Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem?

On 2008-01-21, Nathan P. Mahney <npmahney.DeleteThis@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> The main problem I have with this is that the more villains you have
> joining the X-Men, the less good villains you have working against
> them.
> The X-Men do have a pretty decent rogues gallery, but it doesn't have
> enough depth to survive something like that.

Well, there would be a rather simple solution to that: Write better
villains.
Of course the writers seem to have a problem with that...

> It's worked well in a
> few cases, notably Rogue and Emma Frost, but there are other
> characters
> they've tried it with that never worked. Magneto, for one thing -
> the humanization he got from Claremont was an excellent thing, but the
> version of Magneto that was doing laundry for the New Mutants was a
> step
> too far.

It's funny, Magneto was both the best and the worst for the New Mutants.
The New Mutants never accepted Magneto and he understandably grew more
and more frustrated by his failure. That laundry think could be his
increasingly desperate attempts to change that.
Still, you are correct, that needn't have been.

As for the best of Magneto and the New Mutants, well, read Kid Dynamo.


> Sabretooth is another one they keep sticking on good guy
> teams - inevitably he betrays them, because he's completely
> irredeemable.

Oh yes, Sabretooth was awful.
Well, that was the time when I dropped almost all X-books from my
subscription list. That was just plain bad writing. Sure, the X-Men
have already been pretty accepting towards bad guys, but Sabretooth
never had any motivation to reform and clearly showed that to anybody.

> What it comes down to for me is that there are already heaps of
> interesting members of the X-Men. Their list of interesting villains
> is a lot shorter, and very few have been added to that list in the
> last
> two decades.

Agreed to some extent.
I still say that the reformed villains are mostly the more interesting
X-Men and therefore on the top of the heap of interesting members.

As for interesting villains, they are really difficult to write, but I
guess they are just as often ruined by writers who don't really
understand them than removed from villain status by becoming X-Men.

That's the fate of interesting villains I guess: They are difficult to
understand and therefore only one writer should handle them.
But that is impossible for a franchise that spans about a dozen
different series...

--
Lehmeier Michael (Nightshade Dragon UDIC)

8:00 - 12:00 : Frohlocken!
12:00 - 20:00 : Hosianna singen!
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

Michael Lehmeier wrote:
> Nathan P. Mahney wrote:
>> The main problem I have with this is that the more villains you
>> have joining the X-Men, the less good villains you have working
>> against them. The X-Men do have a pretty decent rogues gallery,
>> but it doesn't have enough depth to survive something like that.
>
> Well, there would be a rather simple solution to that: Write better
> villains.
> Of course the writers seem to have a problem with that...

That's because it's easier said than done.

>> What it comes down to for me is that there are already heaps of
>> interesting members of the X-Men. Their list of interesting
>> villains is a lot shorter, and very few have been added to that
>> list in the last two decades.
>
> Agreed to some extent.
> I still say that the reformed villains are mostly the more
> interesting X-Men and therefore on the top of the heap of
> interesting members.

This is probably the root of why you don't understand those who
complain about them being X-Men. For me, the villains usually make
more interesting villains than they do X-Men. The only exceptions to
this, imo, have been Rogue, Our Lord Magneto, and Sage. Furthermore,
the X-Men are such strongly polarized idealists and they've typically
been more of a family than a team that I think being too accepting of
villains pollutes them.

Rogue's turn made sense. She was quite young, and the Carol Danvers
psyche was messing with her mind. She showed up on their doorstep
sobbing and desperately asking for Xavier's help, then ended up
becoming part of the family.

Our Lord Magneto is best when he's riding the line between heroism and
villainy, imo. I'd accept his return to the X-Men in a heartbeat. I
even sometimes dream of this actually happening.

Juggernaut, I always found to be an undimensional villain. His
becoming an X-Man was an improvement in his characterization, even if
I'm not certain he actually made a good X-Man.

I've never been a fan of Gambit, even before his shadiness was
realized. I was strongly opposed to his rejoining after his role in
the Mutant Massacre was discovered. The X-Men, as a whole, have seemed
weaker to me since they accepted him back. Many of the Morlocks were
their friends.

Marrow was a mass-murderer of innocent humans. She never really
embraced the X-Men's mission statement.

Sage is one of the best embellished characters of the past decade,
imo. Even when she was Tessa she wasn't much of a villain.

