#x men sexism

[salarta]

Havok's Inadequacy For Polaris Post-Genosha

I was just listening to I Want Love from Silent Hill (as sung by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn), and I had a very sudden revelation.

See, I've always figured that the biggest reason why Marvel pretends Lorna has no connection at all to Genosha, even though she's a survivor of the genocide and had a whole story arc dedicated to her working through the trauma, came down only to wanting to repeat the past. They don't like or respect Lorna, and they don't want her to be able to move forward as a character. They want her trapped into their nostalgia bubble for the 90s or earlier, in which they consider the sexism of it all to be a feature rather than a bug.

I realized something as I listened to that song though.

Polaris being a survivor of the Genoshan genocide requires that she have a partner capable of understanding how it affected her. It requires that whoever she's with know and respect the trauma she experienced, and how that trauma shaped and shapes her. It needs to be someone who can be emotionally available for her AND have her interests at heart, even if they themselves don't agree with all of what she's doing and where she's going.

Havok is not that man.

The weight of millions of deaths, the responsibility to act and fight for mutants, the horror of the lived experience still affecting Polaris? Those are all things Havok is not equipped to deal with.

Havok is a character who's regularly depicted with an inferiority complex. And as someone who would prefer to pretend he's a human who just so happens to have powers, rather than a mutant who is part of a culture that's discriminated against for how they get those powers.

A whole lot of his narrative is "me me me." Me, who wants to get out of the X-Men and live a civilian life. Me, who insists on not being called a mutant. Me, who will go have sex with a different woman every decade but expect Lorna to keep her vagina warm for me whenever I want her again. Me, who expects Lorna to support my desires and interests, and who I feel comfortable insisting that she believes in Xavier's dream more than Xavier cause she just has to fit my personal mental image of her.

The character as Marvel typically handles him is very selfish and dismissive of others' problems beyond how they make him look or what he won't be able to have because of them.

That's the very opposite of who Lorna was after Genosha, and where she should be with that in mind.

At the end of the day, Havok is not equipped to see Polaris as a person.

That leaves people working at Marvel with few options. Either rethink Havok and have him change as a character, set Lorna free of his bullshit, or just wipe out entire swaths of Polaris' identity just to make sure she can be forced into this mold that accommodates Havok.

Marvel doesn't want to do the first two. So they do the last one.

Cause at the end of the day, they cherish the sexism required to make their nostalgia and regression possible.

That's the hard truth. The Havok that Marvel wants is not compatible with the Polaris that SHOULD be depicted in official work. And their answer to that is ruining Polaris and wiping out everything that allows her to be her own character instead of doing the right thing.

[aishabellasbigblogofeverything]

I love it when women hate men. I love it when women are allowed to vent to each other about how horrible and creepy men are. I love it when women form friendships with and prioritize each other over relationships with men(whether they're attracted to them or not). I love it when women put men dni in their bios and on their nude photos and on posts on their blogs. I love it when women refuse to mollycoddle and accommodate entitled male feelings with "but this doesn't mean I hate all men, I know a few men who are great, I love my father/sons/brothers/uncles/male cousins/guy friends" I love it when women complain about men WITHOUT "not all men" being a disclaimer. I love it when women avoid socializing with/refuse to be around/befriend/get close to men because they know men can't be trusted. I love it when women make "kill all men" jokes. I love it when women offer absolutely no concern or care for men's feelings and if their misandry offends men whatsoever because why should we, men are the oppressor class who have raped and killed and abused us and kept us as subjugated as second-class citizens for millennia, they regularly mistreat us and the women in their own marginalized communities still every single day and make this world so much harder and more awful for us to be in, and if we choose to hate them and not spare them any sympathy then so be it, and I don't just mean "men as a class" either, you can be a woman who doesn't want to have anything to do with any man on an individual basis and completely cuts off men from her personal life too and ykw I will love and fucking support you in that because men deserve absolutely NOTHING from us. If they're so tough and strong then they can handle it just like they can handle being lonely. If you are a woman who hates men, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A LESBIAN AND/OR A TRANS WOMAN, then just know that I love you. I love you, I support you, and you are safe here.

[velvet4510]

A Rant About the Writing of Jean Grey in the Fox X-Men Movies

Is it just me or is Jean Grey’s entire characterization and storyline in the Fox films unbelievably sexist? I’m just so appalled by it. I have no idea if this is a hot take - I’m brand new to these films, and am totally unfamiliar with the comics - but I really can’t see this as anything other than misogynistic writing.

Between the idea that “woman can’t control her own power” and “woman who two guys are fighting over” … both of those are such dated and regressive concepts but for Jean Grey to embody BOTH of them … and literally NOTHING else? She has ZERO character development outside of these two traits. We don’t explore her friendships with Storm or Rogue or any of the other female mutants. We don’t explore her feelings toward humans, if she entirely agrees with Xavier or if she’s ever curious about Magneto’s view. We don’t get any understanding of her own wants and needs. She ONLY exists to cause pain to all the male characters.

We’re supposed to sob at the end of X2 because all the men are sad. But we are given no reason to care about her for who she is as an individual - only for her ability to make men sad.

Then after it turns out she’s alive in TLS, she goes full-on villain. No psychological complexity, no moral struggles. Just villain. Oh, no, too much power for woman!! Woman can’t possibly control a force like this!! Man must kill her - must kill the love of his life, oh, no, what a tragedy!!! There’s no hope for her; the only way is to kill her.

