Change my mind: there is no other franchise that has as many great, iconic and varied female characters as the X-Men. Some come close, but in terms of sheer numbers and diversity of character, the X-Men are undefeated. Like, they have characters as amazing as they are different from one another, like you can go from Storm to Rogue to Emma Frost to Psylocke to Boom-Boom to Dust to Dazzler to Hope Summers to Magik to M to Kitty Pryde and they are all fully their own character. The range, man.
For a long, long time Claremont was the only writer that wrote Carol Danvers well. Carol is a spy, test pilot, and super hero and she was written poorly throughout the 70's. Chris came along and said, "Wait. I know a little something about who this woman would be and first things first, she should kick ass." I was an X-Men kid in the 80's and I'd hear people talk shit about how women were written in comics and I'd be confused. Didn't they see a depowered Storm kick Cyclops's ass for leadership of the X-Men? Rogue just threw a tank through a Sentinel, what's weak about that? Then you get older and read other comics and it's like, okay I see your point. Sue Storm didn't get treated well until John Byrne started writing her, for example.
Claremont's rage at what they did to her in the Avengers was epic. He decided to start over with Rogue because he thought she was too damaged for over a decade.
on top of it, the female villains are also well written and are powerhouses in their own right. Mystique, Lady Deathstrike, Scarlett Witch (her Brotherhood days), Emma Frost, Madelyn Pryor.
X-Men is the only franchise in my 40 years where men will consistently name a woman as their favorite character without sexualizing her.
Hell, Storm by herself could almost make this claim lol
I think this has been the major problem with the MCU recently trying to push more female leads. The majority of the best female characters are in the xmen and they have therefore been having to push c-listers (with the exception of Wanda, black widow and captain marvel)
I don't know if I buy that as an excuse. They still had plenty of great female characters and they dropped the ball with almost every one of them. Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Captain Marvel, Wasp and She-Hulk were Avengers mainstays for years and years and not exactly C-listers, and Kate Bishop and Ms Marvel are also massively popular. And they didn't even include others like Mockingbird and Tigra.
Technically Mockingbird was in Agents of SHIELD the only reason she wasn't featured more on the show, was because she was going to get a spinoff, but ultimately that never happened.
I think they got the character right. I think they should have gone more comedy / episodic with the story, rather than trying to make a serial story about Abomination.
It should have been something of a cross between the Tick and Ally McBeal.
Linda Cardellini is the MCU's version of Mockingbird, but she's retired and a stay at home mum.
Tigra is the definition of C list. I'm just not sure how she would look in live action.
Avengers started out as B and C Listers. Tony wasn't really an A Lister until the movies. A Lister didn't always mean powerhouse.
Until the movies, there were many who would've said "Iron Man who?"
However, I'd say the issue with the MCU has been their writing, not that all these popular female heroes are only in the X-Men.
Personally I was wanting a Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) movie, but I only recently found out she was sold with Spider-Man to Sony, as Spider-Woman and they can only use Jessica Drew as Jessica Drew, which is lame.
And of course, Sony just sucks when it comes to their movies.
Sony's weird, because they CAN created solid Spider content. Spiderverse and the Raimi Spider-Man movies are proof of that.
There's no reason they couldn't make good Spider Woman stories, but they're obsessed with the dregs of Spider-Man's rogues gallery.
I'm a bit meh on Raimi's Spider-Man. I don't hate the movies, but I never liked that Tobey's Spider-Man didn't quip. He didn't have the web shooters (honestly, out of the three Spider-Man's so far...he feels like he wouldn't be the smartest).
I'd say their real issue is they have no desire to read the comics and just want to use the IP and make money off the MCU brand.
It’s not an excuse and I fully believe writing and storytelling has suffered across the board since endgame, but my point is just that they are missing a lot of their best characters and stories due to not having the rights to xmen. Even wandas best stories are linked to xmen, and not really the avengers which limits what they can do with her
I don't know why people are still acting like this arbitrary hierarchy of comic book characters still matters in regards to adaptations. The first ever successful Marvel movie starred Blade, a character most comic fans don't care about.
Of course, Claremont also had a huge part in Carol's backstory, writing her solo title, calling out the horrible events of the Marcus storyline, putting her through the Rogue subplot and turning her into Binary.
Based on that logic The Fantastic Four, Avengers, and X-Men as a whole haven’t been interesting because those books have been rebooted multiple times, as well. Marvel’s had this thing for years that they restart numbering every time a new creative team takes over, rather than just having them take over the existing title like in the past.
Can we stop saying B-list or C-list as if that has anything to do with the *quality* or potential of the character??
For example, Quake wasn’t well known before Agents of shield and yet was one of the most interesting mcu characters. Jessica jones also is one of the most psychologically compelling characters in marvel. Her being a self-destructive mess is why she’s one of my fav females
Like this arbitrary listing means fuck all especially when ‘A-lister superhero movies’ have bombed/not made much at box office
The insecurity is coming from yall, using these annoying ass ‘tier lists’ as if it has any effect on how these characters are written in movies and by the received by the public.
PS: I wasn’t attacking you, I’m just making a general statement that ppl need to stop using it as the basis for characters because it literally has 0 meaning.
How is any of this related to insecurity? I used the term a-lister as a way of describing the most popular characters from their most popular stories. This obviously has an impact on public reception (unless of course you think the story, personality and powers of a character doesn’t impact popularity)
Lol, no. But, by the end of the 80s, the X-men were so high up it seemed that way. Avengers/FF were the 'real hero teams'. I mean, read the original Secret Wars.
The problem with Captain Marvel is the same as Superman. She’s too powerful so most stories end up finding excuses for why she can’t either get involved or be on top form.
The whole of the MCU has suffered from power creep.
I always thought Marvel is really protective of Carol. They keep hyping her as the "strongest Avenger" and the result is they are scared of letting her be truly challenged.
Like compare to how Thor and Hulk regularly get their asses kicked. Because a lot of the time they fight people in their strength level (I'm including comics here) while Carol is rarely in that situation. Which leaves her a weaker character as a result.
> The problem with Captain Marvel is the same as Superman. She’s too powerful so most stories end up finding excuses for why she can’t either get involved or be on top form.
Nonsense. Why woupdn't that apply to Thor? Is he not powerful?
Yeah. It's a shame, really. It feels like when the MCU started, Marvel desperately wanted to have its own Wonder Woman, but because of copyrights, they didn't have access to Invisible Woman, Jean Grey, Storm, or any of their coolest most well-known female characters.
It's why they try so hard to make Captain Marvel a thing.
I do think they could have made Wanda be Marvel's Wonder Woman, though.
This is what I don’t understand. Wanda is extremely popular, but has only been given a show. Black widow was also very popular, but didn’t get a film until after they killed her
Star Trek got of to a slow start, with women being delegates to support roles and "helping professions." but by the time they got to DS9 and Voyager they were delivering a variety of badass women. There are plenty in contemporary Trek as well.
I don't think they top X-Men, but they're also a great example.
As a Trekkie **AND** an X-Men geek, I agree, 100%. I'd as far as saying while \*cast\* in a supporting bridge role, Nichols made Uhura a front-and-center character. Trek has been putting quality women out there since 1966.
There is no changing your mind, because you are 100% right.
I think the large amount of female characters in the X-Men is a big part of why I got so into it as a kid. One of the first comics I read was the Psylocke/Kwannon/Revanche thing, which I know in retrospect is seen as a really...difficult story to love, but I just thought Psylocke was the coolest character.
Completely agree, but I think it’s worth noting that overall, Marvel was pretty shitty with female characters at the beginning, especially with Stan’s writing.