There hasn't been a story with Emma that I've enjoyed since the
original Hellions died. She used to be a great villainess, and now I
find her a wishy-washy "hero." This was a woman who didn't think twice
about torturing people and killing them, treated mutant kids as mere
weapons to be used in her rise to greatness, and now she's sobbing
about a few of them dying.

On top of this, there have been times when trusting villains has come
back to bite them on their asses. This just makes the X-Men seem like
weak jobbers. Certain villains should never be trusted again:
Sabretooth, Mystique, Xorn (either of them), Dark Beast, Lady
Mastermind. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Another problem is that many other villains in the X-Men's rogues'
gallery are far too sadistic killing machines to ever trust. Who, in
their right mind, is going to accept any of the Marauders? Reavers?
Purifiers? These days, there really aren't many others left. There are
some, however, that I wouldn't have a problem with joining: a few of
the current Acolytes, for instance.
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

"Nathan P. Mahney" <npmahney.DeleteThis@yahoo.com.au> wrote in
news:fn1tuq$2ahb$1@otis.netspace.net.au:

>
> "Michael Lehmeier" <m_lehmeier.DeleteThis@gmx.de> wrote in message
> news:slrnfp6up0.54r.m_lehmeier@daradja.de...
>> First, I don't buy X-Men comics anymore on a regular basis.
>> Occasionally I buy a random issue out of curiosity and sometimes
>> friends borrow me trades to read.
>> So I'm not totally out of touch.
>>
>> When I read discussions in the net, it seems to me that one of most
>> frequent suggestions what should be changed in the xbooks is that
>> there shouldn't be so many villains turned X-Men anymore.
>>
>> I am really confused by this.
>> To me, this is one of the few things left that makes the X-books
>> interesting.
>>
>> The time when Magneto led the school was one of best times for the
>> X-Men. Even when and how he left them again was believable and strong
>> storytelling. Only during Fatal Attractions it ended in a mess of
>> inept storytelling.
>>
>> What do we have since then?
>> Juggernaut.
>> He was never the kind of guy who I would put beyond redemption. The
>> barroom brawl between him and Colossus was a good indication of that.
>> When he finally switched sides, his reasons were sound.
>> And the few stories with him in it were all quite good.
>>
>> Then there is Sage.
>> Yes, they retconned her into a sleeper agent for Prof Xavier, but to
>> me she will always be Tessa first.
>> Of her I have more issues, and most of the time she was the most
>> interesting part in the story. But I wouldn't miss her either.
>>
>> And of course Emma Frost, the bitch queen.
>> She is IMO the first and foremost reason why I would ever consider
>> buying an X-book again. She was a villain, and in many ways still is
>> a villain, just on the other side. And why shouldn't she be?
>> I especially like that the writers in all those years didn't mellow
>> her down to fit with all the others. She is different, and that makes
>> her great.
>>
>> I don't know if there are other villains turned X-Men, these are the
>> only ones I know or can think of right now.
>>
>> My question is:
>> Why on earth do so many people think that they hurt the x-books.
>> I tried to think about it but couldn't come with a good reason.
>>
>> Less in the xbooks, more in the other marvel comics, I think the few
>> cases where villains turned heroes I liked them for another reason:
>> They are the few cases when there were real happy-ends.
>> Let's face it: Sucessfully beating up some stupid bad guy is not a
>> happy end, it's routine. Getting a villain not to be a villain
>> anymore is a really big achievement.
>>
>> I was really furious when I heared that they made Sandman a bad guy
>> again. Especially because his reforming was slow, well written and
>> plausible.
>
> The main problem I have with this is that the more villains you have
> joining the X-Men, the less good villains you have working against
> them. The X-Men do have a pretty decent rogues gallery, but it
> doesn't have enough depth to survive something like that. It's worked
> well in a few cases, notably Rogue and Emma Frost, but there are other
> characters they've tried it with that never worked. Magneto, for one
> thing - the humanization he got from Claremont was an excellent thing,
> but the version of Magneto that was doing laundry for the New Mutants
> was a step too far. Sabretooth is another one they keep sticking on
> good guy teams - inevitably he betrays them, because he's completely
> irredeemable.

At least they seem to acknowledge it with Sabretooth. In the last
run, he was kept imprisoned until they needed him. Didn't he have
an exploding necklace or something on him in one of the previous runs?

But they still got good-guy Sabretooth after a fashion, at least in
Exiles...