Then after her death, she is not framed by the narrative in memory as a great X-Man, or as a fallen hero. She is framed as the lost love of a man who she didn’t even love in return. The power that she couldn’t control caused her to kill the man she really did love - Scott - but all the remaining films frame her as no more than the source of Logan’s torment and manpain.

Even when she returns at the end of DOFP, the joy comes from Logan finally getting a second chance at resuming his rivalry with Scott over her.

I haven’t even seen Apocalypse or DP - and I don’t want to - but I already know that those films only make the exact same mistakes all over again!

I guess I should blame the comics for coming up with this BS in the first place, but the movies didn’t even try to improve upon it.

Jean Grey is the most poorly written female superhero film character I’ve ever seen.

[the-ferocious-kittyrose]

Me searching the “cod x reader” tag for fics that are not misogynistic

[wintersangelic]

female character: "hey i'm a strong, well-written character."

male 'fans': "okay, you're weak and useless though because you experience human emotion."

female character: "no i mean it. i'm not only the most powerful species in my source, i'm also a goddess and the literal incarnation of life energy itself. i canonically devour entire planets like they were popcorn kernels. i can explode the universe just by thinking about it. i also have more emotional complexity in my left foot than you do in your entire body."

male 'fans': *proceeds to reduce female character to 'weak'/'useless' for having any emotions or flaws*

male 'fans': "why don't we have any strong, well-written female characters?"

[rei-ismyname]

The O5 X-Men being fucking creeps

Look at them, like the little rascals peeping through the hole in a change room. Iceman, Beast and Angel leering at Jean while Cyclops angsts about POWER BEAMS FROM HIS EYES. Unsurprisingly, this is written as normal and acceptable behaviour. I don't really truck with 'attitude of the time' BS - Stan Lee sucked at writing women.

I do wanna hear what Christian Dior thinks about that design though.

[slightlycomicobsessed]

okay minor rant but it seriously grinds my gears the way that dani was written off/out of the original new mutants run. like i don’t think I’d be this pissed about it if anyone bothered to actually write about what she was doing in asgard instead shunting her to the side in favour of the x-force characters and then bringing her back to Earth as a double-agent working for the MLF, saying that she “fell from asgard” but also refusing to explain how????

also, dani goes and suddenly is working for SHIELD but literally no one explains how the hell that happened??

like wtf marvel get your shit together and write her a solo instead of giving wolverine or scott their 636833728 comic run. please

[cyclopsboxhead]

Birds of Prey issue 75 has two stories and one of them has to play damage control both literally for the loss of the Clocktower but also figuratively for why the hell would Barbara Gordon do that? The answer is whoever was writing Batman at the time had her do it while Batman was fighting Black Mask in the Clock Tower. I can only imagine how infuriating the decision was, and judging by Simone's writing in this issue I'm almost certain it was made without consulting her at all. The first three pages are wordless, Oracle, Black Canary, and Huntress all have nothing to say as they watch in silent vigil the remains of the Clock Tower being contained by the Fire Department. Then the obligatory page where Simone has to explain why the character she's been writing made such a rash, out of character decision: because she was worried about Bruce.

If it makes you upset that's cause it was meant to. It's purposefully falling into the trope of a woman character making a sacrifice to aid the leading man. Not just that, but Simone takes it a step further by having Barbara make herself the damsel in distress. It reads as "oh this is what you meant by making the character I've been writing do that. So I'm just going to say that out loud so it's clear to everyone else."

Then after the obligatory damage control flashback we get the Birds of Prey all together, Huntress and Black Canary are comforting their leader, teammate, and friend. Here's where Simone twists the knife a bit more, having Barbara talk about the things we don't see when things like this happen in comics. What the characters really lose when they make sacrifices like this: old costumes, family photos, a place to sleep. Memories that are now without their talismans for recall. Now these exist only in the mind and in the past.

And then one more page of group healing and it's back to work. Simone doesn't waste time or pages cleaning up the mess another writer made with her character. She uses exactly as much as she needs while also making those moments linger. She wants you to know how this makes her characters, and herself feel, but she isn't going to give the other writer the satisfaction of making the entire story a reaction issue.

It's really a testament to how much Gail Simone cares about the agency of women both on and off the panel.

[aikoiya]

DPxDC Rant - Superman Isn't A Clonophobe

Hey, this is basically just a compilation of all my thoughts in regards to the subject of Clark being a clonophobe & a bad person from @nelkcats & @wolfeyedwitch's posts on the subject.

A lot of this is just retreading old ground, but I realized that I don't have a post of my own on the subject. I thought I did, but I don't. So, this is just me putting it all out there in one spot. I might add onto it later, but right now, this is good enough.

---

I think Supes is a genuinely nice guy & if someone were to actually try & talk to him about it, he could get to a point where he realizes that he was wrong about Kon & be genuinely apologetic.

Like, everyone's so busy demonizing him over the clone thing that a lot of people don't look at the situation from his perspective.

I just... I guess that I see it as victim-blaming. Not that Connor isn't also a victim, but Lex stole Clark's DNA without his permission & used it to create another person who he wanted to use against Superman. That's basically baby-trapping which is a thing that legit happens & it isn't right.

Woman who impregnated self with stolen semen from billionaire wins child support battle (vanguardngr.com)

So, yes! If you're pro-choice, but also think that the man should pay child support even if he never wanted the kid or you think that Supes shouldn't be allowed to say that he doesn't want Connor in his life, then that is both hypocritical, sexist, & misandristic.