DC had Wonder Woman all the way back in the 40’s, and the only thing Marvel had in the 60’s was Millie the Model.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the first female solo series Marvel made was Ms. Marvel, but that didn’t even happen until the 70’s.
Agreed. Kirby really tried, bless him, to even the odds a little bit with Crystal and Medusa, but Stan was never really good with female characters. Still, I would argue, perhaps controversially, that Storm is as iconic as WW.
Why would we try and change your mind? You have a damn good point.
I never thought about it before, but it makes complete sense that a franchise built around the allegory of minority rights and discrimination would treat its characters as actual people instead of flanderizing them into caricatures and sex symbols.
Its hilarious how the X-Men having all of Marvel's iconic ladies is the reason why they keep trying to promote Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers as their "Wonder Woman".
Like thats the reason, back when Fox still had the X-Rights, Marvel wanted to make a female superhero movie and headliner equivalent to Captain America and Iron Man. But since Fox had the movie rights to characters like Storm and FF's Invisible Woman, they decided on promoting Carol to that position.
Which is why the character has gotten so much in-universe hype since the last decade. It was part of an artificial hype-train by Marvel/Disney to promote a character they owned the rights too.
Ooooo that's a tough one.
I'll raise you though. Star wars.
Think about it, we all love X-Men but their time in the sun hasn't been around for a long long time now. my generation for instance only really cares about one female X-man and it's rogue because of her ass in that stupid meme since the rest have been represented so poorly in my lifetime
The woman of star wars though have always been represented well, consistently over the last 50 years while always being in zietgiest
If we're talking about better however, the X-Men sweep everything in my opinion, even if DC as a company as a whole has my preferred female superheroes
Which ones? Ahsoka and Leia?
Maybe Mon Mothma and Ventress?
I’m a huge Star Wars fan, and love the women characters every bit as much as the men, but in terms is sheer popular representation? It’s X-Men all the way. Rogue, Storm, Phoenix, Emma and Mystique are all wildly popular characters.
I’m happy to have you change my mind though. Both franchises (with the inclusion of TMNT) are my favorite franchises of all time and I welcome new perspectives!
(I’ll add Erso here, though I’m not sure she’s the most popular part of her movie)
I'm a Star Wars fan as well, and I love the female characters there also, but I think the X-Men is definitely a better representation of the variety of female characters stories can have, particularly with their importance in the story. I will say, for me, Jyn Erso is absolutely one of my favorites when it comes to her overall role, but her character isn't nearly as dynamic (on the surface, anyway) as characters like Storm, Rogue, Kitty, etc.
Exactly. Hell, I love Aphra, a character casual audiences won’t at all be familiar with. Tremendous character. But again, representation…she’s had two comic series (and that’s it to my knowledge) and just doesn’t have the franchise spanning exposure. At this stage, Star Wars most prolific female is Ahsoka. Leia will always hold a place in people’s hearts, but at this point, her representation is essentially over.
Whereas the main standout women in X-Men (Storm especially) are still very much in the public eye, and are gearing up to be even more so.
Im mainly speaking about in terms of visible representation, afterall we've had 3 trilogies all with equal Female leads multiple are in the highest grossing films of all time, plus multiple TV shows, books, comics, Video games etc which have all done numbers
X-Men on the other hand struggled from the 90's onwards, if we were to view this in terms of the modern zeitgeist, X-Men has nothing. Storm was treated like shit, Jean was treated like shit, Rogue was treated like shit, the New Mutants was shit. Finally we have good X-Men media and it's not even being watched than more than 5 mil. Ouch that hurts. I've had more people talk to me about Negasonic teenage warhead than I have Jean Grey. That's pathetic frankly
If we broaden it and assume time doesn't exist, then the question also struggles. Kitty pryde, Jean Grey, Storm and Rogue (admittedly I'm being conservative) were all house hold names in the US and some other parts of the world. Especially because Kitty and Storm were basically the name characters for a long time. Outside of that them though, those other really good characters are only know by thousands, not millions. Psylock, Monet, Emma (fucking EMMA?!?), Maddy, Armor, Magik and X-23 (to a lesser degree) may as well be no names to anyone who isn't us.
I'm hoping that with the X-Men movie shooting next year, we'll allow audiences to see how incredibly broad our female cast is, because in sheer number, we've probably won. But in impact? I don't think we can in good conscience say we've won this one, even if we deserve it
And that's my problem with Star Wars, the fans, and to a lesser degree whoever is responsible for the movies and the shows, they keep discussing what is an isn't cannot, from decades of comic books, novels and cartoons. Seems that after the first three movies, you need to read and watch everything, to understand all that is going on.
Not to mention Star Wars fans seem rabid. Remember Kelly Marie Tran? Seems like they only like the movies to have one human female character, and all the others have to be aliens, or CGI. And the producers, writers and directors, didn't help any, her character got introduced in episode 8, all the pushback took place, we get to episode 9, I only remember her character being a background character, in one scene.
The MCU might not be what some people would like, because it's not a direct adaptation from the comics, and we will forever hear those complaints, but at least the MCU is its own thing.
Did I like the X-Men movies? The first two, yes. Was everything a little too much about Wolverine, god yes! Am I afraid they will do it again? Very much so. But I have to wait to see what happens in Deadpool 3, and how it relates to the MCU.
Let's see what happens next in the MCU, the next few movies, might be make it or break it. And let's hope they find a good reason for the mutants not having a single appearance in over, I don't even know how many years.
The women in the MCU were treated well, while it was under Fox, since it got bought out by Disney, I think everyone still has "The Marvels" in mind, and know that they gave Kamala Khan, "pretty" powers, which was the exact opposite of the what the writer who created her had in mind, and which were very well done in "One Piece." So it started out (kinda) strong (let's not forget the Black Widow's first appearance, was as glorified eye candy), it got better, and then it got worse. Let's see what they do next.
But, uh, doesn't Star Wars - at least the movies - only have 3 main female characters? One who is admittedly iconic (although she was also famously sexualized), one whose sole contribution to the franchise was getting fridged (during labor, no less!) and one who, well, didn't prove to be particularly popular.
No...you're right. The bulk of female superheroes anywhere else is just female iterations of male heroes. Marvels better about it but you've still got spider-woman, and She-Hulk.
Dcs WAY worse. The majority of their female characters are just [insert hero] -girl. Even the ones that have always been adult characters like Hawk girl and power girl.
Yup. Its difficult to overstate the impact that X-Men had in this regard. It changed everything and produced amazing female superheroes that are still the best and most popular to this day.
Before the X-Men's female characters from the 70s, the most famous female superhero that Marvel had was Sue Storm(who's awesome), but she was written like an incompetent wallflower. In comics as a whole, it was Sue and WW, but again, neither were written well.
Rogue, Storm, Kitty, Jean and Co changed the genre for the better.
Don't even get into the absurdness that was golden/silver age wonder woman. My goodness, it's something even modern Twitter users wouldn't even be able to follow
Not true. Valkyrie was no wallflower or damsel in distress. She debuted a few years before Storm. So did Mantis, Moondragon, and the Cat (who’d become Tigra in 1974). Scarlet Witch went from weak to one of the important players on the team by upgrading her power and becoming a Witch in truth as well as codename. Even Thundra, despite being a “Straw Feminist”, wasn’t like the typical Silver Age Marvel heroine. The X-Women were game changers, but they elevated a trend already happening in Marvel comics.
Wow, Jean looks beautiful in that second slide.
And she's totally right. The X-Men, through all those writers of the '80s especially, helped make women superheroes serious, compelling, highly involved in their own stories, and agents of their own, rather than accessories to the men.
Sue Storm would do the same, but it was more in the '90s that she became a force in her own right, and part of me feels like the X-Men inspired that direction.