It might work better if they switched some of the less major
villains. (And some of the less major good guys could switch as
well.)

And there is the idea of not turning villains into X-Men, but
turning them into at least temporary allies. Like Claremont briefly
did with the Hellfire Club a few years back.

> What it comes down to for me is that there are already heaps of
> interesting members of the X-Men. Their list of interesting villains
> is a lot shorter, and very few have been added to that list in the
> last two decades.

And Marvel refuses to commit to the other direction, with X-Men
that turn into villains and remain that way, or at least aren't
later written to be undercover or insane or whatever other excuse
is used to get them back on the side of good.

What is there currently on that front? Sunfire and Gambit? No
one cares about Sunfire, and he was an iffy ally to begin with.

Gambit? He's effectively being written as a good guy again. He's
refused to kill X-Men in the battles, and stopped someone else from
killing one. I'm betting that if any writer mentions the laughable
"Cable is DEAD!" explosion again, they'll say Gambit knew Cable
wouldn't be killed. And now Gambit has said he's only been working
with Sinister and Mystique in order to save Rogue. (Wait, didn't
Gambit go to Sinister before Pandemic infected Rogue? Certainly
it was before she lost her mind absorbing the millions of
personalities in the Hecatomb storyline.)
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

On 2008-01-21, Billy Bissette <baines.RemoveThis@coastalnet.com> wrote:
>
> And there is the idea of not turning villains into X-Men, but
> turning them into at least temporary allies. Like Claremont briefly
> did with the Hellfire Club a few years back.

Oh yes, that was a good time.

> And Marvel refuses to commit to the other direction, with X-Men
> that turn into villains and remain that way, or at least aren't
> later written to be undercover or insane or whatever other excuse
> is used to get them back on the side of good.

Agreed.
But it's a little difficult to find a credible motivation for an X-Man
to turn into a villain.
I can see plenty of reasons for an X-Man to leave, but not for
switiching sides.

> Gambit? He's effectively being written as a good guy again. He's
> refused to kill X-Men in the battles, and stopped someone else from
> killing one.

Becoming a villain doesn't necessarily make someone a murderer.
Especially a murderer of his former teammates.

What I would see as the ultimate challenge for an xbooks writer is
turning an X-Man into a villain but at the same time this villain still
has fond memories of his time with the X-Men and would never do
something to hurt them.

All too often villains are shown simply as either totally evil or
absolutely pathetic. Or both. This would be a nice change.

> I'm betting that if any writer mentions the laughable
> "Cable is DEAD!" explosion again, they'll say Gambit knew Cable
> wouldn't be killed. And now Gambit has said he's only been working
> with Sinister and Mystique in order to save Rogue.

Ewww.
That's bad.
Somewhat predictable, but still bad.

--
Lehmeier Michael (Nightshade Dragon UDIC)

8:00 - 12:00 : Frohlocken!
12:00 - 20:00 : Hosianna singen!
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

Michael Lehmeier <m_lehmeier DeleteThis @gmx.de> wrote in
news:slrnfpaj3g.76b.m_lehmeier@daradja.de:
> On 2008-01-21, Billy Bissette <baines DeleteThis @coastalnet.com> wrote:

>> Gambit? He's effectively being written as a good guy again. He's
>> refused to kill X-Men in the battles, and stopped someone else from
>> killing one.
>
> Becoming a villain doesn't necessarily make someone a murderer.
> Especially a murderer of his former teammates.

Yes, but this is the same Gambit that went with Sunfire on a mission
to kill Cable.
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:38:13 -0000, Billy Bissette
<baines.RemoveThis@coastalnet.com> wrote:

>Michael Lehmeier <m_lehmeier.RemoveThis@gmx.de> wrote in
>news:slrnfpaj3g.76b.m_lehmeier@daradja.de:
>> On 2008-01-21, Billy Bissette <baines.RemoveThis@coastalnet.com> wrote:
>
>>> Gambit? He's effectively being written as a good guy again. He's
>>> refused to kill X-Men in the battles, and stopped someone else from
>>> killing one.
>>
>> Becoming a villain doesn't necessarily make someone a murderer.
>> Especially a murderer of his former teammates.
>
> Yes, but this is the same Gambit that went with Sunfire on a mission
>to kill Cable.