At the same time, Supes' situation could also be considered analogous to a rape victim being forced to keep the baby & raise it despite having been so thoroughly traumatized by the experience.

Like, women these days can freely get abortions or give their kids up for adoption when the abortion doesn't work & it's considered brave & even merciful, but when Clark is put in the exact same position & he doesn't want anything to do with Connor, he's a horrible clonophobe?? Yes, it's horrible, but there is a definite double standard there.

Hell, there are even people these days debating if it's moral for a woman to tell the doctors not to aide the baby when the abortion does fail! And in California, a bill was suggested that would make it perfectly legal for a woman to just up & decide to let her child, one alive outside the womb & no longer attached to the mother, to starve to death if she decides she doesn't want to be a mother anymore despite her life in no way being in danger from the child & adoption being an option! It's just... frivolous!!

And that's perfectly fine, apparently!

Yet, a man who doesn't want to be a father is forced to provide child support? There are even situations where a woman knows that the baby isn't his, but tricks him into thinking it is in order to get that sweet, sweet child support.

(4) How common is it for a woman to intentionally get pregnant to trap a man? Do you know anyone this has happened to? - Quora

You can't deny that it happens! Yet, *nasally voice* oh, the man's responsible. He shouldn't have had sex with her if he didn't want a kid. He did that to her! He got her pregnant! Nyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh-nyeh!

*normal voice* Good grief, why the double standards?

If the man is responsible because if he didn't want a baby, he shouldn't have been having sex, then the same is true of women. If they didn't want kids, then they shouldn't have been having sex either! Period!

Like, don't get me wrong, Clark is absolutely wrong for the way he treated Connor, but it's still understandable why he reacted that way. He was hurt!

Again, it's by no means a good reason to act that way, but it is a reason & an understandable one at that.

Clark is a down home, salt of the earth, good ol' boy & I just think that if the JL had informed Ma & Pa of the situation, then things would've been sorted out much sooner. They'd straighten their boy out quick! And if Clark is still determined to be stubborn & hard-headed about it, then if nothing else, I can see Ma & Pa taking Connor in & giving him all the love he deserves.

To me, this is the Superman I know:

And this is why I think that people are too hard on Supes:

All-in-all, I don't think that he'd be opposed to all clones. Rather, I feel like he has a problem with Kon, specifically, for a very misguided reason.

Besides, Danny has no room to criticize because even though he reacted differently to the revelation of Dani's existence, he is also canonically known to misplace his aggressions. It's even made into a joke in the show. Like, they verbally address it!

One such instance is in the Fright Before Christmas episode where he says that he hates Christmas, but by seeing his reasoning, you realize that it isn't actually Christmas itself that he's angry at, but his parents who argue constantly during Christmas & allow said arguing to ruin the Christmases of those around them.

And, you can pretend that this wasn't a situation of misplaced aggression, but keep in mind that he went to the Ghost Zone to destroy a bunch of Christmas items to take out his aggression on the holiday even though it's just the background for the source of his anger. Then, upon learning that the book he'd destroyed was a Christmas one, his apology turned to satisfaction! He also said so himself!

That's a form of misplaced aggression.

Displaced aggression is defined as "occurs when an animal or human is fearful or agitated by external stimuli, a provocation, or perception, but is unable or unwilling to direct their aggression toward the stimulus. The aggressor may direct aggression toward whoever is nearest." That's exactly what's happening here!

I theorize that he subconsciously feels like it's preferable to hate Christmas than to actually confront his parents' negligence & be angry at them.

Keep in mind, he never blames his parents for their unsafe practices that lead to him half dying.

Danny points his frustrations towards those who aren't at fault all the time. Maybe not in the case of Dani, but definitely in other situations.

---

Furthermore, I also feel like I have to clarify that I grew up watching Smallville, which is sort of a prequel to the Superman saga.

And, in it, (spoiler warning) for a lot of the earlier seasons, Clark & Lex are friends. Like, legit good friends.

So, that probably colors my perspective as, from my point of view, being betrayed so severely by someone who was once your friend hurts a whole hell of a lot worse than someone who's always been your enemy. Especially when you've got as big of a heart with as much love in it as Clark. When you love so freely, it's easy to get hurt & in a lot of ways, it hurts worse when those you trust most betray you.

Also, Smallville? Fun show, ya'll should totally check it out.

Now, anyway, I admit that this probably isn't the case with most iterations of Superman, but I can't help that this was one of my primary sources on the characters' personalities growing up & as a result, I do tend to operate under the assumption that this is his backstory.

Because of this, I might be a little biased & in some way think that Clark might've been experiencing that betrayal by Lex all over again &, to be fair, knowing that he hurt Supes so bad, even if it's only on an emotional level, would absolutely thrill Lex & Clark probably knows that.

Like, I wouldn't be surprised if Clark had mostly gotten over the betrayal, but then this shit happens & it's like the wound is fresh all over again.

So, in this situation, Clark has nowhere to really put all that anger than on Connor, which is wrong, but also understandable.

Because, he can't even let Lex know he's upset because it'd just make the other man happy. Why would Superman give him that satisfaction? In other words, he can't really hurt Lex beyond some annoyance which sucks.

On the other hand, Danny & Vlad were never friends, the millionaire's dumbass monologue about killing Jack & marrying Maddie nipped that prospect in the bud in the literal first episode that he appeared in. So discovering that the guy cloned him didn't hurt Danny practically at all other than the violation itself because he'd already dismissed Vlad as a creepy frootloop.

