Are X-Men Couples even worth supporting?

What I mean is that most of the established couples and relationships within the team have been disbanded and forgotten about by not only the writers but by the characters as well who don't seem to think about their past interactions.

There are almost no relationships currently (Storm/Wolvy being the only one i can think of) and the majority of the recent ones tend to have been played for temporary plot devices rather then contributing any type of character development to the characters involved. And truthfully the constant interplay between the characters in the X-titles sometimes shines a negative light on the team when someone say....pulls out a relationship chart.

So is it really worth supporting characters being together when the books ignore the significance of their relationship, or decide that the only reason a couple should be formed is for the shock value of the issue and nothing else?

also: Why do you support the relationships/pairings/Friends-with-benefits that you do?

I think no… but for me thats a good thing because I have never been a fan of 95 percent of the relationships in X-Men. Even when my favorite characters have connected together I haven't been a fan of the way writers portrayed them and I felt most were actually harmed by the pairing. Even when I have liked a pairing I have still figured a temporary romance was better long term. Like I really enjoyed Emma and Cyclops as a short term thing but not a long term option. I don't think the writer that put them together and wrote them best intended for it to be long term either.

There are a few relationships I think could work out long term and therefore could invest in but even those are between what could be considered primary X-Men members and secondary. Beast and Agent Brand, Storm and Forge as examples. I don't find that team/group based comics are generally conductive for character relationships unless its a small team and those characters were basically designed for each other and or its a member of the team dating someone outside it (Fantastic Four, X-Factor for examples) - an exception might be Kitty and Colossus.

No, there are very FEW marvel couples outside the X-Verse that are together, but pretty much anyone in the x-men is over...

Some couples outside the x-men are together and you can support but the x-men... Not worth it...

Probably not but I will despite how much it hurts.

Laurie and Josh were worth supporting.

While I dont like how writers tend to allow a relationship or a couple to hijack a whole team and storyline, I do think Marvel's wanton destruction of any relationship is stupid. I'd support Havok-Polaris, Cyclops-Emma (but only if Emma doesn't just play sex toy in the background but is really assertive like she is beloved for being), Gambit-Rogue, Hellion-X23. Those are all relationships I would support. I also want Karma in a relationship. Might be cool to have her finally bag Kitty lol.

Nope

Writers will inevitably force a breakup

When it comes to relationships I think they do make the books more interesting and without any romance they would lose something which is important to the book. I enjoy reading about when people get together even though it can be annoying and sad when they break up, for example i was so sad with kitty and colossus after secret wars. The problem is you have no control over who is together and as so many writers who do have control have different ideas. In the end I just have to let its go, and re visit the memories of that relationship, but ultimately move on. You are all right though relationship continuity is a problem within the x books, but some say the same for all continuity. I dont know mixed feeling on the subject, relationships are good but dont get too attached as with new writers and editors comes change and heart breaks.

I agree.

Writers will almost always put a character with someone that will not be good for the character because friction is interesting and perfect relationships are boring. Wolverine and Jean is a decent example. They compliment each other quite well, which is exactly why they were never allowed to be together, even though they have had many opportunities.

Ignoring my personal opinions on Wolverine and Jean as a couple, I can see the general point here. There's a fear that a happy couple is a boring couple so we generally only get just enough happy that we feel bad when they have a tragic separation. It's like the middle part of the relationship isn't as dramatic as the beginning or the end of the relationship despite anyone who's been in a relationship knowing that isn't the case.

But then again, people stopped caring about Scott and Jean a decade before they split because all the early magic of clones, cosmic forces, kids from the future, and kids come back to the past...had sort of ran its course and settled down. But even though no one cared when they were together the idea of "THE" X-men couple splitting up was unthinkable. So there's merit in the idea that the beginning and end are the most interesting parts....but if your telling a story i dont think you should go in with that idea.

@koays: Yeah, I know the Wolverine/Jean thing is not for everyone. I probably should have chosen a better example because some might disagree with the idea simply because they disagree with the couple used lol.