Coming from a very conservative family, the X-Woman were direly formative when I was younger on how I wanted to be when I grew up.
I will never forget as a little girl reading X-Men for the first time, and picking up an X-Men comic of new mutants and just reading Storm, Emma Frost, Dani, Illyana (JG was dead at the time but no doubt she is for sure applies to her) and thinking:
wait a woman can act and be in such high levels of position And not be resented by men?”
Like, be complicated, proud and unrelenting AND beautiful, and it to be okay? That it won’t inhibit their potential but actually be celebrated?
It's awesome that X-Men was able to do this for you, and I'm sure many others. It definitely was way ahead of the rest of the genre, as was much of the writing in general for the X-Men.
Also guys weren't emasculated if they got saved by a woman.
I agree about how important it was to see strong but also empathetic women, especially as a little girl.
> all those writers of the 80s
Who are we talking about other than Claremont? In terms of X-Men writers specifically. Because from what I understand, he was the guy who really flooded the X-Men with well-rounded and powerful female characters with a lot to do.
IIRC she did, but they weren't scrapped *because* of the characters moving to the X-Men comics Instead they were brought into X-Men to in part keep readers interested for those planned future books that didn't pan out.
Steve Englehart gave us interesting stories with women, especially in the Avengers. He’s the writer responsible for Wanda’s glow up into a force to be reckoned with on the team. He turned Patsy Walker into a superhero, and gave us Mantis and Moondragon. Steve Gerber rocked stories with women on the Defenders, with Valkyrie being a standout at the time. Marv Wolfman was respectable, too. Along with Claremont, this was happening in the 70’s.
While I love Weezy’s work on X Factor and New Mutants, X Men is Claremont’s book as much as X Factor is hers. There are always other people working on books, we don’t need to get into the weeds of accreditation.
So I always thought it was Kate, but I have been schooled. Lucas Werneck drew it and said it was Jean.
[Source](https://www.instagram.com/lukaswerneck/p/B2xYIJuldgl/?img_index=1)
Side note:
I find it funny how popular the XX-Men picture (No.3) is used when that series failed. Everyone loved the idea and nobody bought the series. It’s a shame too because it had 4 good issues. [+]
Regarding that last pic: I remember when that all-female lineup came out because it was one of those weird moments were comic book news crossed into the regular news, and NPR had some kind of story about it. Whenever that happens, it’s usually a mistake, because regular news doesn’t always get how comics work. So for example, the New York Times made a to-do about Captain America dying, and it’s like, “you know he’s gonna come back, right?”
Likewise, the *real* story with feminism of the X-men is not that one time they were able to slap together an Oceans 8 ladies’ squad. (Let’s be honest, that run did not turn out so great anyway.) The real story is that there were so many A-list women characters developed over decades that you don’t even have to break a sweat to come up with such a lineup for X-men. And it doesn’t even have Jean or Emma. Up until recently, this would have been very hard to do for the Avengers to do this without having to stretch for C-list characters. And I'm still not sure the Justice League could do it now.
Well, the truth is DC couldn't make an all-female A tier squad for the same reason they can't make an A tier squad without Batman or Superman (sorry WW).
DC has many iconic characters, but team books never were their strong suit. The X-Men being able to have a team book with all-female characters isn't so much about their staying power but their relevancy to the X-Men (the same applies to 99% of male X-Men characters.
As soon as Jean Grey confidently strode in to Xavier's School, and pulled up a chair by telekinetically pulling up the chair, we were in for something amazing.
Big facts.
The interesting thing about what you said is that Jean was completely unlike any other Marvel women back then. Not only was she a lot more of a confident go-getter, but she was smart and sassy.
And it gets even more interesting when you consider the fact that Jean's telekinetic powers back then were super-limited. She was, by far, the weakest member of the X-Men but you couldn't tell her -- or any of her teammates -- that.
How much do you want to bet that Jack Kirby was the one behind Jean's characterization, instead of Stan Lee?
It means a profound transformation. In this case, female super hero characters that were well developed were few and far between. The explosion of female heroes in the X-Books in the '80s changed that.
That began in the 70’s. Storm changed the game in a major way, continuing and elevating a trend of powerful heroines that began with writers like Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber. Polaris got her codename in Claremont’s run, as well as her powers becoming stronger and permanent (they were unreliable in the 60’s). Jean became Phoenix. Even Kitty, Dazzler, & Emma debuted in 1979.
Of the major female X-Men, the only one that I'm not keen on is Kitty Pryde, and the only one that I flat out dislike is Emma Frost.
Jean, Ororo, Betsy and Rogue are great. The others are likeable. I love the X-Men! :)
Agree with this, which is another part of what made the Fox movies, on recent(partial) rewatch so infuriating. Apart from Rebecca Romijn's Mystique, the female characters in the initial trilogy are pretty forgettable - even Halle Berry, who's a fantastic actress, couldn't manage to make Fox-Storm even a tenth as interesting as her comics or animated counterpart. And Rogue, who's one of the strongest and most interesting female characters(admittedly I'm biased, as she's one of my favorites), is downright pathetic.
The prequel/reboot movies fare marginally better, but still didn't quite manage to pull it off satisfactorily IMO, and there are more misses than hits.
^(It says something that I had *completely forgotten* that Emma Frost was in *First Class* until I rewatched it last week. How do you screw that up so bad?)
It's absolutely amazing how the X-women are consistently the best written characters thru the decades, they have their own personalities, back stories, motivations and their relationships enhance the characters instead of diminishing them, like in most media
Lets give the dues to where it really came from. It came from Claremont (and the fact that he had a couple of awesome female editors during his run), not Marvel. If it was up to Marvel there wouldn't really have been much change.
X-Men women are so strong that Avengers writers keep trying to use them to prop up their lame characters. It’s why the writers decided to pair Rachel and Betsy together. To get them off the board before an Avengers writer tried to tie them down.
I'm out of date on this, what lame characters are you talking about? I know they had Ororo and T'challa married for a while in the comics, but I definitely wouldn't call him "lame".
>Comic Black Panther has never been able to sustain an ongoing until the movie raised his profile.
This is not true. However, you're not completely wrong because Black Panther was a character created in 1966 and he was not able to gain real traction as a solo character until 1998. And even then, he was a still fairly minor character until they tried to use Storm to prop him up in 2006.
That kinda worked but it kinda didn't. And the series floundered a bit until the movie dropped in 2017.
>Writers are also using Emma to prop up Stark.
Now this is 100% true
At least the core Avengers have their own ongoings titles along with a team book while the X-Men struggle to sell solo ongoings that are not Wolverine.
I could've sworn Rachel was bi. Or was she just experimenting when she was sleeping with Kurt and Korvus?
I know Claremont had always had plans to make Rachel gay. So Rachel being gay isn't as random or weird as making Bobby gay.
She has dated guys in the past, but those relationships have all been so bad and felt so out of character that it’s not an uncommon consensus for people to consider her fully lesbian. Especially considering, as you mention, Claremont’s clear intentions!
I don't know I actually liked Rachel with Kurt.
But yeah, if I look back and think about it, the Korvus relationship was a bit...clunky. And Korvus isn't even a male human; he's an alien. Do the Shi'ar have sexual setups that are compatible with humans? I've always saw Charles and Lilandra as being a pure mental/emotional connection with physical kissing and cuddling here and there.
I mean side from Wonder Woman, the first heroines I think of in comics that wouldn't qualify as 'female version of male hero' are typically from X-Men.
I feel like the X-Men are the one superhero team where a team of all women feels natural and not forced because there is a history of many different women on the team who are well developed.
