Title: Goodbyes and Sweet Love

Author: Rabbitearsblog

Universe: X-Men

Rating: T - slight mention of sexual tensions, although not graphic at all.

Summary: After the events of Schism, Kitty and Colossus decided to share one last romantic moment together before they split up from each other.

Notes: This is just a little short monologue between Kitty and Colossus, no action in this story, just some sweet conversation. I was so inspired by Joss Whedon's writing of this couple in his "Astonishing X-Men" run that I just had to write a short story about how the events of Schism affected these two personally. Enjoy and be gentle with the criticisms!

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Everything is quiet at the Institute and everyone is sleeping away the past horrific events where the Sentinels attacked Utopia. Kitty Pryde, CODENAME: Shadowcat, a young mutant who has been training most of her life with the X-Men, silently walked among the silent hallways of the Institute, pondering about the events that just taken place, but thought more about the issues plaguing fellow X-Men member and *sigh* lover, Piotr Rasputin, CODENAME: Colossus.

It had been several days since Piotr Rasputin took on the powers of the Cyttorak in order to prevent his sister, Illyana Rasputin, CODENAME: Magik, from taking on the Juggernaut power herself. Now, after the fight between Logan, CODENAME: Wolverine and Scott Summers, CODENAME: Cyclops, the X-Men have decided to break up from each other and in the middle of this crisis, Piotr decided to stay with Scott on Utopia because he did not want to hurt the children with his new powers. Deep down, Kitty understood this, for Piotr has a good heart, but it still hurt her inside that she might never see him again. Kitty silently approached the door to Colossus’ room and she took a deep breath and murmured:

“Alright, I’m calm. I’m cool. I got this in the bag. I can do this because if I don’t do this, then I’m going to totally go crazy and lose my mind….Here we go.”

Kitty knocked on the door slowly and she heard deep footsteps coming towards the door and there stood Piotr, in his regular human form, tall and handsome as ever before.

“Katya? What brings you here so late at night?”

“Well, I just want to, you know, talk about some stuff.”

“Come in. Please.”

Kitty slowly walked into the room and went and sat on Piotr’s bed. Piotr slowly walked across the room and sat down next to her and started talking.

“Well, this is quite unexpected, especially after our last talk over the horizon.”

“Yeah, well that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Look, I know that you’ve made your decision about staying on Utopia and all that, but you know, you still got a place here Peter.”

“Katya, forgive me for saying this, but I cannot stay here. I am a danger to all the students…and I am a danger to you. I do not know what these…frightening powers are capable of. I do not want to hurt anyone…especially you.”

Kitty was silent for a few minutes and then she said: “Peter, I’m not going to lie to you. I’ll admit that these powers are totally scary right now and I don’t know what they can do. But I do know one thing, I care about you too much to really care about that and I’m not going to let this ultra scary power that you have right now split us up. At least, not as long we live.”

Piotr looked at Kitty with sadness in his eyes and said, “I know, Katya. I know. I should have said this a long time ago and now I am going to say it: I Love You Katya.”

Kitty looked up at Piotr in shock and stared deeply in his eyes, with the words, “I Love You” echoing in her mind like a heavenly church bell on Sunday morning. Piotr continued, “I loved you since the day we met and I was too shy to really say it, to say how I truly felt about you. I know, I can be so frustrating sometimes that you would be telling me off for hours long until your hair falls out.”

Kitty laughed quietly.

Piotr smiled, “There, sometimes I can tell good joke if I know when the time is good. But, in all seriousness, if I let my powers get out of hand and I hurt you, I will never forgive myself. I will not let the love of my life suffer for my mistakes and that is why I have to stay in Utopia. To protect the ones I love.”

Kitty looked at Piotr and said: “You are one frustrating, foolish, mysterious, kind-hearted and ultra sexy guy, Piotr Rasputin.”

Piotr smiled again and said: “I know.”

Kitty sat up on the bed and said “Whoa, major tension here. So much has happened lately and I’m all wiped out.” Piotr sat up next to her and said, “As I am Katya.”

“Piotr, let’s not let this tragedy get to us. Let’s spend these last few moments together, as long as we live. Who knows when we will ever get back together again? I want to at least spend these last moments knowing that we took that chance at having the happiness that we wanted and that we never backed down from getting that happiness.”

Piotr then held Kitty close to him and said, “My thoughts exactly Katya.” The two lovers then kissed each other, putting all of their souls into it, then they lied on the bed and starting kissing more deeply and tenderly than before and then…everything was all sunshine and flowers from then on.

