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Someone get on this for me, please.
Without meaning to, I've fallen back into X-Men comics. Specifically, All-New X-Men, which I've been spoiled for thanks to Tumblr but still want to read for myself. There's no breaking the addiction; there's only waiting periods in between relapses. Thankfully the local library has most of the trades I want to read, so it's just a matter of waiting for them to get to me instead of hitting up every local Barnes & Noble and speed-reading through their stacks. In the meantime, I've been thinking about X-Men teams, and how All-New X-Men with its plot hook of "the original team goes to their future/comics' present to confront what happened to them" verges on outright deconstruction of the whole business of comics continuity morasses and gritty reboots - 'Did you see what happened to me? I hate what happened to me!' I know it won't get to genuine deconstruction, since Marvel sells commodities as well as stories, but it's gotten me thinking.
Specifically, how I'd redo the original five X-Men. They're my favorite superhero team, way up there with The Incredibles, and not only would I not want to change what's going on in the books right now, I know Marvel would never hire me for it. Which doesn't stop me from wondering during steam room visits.
Reconstruction, I guess.
Assuming that the team has to be assembled by Charles Xavier when they're all teenagers, and assuming it has to include Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, and Marvel Girl, and assuming the external plot points of mutant public perception's the same, and assuming the core personality traits have to sustain themselves, while keeping the basic tone and concept and ideology - Jean Grey's redesign is by far the easiest.
Her comics origin has her powers emerging when her best friend is hit by a car, and Jean's telepathy kicks in as she cradles her friend in her arms as she dies. Very tragic, very sad, very passive.
So instead of that, Jean jumps out in front of her friend, throws up a telekinetic brick wall, and the car smashes into it, killing the driver. But her friend's safe. Jean's still scared and upset about what she can do, but it's because she knows she can hurt people, not because she can get hurt. She doesn't go to live with Xavier for a long time; instead, she spends a few years hiding herself and trying to be ordinary until her telepathy starts murmuring. And here, since it comes in later and more slowly, Xavier doesn't keep it locked down under his control but helps Jean along as it emerges.
Her codename is simply "Marvel."
Iceman was similarly straightforward: make him the oldest one on the team. Still the team joker, still new to mutant powers in general and his in particular, but give him the most life experience before heading off to Xavier's. He already had a life, he had a future, he was starting college and looking ahead - and all of that's taken away from him in a way he never imagined. Keeping his personality more or less intact from the comics, but giving him different base reasons for the surface joviality - and opening up new folds for different interactions with everyone else changed as well - would offer a lot of rich storytelling possibilities.
(Bobby's slept with both of his girlfriends, and while he hasn't had sex with a man, he's not willing to deny thinking about it from time to time.)
Since Beast is such a rich character, it took a little thought, and then the answer was blindingly obvious. Keep everything about him the same, everything, the ape-like appearance and knuckle-walking, being the smartest one in the room, being the tallest one in the room when standing fully upright, compassionate and dorky and brilliant and capable of ripping you limb from limb but he won't because he's nice. All of that.
Except instead of an XY chromosome set, it's XX.
Hannelore "Hanners" Philippa McCoy. Still ape-like, still a world-class genius, and now she's also fighting sexism in addition to the whole mutant thing. In a way, she's somewhat glad she's not beautiful - not quite ugly, but like Brienne of Tarth, it takes some work to get her up to "plain" - because getting ignored for her looks is a fair way to get taken just a little more seriously as a scientist. People are okay with an ugly girl being smart. They know she has to make up for something.
She played field hockey instead of football, and it's quite easy to see Jean helping her embrace being handsome instead of trying for plain, and it's also easy to see her staying best friends with Bobby. Whether or not they become romantically involved, or simply prove it's possible for men and women to stay friends, would depend on whether Bobby feels it's all right dating a teammate. But since Scott's looking to date Jean, it's probably all right.