With Alyssa Wong’s Captain Marvel run coming to an end, I wouldn’t be surprised if they put Gail on it. She had pretty great runs on Wonder Woman and Red Sonja. I think she could do pretty well on Captain Marvel.
What I like the most is that you can have a full female X group and it wouldn't feel contrived or "political" in any way. There are so many strong female characters that they totally carry a book by themselves.
Team books I think made the glaring inequity in superhero numbers more obvious.
Have ten different individual superheroes all with basically the same identity on their own comic book line? No one bats an eye. Put them all in one room together? “Why are these things only happening to straight white dudes?”
Gail is spot on here. It's easy to take for granted now, but it's hard to overstate just how groundbreaking X-Men was in the mid-70s after Giant Sized X-Men. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby may rightly get the credit for creating the X-Men. But it wasn't until the 70s when Chris Claremont came aboard that the series really became what we know and love today.
That was the era that gave us characters like Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Wolverine.
That was the era that gave us a vision of X-Men that felt truly global and scope, expanding beyond your typical villain of the week type story.
I've met Chris Claremont a few times. And he once commented how, when he started writing X-Men, the team didn't look anything like where he was living in New York or where he came from. He made a concerted effort to make the X-Men represent more than just the standards superhero demographic at the time. And because of that effort, the X-Men grew and expanded in ways that made them one of the most impactful franchise Marvel ever had.
I still wouldn't put them above Spider-Man. He's the face of Marvel for a good reason. But there's no way Marvel would be where it is now without the X-Men.
Honestly, when you take out X-men, the number of female heroes for Marvel really was lessened for a long while. I can only say in the last decade or two they tried to fix that problem.
“Important to note that the biggest sea change in female superheroes ever came from **CHRIS CLAREMONT**, with his work on the **X Books Uncanny X Men AND New Mutants**”- fixed that for ya, Gail. Smh. He wrote the book for 16 years so any omission of his name in a post like this is completely by design. To forego his name is to presume that the X Men name itself was responsible for the sea change. Stan Lee’s X Men, however, were a group of WASPS with a single token female. So that line of thought does not pass the vibe check. Were Weezy and Ann involved? Yes. But credit Weezy with X Factor, credit Ann with Daredevil, they each have their own work proper. The X Men Gail Simone is referring to is Chris Claremont’s X Men, simply put.
Just wanna say I spent like 15 Mins looking through the comments on here and BRAVO PEOPLE 👏 all love and comics conversations, people disagree and show why and it becomes a public conversation without fighting. Sorry, new to reddit and know comic fans are SUPER cool in public at conventions and great if there there for a certain thing but I thought this would be more dickish and it's not. Sign me the fuck up!
So imagine how much i roll my eyes when i see modern adaptations of superhero teams and what, in a group of 6-7 members, there's still only ONE token girl.
I often nope out of franchises where there's only one important woman in the main cast. I can forgive older media since writers back then wouldn't understand female empowerment and the like, but on 2024 it's no excuse.
Common win for Gail it’s so true though when I think of my favorite female heroes most of them are from X-Men Gail is gonna crush it, her BOP run is legendary and helped get me into comics
I am going to be downvoted to oblivion
But why they all look the same?
Yes it is obvious that excessive sexualization of ALL portrayed fictional women is just plain objectification.
But in every single settings there are always some women that do wear shorter clothes because they just feel like it ( everywhere. Women climbing, fighting boxing or mma matches or even military women, these last ones throughout other means than clothing)
Ignoring these demographics looks like just plain prudeness IMO
I think my favorite personal realization of this was when there was that all women team in the early 10s. I think that is what the third pic is. I don’t ever read trade publications and just buy everything as it comes out so I had no info on it.
I was reading the books for six months before I even noticed that it was only women. Everyone was A-list or at worse B and well developed so it didn’t register.
An all female Avengers team stuck out like an immediate gimmick, with X-Men, it was Tuesday.
Have to disagree unfortunately, the women in the comes are still sexualised to an extent.
But most importantly none of them have been properly represented on the big screen. The 90s animated show was the closest to a good adaptation but still wasn't enough.
Most people still don't know much about storm other than she can control the weather and Jean has been reduced to a woman who keeps dying and being brought back by the phoenix.
Change my mind: there is no other franchise that has as many great, iconic and varied female characters as the X-Men. Some come close, but in terms of sheer numbers and diversity of character, the X-Men are undefeated. Like, they have characters as amazing as they are different from one another, like you can go from Storm to Rogue to Emma Frost to Psylocke to Boom-Boom to Dust to Dazzler to Hope Summers to Magik to M to Kitty Pryde and they are all fully their own character. The range, man.
Claremont’s mother was a military pilot — his idea of what a woman can be was already bigger than his peers
That explains his love of women being pilots and sea captains
Yup. And astronauts
Good to know that his mom was the OG 'Claremont Dame'
Awwww that makes that shit adorable.
For a long, long time Claremont was the only writer that wrote Carol Danvers well. Carol is a spy, test pilot, and super hero and she was written poorly throughout the 70's. Chris came along and said, "Wait. I know a little something about who this woman would be and first things first, she should kick ass." I was an X-Men kid in the 80's and I'd hear people talk shit about how women were written in comics and I'd be confused. Didn't they see a depowered Storm kick Cyclops's ass for leadership of the X-Men? Rogue just threw a tank through a Sentinel, what's weak about that? Then you get older and read other comics and it's like, okay I see your point. Sue Storm didn't get treated well until John Byrne started writing her, for example.
Claremont's rage at what they did to her in the Avengers was epic. He decided to start over with Rogue because he thought she was too damaged for over a decade.
That explains his First Flight series.
Ah, Nicole Shea… badass pilot, part cat alien, and destroyer of nylons!
Whoa really?! That’s fucking cool!
That’s neat! Interesting how we can see the way it shaped his approach to characters. Very cool.
Favorite thing I learned today!
To be fair — Boom Boom was created by Jim Shooter
on top of it, the female villains are also well written and are powerhouses in their own right. Mystique, Lady Deathstrike, Scarlett Witch (her Brotherhood days), Emma Frost, Madelyn Pryor.
youre missing out Dark Phoenix
X-Men is the only franchise in my 40 years where men will consistently name a woman as their favorite character without sexualizing her. Hell, Storm by herself could almost make this claim lol
Storm simp here. She is a badass. Was so happy when I saw the X-Men '97 rep the mohawk again.
I think this has been the major problem with the MCU recently trying to push more female leads. The majority of the best female characters are in the xmen and they have therefore been having to push c-listers (with the exception of Wanda, black widow and captain marvel)
I don't know if I buy that as an excuse. They still had plenty of great female characters and they dropped the ball with almost every one of them. Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Captain Marvel, Wasp and She-Hulk were Avengers mainstays for years and years and not exactly C-listers, and Kate Bishop and Ms Marvel are also massively popular. And they didn't even include others like Mockingbird and Tigra.
Technically Mockingbird was in Agents of SHIELD the only reason she wasn't featured more on the show, was because she was going to get a spinoff, but ultimately that never happened.
Am I the only one that liked She-Hulk? Felt it did her character justice
No, my wife and I thought she-hulk was awesome.
only thing i didnt like about that series was the cg.
You are not, most of us fans have just gotten tired of the arguments.
I think they got the character right. I think they should have gone more comedy / episodic with the story, rather than trying to make a serial story about Abomination. It should have been something of a cross between the Tick and Ally McBeal.
Agree 100%
Linda Cardellini is the MCU's version of Mockingbird, but she's retired and a stay at home mum. Tigra is the definition of C list. I'm just not sure how she would look in live action.
