Seriously, your interpretation of “MODOK the bitter angry nerd” as being some kind of endorsement of sick geek revenge that the fanboys are going to actually cheer has me flabbergasted. Clearly, the satirical aspect that Omar pointed out is glaringly obvious, and if anything I was expecting people to start the tired old wheeze about how such “attacks” on geekery in within the comics pages constitutes some sort of “mean spirited attack on the audience.” The comic geek gags in Slott’s “She-Hulk” have been bitched about as “mean spirited” by the clownishly over-sensitive, so I’m surprised this didn’t set anyone off.

Apo, I think if Morrison was interested in making something of Jean, he probably could have.

It’s possible. It seemed like he was heading there initially, with Jean’s powers growing exponentially and scaring Xavier, and the fight against the U-Men, but ultimately, I think he decided that he could do a lot more with the other characters, and that Jean served a better purpose as a sacrifice.

He did do work on her, though. The way she reacted to Scott’s psychic affair was a chance for her character to display some human reactions and express aggression without it being “for the good of humanity”. She got territorial and mean, and it was very engaging.

The reason Scott and Jean didn’t work so well is that Marvel Lady, post-Dark Phoenix, was almost totally cyphrical.

She was kind of interesting BECAUSE of this, mind.

Jean Grey, being, like, the Generic Brand X female character could give us insight into how women were viewed by the industry in general. Basically she was an amalgamation of whatever traits were popular in female heroes at any given time.

Which isn’t REALLY a substitute for anyone giving her a personality.

PJ Holden’s art is pretty great, and Fearless‘ premise sounds solid. I’ll get the trade.

ARGH! We haven’t talked to Image about a trade at all – please don’t assume there’ll be one! (If everyone decided to wait for the trade then the book would do so badly that no trade would ever happen).

- pj

Maybe it’s an extension of the writers’ own desires, but I think it an odd parallel that both ‘good girls’ are dead and their men ended up with their dream ‘bad girl.’

About Scott and Emma, I disagree about her not being more interesting than Jean. In fact, she’s in my opinion pretty easily the most interesting female character in comics these last years. Even some good writers seem afraid of giving depth to females, including emotional problems, making her immature, etc, because in the WiR age many people would whine and accuse him of sexism, so you end up with characters like Claremont’s females these days, all perfect and powerful and able to kick anyone’s ass. Emma however is everything that feminists would have: she’s immature in many ways, she’s got several serious issues, she did surgery and is not afraid of saying it and walks around in clothes that show off a lot of skin intentionally to gain an advantage over men (although not so much now she’s not a villain anymore and is on a relationship). And she also happens to be an outsider among the X-men that, except for Scott, has few to no friends: the only one close to her is Beast, who still is closer to her boyfriend than to her and happens to be everyone’s friend.

Jean, however, was exactly the opposite: the perfect female type that every single X-man loved. Any fight she would have with another character would be the necessarily because the other character, a female, would be trying to sleep with Scott, and the other character was wrong (see the whole debacle with Psylocke). Like Apodaca said, she was an idea, and works better dead than alive (I feel the same about Cap. America too, but that’s another discussion).

So, writers are more willing to explore Scott and Emma’s relationship because both characters have more depth individually and their relationship too has more potential for great stories, because of their already existing depth, the conflicts that happen between them and the relationship being something you don’t see that often in comics, the straight-arrow leader with the outsider and former villain. Would be somewhat like if Black Cat joined the FF and begun to date Reed Richards.

And Scott and Jean’s relationship couldn’t really work because:
1) Jean was a perfect female type, while Scott was from the start a severely emotionally damaged person with lots of issues, including inferiority, which got worse through time so he would always see Jean as too perfect for him and worship her.

2) From the moment Claremont had him marry a woman who looked exactly like Jean 5 issues after their first date (that’s right, 5 issues, and there wasn’t even a one year gap like in Bendis’ Daredevil, the entire thing was set in one month tops) it was clear that the relationship was more than your average love, and also that when Jean returned it couldn’t end well.

3) Well, Jean had few to no depth, so you could only see the relationship from Scott’s point of view, which also doesn’t help. I don’t remember reading a comic in which she says why did she loved him or explored her feelings and was told by her perspective.