@erik: Lol yea, i admit i started to do that myself.

@rodwell: When it comes to relationships I think they do make the books more interesting and without any romance they would lose something which is important to the book. I enjoy reading about when people get together even though it can be annoying and sad when they break up, for example i was so sad with kitty and colossus after secret wars. The problem is you have no control over who is together and as so many writers who do have control have different ideas. In the end I just have to let its go, and re visit the memories of that relationship, but ultimately move on. You are all right though relationship continuity is a problem within the x books, but some say the same for all continuity. I dont know mixed feeling on the subject, relationships are good but dont get too attached as with new writers and editors comes change and heart breaks.

Saying don't get too attached to relationships is ridiculous. It's a important part of most characters and one of the few bright parts of comics that left. It doesn't help when it's poorly planned/ writers or editors have a personal vendetta against it leading to character assassination and just plain ugly writing.

Shipping couples when it comes to comics is too frustrating. There's been mention of classic pair-ups in earlier comments on this thread and I agree with people's opinions for the most part. I never thought I would like Emma and Scott but I do, and pair-ups like Spider Woman and Hawkeye I've managed to like (and that's over).

Just give me good stories, and if there's romance to be had, or hook-ups, or whatever, that's okay too. I don't like pair-ups for the sake of making one character look better. That annoys me.

I support relationships in certain characters, as I think it strengthens them. Scott and Jean wouldn't have been half the people they turned out to be if it weren't for each other, and I believe that's possible for current pairings.

I really like younger characters' relationships, like the one blooming between O5 Angel and X-23 in All New, as I think it will help to develop both characters. As well as this, it makes it more realistic. As an older teen myself, I know that a lot of stuff happening around me right now is centred around sex and love. Everyone seems to want a boyfriend/girlfriend, and I actually don't see why Jean Grey School or New Xavier School students would be any different. I can identify with some of the relationships, and I like that.

@night4345:

I wasn't very good at explaining my self but by saying "don't get too attached" It was more in meaning, realize that whatever relationship you are routing for with x characters will come to an end with new writers. I didnt really want it to mean dont get into the current relationships or dont enjoy them. You are write in saying that they are a bright part of comics now days and they do give me a lot of interest. Also as you say they are an vital part of a characters history.

I do like the idea of there being relationships off of the teams. It would allow more long term relationships without derailing the teams but still available for a story here or there. Perhaps like what they're doing with Kitty and Starlord, something that is just in the background of a book, where it doesn't need to be front and center but can linger and just peacefully be. The point being to show how the bond can be a good thing and as an alternative to the constant partner swapping that goes on. Would it really be too much to ask for one long term lasting couple in the mutant universe? I doubt this will happen but I wish editors would make it so. Even if it's a couple I don't care for.

i loved the gambit-rogue shit and warren-betsy thing. sad they didnt have kids in an alternate timeline.

i think kitty and iceman has one.

do you think kymera is wolvie's?

For some reason I cannot explain, Hellion and X-23 are the only relationship, that even though has never actually happened, I still have a thing for.

I didn't care one way or another about their relationship at first. I just sort of liked how it played into the team dynamic of New X-Men (What with the whole Prodigy/Surge/Hellion/X-23 love/hate square).

THEN i read the issue where X-23 basically says "Despite your recent tragedy and need for companionship or some form of moral support, the writers have decided that I no longer have feelings for you....Now good-bye, I'm off to join Avengers Academy where i truly belong for some reason" I wasn't attached to it, but it definitely didn't deserve that.

Circa 2005.

Colossus and Magik.

@koays:

I didn't care one way or another about their relationship at first. I just sort of liked how it played into the team dynamic of New X-Men (What with the whole Prodigy/Surge/Hellion/X-23 love/hate square).