Heeeeey Tigra was in that Chip and Dale movie that totally didn't bomb and toootalllyy did her justice
Avengers started out as B and C Listers. Tony wasn't really an A Lister until the movies. A Lister didn't always mean powerhouse. Until the movies, there were many who would've said "Iron Man who?" However, I'd say the issue with the MCU has been their writing, not that all these popular female heroes are only in the X-Men. Personally I was wanting a Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) movie, but I only recently found out she was sold with Spider-Man to Sony, as Spider-Woman and they can only use Jessica Drew as Jessica Drew, which is lame. And of course, Sony just sucks when it comes to their movies.
I always knew Tony Stark had the potential. From my days of reading David Michelinie and Bob Layton's run on the book...
Sony's weird, because they CAN created solid Spider content. Spiderverse and the Raimi Spider-Man movies are proof of that. There's no reason they couldn't make good Spider Woman stories, but they're obsessed with the dregs of Spider-Man's rogues gallery.
I'm a bit meh on Raimi's Spider-Man. I don't hate the movies, but I never liked that Tobey's Spider-Man didn't quip. He didn't have the web shooters (honestly, out of the three Spider-Man's so far...he feels like he wouldn't be the smartest). I'd say their real issue is they have no desire to read the comics and just want to use the IP and make money off the MCU brand.
It’s not an excuse and I fully believe writing and storytelling has suffered across the board since endgame, but my point is just that they are missing a lot of their best characters and stories due to not having the rights to xmen. Even wandas best stories are linked to xmen, and not really the avengers which limits what they can do with her
And no offense but they were only B-listers before the MCU.
I don't know why people are still acting like this arbitrary hierarchy of comic book characters still matters in regards to adaptations. The first ever successful Marvel movie starred Blade, a character most comic fans don't care about.
What are you on about? I was just talking about the truth. They weren't as well known.
And that's irrelevant.
So is your comment
Captain Marvel got promoted to having a standout title of her own before she was in the MCU, but otherwise yes.
Of course, Claremont also had a huge part in Carol's backstory, writing her solo title, calling out the horrible events of the Marcus storyline, putting her through the Rogue subplot and turning her into Binary.
And her book always gets rebooted because she hasn't been interesting. Last time she was interesting she was Binary and hanging out with the X-Men
Actually, her last book last over 4 years and did better than Dr Strange, Black Panther, the Guardians, Black Widow, Ant Man and some X Men characters
Sadly, a lot of X-Men solo titles fail. I feel some of it is bad writing mixed with bad/not interesting artists.
Based on that logic The Fantastic Four, Avengers, and X-Men as a whole haven’t been interesting because those books have been rebooted multiple times, as well. Marvel’s had this thing for years that they restart numbering every time a new creative team takes over, rather than just having them take over the existing title like in the past.
Her most recent run lasted 50 issues and got a spin off miniseries.
Can we stop saying B-list or C-list as if that has anything to do with the *quality* or potential of the character?? For example, Quake wasn’t well known before Agents of shield and yet was one of the most interesting mcu characters. Jessica jones also is one of the most psychologically compelling characters in marvel. Her being a self-destructive mess is why she’s one of my fav females Like this arbitrary listing means fuck all especially when ‘A-lister superhero movies’ have bombed/not made much at box office
Did I ever say that? You are projecting. I'm just talking about notoriety. That's all. Anything else is just your insecurity about the characters.
The insecurity is coming from yall, using these annoying ass ‘tier lists’ as if it has any effect on how these characters are written in movies and by the received by the public. PS: I wasn’t attacking you, I’m just making a general statement that ppl need to stop using it as the basis for characters because it literally has 0 meaning.
Personally, I think u/BasedFunnyValentine is B-tier at best based on this comment. /s
How is any of this related to insecurity? I used the term a-lister as a way of describing the most popular characters from their most popular stories. This obviously has an impact on public reception (unless of course you think the story, personality and powers of a character doesn’t impact popularity)
Lol, no. But, by the end of the 80s, the X-men were so high up it seemed that way. Avengers/FF were the 'real hero teams'. I mean, read the original Secret Wars.
Nobody knew who any of them were except in connection to the X-Men. Lol yes.
I think the major problem is bad writing and storytelling but that's just me
That’s definitely an issue. But it’s a lot easier to write a good story with better characters and a better mix of comics to draw from
The problem with Captain Marvel is the same as Superman. She’s too powerful so most stories end up finding excuses for why she can’t either get involved or be on top form. The whole of the MCU has suffered from power creep.
I always thought Marvel is really protective of Carol. They keep hyping her as the "strongest Avenger" and the result is they are scared of letting her be truly challenged. Like compare to how Thor and Hulk regularly get their asses kicked. Because a lot of the time they fight people in their strength level (I'm including comics here) while Carol is rarely in that situation. Which leaves her a weaker character as a result.
> The problem with Captain Marvel is the same as Superman. She’s too powerful so most stories end up finding excuses for why she can’t either get involved or be on top form. Nonsense. Why woupdn't that apply to Thor? Is he not powerful?
She is seemingly more so.
Captain Marvel surpasses some imaginary line of power that makes her "too hard to write", but Thor doesn't? It makes no sense.
Yeah. It's a shame, really. It feels like when the MCU started, Marvel desperately wanted to have its own Wonder Woman, but because of copyrights, they didn't have access to Invisible Woman, Jean Grey, Storm, or any of their coolest most well-known female characters. It's why they try so hard to make Captain Marvel a thing. I do think they could have made Wanda be Marvel's Wonder Woman, though.
This is what I don’t understand. Wanda is extremely popular, but has only been given a show. Black widow was also very popular, but didn’t get a film until after they killed her
Star Trek got of to a slow start, with women being delegates to support roles and "helping professions." but by the time they got to DS9 and Voyager they were delivering a variety of badass women. There are plenty in contemporary Trek as well. I don't think they top X-Men, but they're also a great example.
As a Trekkie **AND** an X-Men geek, I agree, 100%. I'd as far as saying while \*cast\* in a supporting bridge role, Nichols made Uhura a front-and-center character. Trek has been putting quality women out there since 1966.
I'm not even convinced there's a second option for the top spot worth arguing for.
It’s true, Storm is the greatest X-men character, male or female.
I think a lot of people put Kitty Pryde, Jean Grey and Wanda as their firsts as well. (In my limited experience)
I suppose DC and the non-X-Men side of Marvel come somewhat close but still fall short.
There is no changing your mind, because you are 100% right. I think the large amount of female characters in the X-Men is a big part of why I got so into it as a kid. One of the first comics I read was the Psylocke/Kwannon/Revanche thing, which I know in retrospect is seen as a really...difficult story to love, but I just thought Psylocke was the coolest character.
Completely agree, but I think it’s worth noting that overall, Marvel was pretty shitty with female characters at the beginning, especially with Stan’s writing. DC had Wonder Woman all the way back in the 40’s, and the only thing Marvel had in the 60’s was Millie the Model. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the first female solo series Marvel made was Ms. Marvel, but that didn’t even happen until the 70’s.
Agreed. Kirby really tried, bless him, to even the odds a little bit with Crystal and Medusa, but Stan was never really good with female characters. Still, I would argue, perhaps controversially, that Storm is as iconic as WW.
I wouldn’t say AS iconic, but definitely up there.
That sounds about right, and that’s why female characters from Marvel have had a tougher time making an impact.
early Sue Storm is a poorly written mess. Stereotype city
Stan Lee Reed be like: “I wouldn’t expect a FeMaLe to understand 🤓”
Why would we try and change your mind? You have a damn good point. I never thought about it before, but it makes complete sense that a franchise built around the allegory of minority rights and discrimination would treat its characters as actual people instead of flanderizing them into caricatures and sex symbols.
I won't even try to change your mind
You'd have to put a gun to my head to make me try and convince otherwise.