But he didn't...and we still don't know the circumstances of that
whole bit...personally, I was reasonably sure that Gambit would
ultimately come down on the X-Men's side from the moment he showed up
as part of the Reavers...knowing his history with them, you knew he
had to have a really good reason for what he was doing (trying to save
Rogue, as it turns out) so it's not much of a shock.
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

The Black Guardian wrote:
> Michael Lehmeier wrote:
>> Nathan P. Mahney wrote:
>>> The main problem I have with this is that the more villains you
>>> have joining the X-Men, the less good villains you have working
>>> against them. The X-Men do have a pretty decent rogues gallery,
>>> but it doesn't have enough depth to survive something like that.
>> Well, there would be a rather simple solution to that: Write better
>> villains.
>> Of course the writers seem to have a problem with that...
>
> That's because it's easier said than done.
>
>>> What it comes down to for me is that there are already heaps of
>>> interesting members of the X-Men. Their list of interesting
>>> villains is a lot shorter, and very few have been added to that
>>> list in the last two decades.
>> Agreed to some extent.
>> I still say that the reformed villains are mostly the more
>> interesting X-Men and therefore on the top of the heap of
>> interesting members.
>
> This is probably the root of why you don't understand those who
> complain about them being X-Men. For me, the villains usually make
> more interesting villains than they do X-Men. The only exceptions to
> this, imo, have been Rogue, Our Lord Magneto, and Sage. Furthermore,
> the X-Men are such strongly polarized idealists and they've typically
> been more of a family than a team that I think being too accepting of
> villains pollutes them.
>
> Rogue's turn made sense. She was quite young, and the Carol Danvers
> psyche was messing with her mind. She showed up on their doorstep
> sobbing and desperately asking for Xavier's help, then ended up
> becoming part of the family.
>
> Our Lord Magneto is best when he's riding the line between heroism and
> villainy, imo. I'd accept his return to the X-Men in a heartbeat. I
> even sometimes dream of this actually happening.
>
> Juggernaut, I always found to be an undimensional villain. His
> becoming an X-Man was an improvement in his characterization, even if
> I'm not certain he actually made a good X-Man.
>
> I've never been a fan of Gambit, even before his shadiness was
> realized. I was strongly opposed to his rejoining after his role in
> the Mutant Massacre was discovered. The X-Men, as a whole, have seemed
> weaker to me since they accepted him back. Many of the Morlocks were
> their friends.
>
> Marrow was a mass-murderer of innocent humans. She never really
> embraced the X-Men's mission statement.
>
> Sage is one of the best embellished characters of the past decade,
> imo. Even when she was Tessa she wasn't much of a villain.
>
> There hasn't been a story with Emma that I've enjoyed since the
> original Hellions died. She used to be a great villainess, and now I
> find her a wishy-washy "hero." This was a woman who didn't think twice
> about torturing people and killing them, treated mutant kids as mere
> weapons to be used in her rise to greatness, and now she's sobbing
> about a few of them dying.
>
> On top of this, there have been times when trusting villains has come
> back to bite them on their asses. This just makes the X-Men seem like
> weak jobbers. Certain villains should never be trusted again:
> Sabretooth, Mystique, Xorn (either of them), Dark Beast, Lady
> Mastermind. Fool me twice, shame on me.
>
> Another problem is that many other villains in the X-Men's rogues'
> gallery are far too sadistic killing machines to ever trust. Who, in
> their right mind, is going to accept any of the Marauders? Reavers?
> Purifiers? These days, there really aren't many others left. There are
> some, however, that I wouldn't have a problem with joining: a few of
> the current Acolytes, for instance.


I like Emma Frost but I prefer her in Whedon's X-Men. Who knows how
I'll feel about her when Ellis does his stuff. I never found Ellis very
good at character based writing.

The X-Men villains of late have been too fanatical to believably become
heroes. I have to agree with you about the Reavers, Purifiers,
Marauders, Xorn, Children of the something or other. Blah, blah, blah.
The recent antagonists are all kill kill sleep kill kill.

The X-writers haven't really explained why Lady Mastermind or Omega
Sentinel were experimented upon and they haven't dug into Lady
Mastermind's reasons for switching sides so she is rather one dimensional.

The only recent 'villains' that could become a hero is perhaps Northstar
and Aurora.

