing... for the boyos to bandy about, ogle and have wet dreams about...hence the lack of any coherent costuming... especially recently. Earlier costumes had style and grace in many cases... now it is all nekkid leg, bellybutton and as much skin showing on females as humanly possible with spirit gum holding costumes on fat fannies and bulging boobs that could not possibly be extant short of a sideshow freak tent. Bazongas that leave freakin' shdows across your abdomen... like humongous lava shelves, ready to fall into the sea and wipe out whole continents...

sigh...

don't gt me started...

Paty

[Angelique]

My sentiments exactly! Like, when will the ladies once again have costumes that don't require butt glue or liquid spandex?

[Paty]

I think the thing that got me was the nekkid belly button craze. I mean EVERY freakin female had to have a nekkid belly button!!! No matter what! she could be a police woman...nekkid bellybutton. virtually all superdoop costumes were redesigned to exhibit a nekkid bellybutton! Once in a blue moon you would see a costume which covered it...and you would almoost faint from relief. I hate the Brittany Spears look. Gimme a break. the excess of skin on leg, arm , boobs and buttocks...not to mention the midriff again ... and we are not just talking bellybutton here, but from boob base to groin.. is nauseating. You don't see that kind of battle dress on the guys! this, of course is subliminal message which says... these chicks are for eye candy and, no matter how heavy their power is, you don't have to take them seriously! guys understand this message even if the occasional female reader doesn't. I get news for those boyos...there's more than just the "occasional" female reader out here and I think a lot of us are getting pissed. they're not gonna like us when we're pissed. We're not nice little ladies when we're pissed!

I have noticed a very slight trend to curb the bellybutton look lately...maybe the novelty wore off on some artists. Maybe some artists just got tired of it...i dunno... but it is a welcome change, limited as it is. dare I hope for the future??? Ani't gonna hold my breath! When they get rid of that god-awful Marvel Girl costume, I will believesome kind of sanity reigns... or at least has made an appearance. When (headmistress to a freakin' SCHOOL) Emma Frost's costume stiops looking like a forty second street hooker's get-up that is spirit gummed on, and starts to resemble something that could possibly be taken seriously, I will believe common sense has had a guest shot . When Sara Pezzini starts wearing clothes a real detective would wear on duty, I will believe in a cameo of intelligence is appearing on screen. Sigh...

As I said, I ain't holdin' my breath or hoping to hang until it happens, though...

Paty

[Angelique]

Well, that look seems all too in character for Emma Frost. It's her schtick. But the "nekkid bellybutton" look struck me as doubly impractical in general for women who routinely do battle against villains with a variety of powers. First of all, it's like going into a gun battle with a big target painted over one's unprotected viscera. And yet, because the ladies are still at least technically clothed, it doesn't have the psychological impact of charging into battle, screaming blue murder, and wearing only woad warpaint, a la ancient Celtic warriors.

[Paty]

Yeah... they got THIER nubies sliced and diced, too, didn't they? You see much nekkid men and woad on the battlefields today? not hardly... maybe some very primative tribes in the middle of new gunea or the center of Africa... but all the opponents run around nekkid anyway... so the battleground is even.

but you are going up against Lady Deathstrike with an unprotected midriff? riiiiiiiiiight...
Of course, even a protected midriff ... unless it is adamantium armor... is gonna be negligible...but hey...if you got some sort of clothing on, you can make a bandage out of it...
sheesh!
they have always shown guys with more cloting on than women. It's the jerkoff factor. Colossus, to show his armored tighs... an element of design that Dave wanted... had, logically, to have bare legs in non armored form. That was a NONO !!! guys, except maybe Namor, couldn't go around with bare legs hanging out... girls could but NOT guys!!! what to do? Well, we can put blue spandex on his legs and it is made of unstable molecules so that when he armors up it disappears until his bare legs need it again! No kidding! that was the rationale.... and the explanation!
sickening, isn't it? They clothe the men even when it isn't logical... They unclothe the women even when it is logical for them to be clothed. Sex...from the male point of view, at least... rules! Girl's logic need not apply if bare legs and nekkid bellybuttons and humongous boobs will sell more comics to adolescent males. It used to be a subtle insult... now it is blatant... and getting worse.
sigh...

Until us gals voice our disapproval in letters...and I don't mean emails, but them, too... I mean snail mail letters ... to the higher ups, it ain't gonna change. If the boyos have their way, they will draw up the rope ladder to their little treehouse, post the "No girlz allowed" sign and do their little boy thing forever.