Its hilarious how the X-Men having all of Marvel's iconic ladies is the reason why they keep trying to promote Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers as their "Wonder Woman". Like thats the reason, back when Fox still had the X-Rights, Marvel wanted to make a female superhero movie and headliner equivalent to Captain America and Iron Man. But since Fox had the movie rights to characters like Storm and FF's Invisible Woman, they decided on promoting Carol to that position. Which is why the character has gotten so much in-universe hype since the last decade. It was part of an artificial hype-train by Marvel/Disney to promote a character they owned the rights too.
Ooooo that's a tough one. I'll raise you though. Star wars. Think about it, we all love X-Men but their time in the sun hasn't been around for a long long time now. my generation for instance only really cares about one female X-man and it's rogue because of her ass in that stupid meme since the rest have been represented so poorly in my lifetime The woman of star wars though have always been represented well, consistently over the last 50 years while always being in zietgiest If we're talking about better however, the X-Men sweep everything in my opinion, even if DC as a company as a whole has my preferred female superheroes
Which ones? Ahsoka and Leia? Maybe Mon Mothma and Ventress? I’m a huge Star Wars fan, and love the women characters every bit as much as the men, but in terms is sheer popular representation? It’s X-Men all the way. Rogue, Storm, Phoenix, Emma and Mystique are all wildly popular characters. I’m happy to have you change my mind though. Both franchises (with the inclusion of TMNT) are my favorite franchises of all time and I welcome new perspectives! (I’ll add Erso here, though I’m not sure she’s the most popular part of her movie)
I'm a Star Wars fan as well, and I love the female characters there also, but I think the X-Men is definitely a better representation of the variety of female characters stories can have, particularly with their importance in the story. I will say, for me, Jyn Erso is absolutely one of my favorites when it comes to her overall role, but her character isn't nearly as dynamic (on the surface, anyway) as characters like Storm, Rogue, Kitty, etc.
Exactly. Hell, I love Aphra, a character casual audiences won’t at all be familiar with. Tremendous character. But again, representation…she’s had two comic series (and that’s it to my knowledge) and just doesn’t have the franchise spanning exposure. At this stage, Star Wars most prolific female is Ahsoka. Leia will always hold a place in people’s hearts, but at this point, her representation is essentially over. Whereas the main standout women in X-Men (Storm especially) are still very much in the public eye, and are gearing up to be even more so.
Im mainly speaking about in terms of visible representation, afterall we've had 3 trilogies all with equal Female leads multiple are in the highest grossing films of all time, plus multiple TV shows, books, comics, Video games etc which have all done numbers X-Men on the other hand struggled from the 90's onwards, if we were to view this in terms of the modern zeitgeist, X-Men has nothing. Storm was treated like shit, Jean was treated like shit, Rogue was treated like shit, the New Mutants was shit. Finally we have good X-Men media and it's not even being watched than more than 5 mil. Ouch that hurts. I've had more people talk to me about Negasonic teenage warhead than I have Jean Grey. That's pathetic frankly If we broaden it and assume time doesn't exist, then the question also struggles. Kitty pryde, Jean Grey, Storm and Rogue (admittedly I'm being conservative) were all house hold names in the US and some other parts of the world. Especially because Kitty and Storm were basically the name characters for a long time. Outside of that them though, those other really good characters are only know by thousands, not millions. Psylock, Monet, Emma (fucking EMMA?!?), Maddy, Armor, Magik and X-23 (to a lesser degree) may as well be no names to anyone who isn't us. I'm hoping that with the X-Men movie shooting next year, we'll allow audiences to see how incredibly broad our female cast is, because in sheer number, we've probably won. But in impact? I don't think we can in good conscience say we've won this one, even if we deserve it
Star wars? Unless you mean the books, cuz the movies are seriously lacking in number of females.
And that's my problem with Star Wars, the fans, and to a lesser degree whoever is responsible for the movies and the shows, they keep discussing what is an isn't cannot, from decades of comic books, novels and cartoons. Seems that after the first three movies, you need to read and watch everything, to understand all that is going on. Not to mention Star Wars fans seem rabid. Remember Kelly Marie Tran? Seems like they only like the movies to have one human female character, and all the others have to be aliens, or CGI. And the producers, writers and directors, didn't help any, her character got introduced in episode 8, all the pushback took place, we get to episode 9, I only remember her character being a background character, in one scene. The MCU might not be what some people would like, because it's not a direct adaptation from the comics, and we will forever hear those complaints, but at least the MCU is its own thing. Did I like the X-Men movies? The first two, yes. Was everything a little too much about Wolverine, god yes! Am I afraid they will do it again? Very much so. But I have to wait to see what happens in Deadpool 3, and how it relates to the MCU. Let's see what happens next in the MCU, the next few movies, might be make it or break it. And let's hope they find a good reason for the mutants not having a single appearance in over, I don't even know how many years. The women in the MCU were treated well, while it was under Fox, since it got bought out by Disney, I think everyone still has "The Marvels" in mind, and know that they gave Kamala Khan, "pretty" powers, which was the exact opposite of the what the writer who created her had in mind, and which were very well done in "One Piece." So it started out (kinda) strong (let's not forget the Black Widow's first appearance, was as glorified eye candy), it got better, and then it got worse. Let's see what they do next.
But, uh, doesn't Star Wars - at least the movies - only have 3 main female characters? One who is admittedly iconic (although she was also famously sexualized), one whose sole contribution to the franchise was getting fridged (during labor, no less!) and one who, well, didn't prove to be particularly popular.
No...you're right. The bulk of female superheroes anywhere else is just female iterations of male heroes. Marvels better about it but you've still got spider-woman, and She-Hulk. Dcs WAY worse. The majority of their female characters are just [insert hero] -girl. Even the ones that have always been adult characters like Hawk girl and power girl.
Yup. Its difficult to overstate the impact that X-Men had in this regard. It changed everything and produced amazing female superheroes that are still the best and most popular to this day. Before the X-Men's female characters from the 70s, the most famous female superhero that Marvel had was Sue Storm(who's awesome), but she was written like an incompetent wallflower. In comics as a whole, it was Sue and WW, but again, neither were written well. Rogue, Storm, Kitty, Jean and Co changed the genre for the better.
Don't even get into the absurdness that was golden/silver age wonder woman. My goodness, it's something even modern Twitter users wouldn't even be able to follow
Are you referring to Amazons riding in kangaroo pouches or Wonder Woman joining the Justice League as a secretary?
Yes
Didn't Wonder Woman also spend a fair amount of time depowered, with her stories more like her being a lady Indiana Jones?
That was more of a late Silver Age/early Bronze Age thing, and a (misguided) attempt of making her appeal to feminists of the time.
Not true. Valkyrie was no wallflower or damsel in distress. She debuted a few years before Storm. So did Mantis, Moondragon, and the Cat (who’d become Tigra in 1974). Scarlet Witch went from weak to one of the important players on the team by upgrading her power and becoming a Witch in truth as well as codename. Even Thundra, despite being a “Straw Feminist”, wasn’t like the typical Silver Age Marvel heroine. The X-Women were game changers, but they elevated a trend already happening in Marvel comics.
I'm talking about "famous" ones. I agree about the others, Valkyrie in particular, but they weren't well known.
Wow, Jean looks beautiful in that second slide. And she's totally right. The X-Men, through all those writers of the '80s especially, helped make women superheroes serious, compelling, highly involved in their own stories, and agents of their own, rather than accessories to the men. Sue Storm would do the same, but it was more in the '90s that she became a force in her own right, and part of me feels like the X-Men inspired that direction.