Meanwhile, from the very start, Vlad wanted Danny as his son, so in some form or fashion, he does care & place value on him. It might be a selfish sort of value, but it is value nonetheless. He obviously has zero idea how to show that care & when he tries, it comes out very toxic & harmful, but he does care. Thus, when Danny rejects him, it hurts. And, somewhere, Danny probably knows this.

Which is why he's free to point his anger at Vlad rather than Dani. To point all that anger & frustration at exactly the person that was responsible. Clark doesn't get to do that. At least, not to the extent that he probably wants to.

Whereas in the case of the Christmas debacle, Danny doesn't want to hate his parents, so he finds it easier to take that frustration out on Christmas because Christmas has never made him happy & won't have the same emotional fallout to it that confronting the fact that his parents are selfish & self-absorbed & negligent would.

Because of this, having Danny lecture Superman on not misplacing his anger actually makes him come across as a bit of a hypocrite & it isn't fair because I have yet to see this point brought up in fics. Instead, Danny is portrayed as completely in the right! Like, it'd be one thing if their version of Danny had grown out of displacing his anger & was even trying to actually move on from it.

Hell, they could even make it so Danny is lecturing Supes from the perspective of someone who used to do it himself & is working on getting better at it. But they don't & instead protray him as holier than thou.

At the end of the day, I just don't think that a lot of fic writers, at least, none of the ones I've read about, give the situation the nuance it deserves, instead going the easy route & turning Superman into an irredeemable asshole when he really isn't. Not usually anyway.

In this situation, yeah, he was kinda a dick, but there's a reason & I feel like people either ignore that fact completely or just say "not good enough."

Hell, they don't even take into account the fact that even in Young Justice, where he's an ass, he doesn't stay that way! He eventually accepts Connor, so why harp on him about it!?

Edit: Someone seemed to be under the impression that I thought Superman had it worse. To the contrary, he has it way better.

This isn't a victim contest, it's about understanding why the characters might've reacted the way they did & that has nothing to do with who has it worse.

You don't have to have a bad life to react badly to things. It's all in how you process information & experiences.

Clark just processed the situation in a very bad way in this particular instance.

The point was to show how the 2 aren't all that different. I can easily see the 2's reactions being switched in the right circumstances.

The thing is, I don't understand why not knowing that Connor was also genetically created from Lex would somehow stop Superman from reacting the way he did towards Connor because didn't he know that he himself was Connor's genetic template from pretty much the beginning?

Plenty of people react badly to having a kid regardless of who the other parent was.

DP Character HC Masterlist

[amayanott]

I was looking up the X-Men because I'm not familiar with Marvel. I get excited at seeing the character named Dust, and I'm like, cool, representation I can identify with. And then her creator happened to be Grant Morrison. The guy who ruined Talia al Ghul's character and turned her into a rapist. That racist and sexist guy created a niqabi character, and I honestly don't want to read anything anymore about her just because of that Lex Luthor look-alike. Grant Morrison is the thorn in my side, and I'm never forgiving him. That's it, that's the post. If I see the guy's name ever again, I'm losing my mind

[salarta]

I think that some people, when they see me say Polaris/Lorna Dane is being held back due to nostalgia for sexism, think I'm being hyperbolic for effect. But no. I'm 100% serious.

Marvel has a history with sexism. Which, yes, you can expect from most such companies that have existed as long as Marvel. The Marvel of today appears to be trying to make strides, but when you really get down to it, that only happens with the very visible household name characters or big events they want to promote. Dig any deeper and you still find the sexism.

How often do female characters who aren't the already established big names like Jean Grey or Emma Frost or Storm or Rogue get much attention? How often do you hear about them getting much introspection into who they are, real consideration and reckoning with their history? Dazzler has a book only because she once had a book, so it plays to nostalgia for when she had a book.

This is as compared to when Lockjaw, a dog, got a mini series. A dog. Marvel decided to make a mini for a dog. Marvel also made a mini for Chamber. I could make a list (I actually have, buried somewhere among my Tumblr posts), but you get the point. If a woman isn't a major household name already, she doesn't get minis, solos, or oneshots. Those go to cis white men and dogs.

The case of Polaris specifically vexes me for two reasons. One, because I can see so much of how great she could be if treated with respect. Two, because she started out more feminist than her female peers at the time, got essentially destroyed for daring to break the mold, and she's still treated poorly because of it.

Lorna's existed since 1968. She was the second woman to join the X-Men. When she was introduced, the X-Men feared her. They dreaded what a threat she could be if she decided to follow in her father's footsteps and become their enemy. You know the Green Ranger from Power Rangers? She was the X-Men's Green Ranger decades before Power Rangers. Tempted toward evil, ultimately deciding to join the good guys, exhibiting an independent and rough edge.

But because it was the late 60s and early 70s, and she happened to be a woman, she quickly got shackled to Havok. And then, her fate got dragged down to being a damsel for him to rescue, or his girlfriend to support him in his civilian life. Desires written for Havok quickly became assigned as if Lorna implicitly wanted those things too, even if she never outright said "Yeah I wanna be a civilian" without ambiguity. Cause, y'know, she's a woman, and women do what men tell them to do.