If women want into this biz, if they want to have creator positions that can start to affect these issues from the roots... they better start getting militant about it, cuz nothing else seems to be working.

It's the Magneto style in spades. You be subservient and nice like Xavier and you ain't gettin' anywhere. You can only bargain from a position of power.
Magneto is RIGHT! so... what is the position of power that may tip the scales? The media. Marvel has no...NO... female creators these days. when asked why at a con, Joey lied and said there were no females ... or very few... applying. I cannot believe that unless females have been warned away so long they no longer try cuz they know they are gonna get shot down immediately. but there are too many good female writers out here... there are too many good female artists showing their wares on line...if Marvel... and DC, too... and Top Cow, too... wanted female creators, they could find them...and they SHOULD be wooing them... but they really, deep in their mysogenic hearts... DON'T want them. and when one shows up, they badger and harass her and ignore her until she throws up her hands in disgust and leaves...and then they can say"hey, we tried to get females in the biz" and feel all richeous and vindicated eaven as they gleefully celebrate the departure of yet another "bitch".

Been there. walked away from that scene twenty five years ago and it is still going on. short of a major media blitz showing the discrimination in the industrey or a concerted effort to reach the higher ups...who may or may not help anyway...it's gonna stay the same...and this is tragic, cuz the audience of the future is women, minorities and older readers.

Probably won't change in my lifetime... but i can still hope, can't I? A revolution in women's clothing in the books might signal a changing attitude.. but I ain't holding my breath waiting for THAT to happen either.

Same ol'... same ol'...
paty


Paty

[Angelique]

Oh, yeah, and one or two Nighty shower drawings don't make up for the fact that Ms. Marvel routinely goes into battle wearing no more than a swimsuit for no reason other than she looks hott.

Maybe I'll have to take up writing under a male pseudonym, a la George Sands.

[Paty]

Heh... sooner or later you'd have to visit the offices...how do you look in a fake moustache?
LOL
Paty

[Angelique]

Well, I did play trouser roles... before I had kids, anyway...

[Edited on 27/7/06 by Angelique]

[SamKarns]

Marvel Girl wore a unisex uniform? No?

Another thing, isn't the whole belly button outfit started with... Storm?

[Paty]

You didn't really see Storm's belly button... it was behind that ring thingie... and that made all the difference. No...it started with Ms Marvel's first costume... a modification of Captain Marvel's costume with a stupid scarf at her neckline and a cutout belly button pyramid above her groin.. stupid design... you can thank Stan for that one. Romita sr designed the costume and stan said...make it sexier... take away some of the bodice and let her show her belly button... or words to that effect. so Romita scooped out ahunk of belly material and stan said"Yeah... like that..."
Pure sexism...no doubt about it. But it wasn't as smarmy as todays Slutsuits... not by a long shot, even if it was sexist. It was just DUMB! And virtually no one else had the problem. It has only been recently...last couple of years, really... that the belly button craze has become so pervasive. We weren't even sure the Comics Code would let us do the open belly button suit. Between the cape and the high boots, Storm had very little skin showing with her costume...most skin she showed was in the original fluing scene when Xavier recruited her... stragetically placed hair and all...LOL
And that was considered risque, too...LOL

Yeah, Dave was in the forefront in cutting holes in costumes... but they weren't just holes... they gave the costumes flair and a sense of design. But I guess you could make a case for Dave opening the torso skin to view to a degree. Bathing suit costumes were in existance... look at the Scarlet Witch... but her leg and arm skin was often covered with horrible boots or pink fabric to go with the red suit...ugh...pink and red...what were they THINKING??? sigh. But a lot of that was the Code, too... there was stricter guidelines for costuming... which doesn't exist today...so it seems the sky is the limit... or should I say the sewer is the limit..
The design of today's costumes is just slutty. Designed purely to tittilate in the grossest way with no socially redeeming value. It is really too bad. some designs have possibilities if it weren't for the jerkoff factor that is so blatant you cannot miss it. I have nothing against sexy outfits... but slutty ones step over the line. Apparently these guys don't know where that line is... and there are no females at Marvel to tell them where it is....not that they would listen anyway.
I think what set the standard for nekkid in comic costuming was theWitchblade armor... after that it was downhill with "anything goes " as the byword.

Paty

[Dark Bamf]

I should point out that I gave Phoenix an outfit that covered her whold body, and I was one of the group of Marvel staffers who pressured editorial into closing the bare belly in the original Ms. Marvel costume. Granted I had some bare midriff showing on Storm, but personally, I think it's an elegant costume. If you look at most of MY female characters, they're mostly covered.