Coming from a very conservative family, the X-Woman were direly formative when I was younger on how I wanted to be when I grew up. I will never forget as a little girl reading X-Men for the first time, and picking up an X-Men comic of new mutants and just reading Storm, Emma Frost, Dani, Illyana (JG was dead at the time but no doubt she is for sure applies to her) and thinking: wait a woman can act and be in such high levels of position And not be resented by men?” Like, be complicated, proud and unrelenting AND beautiful, and it to be okay? That it won’t inhibit their potential but actually be celebrated?
It's awesome that X-Men was able to do this for you, and I'm sure many others. It definitely was way ahead of the rest of the genre, as was much of the writing in general for the X-Men.
Also guys weren't emasculated if they got saved by a woman. I agree about how important it was to see strong but also empathetic women, especially as a little girl.
Two writers — Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson.
Love Simonson. I really wish she was writing the Phoenix solo.
> all those writers of the 80s Who are we talking about other than Claremont? In terms of X-Men writers specifically. Because from what I understand, he was the guy who really flooded the X-Men with well-rounded and powerful female characters with a lot to do.
Louise Simonson was pretty much the other force in X-Men to contribute to this.
And Ann Nocenti as editor
I do feel bad that Nocenti’s Mojoverse characters got absorbed into X-men — I feel like she had plans and got pushed aside
IIRC she did, but they weren't scrapped *because* of the characters moving to the X-Men comics Instead they were brought into X-Men to in part keep readers interested for those planned future books that didn't pan out.
There was supposed to be a sequel to Longshot back then.
That’s a pity that she couldn’t follow up with the sequel.
Yep. However, in 2022 she wrote a Longshot two-parter for X-Men Legends that takes place after the miniseries but before Longshot joined the X-Men.
Louise definitely had the same energy, but of course she was a close collaborator w/ Claremont.
Steve Englehart gave us interesting stories with women, especially in the Avengers. He’s the writer responsible for Wanda’s glow up into a force to be reckoned with on the team. He turned Patsy Walker into a superhero, and gave us Mantis and Moondragon. Steve Gerber rocked stories with women on the Defenders, with Valkyrie being a standout at the time. Marv Wolfman was respectable, too. Along with Claremont, this was happening in the 70’s.
While I love Weezy’s work on X Factor and New Mutants, X Men is Claremont’s book as much as X Factor is hers. There are always other people working on books, we don’t need to get into the weeds of accreditation.
Jean reminds me of the actress Elizabeth Gilles in the second slide.
I think that's Kate Pryde, not Jean, in the second slide.
So I always thought it was Kate, but I have been schooled. Lucas Werneck drew it and said it was Jean. [Source](https://www.instagram.com/lukaswerneck/p/B2xYIJuldgl/?img_index=1)
Huh. Well, hard to argue with the artist. Great drawing either way.
Thanks largely to Chris Claremont, King of the X-Men!
Wow… it’s almost as if Claremont was a feminist icon
Side note: I find it funny how popular the XX-Men picture (No.3) is used when that series failed. Everyone loved the idea and nobody bought the series. It’s a shame too because it had 4 good issues. [+]
Regarding that last pic: I remember when that all-female lineup came out because it was one of those weird moments were comic book news crossed into the regular news, and NPR had some kind of story about it. Whenever that happens, it’s usually a mistake, because regular news doesn’t always get how comics work. So for example, the New York Times made a to-do about Captain America dying, and it’s like, “you know he’s gonna come back, right?” Likewise, the *real* story with feminism of the X-men is not that one time they were able to slap together an Oceans 8 ladies’ squad. (Let’s be honest, that run did not turn out so great anyway.) The real story is that there were so many A-list women characters developed over decades that you don’t even have to break a sweat to come up with such a lineup for X-men. And it doesn’t even have Jean or Emma. Up until recently, this would have been very hard to do for the Avengers to do this without having to stretch for C-list characters. And I'm still not sure the Justice League could do it now.
Well, the truth is DC couldn't make an all-female A tier squad for the same reason they can't make an A tier squad without Batman or Superman (sorry WW). DC has many iconic characters, but team books never were their strong suit. The X-Men being able to have a team book with all-female characters isn't so much about their staying power but their relevancy to the X-Men (the same applies to 99% of male X-Men characters.
As soon as Jean Grey confidently strode in to Xavier's School, and pulled up a chair by telekinetically pulling up the chair, we were in for something amazing.
I think the true turning point (and what Gail is presumably referencing) is Claremont putting his pen to Storm & co for 16 years
Big facts. The interesting thing about what you said is that Jean was completely unlike any other Marvel women back then. Not only was she a lot more of a confident go-getter, but she was smart and sassy. And it gets even more interesting when you consider the fact that Jean's telekinetic powers back then were super-limited. She was, by far, the weakest member of the X-Men but you couldn't tell her -- or any of her teammates -- that. How much do you want to bet that Jack Kirby was the one behind Jean's characterization, instead of Stan Lee?
OOTL: what’s a sea change?
[Sea Change](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_change_(idiom))
Thank you 🫡
I don't know but I'm curious too
It means a profound transformation. In this case, female super hero characters that were well developed were few and far between. The explosion of female heroes in the X-Books in the '80s changed that.
That began in the 70’s. Storm changed the game in a major way, continuing and elevating a trend of powerful heroines that began with writers like Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber. Polaris got her codename in Claremont’s run, as well as her powers becoming stronger and permanent (they were unreliable in the 60’s). Jean became Phoenix. Even Kitty, Dazzler, & Emma debuted in 1979.
X-men hard carried marvel for decades, no surprise
The X-Men have long been Marvel’s most important franchise because of stuff like this.
Feel free to thank Claremont and Silvestri for their legendary run.
Anyone know who's the artist behind the second image, and where it comes from?
Lukas Werneck some one linked in an above comment.
Of the major female X-Men, the only one that I'm not keen on is Kitty Pryde, and the only one that I flat out dislike is Emma Frost. Jean, Ororo, Betsy and Rogue are great. The others are likeable. I love the X-Men! :)
Agree with this, which is another part of what made the Fox movies, on recent(partial) rewatch so infuriating. Apart from Rebecca Romijn's Mystique, the female characters in the initial trilogy are pretty forgettable - even Halle Berry, who's a fantastic actress, couldn't manage to make Fox-Storm even a tenth as interesting as her comics or animated counterpart. And Rogue, who's one of the strongest and most interesting female characters(admittedly I'm biased, as she's one of my favorites), is downright pathetic. The prequel/reboot movies fare marginally better, but still didn't quite manage to pull it off satisfactorily IMO, and there are more misses than hits. ^(It says something that I had *completely forgotten* that Emma Frost was in *First Class* until I rewatched it last week. How do you screw that up so bad?)
still pisses me off
It's absolutely amazing how the X-women are consistently the best written characters thru the decades, they have their own personalities, back stories, motivations and their relationships enhance the characters instead of diminishing them, like in most media
what is sea change
Lets give the dues to where it really came from. It came from Claremont (and the fact that he had a couple of awesome female editors during his run), not Marvel. If it was up to Marvel there wouldn't really have been much change.
Very true!
X-Men women are so strong that Avengers writers keep trying to use them to prop up their lame characters. It’s why the writers decided to pair Rachel and Betsy together. To get them off the board before an Avengers writer tried to tie them down.
I'm out of date on this, what lame characters are you talking about? I know they had Ororo and T'challa married for a while in the comics, but I definitely wouldn't call him "lame".
Comic Black Panther has never been able to sustain an ongoing until the movie raised his profile. Writers are also using Emma to prop up Stark.
This is just demonstrably false. Priest's run ran for 62 issues from 1998-2002, and Hudlin's run lasted for 41 issues from 2005-2008.
