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Originally Posted by
EccentricSage
. If that's canon, how can I like these people anymore? I may as well never read another AF title again, if the team is to be held responsible for decisions of Marvel's staff.
It seems to me that this statement is backward. These characters are just puppets that exist and act completely at the whim of Marvel. If a character does something you don't like/agree with/seems out of character, it is solely the fault of the creators.
[/quote] Well, Madison was at his best in AF v1, and treated with the most respect in AF v1. Comparing the x-books to AF 2&3 is kind of moot, doesn't seem like very many were treated with respect after v.1. I don't see how it's less ****ed up that he's flirting with a robot so soon after Lil's death. I'd be fine with him being interested in a relationship with an android (Insert Siri joke, here.) if they dealt with his feelings about his wife first, and weren't making him look like a damn pathetic fool in the process of exploring his 'affinity' in a new light. [/quote]
For the most part, I agree here. It could be as simple as a panel or two talking or thinking about how he's grieved for Lil but its time to move on blah blah blah to a whole story or subplot over his guilt between his attraction to Danger and his missing Lil.
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AF weren't the people he first met, but they are people who took him in, lived with him, fought along side him, during the best years of his life. You don't forget family, and you don't let those kinds of feelings go. No, if you think you were abandoned by those people, it festers. I'd rather see it addressed and some sort of reunion in the future so that he can really move on, regardless of what 'moving on' would mean.
I had some very large unresolved issues with my ex-wife and her family back in the mid-90's. However, I resolved it myself by coming to the conclusion of "she made her decision, they made their decision, best just to go our separate ways and hope I never see them again. Not that I'm against it if this story were to happen, merely that issues don't always get resolved neatly. Life moves on and all that crap.
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(Re: Marrina) But we didn't really get to see the feelings and thoughts that led to this complete 180. She just shows up with a new personality. I'm all for giving her a bit of anger and edge, but this was just ham handed.
I just assumed (or perhaps used my imagination) that Marrina's new personality is in some way connected to her Plodex heritage. When she came back in the Chaos War one-shot, she was much more savage, and figured by the time of the mini, she had been able to reign in the savagery to an extent.
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Me too. The art in v4 was great. Hell, there were some cool moments in dialogue and fighting, too, but the over all concept and some character portrayals were bad. I could have been ok with some of the smaller flaws if the book had ended differently, but issue 8 was just laughable, and then no resolution for poor Heather, ether. It seemed to me like the author must be some huge Guardian fanboy because it just felt to me like it was all about making Guardian solo leader, making him the cool guy, making him the better leader by tearing Heather down in the worst way I could imagine... Ugh.
Perhaps Fred and Greg (the writers) were big Guardian fans, but the implied insult of calling them a "huge Guardian fanboy" is a bit unfair, in my opinion. It doesn't seem all that different to how you want to elevate Madison or Wild Child. We all have characters we like more than others, even writers. It's fine that you don't like how Heather was treated, but her story isn't finished. Some writer (perhaps you or me!) can come along and redeem her and treat Guardian like crap, if we so please.
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It kind of made me hate Guardian more than he could possibly deserve, just out of spite.
Again, blame the creators, not the character.
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Wait, married and still a teen all these years later? Namor, you creep! LOL
I don't think I could buy her being a teen no matter how childish her portrayal. XD It's like Wildchild being 16 in X-Factor.
The difference between Marrina and Wild Child is that Marrina was killed when she was (approximately by my guess) about 18 and was dead for years (or however long it had been in Marvel's compressed time), so she wouldn't have aged when she was brought back to life. There's really no inconsistency about her age (well, no more inconsistency than a universe where Reed Richards and Ben Grimm fought in WWII but are apparently in the 40's today).
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I'm more bothered that there is a Heaven and Hell now... I mean, I thought Marvel was always a bit more ambivalent about religion than that. Was Eugine particularly religious? I'm pretty sure Wolverine was an atheist, from everything I'd read, and didn't he go to Hell somehow, too? I didn't read the thing, so just seeing the article about it awhile back... are you SURE it's not completely ridiculous?
Marvel has long had versions of "Heaven" and "Hell"....especially Hell. The Marvel version (of Hell, at least) tends to be somewhat different than the biblical version, with different demons being in charge of different "sections" of Hell. Mephisto, Hellstorm, Sattanish, etc., etc. all rule over pieces of "Hell". Heaven (and angels and the sort) have have major roles in such titles as the 70's Defenders, Ghost Rider, Hellstorm, Fantastic Four (in this one, Jack Kirby was depicted as God). So no, Puck going to one of the myriad versions of "Hell" is no more absurd than Thor visiting Hel or Hades or Tucson.
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That's good to hear. I'll have to pick some up. Just gonna do digital, screw it. I got a look at the wedding issue at a book store but didn't buy it... I do hope they're at least fleshing out Kyle after the wedding... I just found their relationship really hard to take seriously because it was just like 'hey look, a boyfriend! They love each other! They're getting married'. Show me don't tell me, Marvel.
I agree completely with this one.
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That's for damn sure. I meant, in the latter issues, there were some really great moments that I have fond memories of, but then you also have insane BS like the Nemesis' Children of the Night, Ninjas out of ****ing nowhere in Russia, the name 'Wildheart'...
For me, the last 20 issues were the worst of the first volume. While I know most people despise the Mantlo-era, and I'll be happy to admit that the inconsistencies were quite glaring and whatnot, at least it felt as if it was headed somewhere (even if you didn't like where it ended up). The final 20 just felt rambling and unfocussed. Just my opinion, of course.