I also agree with you about Criminal. This one of those books that is so perfect that there isn’t even much to discuss. It is plain good and that’s it.

Except for Jean Grey. Even when Morrison wrote her, there were only good moments, not good stories. It’s because of the personality she’s been given. Matronly, nurturing, supportive, understanding, etc.

Yup. The difference between the two characters may not be so much in their writers as in the expectations of their audiences.

Jean Grey was created in an era where the ‘perfect woman’ was one who looked good, shut up and supported the males. It’s a remarkably powerful archetype – which is exactly why her suddenly busting out of it during the initial Phoenix story was so memorable.

But it pretty much ensures she can’t get involved in anything that resembles actual character growth, even when a more enlightened audience asks that she have some, please.

Emma, on the other hand, was to begin with the ‘bad girl’ – it was expected she would flout the rules. That naturally led to her becoming a real personality when the time came – that’s what being a ‘bad girl’ was all about.

PJ Holden’s art is pretty great, and Fearless‘ premise sounds solid. I’ll get the trade.

Speaking of trades, I need to get on the Iron Fist bandwagon and soon. I’m clearly missing out. Plus, “Frubaker”? Awesome. Kudos to Curran (or whomever coined the term) on that one.

Lucha Libre sounds like the kind of book I should be reading — you know, fun.

That Two Guns cover was done by Kristian Donaldson, who is all sorts of awesome.

Anyone know what Iceman’s doing during Messiah Complex? I noticed he hasn’t been mentioned or seen in any of the previews. Did he leave the X-Men (again) after Rogue’s team was decimated?

Apo, I think if Morrison was interested in making something of Jean, he probably could have. All he had to do was have her become self-aware enough to transcend idea and move into the realm of character. Emma was nothing more than an idea for maybe the first fifteen years of her existence, yet people are here extolling her as a character. I don’t think it would have been that difficult to give Jean a personality, to move out of the realm of device.

There have been plenty of characters that have been seen as “boring” but when a good writer comes along, suddenly the story-telling opportunities are everywhere.

Except for Jean Grey. Even when Morrison wrote her, there were only good moments, not good stories. It’s because of the personality she’s been given. Matronly, nurturing, supportive, understanding, etc. Even in the moments where she considers getting a little wild and hooking up with the hairy biker who lives downstairs, she makes the right choice and goes back to her husband. She’s an idea, not a character, and that’s why she works best when dead.

Emma, however, has an actual personality and can react to people and things.

The Scott-Emma relationship is actually growing on me, but I can tell it’s because the writers are making it work, not because it’s inherently more interesting than the Scott-Jean romance.

Apparenly Joss Whedon is one of the sacred cows of comics (how did that happen?)

Buffy. Duh.

Again, why was it so difficult to make Scott and Jean a decent couple?

It should be fairly obvious when you look at how Scott and Emma work. It’s because Jean Grey is BORING.

Space is pretty darned huge. Why do the same characters keep running into each other?—It bugs me when it happens in New York, and space is, last time I checked, a whole lot bigger than New York.

I understand how this can be unbelievable, but I’d just like to say that it’s not necessarily unlikely. I went to a high school with a student body of around 500, and I run into alumni EVERYWHERE. It really feels like I never escape.

Hell, the last time I was in New York, I met this girl and we had some fun. And out of a group of twelve girls, in a bar in Chelsea, in New York City, 3000 miles away from home, I managed to find a fellow alumni. Not just that, but one who was in the same department as me and knew someone as a student that I know as an adult.

Joe Rice, who lives in New York, happens to know the older sister of a guy I went to high school with. And we just happened to meet each other randomly on CBR. It’s crazy, yes, and it astounds me every time, but it’s not totally unrealistic.

Or, as AIM dubbed him, NAMBLA.

-hx

Does she have an interesting story that does?

Much of where my post was coming from was as a reaction to the “Cyclops and blonde Jean” line, when there are fairly clear differences between Jean and Emma (both in personality and in history).

@The Dane-I’ll simply note that your analogy requires us to treat Jean as Cyclops’s sister, and let you fill in the blanks.