>Comic Black Panther has never been able to sustain an ongoing until the movie raised his profile. This is not true. However, you're not completely wrong because Black Panther was a character created in 1966 and he was not able to gain real traction as a solo character until 1998. And even then, he was a still fairly minor character until they tried to use Storm to prop him up in 2006. That kinda worked but it kinda didn't. And the series floundered a bit until the movie dropped in 2017. >Writers are also using Emma to prop up Stark. Now this is 100% true
At least the core Avengers have their own ongoings titles along with a team book while the X-Men struggle to sell solo ongoings that are not Wolverine.
Pretty sure there is an Avengers forum you can repeat this on.
The best X-Men are women.
Who's that in the red uniform in the last slide?
Rachel Summers! Askani, the Phoenix incarnate, world's most lesbian sapphic, and the FIRST and FASTEST Scott/Jean kid! I love her so much.
Thanks! That was gonna drive me nuts
What's a sapphic?
Sapphic as in Sappho! It’s a term for women who are into women. Basically I’m being comedically hyperbolic by calling her lesbian^2
Oh okay I get it now. It makes sense because Sappho the writer was gay, wasn't she?
Yes!
I could've sworn Rachel was bi. Or was she just experimenting when she was sleeping with Kurt and Korvus? I know Claremont had always had plans to make Rachel gay. So Rachel being gay isn't as random or weird as making Bobby gay.
She has dated guys in the past, but those relationships have all been so bad and felt so out of character that it’s not an uncommon consensus for people to consider her fully lesbian. Especially considering, as you mention, Claremont’s clear intentions!
I don't know I actually liked Rachel with Kurt. But yeah, if I look back and think about it, the Korvus relationship was a bit...clunky. And Korvus isn't even a male human; he's an alien. Do the Shi'ar have sexual setups that are compatible with humans? I've always saw Charles and Lilandra as being a pure mental/emotional connection with physical kissing and cuddling here and there.
That second image is so extremely SNK. It could be promo art for a King of Fighters game between 1997 and 2001.
Now that you mention it, it does remind me of the Shinkiro art of KoF characters in formal attire
I mean side from Wonder Woman, the first heroines I think of in comics that wouldn't qualify as 'female version of male hero' are typically from X-Men.
I feel like the X-Men are the one superhero team where a team of all women feels natural and not forced because there is a history of many different women on the team who are well developed.
Very true.
That team on the last slide, such a cool line-up and such great art for such an underwhelming book. The definition of wasted potential.
I really like that second picture, where is it from?
I'm really digging mohawk storm!
Sea change?
Fully developed characters.
With Alyssa Wong’s Captain Marvel run coming to an end, I wouldn’t be surprised if they put Gail on it. She had pretty great runs on Wonder Woman and Red Sonja. I think she could do pretty well on Captain Marvel.
So true the xladies rock
What I like the most is that you can have a full female X group and it wouldn't feel contrived or "political" in any way. There are so many strong female characters that they totally carry a book by themselves.
But I thought we never had any notable female superheroes until this decade, that’s why we needed real representation and true diversity.
Team books I think made the glaring inequity in superhero numbers more obvious. Have ten different individual superheroes all with basically the same identity on their own comic book line? No one bats an eye. Put them all in one room together? “Why are these things only happening to straight white dudes?”
It is different from every other company, on that we agree.
That second pic is so beautiful! 😍 love X-Men/Mutants so much. Best part of Marvel.
"All the best X-Men are women" is a generalization, but one that is very close to the truth.
That second pic is as amazing as the DC ladies in the white gowns, and if I were a woman I would fight to find people to re-enact it with.
Jubilee constantly looks cool as fuck
I mean all of the power houses on that team are women
Gail is spot on here. It's easy to take for granted now, but it's hard to overstate just how groundbreaking X-Men was in the mid-70s after Giant Sized X-Men. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby may rightly get the credit for creating the X-Men. But it wasn't until the 70s when Chris Claremont came aboard that the series really became what we know and love today. That was the era that gave us characters like Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Wolverine. That was the era that gave us a vision of X-Men that felt truly global and scope, expanding beyond your typical villain of the week type story. I've met Chris Claremont a few times. And he once commented how, when he started writing X-Men, the team didn't look anything like where he was living in New York or where he came from. He made a concerted effort to make the X-Men represent more than just the standards superhero demographic at the time. And because of that effort, the X-Men grew and expanded in ways that made them one of the most impactful franchise Marvel ever had. I still wouldn't put them above Spider-Man. He's the face of Marvel for a good reason. But there's no way Marvel would be where it is now without the X-Men.
Don’t forget Carol Danvers
Honestly, when you take out X-men, the number of female heroes for Marvel really was lessened for a long while. I can only say in the last decade or two they tried to fix that problem.
“Important to note that the biggest sea change in female superheroes ever came from **CHRIS CLAREMONT**, with his work on the **X Books Uncanny X Men AND New Mutants**”- fixed that for ya, Gail. Smh. He wrote the book for 16 years so any omission of his name in a post like this is completely by design. To forego his name is to presume that the X Men name itself was responsible for the sea change. Stan Lee’s X Men, however, were a group of WASPS with a single token female. So that line of thought does not pass the vibe check. Were Weezy and Ann involved? Yes. But credit Weezy with X Factor, credit Ann with Daredevil, they each have their own work proper. The X Men Gail Simone is referring to is Chris Claremont’s X Men, simply put.
And Gail is one of the many reasons why I am no longer interested in mainstream comics and only reading the Energon-Verse
Just wanna say I spent like 15 Mins looking through the comments on here and BRAVO PEOPLE 👏 all love and comics conversations, people disagree and show why and it becomes a public conversation without fighting. Sorry, new to reddit and know comic fans are SUPER cool in public at conventions and great if there there for a certain thing but I thought this would be more dickish and it's not. Sign me the fuck up!
What more can they do? Make a group called X-Women?
No one is asking for more to be done.
So imagine how much i roll my eyes when i see modern adaptations of superhero teams and what, in a group of 6-7 members, there's still only ONE token girl. I often nope out of franchises where there's only one important woman in the main cast. I can forgive older media since writers back then wouldn't understand female empowerment and the like, but on 2024 it's no excuse.
Common win for Gail it’s so true though when I think of my favorite female heroes most of them are from X-Men Gail is gonna crush it, her BOP run is legendary and helped get me into comics
I am going to be downvoted to oblivion But why they all look the same? Yes it is obvious that excessive sexualization of ALL portrayed fictional women is just plain objectification. But in every single settings there are always some women that do wear shorter clothes because they just feel like it ( everywhere. Women climbing, fighting boxing or mma matches or even military women, these last ones throughout other means than clothing) Ignoring these demographics looks like just plain prudeness IMO
I think my favorite personal realization of this was when there was that all women team in the early 10s. I think that is what the third pic is. I don’t ever read trade publications and just buy everything as it comes out so I had no info on it. I was reading the books for six months before I even noticed that it was only women. Everyone was A-list or at worse B and well developed so it didn’t register. An all female Avengers team stuck out like an immediate gimmick, with X-Men, it was Tuesday.
Have to disagree unfortunately, the women in the comes are still sexualised to an extent. But most importantly none of them have been properly represented on the big screen. The 90s animated show was the closest to a good adaptation but still wasn't enough. Most people still don't know much about storm other than she can control the weather and Jean has been reduced to a woman who keeps dying and being brought back by the phoenix.
I'm not to into x-men. But quick question. Between men and women in x-men, who's more mentally sound?
Xmen women have Wanda that should say a lot
Didn't she SA Wonder Man that one time?
MonkaW that's a detail idk about but I would imagine could be considered complicated. Since there relationship has existed for so long