Re the bare legs on Colossus--on my original design, Pete's legs WERE bare when he wasn't armored up. Len Wein, the original writer, had a strong dislike to bare male legs on superhero costumes (he pointed at the original Robin costume, which everybody hated), and he objected. I gave in, and so Pete has blue legs when he's not armored.

[Angelique]

^I know about Phoenix. That's actuall the costume I plan to make for myself if ever I get around to going to another Con. And after I do a whole lot more Pilates. It won't show much skin, but spandex is merciless.

[SamKarns]

I love Storm's costume and I'm a fan of the belly costumes. It never occurred to me it was offensive to women. I always saw these books as male books but this is not the case.
Oooops.

+++++

I don't understand why The New Mutants are not called The New Mutants. It was cool to have the younger students wear the original uniforms as the older group wore their own gear. Thought?

[Angelique]

While watching my newest televised addiction, I received some new insight regarding some things you've said, Paty. I wonder if the comic book industry may have created some vicious cycle regarding women both in real life and in the books.

On Who Wants to be a Superhero, the only women on the show to not have "woman" or "girl" in their chosen names had animal names like "Creature" or "Lemuria," with the exception of Fat Momma. And most of these women chose to wear costumes that left little to the imagination. (Okay, I could understand Monkey Woman, with her jungle persona, wearing as little as she did, but Cell Phone Girl?) I could just imagine, when fielding complaints about how Cell Phone Girl's fishnets, people saying, "Well, that's what she chose to wear." Would she have chosen that if she didn't feel it was expected of her?

On the other hand, a lot of what Stan Lee had to say about how being a superhero is more about character and heart than about powers really reinforced the notion I've had that superhero comics were (and to some extent still are) supposed to be about how goodness can be a strength in and of itself. I'd so like for books to get back to being about that, and less soap opera crap.

Anyway, if you haven't seen this show, I would recommend it highly. I do believe it's on at 9 Eastern Time on the Sci Fi channel.

[Paty]

Heh...I think Dave watched it. I tuned in and couldn't get past Stan's bullshit. well...actually Stan was just being Stan... but some of the intro shots of characters wer just plain embarassing so I went back to something really interesting...forensic files.

It's not that I don't love superheroes. I do... but I take superheroes VERY seriously. I've been one! I was a volunteer fireman for sixteen years...until I became legally blind. Firefighting is the closest you can come to being a superhero and not get shot at. Of course, in NYC, there are some neighborhoods where even firemen get shot at...
But think of it... you put on a "uniform"...turnout gear... and go to battle "the beast" which is what firefighters call fire. You save lives and property. You give assistance and succor at accidents. You rescue people from burning buildings. You do everything a superhero is supposed to do. You spend hours training so you can do this... we have our own "danger rooms"... You lug around fifty pounds of costume to do this. Cuz without the costume to aid you, you arenn't a superhero at all, you are only a bystander at risk. And as a volunteer, you do this without pay for either your time or expertise. You do it because it is RIGHT. you do it because you want to HELP people in need or in trouble. And believe it or not, sometimes you don't even get thanked for your response... you get SUED!!! ...for not responding soon enough or not doing ENOUGH! ... even when you have gone above the call and put your own life at risk!
No bellybuttons showing... no figure at all... it is covered by protective turnouts. But superheroing isn't a glamorous job...and the REAL superheroes aren't invunerable. We are just fighting the good fight for the benefit of those who cannot fight for themselves. and these superheroes get hurt and sometimes die in the performance of their 'DUTY'. A duty they assume readily and without reservation.

when I was being a superhero, I had a placard on my car that said "CRAGSMOOR fIREFIGHTER ". That was, as far as I was concerned, my superhero name. I wasn't "Blaze Girl" or, as an EMT, "Dr. Mom on the Mountain"...even though I WAS Dr Mom on the Mountain...LOL. Some of the guys wanted the placard that said "Cragsmoor Fireman" . fine. I waasn't a man... but I was a firefighter nonetheless. I still answered the calls and put my life at risk on more than one occasion. Isn't that what superheroes do?

And my belly button didn't show ONCE! And you know what? No one that I helped ever complained that my costume wasn't stylish and showed skin so I could be a sexy firefighter! NOT ONCE!!!

A far cry from the getups of superheroines in the comic books, isn't it?
Real superheroing is damn dirty work. It's hard. It's dangerous. It's wonderful! I miss it...

