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shapinglightBack in September last year I made two posts on the above subject, here and here, the first about the similarities between 'shipping arguments (or more like 'shipping knock-down, drag-out fights) in the X-Men fandom and the Buffy fandom, and the second about how mainstream comics often don't write female characters well (for which also see Comics!Buffy).
Well, I've been lurking on the CBR comics forums again, specifically in the X-Men section, and I've found yet another parallel, this time to the perception among some Buffy comics readers that Angel's season 8 actions are being systematically retconned and whitewashed.
Contains spoilers for recent X-Men storylines, should anyone care.
Which they are. No doubt about it. That's what you have to do when you're stupid enough to turn one of your 'good' characters into a homicidal maniac with delusions of grandeur and were careless enough not to remember to play the 'possessed' card on their behalf beforehand (not a mistake Marvel made with Cyclops in their recent Avengers vs X-Men story. He was good and possessed - and by no fault of his own - long before he killed his old mentor Charles Xavier (and boy, those parallels keep coming). I also think Marvel have handled the fall out from that a damn sight better).
But anyway, the perception remains that Angel is basically getting away with murder (well he is, literally), and this has had a lasting impact on how some fans perceive the character. Retconning things after the event doesn't usually work to change this perception. It just makes fans angry and bitter. And not just Buffy fans.
There's a crossover Avengers/X-Men character who has had the same effect on a large number of X-Men fans. This is the Scarlet Witch (Magneto's daughter, in fact), who is a mutant with the power to affect probability. In a story about five years back or so, she wished there should be 'no more mutants', and suddenly there weren't. Lots of mutants lost their powers and no more mutants were being born. There followed years of 'mutants as an endangered species' stories.
That's all changed now, but the Scarlet Witch remains a hate figure for a lot of X-fans, and it's now got to the stage where any attempt to rehabilitate her just doesn't wash with these fans at all. Like so:
It's pretty obvious that the editors and writers are tired of the whole mutant thing and never really liked it. It seems like they don't really think what Scarlet Witch did was all that bad and are frustrated fans don't just move on. I'm sure they figured putting the blame on Doctor Doom, minimizing what she did, having her be accepted as a hero in Avengers vs X-Men, having her be accepted by X-characters and declaring her redeemed was more than enough.
You could swap Scarlet Witch's name for Twangel, couldn't you, and the meaning would be just the same.
Not sure what this post is trying to say. That fans are the same everywhere? That comic book writers are stupid and thoughtless and never think their stories through properly? Both, probably.
Well, I've been lurking on the CBR comics forums again, specifically in the X-Men section, and I've found yet another parallel, this time to the perception among some Buffy comics readers that Angel's season 8 actions are being systematically retconned and whitewashed.
Contains spoilers for recent X-Men storylines, should anyone care.
Which they are. No doubt about it. That's what you have to do when you're stupid enough to turn one of your 'good' characters into a homicidal maniac with delusions of grandeur and were careless enough not to remember to play the 'possessed' card on their behalf beforehand (not a mistake Marvel made with Cyclops in their recent Avengers vs X-Men story. He was good and possessed - and by no fault of his own - long before he killed his old mentor Charles Xavier (and boy, those parallels keep coming). I also think Marvel have handled the fall out from that a damn sight better).
But anyway, the perception remains that Angel is basically getting away with murder (well he is, literally), and this has had a lasting impact on how some fans perceive the character. Retconning things after the event doesn't usually work to change this perception. It just makes fans angry and bitter. And not just Buffy fans.
There's a crossover Avengers/X-Men character who has had the same effect on a large number of X-Men fans. This is the Scarlet Witch (Magneto's daughter, in fact), who is a mutant with the power to affect probability. In a story about five years back or so, she wished there should be 'no more mutants', and suddenly there weren't. Lots of mutants lost their powers and no more mutants were being born. There followed years of 'mutants as an endangered species' stories.
That's all changed now, but the Scarlet Witch remains a hate figure for a lot of X-fans, and it's now got to the stage where any attempt to rehabilitate her just doesn't wash with these fans at all. Like so:
It's pretty obvious that the editors and writers are tired of the whole mutant thing and never really liked it. It seems like they don't really think what Scarlet Witch did was all that bad and are frustrated fans don't just move on. I'm sure they figured putting the blame on Doctor Doom, minimizing what she did, having her be accepted as a hero in Avengers vs X-Men, having her be accepted by X-characters and declaring her redeemed was more than enough.
You could swap Scarlet Witch's name for Twangel, couldn't you, and the meaning would be just the same.
Not sure what this post is trying to say. That fans are the same everywhere? That comic book writers are stupid and thoughtless and never think their stories through properly? Both, probably.