I've said before that I very much think that if Polaris were created as a male character, she would be a household name today and one of the X-Men franchise's major characters. Just look at Exodus during the Krakoa era. He was created in 1993, and he got a seat on the Quiet Council while Lorna... disappeared until she got assigned to X-Factor for the billionth time as a supporting character, not even its leader, and repeatedly insulted (e.g. Lorna written confronting Siryn alone so Siryn could call her stupid in actual written dialogue while mind controlling her) with her important history completely ignored (e.g. mental breakdown from witnessing death during X of Swords as if she doesn't already have decades, including the Genoshan genocide, that she witnessed firsthand). It was only after she won the X-Men fan vote that anything actually good happened for her during the Krakoa era.

What we're dealing with now, of course, is obsession with nostalgia. We have the X-Men animated series trying to play off the 90s cartoon's popularity, and we have the comics trying to follow suit by reverting everything to 90s ideas.

And in true nostalgia-focused fashion, that means reverting Lorna back to her "status quo" from the 90s: Havok's supporting character girlfriend.

Nostalgia is insidious. I've said this many times. The main appeal of nostalgia is one of "Hey remember when things were like this, when you were younger and had a lot more hope and excitement? Yeah those were good times huh. Feel how you felt back then."

But in the pursuit for that nostalgia high, the actual bad elements are shrugged off or more often treated like part of the appeal. Like when you look back on the 90s, we didn't have gay marriage. Gay people could be criminalized under sodomy laws. We had police brutality toward Rodney King. The 90s were not some kind of blissful heaven on earth with no faults that we need to "return to."

And yet. Nostalgia for the 90s with comics takes the tack that except for a select few very glaring issues with the most well known characters, the 90s status quo was completely fine. No need to fix a thing. Act as if nothing happened since, or like developments since were mistakes.

Which is where Polaris comes in. Because the status quo for her in the 90s was "supporting character girlfriend for Havok on X-Factor."

Fans of that period will often defend that period for some good aspects. And let's be fair: nostalgia isn't 100% bad either. There's a reason it appeals. And yes, the 90s was an improvement for Lorna over treatment before then.

But time moves forward. It's not the 90s anymore. It's 2024. We should strive to do and be better. For Lorna, that means not pretending the 90s was her peak period and she can't be anything more or better than that.

She had progress after the 90s. She had her own major experience with Genosha and its genocide, and her working through it.

If you lived through a genocide, would you seriously just forget it ever happened to you? Cause Marvel seems to think you would. Marvel thinks not just your brain, but the entire universe, would forget you were ever there. It thinks that time period of your life would be just a bunch of TV static, a blank space on your resume.

Why?

Because it's inconvenient for 90s nostalgia.

90s nostalgia that says Lorna's place is in Havok's bed, giving him some pity sex as he makes tough manly decisions.

Fans of the 90s X-Factor leave out issues with Lorna's treatment during this period. Like how Sabretooth broke her jaw. Or how Wolfsbane was conditioned to have a bestial lust for Havok and see Lorna as a rival for his attention. It's not like there aren't some positive moments, but it's not all sunshine and rainbows and puppies that fans obsessed with 90s nostalgia make them out to be.

In the here and now, that nostalgia amounts to nostalgia for sexism. Because instead of letting Lorna be her own character, with her own drives and interests and history, that nostalgia insists her purpose is in being Havok's girlfriend. That nostalgia insists that even if Lorna has a rare moment or two for herself, all of it must funnel back into serving Havok's story and promoting him.

Just consider how many of the current X-Factor's covers focus on Polaris, mostly as variant covers, yet the stories are all about Havok and co struggling to deal with matters. Watching Havok's manpain at Lorna being abducted. Or watching his manpain at being in conflict with Lorna. Lorna isn't centered. She's just a tool for his stories.

The truth is, even those obsessed with nostalgia recognize Lorna deserves better than this. They just don't care beyond paying enough lip service to claim they're not sexist. Even as they promote stories that shove Lorna into sexist roles where she has no value in and of herself, only in what she can do for Havok.

Even sadder, to me, is how ingrained the sexism is even among X-Men comics fans. My experience thus far has been one where calling out the sexism for what it is results in dismissals, claims that it's no big deal. So what if Lorna's abducted by brand new random characters and she doesn't fight back even though we know she could mop the floor with them if written properly. Fits perfectly with the 90s nostalgia.

But then Pyro doesn't know fire won't work without oxygen and suddenly it's all hands on deck complaints. They care when a man is written poorly, but not when it happens to a woman that isn't Jean, Emma, Storm or one of the other household names.

Lorna being held back for decades makes it much easier to depict her in sexist ways, and for fans of 90s nostalgia to excuse the sexism.

My bottom line is I won't take claims of Marvel trying to be better about treatment of female characters seriously until it leads to better for Polaris. I've said this many, many times over the years. If they don't make things better for her, then they don't mean it. A real effort in this vein would inevitably lead to looking at Lorna's history, recognizing both who she was supposed to be and the sexism inherent in so much treatment of her afterward, and taking steps to rectify all the accumulated damage.

I'm going to say one more thing that's going to piss off a good number of people. There's sexism in the X-Men 97 cartoon too, fueled by the same nostalgia for sexism that's affecting the comics.

The X-Men 97 cartoon decided to go into the Genoshan genocide. It centered Rogue for that storyline. But Polaris? Nowhere to be seen. Not on Genosha at all. Not even in the background. Her only appearances were a couple references to her on X-Factor, and a "what if" sequence of her as a slave in the future.

It would not have been hard at all for the X-Men 97 cartoon to make even the tiniest reference to her experience of the Genoshan genocide. She could've been in the background while others talked. Instead of the "slave in the future" clip, she could've had a similar clip for having survived the genocide.