In this context, Scott's motivation for becoming the team's leader is because he hates having control taken away from him and getting ordered around. As such, he figured that being the leader was the best way to maintain control over his life and minimize being told what to do. He gradually grows into the leadership role and gets less angry, learning to trust people, but still often responds to challenges and fights with "No, fuck you." Like the original character under his better writers, Scott still has a fierce broad-spectrum compassion, and a good sense of duty and heroism and will do the right thing because it's the right thing.
With him, I decided to just go ahead and streamline his origin story. Toss out the stuff welded on later and the more nonsensical details, keep the basic idea and a few of the more interesting bits. So he's from Alaska, got thrown out of an exploding plane with his younger brother and suffered some mild brain damage as a result, and he and Alex are living together within the foster system. And while he'd be able to make his peace with his younger brother going off to a permanent family and a better life, Alex doesn't want to be split up. Either adopt both Summers brothers, or neither.
So it ends up being neither. They run away with the hope of Scott getting the resources to become an emancipated minor and becoming Alex's legal guardian, without any weird experimentations on Scott retconned in later, without Professor X waiting to recruit him, without tearful good-byes and with both brothers - yes, just the two of them, really - knowing they've got at least one person left in their family.
(It's also entirely possible, though not relevant to the story at hand, that their mother survived the exploding plane instead of their father and she's the one who became a kickass space pirate.)
Scott and Alex's powers kick in at the same time, but the fallout of the accidents ends up with Alex in the hospital for a couple of months. In the meantime, Scott is taken into Xavier's, the first one of the five to settle in.
And then start yelling at the Professor, because he has the money to pay for every single one of Alex's medical bills, and keep the house, and maintain that fancy jet and the supercomputer, and all this stuff, and they can't be the only mutants he's found by now. There have to be more, and they have to do right by them.
Because it'd do Xavier some good to be yelled at every now and then, and Scott's correct. One of the better things of the first two X-Men movies was having loads of students running around the mansion, and while it'd take some time to get the comic to there, it could be done. There's a field team, and there's a home team, and there's all the kids trying to pass math class while also trying to get a handle on being able to levitate or change the channel by blinking.
Alex is on the home team. Warren is on the field team.
One of the more noteworthy things about Warren is that he decided to be a superhero before joining the X-Men. They found him and asked him to join the team when he was already flying around and saving people because he'd decided he ought to do that. Not even Scott did that - not that he had the time to, but the point stands. He never had to be a superhero, but as soon as he found out he had powers - powers nobody gave to him, and didn't come about from what he did to himself, powers he was simply born with - he decided to do good and help people. This points to a fundamental altruism essential to the character.
Additionally, of the original five X-Men, Angel is the most visibly mutated, even more than Beast. It's possible for him to hide and 'pass' as human, but only imperfectly and at great difficulty. What would be interesting for the X-Men as a whole would be to have someone so far removed from the standard human template that they wouldn't be able to walk out the front door under pretty much any circumstances - and Angel would be the best candidate for that. Push his mutations a little more, while maintaining that altruistic viewpoint, and see what happens.
In one of Marvel's many "would have been better as a limited series instead of an ongoing title" ideas, there was an alternate universe version of Angel with bat-like wings instead of feathered ones, firebreathing, claws instead of fingernails, and all the comic book-style changes needed for the flight, just like normal. In this imaginary iteration, there would be two more things: he'd have blue skin with yellow eyes and blond hair, and was born with everything except the firebreathing. This also provides a more aggressive power set that people keep trying to revamp and redo to little success, since nothing sticks for long. Changing the powers somewhat from the outset while keeping the person behind them as close to the same as possible is a take on the character I can't recall seeing before.
Instead of Angel, his codename would be "Gargoyle." He might consider changing to to "Angel" sometime later, as Biblical angels are downright terrifying - and Xavier basically introduced him to his classmates by saying "Fear not."