Paty

[SamKarns]

Sorry about inviting this rant on women characters. All I wanted to know were perspectives on X-Men. Is there a way to close this thread? Because I never intended the topic to turn into this:doh!.

[Angelique]

Hey, I, for one, think it's quite all right. Spirited discussions have a way of happening here, but they usually remain friendly.

[Edited on 28/7/06 by Angelique]

[Paty]

Angelique is correct here, kiddo... that wasn't a rant... when I go on a rant, you'll really know it. that was just my views on women's costumes in the industry and superheroing in general. Nothing big or unusual.
You asked about Marvel girl's costume... which was 1950s chic when Stan did her...either that or the uniform of the school... which I personally thought was butt ugly! but it did separate the group from the FF and spidey, so you could always see them against the bad guys. Stan had simplistic motives.
and I think that the uniform was preferable to th stupid mini dress they put her in in later years. Jean Grey didn't get a decent costume until she became Phoenix....and Dave's costume was a knockout. I liked it better than the Dark Phoenix costume that Byrne gave her... basically turning the green for life color to red... of which we already had a plethora. When Jim Lee came along and put lumps and bulges all over all of his costumes... except for rogue's which was and still is a smasshing costume... especially sans the smelly leather jacket...I wasn't impressed with the reakup of the clean line of the earlier costumes. If a girl has a good figure, and her power obviates a need for protection or weaponry, as jean's does, you don't need to junk it up with pouches here and ribbing there. You just DON'T!
I do not have a problem with colorful costumes...In fact... I love those costumes. When Cyke said "What would you rather have, Yellow spandex?" in the movie, I shouted "YES" at the screen. I hated the all black look in the first movie. It worked for Batman...that was his personna. It didn't work for me for the X folk. I loved the color of spider Man and his baddies... straight out of the four color medium! but the X people didn't wear either a specific uniform or all black... except Storm who had SOME color to go with allthat black satin. ...or spandex... whatever...

the thing is that the abuse of female costuming has gone on for over a decade now. Before that, the Comics Code existed and you could only get away with SO much.... but when the Code went away...hey... the sleaze came to the fore... as it always will with adolescent boys. It's the hormone factor... you cannot get away from it... but you would think that the thirty-something people at marvel...and even forty-something in some cases... would KNOW better. Apparently they don't care as long as the sleaze factor boosts sales in a steadily shrinking market.

And unless us gals who love the superheor genre speak out on forums like this... well...they will assume the old rule... silence is consent.
If you don't like something, you SAY so. If you DO like something, you say so... that's what free speech is all about.

You wanna hear rants, go back and read my tirades against morrison for what he did in Planet X!!!!! If this little discussion upsets you, maybe you btter not. this wasn't a rant, kiddo... it was my point of view and I have had this point of view quite possibly longer than youhave been alive... if you are under a quarter of a century in age.

so... you asked; I answered. Everyone here knows that you don't ask Paty a question you don't want answered..no matter what the answer is.. cuz I will answer in spades...LOL... always have and always will... it is what made me a tour de force when I worked at marvel. You ask.. you will get what i think... whether you agree with it or not... and you are more than welcome do disagree.
We never have fights here... we don't do namecalling...unless you count calling the asswipes at Marvel what they so rightly... by their own actions... deserve. And we have widely varying opinions... depending on your experience in either life or the media or both.

I just happen to take my superheroes very seriously... that's all. And i totally hate the destruction of characters for nothing more than shock value or "because we can". the characters are icons... they have core personalities and you need to respect that and figure out how they will dress, act and react logically to retain the core personality. they can grow and change and youcan do virtually anything with them... as long as it is logical...including dress them in outlandish costumes. But when the costuming is little more than tittilation for twelve year olds... then it's time for people who don't like it to stand up and say so...

OK? No one is ranting or fighting here. not yet, anyway. and if a thread needs to be deleted, either Dave or I will do it. But discussion and opinions are rarely if ever deleted... cuz they have a place in the medium. Everyone has an opinion...here's the place to state it... even if it is not a popular one. With me, you will get an informed and VERY opinionated one, though...

I'm a holy terror, I am...
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA

Paty

[SamKarns]

Thanks, Paty. I've been on forums where the last reader misunderstood what the discussion was about. Someone express their opinions with spades and all and then whole war springs out. My spider-senses is way off this time. Sorry about that.

I love Jim Lee's work and his contributions to Uncanny but didn't like what was done with his own X series.