The next morning, Piotr and Kitty lay on the bed together, holding each other closely until they woke up. Kitty said, “Oh man, it’s morning already?” Kitty got up and started putting on her clothes while Piotr followed. “I believe it is,” said Piotr, “and it’s also the day that we all leave for Utopia.” “Aww…don’t say that Peter. Not when things are getting good between us.” “I know, Katya,” Piotr smiled. After the two X-Men got dressed, they came upon the horizon where half of the other X-Men members were preparing to leave for Utopia, the X-Men who would be following Cyclops. Piotr and Kitty came towards the other X-Men and stopped briefly.

“Well Piotr, I guess this is good-bye.”

“It is Katya, but soon we will come together again.”

“And when we do, it will be when we finally have hope in a brighter future again.”

“Yes. Hopefully, our future will look bright again.”

As Piotr approached the plane that headed to Utopia, he turns back and tells Kitty, “Katya, I will try to come back to you. This I promise you.”

“And I will always have you in my heart Piotr Rasputin. You better come back to me, you hear?”

Piotr smiled one last time and said, “I will try Katya. I will.”

Piotr got on the plane and the plane heading for Utopia lifted up and flew through the air. Kitty took one last look towards the horizon and turned back toward the Institute, with a single tear falling from her eye.

Alright, so everyone knows that X-Men: Schism has just started and now the teams are split up into two different groups - Cyclops' group who are still remaining on Utopia and have declared themselves as "Earth's Mightest Heroes" and Wolverine's group who have all moved back to Westchester and started a school for the mutant children. While this is an interesting idea for more characters to get more development, what will become of the X-Men at this point? The X-Men have broke up before in the past, but they managed to put aside their differences and work towards the greater good together. So now it seems like this split might be more difficult to mend than it was in the past since it now involves the future of the mutant children, whether or not the students should become soldiers and fight for their lives or just be regular students living a normal childhood. So what is coming up for the X-Men and will their lives change forever (seriously this time?)

Well, judging by the "Things to Come" previews, we see that the X-Men are going to be in worse situations than ever before and it's possible that either one of the characters might die or some big event is going to force the X-Men to come back together. Of course, the X-Men will have to come back together because the way I see it, all the characters in the X-Men universe co-exist with each other. I'm not saying that either title is not going to be successful without the other characters being with them because as long as the writing is good, then both of these series will be successful. However, if I would to read “Wolverine and the X-Men,” then it would be difficult for me to read this series without characters like Storm and Colossus being in it and the same is said for “Uncanny X-Men” as it would be hard to read this series without Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, or Iceman being in it, so the X-Men would have to reunite with each other at some point because those are the characters that all fans love the most. Also, even if one of the X-Men characters die, then they will probably be brought back to life anyway since in comic books, characters come back to life (except for Uncle Ben), however if one of the characters does die, then I would want that particular character’s death to affect the characters to the point where the other characters think about their actions and how they would try to prevent this same incident in the future. It would be a great opportunity to explore the character’s emotions during these tragic events and how they try to cope with the event.

So in my opinion, I think that the X-Men will have some problems ahead of them before they actually come back together since this event not only works on a more drastic scale, but since it concerns the future of the mutant children, it works on a more emotional and risky scale. The schism started because both Wolverine and Cyclops want to protect mutantkind from extinction, but both have different methods in approaching this problem. Cyclops wanted to use the children to fight battles while Wolverine wanted the children to enjoy having a regular childhood and because of this, I have a feeling that some kind of tragedy is going to strike both sides of Cyclops’ and Wolverine’s teams and with the “Things to come” promos, this further confirms the idea about a tragedy striking the X-Men. This tragedy might cause both Cyclops and Wolverine to realize their mistakes in separating the team in the first place and they might possibly become better friends or better teammates in the future because they both learn that while they want to protect mutantkind from extinction, they need to work together to accomplished their goals in protecting the mutant race from extinction. Basically, the whole gist of this schism (and I hope that the writers take notice of this) is that the X-Men needs to learn to work together to protect mutants from extinction and therefore, it would provide a much stronger relationship between both Cyclops’ and Wolverine’s teams if they had encounter some kind of major event that would force them to work together and realize the repercussions of the schism. It could have some positive consequences (the rebuilding of the school) and some negative consequences (the idea about losing the focus of Professor Xavier’s dream), but as long as the X-Men realize the possible consequences that can result from the Schism, then they might be on the road to forming a stronger team than ever before.