Warren grew up in extreme social isolation, raised by a small staff in an isolated Worthington estate with monthly visits from his father and, after he turned four and she left, from his mother as well. He learned to fly when he was about seven years old, and the firebreathing came in at fourteen or fifteen, with his claws filed down for most of his life. The circumstances of his childhood meant he has no real practice or experience in social situations, and as a result, falls back on the formal etiquette training he got drilled into him. He's not great with people for a lot of reasons, and it doesn't help the extreme politeness used as a defensive mechanism can sometimes come off as aloofness. But he still wants to do good by people, even if he doesn't handle himself well around them, even if he knows he's a freak his parents didn't like to touch. Like the rest of the team, being an X-Man would let him feel somewhat normal and accepted; it's just that for him, it'd be the first time.
On a metatextual level, having a non-human-looking character from the beginning would counteract a lot of the unfortunate vibes that come from the X-Men having almost no members with visible mutations and the villains being the ones to look monstrous. Additionally, when other visibly mutated people join the team, such as Nightcrawler, these characters would be able to talk to each other and bond over their shared circumstances. They'd join together to explain to everyone else that they know it's hard being a mutant but it's even harder when they can't walk out the front door and keep on walking, and nobody else really understands the depth of that. Because freaky blue people who are the kindest, sweetest ones around is a trope that's never going to get old.
(It's Nightcrawler who asks him one day up on the roof - leathery wings, breathes fire, lives in a castle, has vast amounts of wealth, "Are you sure you’re not a dragon?")
The real challenge in all this goes beyond redesigning the characters and moves onto seeing if tone, concept, and ideology remain recognizable. That's the part which would take more work, and it's still something which could be pulled off without any fuss. Beyond remaining faithful to the original personality dynamics, beyond the two hooks of "inborn powers" and "mutants defending a world that hates and fears them."
I've seen it pointed out that of the major superhero teams at Marvel, the Fantastic Four is a family, the Avengers is a club, and the X-Men is a school. One of the best things about school in general is the sense, even if it's an arbitrary one, of shared community and purpose. Distilling that sensation for the X-Men, whatever the power set of any given team, would accomplish that.
Going beyond that to the X-Men as metaphor for chosen communities and oppressed culture - which, granted, can't shoot force beams out of their eyes in the real world, but this is comic books here - and it still all works.
And now that I've written this out, I can finally stop thinking about it.
Specifically, how I'd redo the original five X-Men. They're my favorite superhero team, way up there with The Incredibles, and not only would I not want to change what's going on in the books right now, I know Marvel would never hire me for it. Which doesn't stop me from wondering during steam room visits.
Reconstruction, I guess.
Assuming that the team has to be assembled by Charles Xavier when they're all teenagers, and assuming it has to include Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, and Marvel Girl, and assuming the external plot points of mutant public perception's the same, and assuming the core personality traits have to sustain themselves, while keeping the basic tone and concept and ideology - Jean Grey's redesign is by far the easiest.
Her comics origin has her powers emerging when her best friend is hit by a car, and Jean's telepathy kicks in as she cradles her friend in her arms as she dies. Very tragic, very sad, very passive.
So instead of that, Jean jumps out in front of her friend, throws up a telekinetic brick wall, and the car smashes into it, killing the driver. But her friend's safe. Jean's still scared and upset about what she can do, but it's because she knows she can hurt people, not because she can get hurt. She doesn't go to live with Xavier for a long time; instead, she spends a few years hiding herself and trying to be ordinary until her telepathy starts murmuring. And here, since it comes in later and more slowly, Xavier doesn't keep it locked down under his control but helps Jean along as it emerges.
Her codename is simply "Marvel."
Iceman was similarly straightforward: make him the oldest one on the team. Still the team joker, still new to mutant powers in general and his in particular, but give him the most life experience before heading off to Xavier's. He already had a life, he had a future, he was starting college and looking ahead - and all of that's taken away from him in a way he never imagined. Keeping his personality more or less intact from the comics, but giving him different base reasons for the surface joviality - and opening up new folds for different interactions with everyone else changed as well - would offer a lot of rich storytelling possibilities.
