Instead of saying, "There were no good Lizard stories left to tell," he could have admitted that HE didn't have any Lizard stories to tell and picked a different Spider-Man villain to use.

The bad thing about that is that I'm not so sure that it was the writer as it was editorially dictated. It seems that editors (at least based on the interviews I read) make the stories up at Marvel these days.

••

If so, it means the comicbook industry has come full circle -- unfortunately the level of talent has not remained commensurate with the journey!

I find the fact that Scott is weilding both Cap's shield and Thor's hammer a bit tedious. Once with the Maestro off in the far future carting around everyone else's paraphenalia is fine. Hulk is, after all, "the strongest one there is." All he had to do was wait them out and he won all the prizes.

Since Scott is wearing a Batman Beyond costume,  maybe it is the future!

My favorite X-Men were always Cyclops and Nightcrawler. Thing is, by the time I was getting into X-Men, JB had moved on and Chris was in control. It was a revelation to discover those characters retroactively-- and somewhat sadder to realize that those weren't the guys in the books.

I still like Cyclops but after what seemed like a rebirth of the character, he's sliding down into a whirlpool of ego and zealotry.

=sigh= So it goes.

QUOTE: On the topic of "jumping off points" for the X-Men, I also left at issue #201, with Storm besting Cyclops in one-on-one combat. Not only was Scott written as a conflicted jerk who was uncertain of his feelings, but he was consisently out-thought and out-manuevered by Chris' complete Mary Sue archetypal "Woman In Power" who's can not only defeat you, but lectures you on the credo of the warrior as she does so, with impeccable, perfectly-deserved arrogance. You are unworthy of the time she is giving you in kicking your lily-white ass. You idiot.

I felt, at the time, that the issue was deliberately skewed in Maddie's favor.  Her point of view is portrayed as the reasonable one.  Scott can't even hold his own kid and is now uncommunicative suddenly.  Where had this been the case in the last couple years of comics they appeared in?  Granted, he was off the time, but there were a few appearances. Scott becomes an emotional cripple to facilitate the story.

That said, Claremont also wrote great depictions of Cyclops.  He wasn't depicted well in the DPS?  GOD LOVES MAN KILLS?  The aforementioned UXM 175?  I can go on.  This isn't Grant Morrison where you don't have a lot of good along with the missteps.

And there were missteps.  You don't have Cyclops marry anyone  5-6 issues after they met them.  Sure as hell not someone who looks like Jean. You just don't do it.  

I've read multiple interviews where Claremont expressed that it was time for Scott to begin the next chapter of his life.  Why wasn't it ever time for Wolverine or Storm to do that?  I'm guessing because Claremont liked him better.

Then again, starting with Morrison, I've read creator after creator express how much they love the character.  To me, that's the really distressing thing.  They don't dislike, or indifferent to the character. They think stories like having him form kill squads is doing him justice.  That's scary.

From the start, Quesada, Jemas, Bendis, Millar think the characters should be more flawed than I do.  Turn Wanda into a psychotic nutjob and tell us we are only doing what Stan And Jack did. They used to say it all the time to defend the stories.

Interpersonal conflicts, squabbling like Stan and Jack's FF did does not mean they were morally flawed or prone to the ends justify the means behavior that permeated Quesada's Marvel when I last read it.

Status quo is anathema to them. They are always going to be rocking the boat to create event stories and the characters are going to behave however they need them to behave to service those stories.  The integrity of the characters was too important to me.

One last thing about characters and writers. Blaming character behavior on the writer.  It can't be a one way street.  If it works that way with the bad stuff, it works that way with the good stuff.  Personally speaking, then I would have never been as invested in the characters.  I'd be invested in the writers handling them.  Obviously, they are all fictional and only act the way a writer has them act, but I can't just shrug off Cyclops committing adultery and put the blame on the writer.  The character is the sum of their actions, in print, good or bad.   

••

Again, it's all part of the anti-authority mentality that has come to infect superhero comics.

When Stan, Jack, Steve and the gang were creating the "Marvel Age" authority figures were almost universally the good guys. The armed forces, cops, political figures. Stories about corruption in those circles were rare, especially in comic books.

Superheroes were the ultimate reflection of this. No one asked "Who watches the watchmen?", and if anyone had, the answer would have been "The superheroes!"

Even Marvel's most successful character, Spider-Man, while perceived as anti-authority within the book, was very clearly not, and the readers knew it. Spider-Man was "misunderstood" (and thus a perfect magnet for teenaged readers), but he was not a true anti-hero. Ditto the X-Men. "Feared and hated" but by "the world they are sworn to protect."

Right there is something that's been lost in recent years. The X-Men saw themselves as protecting humanity against mutants every bit as much as protecting mutants against humanity. Their self-appointed task was to show the world that mutants were (mostly) the good guys, just like anybody else. The idea of Cyclops leading some kind of hit-squad that protects mutants against humanity -- well, Stan and Jack had a different name for a group like that. They called them the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

••

Many years ago I noticed a distinct dichotomy in the minds of one particular level of fandom. Mostly, the hyper-obsessive ones who memorized every comma. To them, the characters were real, every bit as real as their own friends and family. Yet, if something BAD happened to the characters, THEY KNEW WHO TO BLAME!

Many a time at conventions I would make this point: YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. If the characters are "real", then we writers are merely reporting what happens to them (just like Stan and Jack established!). But if we writers are responsible for what happens to the characters, then you must accept that those characters are merely fictional creations.

Then again, starting with Morrison, I've read creator after creator express how much they love the character.  To me, that's the really distressing thing.  They don't dislike, or indifferent to the character. They think stories like having him form kill squads is doing him justice.  That's scary.

Didn't Morrison have him kill a badly burned mutant in his first issue? He loves him enough to make him a killer.