quin0611

Good points.

PhoenixRising

Well, Jean may not have been an appointed leader, but she was definitely someone the other, newer members looked to for guidance. And of the original five, Scott, Jean, Bobby, Hank, and Warren, I don't think you could say that the other three were anywhere near the level of importance that Scott and Jean were for most of the title's history. Scott and Jean were usually the ones at the center of the most compelling storylines. And they have clearly had the longest-running and most dramatic love story in X-Men history. The two of them run like threads throughout X-Men history. Sure, there have been times when both have been gone from the team, but they have been the ones associated with the team the longest, and I can't think of two characters who have defined the team more than they have other than Wolverine.

crash landing

Look who James is with in this my Canadian brunette Nina

sum1

I don't know about Scott and Jean being at the centre of the most compelling storylines. I can think of many that didn't have them at the centre. There haven't just been times when been gone from the X-Men. There have been LONG times. Like the whole run of the original X-Factor, from 1986 to 1991, which is a long time in comic-book terms.

And Storm and Xavier.

PhoenixRising

And that's exactly my point. X-Factor in the 80's was a spin-off of X-Men, and it was during the X-Factor run that the Inferno storyline and the Apocalypse storyline came about. This was when the world thought the X-Men were dead and they were based off-world at the time. Everything involving Madelyne Pryor becoming the Goblin Queen, Nathan Summers becoming Cable, Apocalypse, and Mister Sinister were all tied into Scott and Jean's storyline, most of which bled into the X-Men title. . After their X-Factor run ended, Scott and Jean were right back in the X-Men and front and center for most of the 90's. And let's not get into the Emma Frost stuff. And Xavier also defines the team, but Storm was never really near Scott and Jean's level of importance, story-wise. Her marriage to Black Panther is the most compelling thing the comics did with her recently.

sum1

"Bled into" is not the same as "being central to". And there were so many X-Men stories back then that had nothing to do with Jean or Scott. For years and years and years. The X-Men weren't based off-world during the Inferno storyline. They were based in the Australian Outback. Which, I admit, is fairly close to being off-world. The Apocalypse/Sinister/Cable storyline didn't really fully hit the X-Men until the X-Cutioner's Song in 1992. Before that we had Sinister and his Marauders doing the Mutant Masssacre and pursuing the X-Men, but that wasn't conspicuously about Scott and Jean.

Even when Scott and Jean returned to the X-Men there were so many stories they weren't central to. For example, take Fatal Attractions -it focused on Magneto, Xavier, Rogue, Colossus and Wolverine, plus crossovers with X-Force (notably Cable) and the new X-Factor (notably Quicksilver). Scott and Jean were involved, but they weren't central. And that was the big X-event of 1993. Followed by the X-Men/Avengers Bloodties crossover, which they also weren't central to.

Really, if you think Scott and Jean have been that central all the time you must have been reading a different comic from me.

On the contrary, Storm has been a crucial player in so many of the stories, ever since she became team leader when Scott left in the early '80s. Scott came back and was in and out for a while, but Storm remained crucial and became even more central after she kicked Scott out of the leadership spot in the mid-80s. She remaind crucial after Scott and Jean returned, leading one of the two teams, the Uncanny X-Men one in fact, Marvel's flagship title in the '90s. So many stories focused on her or involved her very much active, front and centre.

When all's said and done, I'm not the huge Scott and Jean fan you are. I liked their wedding and I'm favour of their ship, but as characters they only go so far for me. Scott is something of an old favorite of mine, but I nonetheless don't always find him interesting (particularly not when he's with the original X-Men rather than later team members). I'm positively inclined towards Jean, but I find her a bit bland and underdeveloped as a character. All in all, both characters are most important to me for their connections to Cable and Rachel Summers, who I'm a lot more interested in.

PhoenixRising

Okay, we're not gonna agree about a few things. Fair enough.

sum1

My favorite X-Men are Wolverine, Shadowcat, Magneto (he was an X-Man in the mid-'80s and Age of Apocalypse, plus his clone Joseph was on the team), Storm, Rogue and Rachel Summers. The other major favorite on my list of mutants is Cable. Scott comes after all those, on the same list of minor favorites as Domino, Cannonball and the X-Man (when the X-Man had real power).

crash landing

Scott/Wolverine/Rogue are my 3

sum1

Sarah, Rogue is very different in the comics, because for a lot of the time she has superhuman strength, semi-invulnerability and flight, powers she absorbed permanently from other characters.

Shadowcat is a much more developed character in the comics. She's a Jewish computer genius and martial arts expert who hung around with Wolverine in the mid-'80s and then went off to join the British X-team Excalibur with Nightcrawler, Rachel Summers and various British heroes. Excalibur was a rather unusual X-comic for a long time, being kind of whimsical and being high quality in the late '80s when the major X-books were in decline. It and Wolverine's comic were the exception to the decline and they were printed on better paper and were more expensive.

Cannonball started started as the co-leader of the New Mutants (the junior X-team), from Kentucky, and grew up into the team leader of X-Force, the youth have-an-attitude X-team led by Cable. Then they put him on the X-Men and made him regress in personality, which pissed me off. Still, he beat the alien powerhouse Gladiator, which nobody else could do.

Magneto was briefly involved with Rogue around 1990 and in the Age of Apocalypse alternate timeline they were married with a kid. Later there was a love triangle between Magneto's young clone Joseph, Rogue and Gambit.

PhoenixRising

Yeah, but this is the Cyclops/Scott Summers thread.

sum1

I was providing Sarah with useful comic info.

PhoenixRising

Yes, I know. Just steering the thread back to Cyclops. This is where I love to sing the praises of my favorite X-Man. Wolverine always rubbed me the wrong way, although I do like Hugh's portrayal even if he's too tall. I also like X-23, obviously.

sum1

Wolverine's probably Marvel's best character. At least before they mucked him up in the mid-'90s and lost the feel for his distinctive personality. Larry Hama gets a lot of praise for his Woverine work, but I think he ended up totally mucking up the character. I think he forgot who Wolverine was. Got to go back to Claremont for that.

I like Cyclops and relate to him, but I don't have wild enthusiasm for him. I prefer his kids.

PhoenixRising

I think Claremont did great with Wolverine, but after a while they just ran him into the ground. His obsessive infatuation with Jean Grey became grating after a while, but mostly annoying. Normally a guy who did that stuff would get sued for sexual harassment.

I loved Larry Hama's G.I. Joe comics. They were some of my favorite comics from the 80's. I think Hama was better at writing Snake Eyes and Scarlett, and he may have confused Wolverine with Snake Eyes. They're two totally different characters.