To me, the most problematic part of in their slow development was kinda inconsistent portrayal of Hellion. His original writers made him a "charismatic" teen-alpha with a mutant attitude and inclination for radical solutions. For some reason, K/Y lost most of it within his characterization beyond the "cocky" part, and even that faded away after some time. You would expect that even before losing his arms we could've find him breaking bad, yet somehow he tried to teach X-23 "the ways of the X-men" when she tried to kill some scumbags, that, after the exploding bus and a failed attempt of Purifying the school. I mean it's like he was experiencing some sort of a change or a trauma that was never explored. Still their untold yet kind of mutual feelings towards each other were sweet as hell to follow, especially on Laura's part with Mercury and Dust mostly as the supportive friends for both of them. It's like they've just began the exploration, but they ended this run and now NXM are shells of some uninteresting plots and X-23.... well, we all know what she's becoming under Bendis' pen.

THEN i read the issue where X-23 basically says "Despite your recent tragedy and need for companionship or some form of moral support, the writers have decided that I no longer have feelings for you....Now good-bye, I'm off to join Avengers Academy where i truly belong for some reason" I wasn't attached to it, but it definitely didn't deserve that.

Their first interaction during Liu's run was actually one of the best ones, literally. I really don't get why she had to throw Julian under the bus in the end though, I mean we could maybe have an emotional scene instead of that badly written culmination we've got ultimately. I'm still not over it lol

@adamtrmm: Well yea, K/Y sort of moved Hellion to a completely different portrayal, but for where the book was heading I think they needed less of a douce then Hellion was...though I completely agree considering how angry he was at first over his friends death during the bus attack it was crazy for him to be the voice of reason for X-23...but it's X-23 so I'll give him maybe he was shocked by what she was doing to them. The scariest thing is that by the end of the run he becomes a much chiller individual then alot of the other characters. ...and then when we see him again during Dark Reign he's back to doing whatever he feels like leading protest and stuff.

New X-men was definitely canceled before it was ready to be because I don't remember a single plot point that started after the limbo arc resolving before Messiah Complex

@koays:

The scariest thing is that by the end of the run he becomes a much chiller individual then alot of the other characters. ...and then when we see him again during Dark Reign he's back to doing whatever he feels like leading protest and stuff.

Exactly, with that almost executing Karima thing... and X-23 pushing him away, I won't accept any character development before it all will be acknowledged and addressed.

New X-men was definitely canceled before it was ready to be because I don't remember a single plot point that started after the limbo arc resolving before Messiah Complex

As relieving is a thought that Aaron has never touched these characters, I still fail to understand why X-office is acting like they never had a very solid (sell-wise) run and don't deserve any attempt of promotion, for some reason it's just Pixie taking the spotlight from time to time.

Idk either, the best i can think is that when some genius decided to skim the cast down for Young X-Men(dropping all the main characters and replacing them with supporting ones) and the book got canceled, it sort of left no place for the team. And after a few years without a book(during which even regular X-men were struggling for relevance) I can see why they would consider a fresh cast of new students rather then reintroducing 6 or 7 older ones that may alienate new readers.

Still, no excuse for not using them at all or for ignoring the significance of their team when you return to the setting they established. I like Pixie, but she's mostly just there for a useful powerset and has very little personality, while i can actually see Surge, Hellion, Prodigy, Dust etc.. being noteworthy/contributing members of a team beyond being a miniature X-Jet with butterfly wings.

Well, we have four books that deal with youngsters and even when NXM have their time they're nothing but some plot-devise idiot students (Hellion recently anybody? :()

@adamtrmm: Well I would defend

Hellion stuff from X-men but combined with Latour ' s stuff it looks bad...though really it depends if he stays prominent in the next arcs for both books.

It's all depend the couples. If we're talking about Cyclops and Emma or Magneto and Rogue for example, then no.

@koays:

Well I would defend Hellion stuff from X-men but combined with Latour ' s stuff it looks bad...though really it depends if he stays prominent in the next arcs for both books.

No man, you can't do that :( You can't possibly tell me you liked that Bromo Inferior bizarre stuff Wood dealt with. How could a fan of New X-men actually like that didactics of battle morality and value of... life, Psylocke was all preachy about? I mean, it's like K/Y's developments have never actually happened, they never witnessed death and they're just that random, arrogant children with no history of loss and darkness to be acknowledged. They should've laughed in Betsy's face right there.