(Bobby's slept with both of his girlfriends, and while he hasn't had sex with a man, he's not willing to deny thinking about it from time to time.)
Since Beast is such a rich character, it took a little thought, and then the answer was blindingly obvious. Keep everything about him the same, everything, the ape-like appearance and knuckle-walking, being the smartest one in the room, being the tallest one in the room when standing fully upright, compassionate and dorky and brilliant and capable of ripping you limb from limb but he won't because he's nice. All of that.
Except instead of an XY chromosome set, it's XX.
Hannelore "Hanners" Philippa McCoy. Still ape-like, still a world-class genius, and now she's also fighting sexism in addition to the whole mutant thing. In a way, she's somewhat glad she's not beautiful - not quite ugly, but like Brienne of Tarth, it takes some work to get her up to "plain" - because getting ignored for her looks is a fair way to get taken just a little more seriously as a scientist. People are okay with an ugly girl being smart. They know she has to make up for something.
She played field hockey instead of football, and it's quite easy to see Jean helping her embrace being handsome instead of trying for plain, and it's also easy to see her staying best friends with Bobby. Whether or not they become romantically involved, or simply prove it's possible for men and women to stay friends, would depend on whether Bobby feels it's all right dating a teammate. But since Scott's looking to date Jean, it's probably all right.
In this context, Scott's motivation for becoming the team's leader is because he hates having control taken away from him and getting ordered around. As such, he figured that being the leader was the best way to maintain control over his life and minimize being told what to do. He gradually grows into the leadership role and gets less angry, learning to trust people, but still often responds to challenges and fights with "No, fuck you." Like the original character under his better writers, Scott still has a fierce broad-spectrum compassion, and a good sense of duty and heroism and will do the right thing because it's the right thing.
With him, I decided to just go ahead and streamline his origin story. Toss out the stuff welded on later and the more nonsensical details, keep the basic idea and a few of the more interesting bits. So he's from Alaska, got thrown out of an exploding plane with his younger brother and suffered some mild brain damage as a result, and he and Alex are living together within the foster system. And while he'd be able to make his peace with his younger brother going off to a permanent family and a better life, Alex doesn't want to be split up. Either adopt both Summers brothers, or neither.
So it ends up being neither. They run away with the hope of Scott getting the resources to become an emancipated minor and becoming Alex's legal guardian, without any weird experimentations on Scott retconned in later, without Professor X waiting to recruit him, without tearful good-byes and with both brothers - yes, just the two of them, really - knowing they've got at least one person left in their family.
(It's also entirely possible, though not relevant to the story at hand, that their mother survived the exploding plane instead of their father and she's the one who became a kickass space pirate.)
Scott and Alex's powers kick in at the same time, but the fallout of the accidents ends up with Alex in the hospital for a couple of months. In the meantime, Scott is taken into Xavier's, the first one of the five to settle in.
And then start yelling at the Professor, because he has the money to pay for every single one of Alex's medical bills, and keep the house, and maintain that fancy jet and the supercomputer, and all this stuff, and they can't be the only mutants he's found by now. There have to be more, and they have to do right by them.
Because it'd do Xavier some good to be yelled at every now and then, and Scott's correct. One of the better things of the first two X-Men movies was having loads of students running around the mansion, and while it'd take some time to get the comic to there, it could be done. There's a field team, and there's a home team, and there's all the kids trying to pass math class while also trying to get a handle on being able to levitate or change the channel by blinking.
Alex is on the home team. Warren is on the field team.