Not doing that was a choice. Nothing in storytelling says Rogue couldn't have her storyline if Lorna had hers respected in the cartoon. There are plenty of ways to respect that part of Lorna without cutting into plans.

Sexism isn't just explicit stuff. It's also omission, like when Black Widow was excluded from Avengers toys. It's also taking events relevant to one woman and giving it to another character, even if it's another woman.

Sexism includes treating women like they're interchangeable, and female characters like their stories can be taken from one and applied to another. The act of leaving out Polaris' entire storyline as a survivor, giving every ounce of its weight and depth to Rogue, is an act of sexism. Because plainly, Rogue and Polaris are not the same just because they're both women.

It's the same basic problem as when teams have all white men except for a single token woman, or a single token black guy. You're taking all the depth and complexity that is the human experience that aren't that of white men, then condensing it into a single character you frame as "representative" of that entire population.

It's the same problem as when a certain editor insisted Polaris couldn't be Magneto's daughter, with the unstated but clear implication that there could be only one daughter of Magneto. Even though that never stopped Marvel from having both Thor and Loki as Odin's sons, and never stopped Cyclops from having two brothers in Havok and Vulcan.

Or when people insist that Polaris is "redundant" or "just Magneto with boobs" because Magneto exists, yet they have no problem with multiple telepaths, or multiple characters with claws.

"We can't have too many characters that fit the same criteria" is typically an invention to justify the isms. It's extremely rare that a story cannot be modified to be more respectful to characters that also have a stake in its telling.

I get why people like their nostalgia. But that nostalgia does not justify sexism. When nostalgia comes loaded with sexism, that sexism is not a feature. It's a bug. You don't need to act like the time period where you felt all giddy and excited by superheroics requires that you treat Polaris reduced to Havok's bed warmer slash damsel in distress as a good thing. Same as how loving yourself some Nirvana doesn't require acting like what happened to Rodney King somehow adds to the charm.

You CAN like and keep the good parts while condemning and rectifying the bad.

Before someone says I'm trivializing anything, our fiction is a reflection of society. What we do in our fiction both is informed by our real world, and has a direct impact on it. Ask everyone who went into the sciences because Star Trek excited them with possibilities. Ask everyone who felt uplifted seeing representation in movies. Poor treatment of a character is of course not on par with police brutality, and it would be absurd and insulting to say they're equally bad. My point is that the same underlying issue applies. You wouldn't glorify police brutality as "part of the flavor of the times." You likewise shouldn't do it for sexism in fiction, especially when trying to "recapture" nostalgia in new content.

Nostalgia doesn't have to be a back door for sexism to sneak in.

[vilecemetery]

I truly can’t believe I have to say this but I am so so sick of some people my age (namely those who are tiktok users, and therefore are deeply influenced by “woke” stereotypes about queer people and queer identities that are often perpetrated on that site) telling me that it’s weird to talk about growing up as a female or about experiencing sexism because I’m not a girl? and that it either “makes it seem like I’m not really queer” when I talk about my connection to girlhood or that these things “shouldn’t concern me.” because they very much do and that’s such an ridiculous and inconsiderate thing to say.

I was afab and whether I wanted it or not I was treated like a girl and experienced childhood as a girl. I am not out to many people in my life and in their eyes I am a girl.

as a genderqueer person I still experience and feel very connected to my girlhood and the solidarity that I have among girls and women because of shared experiences despite not often identifying as a girl myself. this is because of many factors including socialization, oppression and personal identity. truly can’t believe most people I know (and quite a lot of people online as well) still don’t understand that the oppression I have experienced as a queer person who was afab and the oppression I have experienced being seen as a girl are interconnected and that we have to address multiple layers of discrimination simultaneously if we want anything to change. this is. not new information. I can’t believe people don’t get this.

[samasmith23]

Quentin Quire: The Evolution from Morrison to Aaron

Over the past few years I’ve noticed that there’s a fairly sizable group of comic book fans who have taken issue with how the character Quentin Quire has been portrayed since his debut in New X-Men by Grant Morrison. Despite there being a lot of fans like myself who personally enjoyed Quire’s redemptive rehabilitation arc during Jason Aaron’s Wolverine & the X-Men arc into a quirky faux-rebel punk, there are quite a few readers who argue that redeeming Quire is inappropriate since Morrison originally framed them as being akin to a fascistic school-shooter during the Riot at Xaviers arc. I’ve discussed at length before about how I personally didn’t have an issue with future writers like Aaron redeeming Quire, especially since I personally really enjoyed how said-arc was handled in WATXM despite the more comedic shift in tone in regards to Quentin’s personality. However, one thing I recently realized was that despite fan-complaints that Aaron completely misunderstood Quire’s character or completely altered his personality, there are actually some subtle ways in which Aaron’s version of Quire is not only reflective of Morrison’s original characterization of him, but gradually abandons those initial negative traits in order to fulfill a positive-growth character arc.

So I was recently reading through a series of articles by ComicWatch editor Travis Hedge Coke titled “Examining New X-Men,” and in them Coke described Quire in those original Morrison stories as being portrayed as a misogynistic incel, stating that “Quire’s heterosexual jealousy throws him immediately into confrontation with men or boys he deems as challenges for the top position in the eyes of girls and women, he perceives girls and women as prizes as a reward for obtaining the top position… [and he] has incredible telepathic gifts including being subtly and intensely persuasive.”