So what do you think will become of the X-Men after Schism? Will they stay apart from each other permanently or will they eventually come back together?

What I meant by this is that for example, what happens if there are like 70 different writers writing for Spiderman? Would that be way too many writers writing for Spiderman and changing the storyline every few issues? It is true that over time, there will always be a different writer to a comic book series since I can’t really see the same writer writing for the same comic book series for over 30 years (although it’s possible that some writers have written comic book stories for that long).

At one point in time, there were very few comic book writers that wrote one series. For example, when X-Men first came out, the only writers writing for the X-Men series at the time were Chris Claremont and Stan Lee. Therefore, the stories in the X-Men series always remained consistent with the continuity of the stories and the characters. However, over the years, more new writers like Joss Whedon, Matt Fraction, Grant Morrison and Ed Brubaker came and wrote new stories for the X-Men series. While it was interesting seeing all kinds of different writers pitch in to write the X-Men series, it became difficult to follow the stories since every time a new writer comes in, the characters either changed their personalities completely or the events that a new writer creates does not follow the events that the last writer wrote.

Probably the most popular example of where a new writer writes in a totally different direction from the entire comic run of one series would be on “Ultimate X-Men” when volume 19, “Absolute Power” had a totally different writer and it depicted that Ultimate Colossus was a drug addict and was using a drug called Banshee to make himself stronger. The problem with this scenario was that the older issues of “Ultimate X-Men” that were written by Mark Millar and Bendis, never stated that Colossus had used drugs and therefore, when we read the volume “Absolute Power,” the story is lost on us and we are wondering about how this situation even came about in the first place.

So, what is my opinion on all this? Personally, I have no problems with having different writers write one line of a comic book series like X-Men or Spiderman because we have the chance to experience the characters in a different light such as one writer writing a character to be good hearted while the next writer writes the character to be cruel and vicious and we can explore the character on a more universal level in that manner. As long as the writer can write a story that has plenty of action, brilliant character development and characters interacting with each other, then it doesn’t really matter to me about how the story is written, just as long as the story can catch my attention and I can invest myself into the characters. The only problem that comes with having too many different writers writing for the same comic line like Spiderman is that we are subjected to having too many different plots and drastic changes to the characters’ personalities and if the new writers wrote these changes in a way that doesn’t really make a lot of sense within that universe, then I would be very upset at how the writer made drastic changes to the characters and the story lines without a proper development to the situations. I think it also depends on the reader about what type of writing they enjoy like if you enjoy comics that develop the characters and have the characters interact with each other, then find writers that can write that type of story or if you love straightforward action without going through character developments, then find writers that has that type of writing.

Every writer has a different style of writing a story and only the reader can decide which stories they want to invest their time in reading. So as far as having different writers write one line of comic books, the positive side is that we would be exposed to many different views of the characters and the situations at hand, but on the negative side, it would cause so much confusion among fans who are trying to figure out what is really happening in the story while following the time line that was set in the story.

So what do you think? Do you think that there are too many writers writing for one line of a comic book series and that the comic book industry needs to limit the number of writers in order to make the stories flow together easily or is it a good thing to have many different writers writing one series?

The X-Men titles have been around for over 50 years now and over time, there have been many different X-Men titles coming from this series. Among the X-Men titles that were made over the years, these included: “X-Men,” “Uncanny X-Men,” “X-Factor,” “X-Men Legacy,” “Generation Hope,” “New Mutants,” “Astonishing X-Men,” “Wolverine and the X-Men,” and “X-Force.” While it is interesting that there can be so many different stories being told about the X-Men universe, is it possible that there are too many X-Men titles to keep up with?

For many years now, there were two mainstream X-Men titles that represented the X-Men universe and they were “X-Men” and “Uncanny X-Men.” Both of these titles are still running to this very day, but over the years, there were more X-titles being made which included “Astonishing X-Men” and “X-Men Legacy” and at one point, these titles did mingled with each other in telling the audience what is happening in one arc, a good example of this would be in the X-Men comics called “The Shattering” where it combined various X-Men comics from “Uncanny X-Men” to “Astonishing X-Men” to tell one story that involved the separation of the X-Men. However, nowadays, continuity is a bit nonexistent and the titles ended up having stories of their own. Therefore, this can often cause confusion among the fans about which X-Men titles has the real story. Also, for newer fans of X-Men comics, it would be difficult to figure out where to start off reading in the X-Men comics, especially if there comes a day where the original X-Men comics went out of stock and you only have the secondary comics to go by.