One of the more noteworthy things about Warren is that he decided to be a superhero before joining the X-Men. They found him and asked him to join the team when he was already flying around and saving people because he'd decided he ought to do that. Not even Scott did that - not that he had the time to, but the point stands. He never had to be a superhero, but as soon as he found out he had powers - powers nobody gave to him, and didn't come about from what he did to himself, powers he was simply born with - he decided to do good and help people. This points to a fundamental altruism essential to the character.
Additionally, of the original five X-Men, Angel is the most visibly mutated, even more than Beast. It's possible for him to hide and 'pass' as human, but only imperfectly and at great difficulty. What would be interesting for the X-Men as a whole would be to have someone so far removed from the standard human template that they wouldn't be able to walk out the front door under pretty much any circumstances - and Angel would be the best candidate for that. Push his mutations a little more, while maintaining that altruistic viewpoint, and see what happens.
In one of Marvel's many "would have been better as a limited series instead of an ongoing title" ideas, there was an alternate universe version of Angel with bat-like wings instead of feathered ones, firebreathing, claws instead of fingernails, and all the comic book-style changes needed for the flight, just like normal. In this imaginary iteration, there would be two more things: he'd have blue skin with yellow eyes and blond hair, and was born with everything except the firebreathing. This also provides a more aggressive power set that people keep trying to revamp and redo to little success, since nothing sticks for long. Changing the powers somewhat from the outset while keeping the person behind them as close to the same as possible is a take on the character I can't recall seeing before.
Instead of Angel, his codename would be "Gargoyle." He might consider changing to to "Angel" sometime later, as Biblical angels are downright terrifying - and Xavier basically introduced him to his classmates by saying "Fear not."
Warren grew up in extreme social isolation, raised by a small staff in an isolated Worthington estate with monthly visits from his father and, after he turned four and she left, from his mother as well. He learned to fly when he was about seven years old, and the firebreathing came in at fourteen or fifteen, with his claws filed down for most of his life. The circumstances of his childhood meant he has no real practice or experience in social situations, and as a result, falls back on the formal etiquette training he got drilled into him. He's not great with people for a lot of reasons, and it doesn't help the extreme politeness used as a defensive mechanism can sometimes come off as aloofness. But he still wants to do good by people, even if he doesn't handle himself well around them, even if he knows he's a freak his parents didn't like to touch. Like the rest of the team, being an X-Man would let him feel somewhat normal and accepted; it's just that for him, it'd be the first time.
On a metatextual level, having a non-human-looking character from the beginning would counteract a lot of the unfortunate vibes that come from the X-Men having almost no members with visible mutations and the villains being the ones to look monstrous. Additionally, when other visibly mutated people join the team, such as Nightcrawler, these characters would be able to talk to each other and bond over their shared circumstances. They'd join together to explain to everyone else that they know it's hard being a mutant but it's even harder when they can't walk out the front door and keep on walking, and nobody else really understands the depth of that. Because freaky blue people who are the kindest, sweetest ones around is a trope that's never going to get old.
(It's Nightcrawler who asks him one day up on the roof - leathery wings, breathes fire, lives in a castle, has vast amounts of wealth, "Are you sure you’re not a dragon?")
The real challenge in all this goes beyond redesigning the characters and moves onto seeing if tone, concept, and ideology remain recognizable. That's the part which would take more work, and it's still something which could be pulled off without any fuss. Beyond remaining faithful to the original personality dynamics, beyond the two hooks of "inborn powers" and "mutants defending a world that hates and fears them."
I've seen it pointed out that of the major superhero teams at Marvel, the Fantastic Four is a family, the Avengers is a club, and the X-Men is a school. One of the best things about school in general is the sense, even if it's an arbitrary one, of shared community and purpose. Distilling that sensation for the X-Men, whatever the power set of any given team, would accomplish that.
Going beyond that to the X-Men as metaphor for chosen communities and oppressed culture - which, granted, can't shoot force beams out of their eyes in the real world, but this is comic books here - and it still all works.
And now that I've written this out, I can finally stop thinking about it.