Even though there are a couple of relationships I still support (Kitty and Colossus and Rogue and Gambit), it's kind of hard for me to really care who these characters hook up with next because the next writer will just break them up for no reason than to cause drama and it's starting to wear really thin on my nerves. There are times where I just wish that the characters don't get involved in a relationship and just stay single for awhile so that way the stories can focus on them as characters.

@adamtrmm: The way I saw it, it was a way of sort of easing back into the ways of New X-men.

During New X-men the kids were proactive, aggressive and constantly running into situations over there head and the x-men didn't seem to mind because bad guys were going down. Then Oya does the same thing the New X_men wouldve but crosses a line so they put a leash on all the kids and declared the JGS a no fight zone.

Psylocke's moment seemed to be a way of saying that she accepts that a New X-men like Hellion would want to fightbacm, but that if their going to do it then the New X-men way isn't going to work and here's why....

This is a very accurate interpretation, but let's not forget that besides X-23 (and somewhat Elixir) none of them were "those guys who'll really pull the trigger". Hellion felt neglected and his narcissism was damaged with those prosthetic arms, that's why the whole Omega Sentinel incident happened (weather we like it or not). For that Cyclops almost threatened to kick him out and even his closest friends were like strangers to him during this period. Then he was about to leave Utopia when Rogue, of all people, stopped him with the most convincing "there's still good in you". And suddenly he's hanging with his friends again, like nothing has ever happened, gets lessons of morality, like he himself wasn't giving those when actual killing took place.

The problem with the X-Men, at least from the perspective of the lazy creative staff that get assigned to come up with new issues is that most of them do not to be burdened with continuing a relationship that they did not create themselves. We see this over and over again, 2 characters will have a connection develop during a particular creators run and then as titles end and new creators come onto titles and they might not like a particular relationship and kill it off so their own ideas can come to the forefront. Personally I think there should be more relationships in the pages of X-Men titles. People seem to forget that one of the main strengths of the X-Men is that some of the time when things are quiet the interplay between characters can lead to great material. Now its all event, story arc, event with little time taken for the character building moments aside from those that come out in conflict.

Well i get this point, Hellion's character development was dropped and took a crazy left somewhere. But even during New X-Men I could see him being put in the same situation as say Oya was and getting similar results , same with Surge, Dust and even Elixer.

There was a bit of a leap in characterization during the "Bromo" arc, but it's for the better in his case. As him being a character who isn't afraid to stand up for his friends and do what's necessary and who is always ready to fight back is more in line with his character then the bad seed who can't be trusted and reacts faster then he thinks. I prefer this Psylocke's protege Hellion, to the one we were getting in every other depiction and i think i can accept it as him becoming more like himself.

I definitely agree with this! The problem with this is that too many different creative teams want to do something different with the characters, despite ignoring what was previously established in the continuity. I feel like we might never get a relationship that lasts long in the X-Men comics as long as the creative teams keep ignoring established continuity to write the characters the way they want them to (which there is nothing wrong with doing something different with the characters as long as they don't take it too far).

A very interesting point. The fact is Scott and Jean (love em or hate em) are classic. Throughout multiple creative teams and editors they existed as a couple to the point that it is still considered to be status quo for a fresh X-Men series. But there will never be another Scott and Jean because there will never be a long term relationship between characters allowed to thrive for as long as they did to where it is significant. And it looks bad considering how many relationships the characters end up in with people in their immediate vicinity as a result, which combined with the X-Men's "family" outlook almost seems incestuous at times.

A problem that also slides into other aspects of X-Men characterizations. Aside from Psylocke and Cyclops there aren't any characters who have had character arcs that have lasted from one pen to another in recent years. Everything is short sighted and very few people take the time to look at where the character came from or where their going and seem to just care about what will look good for the 3 months before the next event.

Rachel Grey/Sublime could've been a big deal (for better or worse) considering her parental issues but even that didn't get very far because the implications of it weren't looked at until the end.