However, even though there are too many X-Men comics that centers on the mainstream universe, there are some X-Men comics that focused on certain characters and groups. In one mainstream universe, it would be difficult to focus so much attention on all the characters in the X-Men universe since the X-Men universe has so many characters, so it would be much easier if there were X-Men comics that focused on a specific character or group such as “X-Force,” which focuses mainly on the team X-Force and any X-Men miniseries that focuses on one character, most notably the series on the character X-23. Also, “X-Men Legacy” tends to focus on Rogue and it tries to develop on her character.

So in regarding about whether or not Marvel should limit the number of X-Men comics so that way fans would find it much easier to keep up with the stories, I think that there should be one mainstream universe that can tell the fans about what is currently going on in the X-Men universe, maybe just keep either the title “X-Men” or “Uncanny X-Men” since they have been around the longest. However, I do think that Marvel should still make comics regarding certain characters in the X-Universe such as Gambit’s miniseries and X-23’s miniseries. Since most of the X-Men characters do not get enough attention due to competing with other characters to stay in the stories, having a miniseries or separate story lines from the mainstream universe would do each individual character justice. Just look at how much popularity characters like X-23 and Wolverine received because they were able to have stories that revolved around them and got the character development they needed in their own separate series. Also, if a character has gone through a change that cannot be fully explained in the mainstream series, such as possibly the recent transformation of Colossus into Juggernaut or about Wolverine’s recent transformation in being a headmaster of a school, a good miniseries that depicts the changes that the characters take would do the characters much good. On another note, if there are more character miniseries, then it wouldn’t really feel like it’s colliding with the mainstream universe since it’s either looking at the current situation from a certain character’s point of view or it’s in an alternative universe. Also, if Marvel continues doing “Ultimate X-Men,” that definitely would not be a problem as long as fans know that the “Ultimate” comics are like alternate realities of the mainstream universe.

So what do you think? Do you think that Marvel needs to limit the number of comics they have for the X-Men franchise or are they fine where they are?

So anyone who has been reading the X-Men series for a long time knows that all the X-Men members have established long running friendships that made them into such brilliant characters to begin with. But the friendship within the X-Men that was probably the most memorable and long standing was between Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Colossus. These three guys have been through so much together from fighting Magneto to fighting Omega Red. Not only were the action scenes that these guys were involved in epic, but the whole friendly dialogues between these characters were brilliant and hilarious and it was so interesting listening to the random quotes these characters said to each other.

WHAT HAPPENED NOW?

Recently in the mainstream universe, Nightcrawler had died during the event “Second Coming” when he tried to save Hope Summers from Bastion. Now, during the new event “Schism” where the X-Men have split up into two different teams, Wolverine and Colossus are separated as Colossus is on Cyclops’ team and Wolverine is back in Westchester heading up a school. The only bad thing I hate about this split up is that they never really shown us how Wolverine reacts to Colossus’ new transformation as the new Juggernaut, which I think is just as important as Kitty’s reaction to this since Wolverine has been friends with Colossus for a long time. Has Nightcrawler’s death further alienated Wolverine and Colossus from each other or is this a result of poor writing?

Many friendships in the X-Men universe have faltered over so many catastrophic events, but none like this. With one member of the trio dead, what will become of the friendship of the other two members? Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler’s friendship was probably the most memorable out of all the other friendships in the X-Universe because they rarely argued with each other (excluding their first meetings) and they had the most hilarious relationship out of all the other characters.

With Schism happening and the death of mainstream Nightcrawler (not the AOA version), will these three ever be reunited with each other ever again or will this the final goodbye for this memorable friendship?

Alright, so we all know that Marvel has been putting out more event stories every year for the past 10 years or so. The real question is if this is a good thing or a bad thing in regarding to allowing characters to grow as individuals? Lately, there have been so many event stories that states “things are never going to be the same again” or some other statement that it seems like we are not getting to know the characters on a personal level anymore. The problem with having so many events lining up next to each other is that it doesn’t allow the readers to find out how the characters in the story feel about the situations that are coming or it doesn’t allow the characters to be prepared for these events.