\
badbad
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

On 2008-01-22, The Black Guardian <blakgard DeleteThis @aol.com> wrote:
> Michael Lehmeier wrote:
>> Nathan P. Mahney wrote:
>>> The main problem I have with this is that the more villains you
>>> have joining the X-Men, the less good villains you have working
>>> against them. The X-Men do have a pretty decent rogues gallery,
>>> but it doesn't have enough depth to survive something like that.
>>
>> Well, there would be a rather simple solution to that: Write better
>> villains.
>> Of course the writers seem to have a problem with that...
>
> That's because it's easier said than done.

Sometimes I wonder if it is even wanted.
Interesting villains seem to require certain, well, requirements, that
mainstream writers (and editors) seem to try to avoid.

> This is probably the root of why you don't understand those who
> complain about them being X-Men. For me, the villains usually make
> more interesting villains than they do X-Men.

This argument I can understand although I don't agree with it.
Or at least don't think it is a problem.

> Furthermore,
> the X-Men are such strongly polarized idealists and they've typically
> been more of a family than a team that I think being too accepting of
> villains pollutes them.

And this I totally disagree with.
I think the total opposite is the case.

> Our Lord Magneto is best when he's riding the line between heroism and
> villainy, imo. I'd accept his return to the X-Men in a heartbeat. I
> even sometimes dream of this actually happening.

I agree that Magneto was best when "riding the line", but I wouldn't
accept his return.
Too much has happened in the meantime. Because of really bad writing,
true, but IMO badly written stories should not be ignored but be dealt
with.
In order to accept him to the X-Men, the bad stories would have to be
ignored.

> Juggernaut, I always found to be an undimensional villain. His
> becoming an X-Man was an improvement in his characterization, even if
> I'm not certain he actually made a good X-Man.

Not all X-Men have to be "good" X-Men.

> Marrow was a mass-murderer of innocent humans. She never really
> embraced the X-Men's mission statement.

Although I agree with you, I enjoyed what little I have read of her stay
at the X-Men. True, she never embraced the X-Men's mission, but I don't
think she had to.
She was under control enough to be able to stay, and it was certainly
better to keep her around than to let her loose alone in the world.

> There hasn't been a story with Emma that I've enjoyed since the
> original Hellions died. She used to be a great villainess, and now I
> find her a wishy-washy "hero." This was a woman who didn't think twice
> about torturing people and killing them, treated mutant kids as mere
> weapons to be used in her rise to greatness, and now she's sobbing
> about a few of them dying.

She bred and used the Hellions as weapons, yes, but that doesn't
contradict that she broke when they died.
At that time I feared the same thing, that Emma would become a crying
philantropist, but thankfully that part of her personality vanished soon
enough and she returned to being a bitch.
Which doesn't have to mean she has forgotten the Hellions or stopped
trying to make it better.

All in all I think that she is still essentially a villain, she just
knows how to behave with the X-Men and actually enjoys her stay there.

BTW, that's the kind of villain group I really really miss in the
X-books and most of mainstream superhero comics:
A team of villains that truly cares for each other!
This is one of "requirements the writers try to avoid" that I wrote
above. It is just not done and not even desired. I mean, just look at
the antagonists in pretty much every war movie!

> On top of this, there have been times when trusting villains has come
> back to bite them on their asses.
> This just makes the X-Men seem like
> weak jobbers. Certain villains should never be trusted again:
> Sabretooth, Mystique, Xorn (either of them), Dark Beast, Lady
> Mastermind. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Agreed.
Trusting someone twice (at least without *very* good reasons) would be
real stupidity. And I don't like stupid characters, both heros and
villainsn.

> Another problem is that many other villains in the X-Men's rogues'
> gallery are far too sadistic killing machines to ever trust. Who, in
> their right mind, is going to accept any of the Marauders? Reavers?
> Purifiers? These days, there really aren't many others left.

Agreed.
When you look at it like this, it makes sense that people don't like
villains-turned-heroes.
If the writeres can't think of any better villains than mass murdering
killing machines, this leaves only the very few old interesting villains
for X-Men recruitment.

--
Lehmeier Michael (Nightshade Dragon UDIC)

8:00 - 12:00 : Frohlocken!
12:00 - 20:00 : Hosianna singen!
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

"Billy Bissette" <baines DeleteThis @coastalnet.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9A2CC0643104Ewhatcholookinat@216.168.3.70...
>(Wait, didn't
> Gambit go to Sinister before Pandemic infected Rogue? Certainly
> it was before she lost her mind absorbing the millions of
> personalities in the Hecatomb storyline.)