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It takes one thought bubble in a single panel to give us some insight on what's going on inside Wildchild, providing the writer has the finesse to write in such a way that all characters are delved into and not just the main character. Of course, if Wolverine's inane thoughts in that story were any indication, I should be grateful Loeb didn't bother.
While I agree that it's nice to get insight into characters (and some characters definitely need their motivations/thoughts defined more than others), there is nothing that says it has to be done in THIS story, right NOW. I haven't read the Romulus storyline, but I'm guessing this is not a story centered on Wild Child, but rather a story that happens to have Wild Child in it. Personally, I think I'd rather wait for someone who actually seems to understand the character to flesh out "where Wild Child is at" than someone like Loeb who just seems to be using the character for his power set.
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I don't get what you mean. Wildchild has suffered greatly ever since X-Factor chewed him up and spat him out. For that reason, I don't really blame him if he sees Romulus as some sort of savior, I don't blame him for serving him and being loyal to him, when he's the only one who'd done anything good for Wildchild in an awfully long time, and I can only imagine what kind of state he was in after M-Day.
See, that right there (to me, at least) is a pretty darn good reason for Wild Child's current state of mind. I'm going to go with that until Marvel tells me something different.
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I agree his personality is a lot closer to Byrne's Wildchild now, but what does that mean? We hardly knew Wildchild under Byrne's pen, aside from that he was a cool design, eloquent, and arrogant. Was he 'evil'? We don't know. He was taken advantage of by Delphine Courtney who was using that behavior modifying technology that could exaggerate their emotional reactions, their fears, their hate, their prejudices. I don't hold him any more responsible for his villainy under Byrne than I'd hold Lil.
"Evil?" No, I don't think he was ever portrayed as evil. But subsequent appearances in the Hudnall version and Fabian Nicieza versions reinforced the notion that Wild Child is feral and unstable. To me, "Building Blocks" is the last time Wild Child was treated properly as a character, whereas you've chosen your own favorite "restore point" (for want of a better term) of him as a hero.
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On the other hand, he was his own person as Weapon Omega, Wild Heart, and X-Factor's Wildchild, and he was a damn lovable guy who I'm pretty sure we can all agree was not 'evil' or villainous.
But I'm sure we won't agree that he was written way out of character from his early established personality.
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Even in Weapon X, some positive characteristic came through, with his feelings for Aurora. So yeah, I want to see Wildchild have his chance at happyness and love again some day. Poor ****er deserves better than being a henchman the rest of his life.
I don't know...I see him as one of those characters that life will always crap on. Mental instability, physical deformity, bad luck in relationships...sometimes, that's just the way a character (or person, for that matter) is.
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Frankly, I would like to see him chaotic neutral, not evil or good, but acting according to his own feelings and 'morals' which may not be legal or acceptable. He has plenty of reason to be a vengeful bastard who refuses to accept what others want of him, as it did not go well the last time around. But I'd like to see his heart and humanity in that, too, not a kackling sadistic maniac. We already have Sabretooth for that, and one of the biggest criticisms I see of Wildchild as a villain is that he becomes a mini Sabretooth, and I agree with those people.
I like the first part of your thought here. I would like to see Wild Child as a (no pun intended) wild card. In one story he can help the heroes with everything he has to give, the next time he shows up he could be the antagonist. Heck, or even switch mid-story. Not, as you put it, a "cackling sadistic maniac", but what his name implies: an unpredictable, mentally unbalanced, emotionally damaged, instinct driven character.
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Sas knew Wildchild reverted back to a villain, and nearly ripped his throat out. I think the 'them vs us' mentality was pretty well established before Sas even understood Wildchild's involvement. I meant, back before Wildchild slipped back into villainy, when he started mutating again and then disappeared into the night... I don't think most of Alpha knew about that, save for Aurora knowing about his involvement in WX, and her state of mind until recently is a whole 'nother can of worms. But from WC's point of view, he might wonder why they never tried to save him. From their POV, this Wildchild isn't even the guy they knew and loved, but his repressed bestial personality. I'm just theorizing on how villain Wildchild could be fleshed out a bit more, what could be going on inside him, is all. I'm trying to explain why I don't see his villainy as this black and white issue, and see him as a sympathetic villain.
Just a personal opinion here, but I'm kind of bored with the "sypmapthetic villain" angle in comics these days. It seems EVERY villain is either the uber-megalomaniac or a sympathetic, tragic character. Whatever happened to the greedy scumbag who just wanted to rob a bank or kidnap some rich kid to ransom him?
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Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. And I'd love to see some of the stupid **** retconned along the way, like how Aurora and Northstar being half-elf was retconned out. If some writer could retcon raazor somehow in the course of a story. Not dwell on it, just try to avoid it until an opportunity to fix it comes up. And some old wounds should be healed, though right now the fresh wound that Heather is sporting is top priority.
I consider what happened to Northstar and Aurora being half-elven as something I termed a long time ago as a "revcon", or "revealed continuity". To me, a retcon is something that changes established continuity (like Tony Stark now creating the Iron Man armor in Afghanistan rather than Viet Nam) whereas a revcon is something that is revealed to us as not being what it first appeared to be. The story where Northstar and Aurora were "revealed" to be half-elven still exists as it was portrayed; it was just revealed later that they (and us) had been lied to by Loki. A new truth was revealed.
I know that was neither here nor there, just thought I'd put it out there.
Great discussion on all sides!