Probably the most popular example of this issue is of the current event that is threatening the X-Men universe called “Schism.” In this event, the X-Men are now split up into two separate teams because of a fight between Cyclops and Wolverine. While this event is interesting, it did have some problems in regarding to lack of character development. For one thing, even though Re genesis showed us the reasons why the X-Men members are choosing to side with either Wolverine or Cyclops, you sort of wonder about why would the other X-Men members even chose sides? I mean, when Utopia was being attacked by the Sentinels, the other X-Men members weren’t there to protect Utopia; actually they weren’t even on Utopia, so how could they know about how the fight between Wolverine and Cyclops went down when they weren’t there to see it? Also, the other X-Men members could have been hearing different versions of the fight between Wolverine and Cyclops, so they wouldn’t really know what was really happening and what the real conversation between Wolverine and Cyclops was. If there had been stories before “Schism” that prepared the X-Men for this event, then this whole event probably would have made more sense to the readers. Also, we would have seen how the X-Men characters really reacted to this situation and how they try to cope with this new situation. I also missed out on how the X-Men once treated each other like a family and even though they are in a great divide right now, I would have like to see more character interactions with the characters and how this situation has affected their long standing relationships with each other.

In regarding to characters changing their personalities over the years, the most popular example of a character who went through changes, but was not explored thoroughly enough was Wolverine’s character. I know I have already talked about Wolverine’s personality change in my past blogs so I won’t go into too much detail about this, but let’s just say that his personality in “Schism” was a bit awkward to any fan who has known Wolverine for many years and that this personality change in him was brought out a bit too abruptly without any history about whether or not Wolverine wanted to be a headmaster or has shown concern about making children soldiers in the past. This was a noble change in Wolverine, but it wasn’t developed enough to make his stance believable in “Schism” and this is a great example about what happens when a character goes through a shift in their personalities without any development leading to this change.

So basically, it is alright to have an event every once in awhile, but the characters need to be developed before the event happens so that way, the character’s change in their personalities would not seem so out of place. Also, the events need to affect the characters in some kind of way that will both affect them positively or negatively. Character developments are essential in providing the characters to grow as people and learn from whatever situation has taken place and they would also help the readers better understand the characters and sympathize with them during their times of despair and be happy for them during the times that they are happy.

So what do you think is the best solution for the characters in the Marvel Comics to get more character development? Should Marvel cut back on producing events or should each Marvel character have their own little series that could expand more on their character development?

There are many characters in the comic book universe that die for various reasons, whether it is because a villain ruthlessly kills them or because the character sacrifices their lives to save the world from destruction. In many cases, a character’s death would do great wonders to the character such as making their deaths the most memorable moments in comic book history since they died for a good cause. But there is also the issue with characters being resurrected after they died which could cause the character’s death to be insignificant to their cause.

A popular example of this would be from the X-Men comics when X-Men character, Colossus, dies when he sacrifices his life to protect all the mutants in the world from the Legacy Virus by injecting himself with the virus. Even though Colossus’ death was very noble, he was later on revived in Joss Whedon’s run of “Astonishing X-Men” and therefore, it implied to the readers that he did not have to die to protect the mutants and it sort of made his death meaningless. Also, the explanation for Colossus’ revival was never made clear and seems awkward when he was brought back to life for no plausible reason.

Another good example of a character dying is Jean Grey’s death in the “Dark Phoenix Saga,” which earned Jean Grey the reputation of dying so many times in the X-Men universe and always coming back to life. Jean Grey sacrificed her life in the “Dark Phoenix Saga” when she realized that her Dark Phoenix powers were very destructive and she ended up saving the universe from her Dark Phoenix powers. Even though Jean Grey committed a noble act in saving the world from her powers, she ended up being a plot device in being the character who has died and been revived a million times more than the other characters. So in this case, when Jean Grey dies every time, does her deaths mean anything or are they just used as plot devices to keep the stories interesting?

While it is natural for characters, especially comic book characters, to die, the whole death scenario in comic books have become somewhat meaningless due to the fact that many characters in the comic book universe are constantly being brought back to life for no clear reason every time they die. Whenever there is a death scene in a comic book, the reader is supposed to feel remorse and sadness for the character who has died, however since the characters are always being brought back to life, this takes out the whole emotional aspect of the character’s death and everything becomes very predictable in the long run. Also, if the character’s death involves the character coming to grips with his or her dark powers, then the character might not grow as a person because instead of showing how the characters have to deal with their negative powers, the characters are sometimes killed off if they had dark powers and once they are revived again, they do not seem to experience growth in their characters once their dark powers are revealed.