The theory I'm operating on here is that Gambit went to Sinister to be cured
of the effects of being a Horseman of Apocalypse. Payment for that was that
he work for Sinister for a while, which he has done, and now he's using the
situation to his own ends - namely saving Rogue.

- Nathan P. Mahney -
http://www.thecomicnerd.com
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

grinningdemon <grinningdemon.TakeThisOut@austin.rr.com> wrote in
news:a1bbp3dbl72upj6j7cjsjdc1ipobb77f4g@4ax.com:

> On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:38:13 -0000, Billy Bissette
> <baines.TakeThisOut@coastalnet.com> wrote:
>
>>Michael Lehmeier <m_lehmeier.TakeThisOut@gmx.de> wrote in
>>news:slrnfpaj3g.76b.m_lehmeier@daradja.de:
>>> On 2008-01-21, Billy Bissette <baines.TakeThisOut@coastalnet.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> Gambit? He's effectively being written as a good guy again.
He's
>>>> refused to kill X-Men in the battles, and stopped someone else from
>>>> killing one.
>>>
>>> Becoming a villain doesn't necessarily make someone a murderer.
>>> Especially a murderer of his former teammates.
>>
>> Yes, but this is the same Gambit that went with Sunfire on a mission
>>to kill Cable.
>
> But he didn't...and we still don't know the circumstances of that
> whole bit...personally, I was reasonably sure that Gambit would
> ultimately come down on the X-Men's side from the moment he showed up
> as part of the Reavers...knowing his history with them, you knew he
> had to have a really good reason for what he was doing (trying to save
> Rogue, as it turns out) so it's not much of a shock.

Yes, I know he didn't. I mentioned it in the original post, when
talking about how Gambit was being turned back into a good guy.

But he didn't *need* a good reason for what he was doing. He turned
his back on the X-Men when he joined Apocalypse, and did so again when
he escaped from them and turned to Mr. Sinister.

Now he's being written as having a "good guy" excuse for those
things. He joined the bad guys to save Rogue (even before she was in
real danger?) He presumably helped fake Cable's death, deceiving the
seemingly gung-ho Sunfire? Or was it just convenient that Cable had
an escape, and that Gambit was willing to go that far to save Rogue?
If the former, we will be told. If the latter, I bet we never hear
mention of it again.

It is disappointing, as he could have made a decent bad guy. But
no, Marvel has to have him remain a hero regardless of his story.
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:03:27 -0000, Billy Bissette
<baines.DeleteThis@coastalnet.com> wrote:

>grinningdemon <grinningdemon.DeleteThis@austin.rr.com> wrote in
>news:a1bbp3dbl72upj6j7cjsjdc1ipobb77f4g@4ax.com:
>
>> On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:38:13 -0000, Billy Bissette
>> <baines.DeleteThis@coastalnet.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Michael Lehmeier <m_lehmeier.DeleteThis@gmx.de> wrote in
>>>news:slrnfpaj3g.76b.m_lehmeier@daradja.de:
>>>> On 2008-01-21, Billy Bissette <baines.DeleteThis@coastalnet.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Gambit? He's effectively being written as a good guy again.
>He's
>>>>> refused to kill X-Men in the battles, and stopped someone else from
>>>>> killing one.
>>>>
>>>> Becoming a villain doesn't necessarily make someone a murderer.
>>>> Especially a murderer of his former teammates.
>>>
>>> Yes, but this is the same Gambit that went with Sunfire on a mission
>>>to kill Cable.
>>
>> But he didn't...and we still don't know the circumstances of that
>> whole bit...personally, I was reasonably sure that Gambit would
>> ultimately come down on the X-Men's side from the moment he showed up
>> as part of the Reavers...knowing his history with them, you knew he
>> had to have a really good reason for what he was doing (trying to save
>> Rogue, as it turns out) so it's not much of a shock.
>
> Yes, I know he didn't. I mentioned it in the original post, when
>talking about how Gambit was being turned back into a good guy.
>
> But he didn't *need* a good reason for what he was doing. He turned
>his back on the X-Men when he joined Apocalypse, and did so again when
>he escaped from them and turned to Mr. Sinister.