And I will freely admit that... yeah... this kind misogynistic alpha-male behavior is on full display via Quire not only humiliating his fellow student Slick by essentially outing him telepathically through undoing an illusion of his idealized self due to low self-esteem about his actual appearance (consequently resulting in his girlfriend Tattoo rejecting him), but one of the reasons he staged the entire riot at Xavier’s was in a creepy attempt to impress one of the five Stepford Cuckoos.

Additionally, the article also suggested that Quire was also guilty of outright sexual assault since Slick’s aforementioned ex-girlfriend Tattoo immediately joins Quire’s “Omega Gang” and is madly in love with him, and following the riot one of Quire’s gang members desperately tries to convince Wolverine that they were all being mind-controlled by Quire. While Morrison leaves the story vague about whether or not this was actually true or just another lie from one of Quire’s followers to avoid accountability for their crimes, Xavier did state earlier in the arc that Quire’s telepathic abilities were “deep and subtle enough to influence the minds around him” when discussing his development of a cult-following in the form of the Omega Gang. Coke even went as far as to describe Morrison’s Quire as being akin to a younger, less rapey version of Wolverine’s arch-nemesis Sabretooth. It's also worth noting that there also exists subtle racialized undertones (ontop of gendered ones...) in the original Riot at Xavier's arc considering the white and fascistic Quire's overt manipulations of two Black characters in the form of Slick & Tattoo...

Furthermore, in a separate article for GraphicPolicy by Dani Kinney, despite her more charitable interpretation of Morrison’s Quire as someone who was driven to extremes due to frustration with Xavier’s flawed liberal-centrist approach in response to increasing human violence against other mutants, Kinney still criticizes Quire of being racially biased due to his victimization and exploitation of Slick and Tattoo respectively (both of which Morrison frames as bad things in the comic).

Interestingly, later when Quentin Quire began to undergo a rehabilitation arc in Jason Aaron's run on Wolverine & the X-Men (since Logan recognized Quire’s potential as a gifted student and telepath and didn’t want him to fall down the dark path of a mutant terrorist)...

...whether or Jason Aaron intended to or not he ended up showcasing Quire growing beyond the subtle characteristics of racism and misogyny that Morrison originally depicted during the character’s overtly villainous phase. For instance, throughout WATXM Quire begins to form a legitimate friendship and even romantic relationship with his fellow student Idie Okonkwo. Despite this, their first interaction showcases Quentin falling back on his old negative habits, making awkward pick-up lines and advances at Idie (which she hilariously sarcastically rejects in a nonchalant manner, and even Broo points out the inappropriateness of).

As the series progresses however, Quire begins to recognize Idie not as some prize but as a human being with her own autonomy. This is gradual shift first manifests during a school dance in the AVX tie-ins, where Quire is completely dumbfounded to see Idie uncharacteristically wanting to dance with him, even noting that she previously rejected his advances. This sudden shift in behavior for Idie was due to her worsening struggles with internalized-mutantphobia and religious trauma due to having been forced to kill someone by Cyclops in X-Men: Schism, feelings which were recently exacerbated by the Hellfire Brat’s gaslighting of her to give into what she mistakens to be her true “sinful, monstrous nature” via an android televangelist-style priest.

Quire's concerns Idie’s well-being and mental health only increase following an incident during the Frankenstein Murder Circus arc Idie nearly killing a sorceress a fit of traumatic rage due to she herself once nearly being burned at the stake by her Nigerian Catholic village when she first manifested her mutant powers.

This eventually culminates climatic Hellfire Academy arc wherein Quentin Quire actually infiltrates the Hellfire Brat’s supervillain-training school when he discovered Idie enrolled (both due to her worsening religious trauma and gaslighting, as well as wanting to investigate who shot her friend Broo and reduced him to a feral state), and seeks to rescue her from a that toxic environment. Unfortunately, Quire's rescue attempt backfires and he himself ends up getting captured and thrown into the Hellfire Academy's "detention room."

While Quire at this point hadn’t fully overcome his previous negative characteristics (he’s partially motivated by basic jealousy towards Broo and at one point thinks to himself that he might be forced to “telepathically coax” Idie into fleeing the Hellfire Academy), he simultaneously wants to prevent her from killing Broo’s shooter, as he wants to prevent her from going down a similar dark path that he previously did.

Furthermore, I don’t know if this was intentional or not but Aaron actually kinda sort of portrays Kade Kilgore, the Black King of the Hellfire Brats, as somewhat of a dark foil to Quentin Quire. Kilgore as he’s presented in WATXM is essentially like a younger but wealthier version of the kind of jerk Quire used to be during the Morrison New X-Men run. This is demonstrated not only through Kade expressing disappointment at Quire’s failure to live up to the standards of the supervillain academy due to Quentin’s past track record, but Kade is someone who actively manipulates and gaslights Idie by further feeding into her internalized mutantphobia and guilt over having killed before, all with the intent of influencing her into becoming both a murderous supervillain as well as his Black Queen of the Hellfire Club whom he would “have by his side at all times.”

And these are inappropriate behaviors which Kilgore undoubtedly picked up from his abusive corrupt billionaire father despite his own protestations to the contrary (in X-Men: Schism, Kade’s murder of his father was assisted by a secretary who wanted revenge for Kilgore Sr. sexually harassing her). Plus the Hellfire Club in general has a long history of being manipulative and possessive towards women, like with Jean Grey during the classic Dark Phoenix Saga.

So despite Kade claiming otherwise, the Hellfire Club’s misogynistic and manipulative behavior definitely seems to be generational.