In my opinion, I think that either the character should never die if they have to deal with a life threatening situation, or they should die permanently in order for the death to be meaningful to their characters. If the characters had died for a good cause such as sacrificing their lives to protect the people they love, then their deaths should mean something special to everyone involved and it should make the character look very heroic in their deeds. Also, the character’s death would set a good example for other heroes to learn by, that’s not to say that all heroes should die, but all heroes have to know when to make a sacrifice in their lives to protect people they care about. Also, in regarding that characters should not die if they have to deal with a situation that threatens their lives, having the character die constantly means that the character will never have growth in their characters. A good example of this would be of Jean Grey as she is always shown as a person who takes on the Phoenix Force and not as an individual person with her own ideals and strengths. If a character has a dark side that causes them to harm other people, they should not have to die just so the world will be saved, but they should learn how to control their dark sides while facing conflicts within their personalities so that way it would make room for more character development for the characters.

So what do you think about comic book deaths? Do you think that characters should die permanently once they are killed the first time or should the characters avoid death in order to avoid being brought back to life so many times?

Alright, so lately within the X-Men franchise, there have been a lot of characters whose personalities have changed over the course of years within the X-Men universe and the question is: is this a good thing for the characters or is it a bad thing for the characters? Well, let’s look at some factors that usually affect a character’s personality and how they compare to the current personalities of the X-Men characters.

Probably the main reason why the X-Men universe has not been consistent when it comes to character development is that there are too many different writers writing the characters. It was much more simple early one when there were only one or two writers writing for the X-Men franchise (mainly Chris Claremont and Stan Lee), so it was easy for the characters to stay consistent with their personalities because there was just one writer writing that particular character and he or she has already had in mind about how that character is going to be portrayed. However when it comes to having too many different writers, each writer has a different agenda when it comes to writing characters that they either hate or are fond of and therefore, this usually causes various characters to undergo different personality changes for no reason. Probably the most famous example of a drastic change in a character’s personality would be for the character, Wolverine. When Wolverine was first written, he was shown as a tough and aggressive loner who would often go on solo missions by himself. However, nowadays Wolverine is shown as a caring mentor for the mutant students, especially since he is about to open a school for the mutant students. This is a good impression on the growth of Wolverine’s character, however, this sudden character change was sort of brought out a bit too abruptly because there was no mention in the past that Wolverine ever thought about considering taking on a headmaster’s position at a school (now, this might have been brought up in the past, but I’m not so sure since I haven’t read many past X-Men comics until recently). Also, Wolverine had a long history of being violent and was trained as a killer, so the idea of him running a school does sound a little odd since there was no mention in the past that he actually redeemed himself for his past actions and that he was probably thinking about not killing anyone ever again. So Wolverine’s attitude change, while it is a good start to his character growth, is sort of inconsistent with most of the X-Universe because of the fact that there was no mention in the past that Wolverine was considering on giving up on his days as a killer and move on to become a headmaster of a school.

Another prime example of a character that has undergone drastic personality changes is Cyclops, but this is probably due to situational changes. What I mean by that is that currently, the mutant race is about to become extinct, so Cyclops is currently building an army that is trying to protect the mutant race from extinction. Recently, Cyclops has not been shown as the good-hearted Boy Scout he was shown during the 80s and 90s, but as a cold and calculating leader who would do anything to protect the mutant race, even if it means turning children into soldiers. Now, this can be look at in two ways: one way could be because of how the character is written and recently in Schism, it seems like it was written to make Cyclops into a bad guy of some sort even though we know that Cyclops’ intentions were well-meaning. Since Cyclops is now facing a situation where mutants are becoming extinct, yes, he will undergo some character changes that will make him a tougher character in order to protect the mutant race and while it had some negative effects on his character, it did suit the situation well.

So basically, as long as there are different writers writing the stories for the X-Men series, the characters will undergo personality changes and that could either have a positive or a negative effect on the character and this problem is not only for the X-Men Universe, but also for any other comic book series or TV series where the characters go through situational changes or have different writers writing the characters. There is nothing wrong with a character undergoing a change in personality as long as it stays consistent with the original personality of the character and how that character was able to make the transition in their personality changes and as long as the character still keeps some of their original personalities so the fans would still know that it’s the same character they all know and loved.

So what are your thoughts on this: do you think that the character changes that the X-Men are going through are a good thing or a bad thing?