Apocalypse was a different deal entirely...it was like when Angel
joined him...he was at a crisis point (in this case, seeming mutant
extinction) and Apocalypse manipulated him...and that storyline
clearly showed that there was a mental programming aspect to the
process Apocalypse uses to make horsemen...when he finally got cut
loose, he was still all kinds of screwed up from what Apocalypse had
done and he took off...no one is saying he had a "good guy" excuse for
this...he made a bad choice and got used.

>
> Now he's being written as having a "good guy" excuse for those
>things. He joined the bad guys to save Rogue (even before she was in
>real danger?) He presumably helped fake Cable's death, deceiving the
>seemingly gung-ho Sunfire? Or was it just convenient that Cable had
>an escape, and that Gambit was willing to go that far to save Rogue?
>If the former, we will be told. If the latter, I bet we never hear
>mention of it again.

He's being written as having a "good guy" excuse for joining Sinister
only...which, I'm sure, was the intention from the moment this
plotline started...he joined him to ultimately save Rogue...he knew
there would be something to save her from because of the future
knowledge Mystique obtained from Destiny and he was willing to make a
deal with the devil (not literally, unlike some other heroes) to save
her.

We don't know what the deal was with Cable...Gambit may well have been
willing to sacrifice him to save Rogue and Cable got out on his
own...I could believe he'd be willing to kill for her.

>
> It is disappointing, as he could have made a decent bad guy. But
>no, Marvel has to have him remain a hero regardless of his story.

He was never going to stay a bad guy...he's too popular a
character...hell, Claremont's original idea for him was that he was
Sinister in disguise and they had to rethink this because he was too
popular not to stick around...and I think his story makes perfect
sense...he's not the true-blue hero type who always does the right
thing...he's a bad boy who's done bad things but he feels bad about it
and he wants to change...this doesn't mean he won't falter from time
to time but they're never going to have him go totally dark side.
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

badbad <user.DeleteThis@example.net> wrote in
news:Dshlj.77$J41.10@newssvr14.news.prodigy.net:

> The X-writers haven't really explained why Lady Mastermind or Omega
> Sentinel were experimented upon and they haven't dug into Lady
> Mastermind's reasons for switching sides so she is rather one
> dimensional.

Lady Mastermind's turns were explained, and it was a pretty simple
explanation. She was simply out for herself.

She joined with the X-Men because it was the best thing for her at
the time. They saved her. Then the Children of the Vault formed an
imminent threat. Then Pandemic. She was better off with them than
on her own or getting hunted down.

She joined the Marauders because she saw them as a better path.
She said as much. Even when she was with the X-Men, she pretty much
described herself as being along for the ride and for personal
betterment.
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem? 

Billy Bissette wrote:
> badbad <user.DeleteThis@example.net> wrote in
> news:Dshlj.77$J41.10@newssvr14.news.prodigy.net:
>
>> The X-writers haven't really explained why Lady Mastermind or Omega
>> Sentinel were experimented upon and they haven't dug into Lady
>> Mastermind's reasons for switching sides so she is rather one
>> dimensional.
>
> Lady Mastermind's turns were explained, and it was a pretty simple
> explanation. She was simply out for herself.
>
> She joined with the X-Men because it was the best thing for her at
> the time. They saved her. Then the Children of the Vault formed an
> imminent threat. Then Pandemic. She was better off with them than
> on her own or getting hunted down.
>
> She joined the Marauders because she saw them as a better path.
> She said as much. Even when she was with the X-Men, she pretty much
> described herself as being along for the ride and for personal
> betterment.


The idea of better off seemed a little cavalier by the writer. If she
wanted to be better off she would have joined Stark and the Initiative.
They at least have a paycheck and health insurance. Just saying, you know?

Her statement was really a throwaway line. The writer could then use her
to plot a way to take over Omega Sentinel in a sneaky manner. Lady
Mastermind's power of illusion would also allow Mystique and company to
infiltrate the X-Men.

I hoped a more thought-out explanation from the writer because that
reason seems a little thin. I would even accept that Mr Sinister
actually bribed her to join his group as a better motivation.

The X-Men probably have a greater ability to help her find out who
locked her up in the hospital. Joining Mr Sinister just makes her more
of a target because she betrays the people who rescued her and throws in
with criminals. Criminals who may have locked her in the hospital in
the first place. She doesn't even know for sure.

But that is all water under the bridge. One consolation is that Lady
Mastermind's motivation is still better written than anything Claremont
has done with *any* Exiles character.

\
badbad
 >> Stay informed about: Villains turned X-Men: What's the problem?