In a sense, Kade Kilgore’s creepy & misogynistic manipulation of Idie is somewhat reflective of how Quire previously mistreated characters like Tattoo & Sophie Cuckoo during Morrison’s run. It also demonstrates that while Aaron mostly portrayed the Hellfire Brats as comedic joke-villains due to them being sociopathic spoiled rich 12-year-olds who murdered their parents and seized control over their corporate assets, he still fleshed out members like Kade Kilgore as being negatively influenced by the sexist & manipulative behaviors of his abusive father.

Fortunately however, Idie rejects both Kilgore’s gross manipulations and her own internalized-mutantphobia. While Idie initally seems to accept Kilgore’s offer of becoming his Black Queen, she did this solely just to trick Kilgore into confessing that he was the one who shot her friend Broo. And although Idie nearly went through with her plan to murder the little creep in retaliation, she he ultimately refuses to give into hatred and bloodshed (brought about by both her past religious trauma and the inhumane teachings of the literal supervillain academy) when she realizes that she is still capable of feeling love and and experiencing happiness after witnessing Toad of all people (he was the janitor at both the Jean Grey School & Hellfire Academy) refusing to kill a mentally unstable & murderous Husk (Paige was experiencing extreme mood swings due to a latent secondary mutation tying her emotions to her skin-shedding/transformation powers) because of the love they had developed for each other in previous issues of the series. Sparring Kilgore’s life, Idie then teams-up with Quire to rebel against and destroy the oppressive Hellfire Academy (a conclusion to WATXM’s running gag of Quire constantly fantasizing about instigating another riot and destroying the Jean Grey School).

And while some fans have argued that Quire & Idie becoming a couple creeped them out due to Idie being younger than him, I don’t have too much of a problem with it since was only a 2-year age gap between the two in Aaron’s run (Idie & Quire were 14 & 16 respectively; this was confirmed by the Jason Latour’s follow-up run on WATXM, which featured Quire having his 17th birthday), and seeing Quentin & Idie develop legitimate feelings for each other as they both underwent positive-change arcs actually felt kind of sweet IMO. Plus, Idie was the one who ultimately had to rescue Quire instead of the other way around due to his own rescue attempt FAILING, and the two co-lead the revolt against the Hellfire Brats.

Essentially, Aaron’s version of Quentin Quire felt like a more mature version of Morrison’s despite his new more comedic faux-rebel personality. Quentin by the end of WATXM was no longer a manipulative incel, but had instead evolved into someone who actually learned to respect the autonomy and personhood of not just women, but women of color in particular. This was something that completely flew over my head when I initially read WATXM, but after reading Travis Hedge Coke’s New X-Men articles I began to notice how vastly different Quire’s attitude and treatment towards Tattoo & Idie were, especially since both characters are Black girls. These are some deeper observations about Quentin Quire’s character development & positive change arc that I truly appreciate, since they make me realize that Aaron seemed to understand Quentin’s character a lot more than a lot of fans give him credit for. Sadly though, all this does seem to be lost on a lot of fans due to not just having prior memories Morrison’s more villainous portrayal of Quire, but also due to series which came after Aaron’s WATXM such as Christina Strain’s run on Generation X apparently having Quentin Quire regress into being rude and condescending towards Idie… sigh, oh well that’s the downside of having different writers with different interpretations I guess…

Overall, I'm not against redeeming Quentin Quire like a lot of other fans are since Wolverine in Jason Aaron's run was following in the footsteps of Charles Xavier's philosophy. Logan wanted to give Quire a second-chance and try and mold him into something better than a potential future mutant-terrorist, which he ultimately ended up succeeding in. And while Quentin still boasts about wanting to be the bad kid who destroys the Jean Grey School, most of it is now him being a faux-pretentious brat as he never exploited any opportunity to do so and instead developed empathy with his fellow students, and over the course of WATXM Quire developed leadership skills and even went out of his way to rescue the X-Men at several points in Aaron's series. His faux-rebel attitude is played more for laughs now.

Plus, the X-Men in general have a long history of trying to redeeming or rehabilitating supervillains like Magneto, Mystique, Juggernaut, and even Apocalypse and Mister Sinister.

So why is Quentin Quire off limits for a redemption arc then? Heck, I'd personally argue that Mister Sinister being allowed a seat on Krakoa's Quite Council is far more egregious considering that in past continuity Sinister was literally a Nazi scientist who was present at the Auschwitz death camp.

That seems far worse to me than Wolverine trying to redeem a delinquent teenager who once staged a half-assed riot at Xaviers...

[meadow-mellow]

Man. I'm too old for ship fighting/discourse. I ain't 16 anymore, dunno how these ppl manage to remain so stagnated mentally cause you'd expect they'd outgrow this kinda thing.

[altruistic-meme]

it's genuinely disorienting to work in an area where we are all women* in a field that most people assume is dominated by men and to have my coworkers STILL tell me "oh that position is a MAN'S job, we need a MAN to come help us with that" like bitch no we don't!!!!! it's not even that hard!!!!! what, because it requires a little extra strength suddenly that means that we're INCAPABLE of doing something??? fuck off. i can and will find a way to do whatever I need to for my position and I will learn how to do it on my own.

(*no im not actually a woman but my coworkers don't know that)

[cultofthepigeon]

twitter xstans like "can you believe we have to cheer for this narc" when the "narcing" firestar did was *checks notes* have tony starks nasty ass talk at her