Alright, so now that the X-Men have encountered the dreaded event, Schism, things will definitely change among the X-Universe, or will it?   There were definitely some positive and negative effects of this life changing event for the X-Men and I will list some pros and cons on the Schism event.

PROS:

1)       More character development for the characters – Since all the X-Men characters are now split up, there might be more room for character development for certain characters such as Colossus since he is taking on the form of Juggernaut and we might be able to explore more into the dark side of his personality or we might learn more about where Wolverine and Cyclops really stand in this Schism event since Cyclops is bent on creating a mutant army while Wolverine wants to create a school for the mutants.  

  
2)       Introduction of older X-Men characters – Now that the team is split, there seems to be older X-Men characters that haven’t been seen in the mainstream X-Men comics for awhile coming and joining the teams and this includes, Rogue, Gambit, the original Magik, Warpath, Domino and many more.   This will definitely be a truly defining moment for X- Men fans that missed these characters showing up in the comics and we will finally get a chance to see them in action again.  
 
3)  Character Growth in Characters - This event might allow for various X-Men characters to expand on their character and personalities.  One possible good example would be with Colossus' current transformation into Juggernaut and how that will affect him as a character in the long run. Will Colossus understand about what he truly wants in life and will he become a more independent character because of this event?  Another good example would be of Wolverine, who has shown that he cares about the kids, so in the long run, will he become more soft as a character and leave his killer past behind him now that he is opening up a school for the mutant kids and possibly has to take care of them?  This event might be a positive effect on some characters who had troubled pasts and are looking for ways to regain themselves in the long run.

CONS

1)       Started a bit too abruptly – Even though this was a major event, it felt like this event was just being pushed to create some kind of friction between the X-Men for no reason.   For one thing, there was no mention in the previous comics before “Fear Itself” that the X-Men were going to encounter an event that would split them up and it did seem a bit too awkward that Wolverine and Cyclops would suddenly start fighting each other when in the previous comics recently; they were getting along just fine.   However, I guess given the circumstances about Cyclops’ current leadership, some of the X-Men characters might have been questioning his motives for awhile, but never really mentioned it, which led us to believe that nothing was wrong.

 
2)       It really split the teams – We all know that the X-Men have split before, but nothing like this.   This time, old friendships and romances are torn apart, most notably the friendship between Beast and Cyclops is torn apart since Beast is on Wolverine’s team instead of Cyclops’ team.   Beast has always been a good friend to Cyclops, but unfortunately due to Cyclops creating an organization called the X-Force which totally goes against what the X-Men stand for, Beast has split up with Cyclops and there’s no telling when these two will ever make up.   Also, another shocker is Iceman joining Wolverine’s team also, even though he was with Cyclops when the X-Men first started out, so it’s unknown why Iceman would join Wolverine’s side when he has been friends with Cyclops for so long.   Also, why is Jubilee on Cyclops’ team when she was one of the young students that Wolverine has taken under his wing?   Did they have a fight?   None of this was really explained and while the team ups are interesting, it feels rather awkward that some good friends are totally split up from each other for no reason.

 
3)       The reason for Schism – Now this might go both ways, but the reason why the X-Men split up (it’s because of Cyclops’ decision to let Idie, a young mutant, kill off the Hellfire Club Kids, which led to Wolverine questioning his authority) seems a bit short-sighted.   Even though we all know that Wolverine has a soft spot for children and Cyclops is currently trying to build an army, it felt like Cyclops and Wolverine should have fought over something on a much bigger scale like regarding the secret organization, X-Force, which Cyclops doesn’t know about while Wolverine was in charge of the group or about whether or not all the mutants in the world should remain on Utopia or spread out around the world to prevent themselves from being killed in one area.  

 
4)       No Professor Xavier – For awhile now, Professor Xavier, the mentor who started the X-Men, is no where to be found and it would have been interesting to see where his stance on this event would stand.   But, it’s possible that the reason why Professor Xavier is not shown in Schism is because he might be the one who will eventually reunite the X-Men or maybe Jean Grey might make her return and reunite the X-Men. Either way, this would be an interesting twist if Professor Xavier would come back and remind the X-Men of their original goal and try to guide them through this tragic event.  

Some Interesting Tidbits:

Alright, so Psylocke is apparently on both teams, so what does this mean?   Does this mean that she is secretly a spy for both teams or is she working with another secret organization and is spying on both teams?   I guess we’ll have to find out once we read both Wolverine and Cyclops’ books.