Does the write support the Claremont Magneto! Cast a vote for complexity in characterization! And write to protest the adultery of Scott and Emma!!! Have a lot to do with what you're talking about?

As for the Black Queen and the White Queen. Didn't this begin during the Byrne era of X-Men?

I'm not a fan of Singer I truly believe he's a plain jane director and was never right for the X-Men and definately Superman. Could you express your thoughts on his films?

[Paty]

I think singer didn't do too bad a job with the X films. He had a cast of several characters, mostly unknown to the public...and a whole slew of fans that he had to satisfy as well. that is not easy for sure. I thought the second movie was at least as good as the first and delved more deeply into the characters we had already met. so I had no real complaints with how the X franchise was handled . It was tricky and convoluted but the story introduced characters, took them seriously and made everyone in the theatre, fans and civilians alike, know and like...or hate... these characters by the end of the movie... and you cannot ask for better than that when youare dealing with characters who are not a household word.. like Superman or Batman.

On the other hand, I think he fell down on the Superman job. the pacing was strained and spent too much time on his relationship with Lois... and not enough onhis confrontation with Lex Luthor. In my opinion, the movie felt unfinished. I wanted the papers to declare "He's ALIVE!!!"
WITH THE SAME LARGE TYPE THAT THEY DECLARED "SUPERMAN IS DEAD!"
I wanted him to go back and confront Luthor who is on a sandspit island somewhere out there...
I wanted Luthor not to be the rather ludicrous Luthor that did work in the first movie... but simply didn't work in this one. I wanted him to have evolved beyond the Hackman personna into a very nasty, vile and dangerous villain. this wasn't done. As soon as Luthor opened his mouth, I thought "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!'
yOU GOT A GLIMPSE OF HIS NASTINESS WHEN HE WAS KICKING sUPES WHEN HE WAS DOWN...THAT KIND OF DEMEANOR SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXTANT THROUGHOUT.... NOT THE BUFFOON THAT Hackman portrayed in the first film. that LUTHOR DID NOT WORK FOR ME. he could have been snide and sneering... but he wasn't... he was a buffoon... and it didn't work... at least not for me. oops... sorry about the caps...I really am not yelling... I have a recalcitrant caps key that has a mind of it's own and I sometimes don't see what is happening cuz I am typing blind...then after it is all done, I check it. Caps I don't correct...gibberish I do correct...LOL


My signature is a plea for anyone who loves the complex Magneto that Claremont created out of the simplistic villain that Stan intorduced to write to the higher ups to save this characterization. there have been attempts to retcon his Jewish Holocaust backstory over the years.. a whole fourteen or fifteen years worth of subversive actions... trying to make him a gypsy and trying to destroy his history. It stillhappens today and it shouldn't. the Scott and Emma reference refers to the crap Morrison did with these two characters... having a clandestine affair between a newly married Scott and Emma..which is totally out of character for Scott since he has been obsessed with Jean since the beginning. and finally married her. then this affair...out of the blue with ony the most miniscule and ridiculous explanation or motivation...? No, I don't think so. It was total mis characterization and needs to be retconned or explained away as a mind control of Emma's... cuz Scott is the quinessential good scout and the whole thing is wrong for his characterization...it also glorifies the stupid affair and tells kids adultery is OK...which it was, cuz he was married to jean during the beginning of thes mess. OK... she got killed in Planet X...sigh... but a Phoenix comes back... so , if she comes back, is he still married? If so, the adultery goes on and on...great morality play here for the kiddies, isn't it? And don't think they don't know what it is all about, either!

I have been on this crusade for a couple of years now and even as we speak, decisions are being made about magneto in particular ... his future and past. He is a major character these days, what with his popularity in the three movies... I heard civilians...not comics fans... coming out of the third X movie saying "Y'know... that Magneto guy was RIGHT!!!" AND INDEED HE WAS. yOU GOTTA FIGHT FOR YOUR FREEDOMS... CUZ FREEDOM ISN'T FREE. THEY TRIED WITH BAD DIALOGUE TO MAKE HIM SOMEWHAT VILLAINOUS... BUT IT DIDN'T WORK. mAINLY BECAUSE EVEN NON COMICS FANS COULD SEE THAT MAGS WAS RIGHT.

aNYWAY DOES THAT ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS? IF NOT i SHALL BE HAPPY TO EXPOUND FURTHER... BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.. YOU MAY GET IT...
bwahahahahahahahahahahahhaaaa

PATY