Based on today's New York Times article, Cyclops kills Professor X.
Enough with the killing off of your characters. Sigh. It's just become such a throw away concept that has little effect any more since its been overused. I'm still getting over them having killed Nightcrawler a few years ago. (And don't get me started about the Spider-Man-Mephisto reboot.)
“The moment is shocking, and certainly will be talked about by message boards forever and ever, but it’s really about what you get afterwards,” Bendis says. “What Cyclops has to do now, is dig himself out of the biggest, deepest hole in the history of comic books.”
I was never a big fan of the deterioration of the relationship between Scott and Xavier. Sure, we all grow up and bump heads with our teachers and mentors, but I never bought that the cool and collected Cyclops would have such a disdain for Xavier.
Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort promises, “This is about as serious and lasting a death as you’re apt to get in one of these.”
Maybe I'm just a grumpy, cynical old man... Any bets on how long it'll take for they bring Professor Xavier back?
It seems like the solution to any huge X-Men event is to kill off or incapacitate Xavier. Trying to up the training of the original X-Men? Pretend to be dead. Battle at Magneto's trial? Send him off the the Shi'ar. Start of the X-Cutioner's song? Have "Cable" shoot him in the head. Blamed for the Onslaught fiasco? Send him to jail. Need a way to make a shocking ending to Messiah Complex? Have him get shot in the head....AGAIN.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid I read reprints of the Dark Phoenix saga, and although I knew that Jean would come back to life someday (She was back in the X-Men around this time, '91-92), it still had a ton of resonance and felt like it would be permanent. Character deaths were not treated lightly at the time. Now it just seems like a cheap gimmick to bring readers in. If Blackest Night taught me anything, it's that more characters have been killed than kept alive. I honestly believe the biggest shock at the end of a comics event is to have all the character survive!
Well said Ian. Thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the trend of killing off (long established) characters is getting tiresome. Moreso, is the tendency to upturn anything positive that existed in the Marvel mythos.
ReplyDeleteWanda and Vision? Lies! Divorce! Nonexistant children! Mental breakdown! etc. etc.
Destroying the relationship between Cyclops and Xavier has long been bad writing since it goes against what both characters are all about.
Thanks for stopping by Jay. Appreciate the comment.
ReplyDelete"Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort promises, “This is about as serious and lasting a death as you’re apt to get in one of these.”"
ReplyDeleteRight. Which means Xavier will be back in, oh, 6 months, maybe a year. And I agree with everyone else who said the destruction of their friendship has been poorly written.
I guess Marvel will send press releases to the New York Times from now on, whenever a character "dies"?
Xavier's death will last as long as these other Marvel "deaths":
http://bullyscomics.blogspot.com/2011/01/again-but-that-trick-never-works.html#links
Didn't Chuck die in the third movie? LOL
ReplyDeleteI don't know...
ReplyDeleteI guess comic book death doesn't bother me that much. I think because I see it from the practical perspective. A writer takes over a book. There's a character s/he doesn't like, and decides that the character is worth more dead than alive. So s/he kills the character. Later, another writer takes over, decides it was all a mistake, and has to find a way to bring the character back. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. After all, while, yes, Prof. X will probably come back, is it such a bad thing that some ten-year-old kid is actually going to be reading stories with Professor X in them in 3 years? I don't think so. So, like I said, it just doesn't bother me. I actually think it's LESS egregious than how Marvel handles time - THAT really bugs me. But that's a different discussion.
I agree , with previous posts that this death, has been poorly written. I can accept longstanding relations breaking, and even leading to murder, but with proper writing and pacing. Cyclops hasnt been himself on all of this awful crossover. Later they can blame this on hin being possesed by the Phoenix force , but it sounds forced and weak to me. The best X-men comics are really in the past.
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