What I want to see after the events of Schism:

What I want to see happen after the events of Schism is for some more character development for the characters.   The X-Men are going through an event that could affect them either positively or negatively and there should be slight adjustments to their personalities to respond to this event. Once this event is over with and the X-Men are back together again (if that happens), the characters should not act like this event never happened and they should learn from this event about what to do or what not to do regarding the safety of the mutants.   Also, a lot of relationships is going to be broken during this event, so that is another factor that I hope that the writers will look into how the characters react to each other once they are reunited and whether or not they will ever continue their relationships with each other before Schism started.   I also like to see how the X-Men will handle taking care of all the mutants in the world if Wolverine or Cyclops get killed and who will eventually take over (if that happens).

So what do you think about Schism?   Do you think that it was a good move for the writers or do you think that this will make the X-Men franchise falter?

So anyone who has been reading the "Fear Itself" series featuring the X-Men knows that Colossus has now taken on the new form that now hails him as the new "JUGGERNAUT!"

So, here are some positive aspects and negative aspects of this event from my perspective:

PROS

1) Colossus is now stronger than ever and he could possibly take down enemies much faster than he has ever done before. This would definitely make him a very interesting character since now he has to deal with possessing such great powers and how he can use them.

2) It would help make his character much more interesting. Since Colossus now possesses this massive power, he would probably undergo conflicts with his gentle nature versus his possible aggressive nature when possessing this terrible power and this would probably help Colossus grow as a character himself.

CONS

1) This event causes him to break up with Kitty Pryde, the love of his life and the bad thing about this whole situation is that Kitty just came back from being freed from the bullet and out of nowhere, they just broke up, like all the previous events before never mattered.

2) It's possible that this new change of power in Colossus would cause him to become the villain in the end if these new powers over ride him in the long run and that might result in Colossus dying again, which is something that I do not want to see happen again anytime soon.

3) What has become of Cain Marko, the original avatar of the Cyttorak? In having Colossus, a popular X-Men character, become the new avatar for the Cyttorak, it is possible that we won't be seeing Cain Marko for awhile after this event. Will the writers write out Cain Marko out of the X-Universe if Colossus keeps the powers of the Cyttorak?

4) The problem with Colossus becoming the new Juggernaut is that he may be too powerful in this form. It is alright that he has become a more powerful character, however over the years, writers have often found it hard to write a good story revolving around a character who has so much power that they would be able to defeat any enemy that comes their way and that will become a bit too predictable for the audience to handle.

WHAT I WANT TO SEE HAPPEN AFTER THIS EVENT AND SCHISM IS OVER WITH

1. As much as I am upset at Kitty and Colossus' break up, maybe this event will help them grow as individual characters, especially with Colossus and I definitely want to see Colossus become more independent as a person and speak out his mind. Now, I really don't want Colossus to lose his gentle nature either because that was the nature of Colossus that I loved so much, but because of this event, I know that his character might change slightly where he becomes more aware about his inner conflicts and I want him to be more aware of the people around him when he throws himself in these situations while still retaining his kind and gentle nature. Since it's possible that Kitty and Colossus will get back together anyway, I want to see them separate for awhile or just become good friends for awhile just so they can see what they need to do to make their relationship truly work. I definitely don't want either of them to hook up with anyone else during this time because it always turns out in the end that they come back together, but they dump the person that they were with before just to be together and I don't want the same thing to happen to Kitty and Colossus that happened with Cyclops' relationship where Cyclops at one point married Madeleine Pryor, but dumped her just to be with Jean Grey and if either Kitty or Colossus decided to marry someone else but just divorced their husband or wife just to be together, it would make them both look bad. What I really want to see with Kitty and Colossus' relationship if they come back together is to have them talk out their problems with each other in a genuine way, just like how Joss Whedon wrote their relationship in "Astonishing X-Men" when he had the two talk out their problems and even though they went through so much turmoil during the Breakworld arc, they still tried to work out their relationship. This event just would seem like a waste of time if Kitty and Colossus did not mature as characters beyond this point.

2. I really want to see if Colossus can keep this massive power he still possesses while being able to control it, just like Jean Grey's Phoenix form when she could control some of her powers at some points. It would definitely be interesting to see how he would cope with such dangerous and massive powers in the long run.

So, what do you think about Colossus becoming the new Juggernaut? Do you think he will become a much different character in the long run or will he grow into a more assertive character in the long run?