I agree with all this. It seems like there are very few X-Men characters who could sustain titles beyond the main titles (with the possible exceptions of Mystique, Rogue, if you include the X-Men Legacy series and Gambit) and I would like to see all of these X-Men characters stand as their own characters under the right creative team.

@rabbitearsblog: No one wants to develop characters anymore and if the writers don't care...why should we?

And that's the sad truth.

I don't think so, but Jean and Cyclops would be worth supporting.

I have a question to ask everyone: If there was a chance that the older couples that you enjoyed in the past would come back together again (Cyclops/Jean Grey, Kitty/Colossus, Rogue/Gambit), how would you change the development of their relationships in order to make these relationships interesting again?

Tell you the truth, Oya hasn't benefited from that situation Cyclops forced her into and as the result we ended up with her iterating from panel to panel "I'm a soulless monster", I mean c'mon, how lazy is this? This is Jason Aaron on X-men we're talking about, when the guy was asked what X-character he would like to write a solo about he answered "Deathlok", see what I mean? The same in universe situation could be explored so much better by any worthy X-writer, or at least 100% better than Aaron did by almost anybody else. But I agree, it would be so much more interesting to see a New X-man in this position, but without a visionary writer, who actually likes and respects this character, I prefer them untouched, after all those unsuccessful attempts of development, this is my opinion.

Maybe he was closer to what his core is, but it is still not really the character I see him becoming or even still "in development" to become. In universe, there is a video of Murderworld being a "best-viewer" throughout the internet, with Laura taking a big part of it, but who am I kidding? Such subtle reactions are long gone. Now it's all about testaments, bastards, trolling, gossip and "OMG"-situations.

@sc:

I much prefer mentor/student, father/daughter/son, brother/sister, best friend relationships as opposed to romantic relationships. I must say that I do love Colossus and Kitty together, but when you have a comic/story that goes on for decades, it can be boring for the same couple to go on and on and on and on. But at the same time, the hot and cold of it is very annoying. One of them is always dead or mad at the other. Just can't win I guess.
I absolutely love Wolverine and Kitty's relationship. That mentor/student interaction has always been my favorite.

I really loved the friendships and the father and daughter relationships in this series also. Probably my most favorite friendship was between Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler! Their adventures were always fun to look at! I also loved Kitty and Wolverine's relationship with each other and I want to see more of that.

@adamtrmm: Very true about Aaron/Oya. He dropped the ball completely there, to the point that I don't think there was one meaningful conversation with or about Oya prior to her getting over her issues despite her being the catalyst for the Jgs.

I recall a moment in New X-men where they acknowledged the Young Avengers in a subtle way that connected to the events of their book. The fact that nothing has been said about X-23 is more then just poor oversight when you consider the most important characters to her development arent even mentioning her. A lil bit of continuity wouldve gone a long way . But continuity isn't what marvels about....it's ease of access.

Rabbitearsblog: Keeping them interesting is simple to me.

Scott and Jean would do whatever dance around eachother they had too in order to repair their relationship. Then rather then make them the focal point of each others storylines I'd make Jean go out and explore who she is as a character and where she fits in while Scott continues his own development. Maybe their in different books, maybe their on different teams. But they'd both have their own things going on with their relationship coming into play when they need someone to lean on.

Theirs no rule that says that a relationship means you can only tell relationship stories other wise your stuck retelling "Courtship, fighting, marriage, breakup" over and over again when really both characters are usually more then there relationship individually and should be able to have more then that going on. Life doesn't stop just because you get a girlfriend

This happens with all the Avengers relationships, as well as the various DC relationships. It's not an x-men thing it's just something that happens in comics.

I agree. You almost can't have the same couple in comics, like you're able to do in movies or novels, because comics go on for, literally, decades. You will eventually run out of any sort of development for those characters if they merely stay with the same person for 50+ years.

Yup, I mean they unmarried Superman and Louis and Spider-Man and MJ, so no couple is safe.(Except for Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman)