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Erik and Charles in comics canon, part 5
We finally get to the last post of the series, and more of less catch up to current comics canon. Doing this has been the most fun I've had in fandom in ages, and I'd like to thank everyone for the wonderfully encouraging comments and interesting discussions that came up along the way. As time-consuming as making these posts was, I'll definitely miss the whole process now that I'm done.
Attempting to summarize everything that happened after the events of House of M and the mutant decimation would take a whole post by itself, so here's just the relevant facts for the scans that follow: Charles is in a coma from being shot in the head during a mission to protect a mutant messiah (it's not nearly as silly as it sounds in a sentence) and is walking again (...of course he is), Erik is currently depowered (but don't worry, it doesn't stick. Both Erik and Charles were among the mutants who lost their powers, but Marvel knows better than to keep two of its most iconic characters out of the game too long), and Charles is currently being held by Magneto's former Acolytes who are very eager to get into his head, and naturally believe that Erik is the best way to do that.
Btw, Karinda Shapandar is the same young woman that Charles and Erik rescued in their Amazing Underwater Adventure in Excalibur, so Erik chastising her for listening in is a bit rich: if he's hoping to conceal their relationship from her, the horse has left the barn.Karinda just wants her two dads to work things out!
The sound of Erik's voice ends up triggering a series of memories in Charles' head, all unsuprisingly related to the decades of love and dysfunction.
This whole issue is basically continuity!porn. And while I wrote the previous posts before rereading this issue, I'm amused that the moment chosen for the hallucination sequence pretty much reflect the content of said posts. This is the canon version of doing a slashiest moments retrospective.
Oh Karinda, don't you get it? It's not about who “wins”, it's about the game.
So basically what it takes to bring Charles out in the land of the living is to reach some kind of resolution/achieve understanding with Erik inside his head. Not quite the kiss waking up Sleeping Beauty, but close enough.
The reunion is rudely interrupted by Acolyte Frenzy attempting to kill Charles, only to be stopped in an extremely badass fashion by Erik, who doesn't need powers to kick ass and take names.
This is both sad and strangely vindicating. Because yay, canon confirmation that neither of them is 100% right in their approach, but on other hand, so many years of conflict and losses could have been avoided if they'd both gotten their heads out of their asses and found some middle groud between kumbayah and kneel beforeZod Magneto.
I'd be more annoyed at the constant Acolyte interruptions if they weren't currently in their base. So anyway, Exodus decides that currently human Erik offends his mutant supremacist sensibilities and tries to kill him.
For all his current disorientation and partial amnesia, Charles remembers enough to know that nobody is allowed to kill his boyfriendexcept himself, sort of, that one time. He proceeds to kick Exodus' ass all over the psychic plane.
Now why do I get the feeling that when Erik says Charles was both hated and loved, he's not just referring to the rest of the world? Also, I love that for all that Charles' memory resembles Swiss cheese at this point, the one thing he remembers with stark clarity is his history with Erik.
Some time later, the X-Men and pretty much all surviving mutants have established a base/ mutant “Utopia” on Magneto's old crashed satellite, just off the coast of San Fransisco. It was only a matter of time before the previous tenant dropped by.
Given how genial their previous interaction was, the only explanation I can think of for Charles' pissiness is that Erik is there to speak to Scott, not him. And ok, there was an incident in the interim where Magneto attacked the X-Men with giant robots, but it's so minor (for them), that Charles being annoyed at being ignored just seems to fit more.
Either way, it's kind of hard to concentrate on the significance of the moment due to the distraction of the eyesore that is the art of talentless tracer, pornface conveyor and all-around hack Greg Land (and as bad as these panels are, they're nothing to the atrocities he commits against female characters. Don't take my word for it-just google any variation of “Greg Land sucks”, “Greg Land can't draw” and “Greg Land traces porn” for some truly epic online take-downs).
See, told you! Totally motivated by jealousy and possessiveness. “It's always us”, indeed.
Or maybe Charles is both weary after the neverending circle of breaking up and getting back together again.
Whatever the reason, he can't stay mad at Erik for long.
And then Erik, in a moment of crowning awesome, proceeds to use his powers to reach into deep space and bring back Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat, who's been trapped there inside a giant bullet (long story) for months! As an aside, going through all this canon in a short time was also interesting in terms of the relationships Magneto had with other X-Men besides Charles, and Kitty is particularly good example. She has played a part in so many of Magneto's major moments-almost killing her started the process of Magneto first doubting his path as a villain back in the day (in that What Not To Wear issue of X-Men covered in the first post), she was the first X-Man after Charles Magneto managed to convince of his sincerity during the first redemption arc, and there have been some great scenes of them bonding over being Jewish that I haven't included due to a lack of Charles/Erik. So it's more than appropriate that Erik helping her where the X-Men failed (or, let's be honest, not trying all that hard, Scott) is how he proves his change of heart.
As a bonus, I'm including a moment during that period that's not Erik/Charles related but was just too cute to skip. The current batch of X-kids are convinced the base is haunted, but are ignored by all the adults they turned to for help, save Erik, who volunteers.
His evil chuckle in the last panel! Erik is having entirely too much fun fun with playing up his “Master of Magnetism” persona and messing with the kids' heads.
I don't know what it is about Erik's unique brand of bonding with teenagers by both inspiring and terrorizing them that I find adorable, but I just do.
And speaking of Erik and the younger generation, he has been developing a unique rapport with teenage mutant messiah Hope, leading to this great Erik/Charles interaction in the pages of the Generation Hope series:
Aw, poor Charles is feeling left out, which is in keeping with his general lack of purpose in the books lately, since Scott has replaced him in the leadership role.
Erik's face in the third panel is seriously cracking me up. On a more serious note, it's appropriate the old differences and debates are still there, though they've both grown enough to have them without wrecking destruction, psychic attacks or shirtless crucifixions.
Being introduced to the hope of mutantkind as “a dear friend” by former X-Men nemesis is not helping Charles feel any less out of the loop.
LOL, reversing earth's magnetic poles is one thing, but siccing a precocious teen on him is just playing dirty. And Erik is not even attempting to conceal his smugness. No wonder Charles is pissy all the time these days.
In the most recent storyline, Charles' creepy mutant son Legion is causing mayhem, and Erik refuses to let Charles face him alone, adding to Charles' state of permanent annoyance at everyone overruling himand having to share Erik with the X-Men these days.
Yep, still married.
So there you have it, my (more or less) complete list of Erik/Charles moments in mainstream comics continuity. There's plenty of slashiness to be had in the various alternative comic book universes (Ultimate X-Men, House of M:Civil War are the more obvious examples), but I'm not familiar enough with most to take on that particular task (or in the case of Ultimate X-Men, to deal with that clusterfuck of an ending), though hopefully some braver soul than me will attempt that.
Attempting to summarize everything that happened after the events of House of M and the mutant decimation would take a whole post by itself, so here's just the relevant facts for the scans that follow: Charles is in a coma from being shot in the head during a mission to protect a mutant messiah (it's not nearly as silly as it sounds in a sentence) and is walking again (...of course he is), Erik is currently depowered (but don't worry, it doesn't stick. Both Erik and Charles were among the mutants who lost their powers, but Marvel knows better than to keep two of its most iconic characters out of the game too long), and Charles is currently being held by Magneto's former Acolytes who are very eager to get into his head, and naturally believe that Erik is the best way to do that.
Btw, Karinda Shapandar is the same young woman that Charles and Erik rescued in their Amazing Underwater Adventure in Excalibur, so Erik chastising her for listening in is a bit rich: if he's hoping to conceal their relationship from her, the horse has left the barn.
The sound of Erik's voice ends up triggering a series of memories in Charles' head, all unsuprisingly related to the decades of love and dysfunction.
This whole issue is basically continuity!porn. And while I wrote the previous posts before rereading this issue, I'm amused that the moment chosen for the hallucination sequence pretty much reflect the content of said posts. This is the canon version of doing a slashiest moments retrospective.
Oh Karinda, don't you get it? It's not about who “wins”, it's about the game.
So basically what it takes to bring Charles out in the land of the living is to reach some kind of resolution/achieve understanding with Erik inside his head. Not quite the kiss waking up Sleeping Beauty, but close enough.
The reunion is rudely interrupted by Acolyte Frenzy attempting to kill Charles, only to be stopped in an extremely badass fashion by Erik, who doesn't need powers to kick ass and take names.
This is both sad and strangely vindicating. Because yay, canon confirmation that neither of them is 100% right in their approach, but on other hand, so many years of conflict and losses could have been avoided if they'd both gotten their heads out of their asses and found some middle groud between kumbayah and kneel before
I'd be more annoyed at the constant Acolyte interruptions if they weren't currently in their base. So anyway, Exodus decides that currently human Erik offends his mutant supremacist sensibilities and tries to kill him.
For all his current disorientation and partial amnesia, Charles remembers enough to know that nobody is allowed to kill his boyfriend
Now why do I get the feeling that when Erik says Charles was both hated and loved, he's not just referring to the rest of the world? Also, I love that for all that Charles' memory resembles Swiss cheese at this point, the one thing he remembers with stark clarity is his history with Erik.
Some time later, the X-Men and pretty much all surviving mutants have established a base/ mutant “Utopia” on Magneto's old crashed satellite, just off the coast of San Fransisco. It was only a matter of time before the previous tenant dropped by.
Given how genial their previous interaction was, the only explanation I can think of for Charles' pissiness is that Erik is there to speak to Scott, not him. And ok, there was an incident in the interim where Magneto attacked the X-Men with giant robots, but it's so minor (for them), that Charles being annoyed at being ignored just seems to fit more.
Either way, it's kind of hard to concentrate on the significance of the moment due to the distraction of the eyesore that is the art of talentless tracer, pornface conveyor and all-around hack Greg Land (and as bad as these panels are, they're nothing to the atrocities he commits against female characters. Don't take my word for it-just google any variation of “Greg Land sucks”, “Greg Land can't draw” and “Greg Land traces porn” for some truly epic online take-downs).
See, told you! Totally motivated by jealousy and possessiveness. “It's always us”, indeed.
Or maybe Charles is both weary after the neverending circle of breaking up and getting back together again.
Whatever the reason, he can't stay mad at Erik for long.
And then Erik, in a moment of crowning awesome, proceeds to use his powers to reach into deep space and bring back Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat, who's been trapped there inside a giant bullet (long story) for months! As an aside, going through all this canon in a short time was also interesting in terms of the relationships Magneto had with other X-Men besides Charles, and Kitty is particularly good example. She has played a part in so many of Magneto's major moments-almost killing her started the process of Magneto first doubting his path as a villain back in the day (in that What Not To Wear issue of X-Men covered in the first post), she was the first X-Man after Charles Magneto managed to convince of his sincerity during the first redemption arc, and there have been some great scenes of them bonding over being Jewish that I haven't included due to a lack of Charles/Erik. So it's more than appropriate that Erik helping her where the X-Men failed (or, let's be honest, not trying all that hard, Scott) is how he proves his change of heart.
As a bonus, I'm including a moment during that period that's not Erik/Charles related but was just too cute to skip. The current batch of X-kids are convinced the base is haunted, but are ignored by all the adults they turned to for help, save Erik, who volunteers.
His evil chuckle in the last panel! Erik is having entirely too much fun fun with playing up his “Master of Magnetism” persona and messing with the kids' heads.
I don't know what it is about Erik's unique brand of bonding with teenagers by both inspiring and terrorizing them that I find adorable, but I just do.
And speaking of Erik and the younger generation, he has been developing a unique rapport with teenage mutant messiah Hope, leading to this great Erik/Charles interaction in the pages of the Generation Hope series:
Aw, poor Charles is feeling left out, which is in keeping with his general lack of purpose in the books lately, since Scott has replaced him in the leadership role.
Erik's face in the third panel is seriously cracking me up. On a more serious note, it's appropriate the old differences and debates are still there, though they've both grown enough to have them without wrecking destruction, psychic attacks or shirtless crucifixions.
Being introduced to the hope of mutantkind as “a dear friend” by former X-Men nemesis is not helping Charles feel any less out of the loop.
LOL, reversing earth's magnetic poles is one thing, but siccing a precocious teen on him is just playing dirty. And Erik is not even attempting to conceal his smugness. No wonder Charles is pissy all the time these days.
In the most recent storyline, Charles' creepy mutant son Legion is causing mayhem, and Erik refuses to let Charles face him alone, adding to Charles' state of permanent annoyance at everyone overruling him
Yep, still married.
So there you have it, my (more or less) complete list of Erik/Charles moments in mainstream comics continuity. There's plenty of slashiness to be had in the various alternative comic book universes (Ultimate X-Men, House of M:Civil War are the more obvious examples), but I'm not familiar enough with most to take on that particular task (or in the case of Ultimate X-Men, to deal with that clusterfuck of an ending), though hopefully some braver soul than me will attempt that.
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There are some awesome first X-men movies fanfics along those lines with Jean and Scott.
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This remix (http://remix.illuminatedtext.com/dbfiction.php?fiction_id=202) of a penknife drabble.
And New (http://x-men100.livejournal.com/497960.html).
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err, with all due respect, I don't think the characters have much in common (sure I could imagine Erik having a similar relationships to a teen similar to Spike & Dawn but - okay, actually I haven't yet read New Mutant, perhaps you got that there) but... overall he's a very different character.
If you wanna know which comic book character Spike is swiped off you need to read Hellblazer.
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I did read the Magneto New Mutants issues but 100s of years ago so I'm not geting it from that btw - from these summaries.
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Spike did evolve a lot as a character in term of the role he played!
And Joss was such as a hardcore X-fan it doesn;t seem too unlikely he plugged some of that in.
I think he may have been inspired by some things, but the way you put it, making very straight forward equations between BtVS and X-men characters... just doesn't fit IMHO. Like for example the Dark Willow arc has a lot to do with inspiration from Dark Phoenix, but otherwise Willow's character doesn't have much to do with Jean Grey. And there are traits of Kitty that have been spread out on Dawn and Buffy and Willow in term of inspiration.
And the only way in which I would compare Giles to Xavier is that he's an older mentor character (pretty frequent character type!) who used to be BFF with someone who ended up antagonistic to the rest of the cast ^_^
And I just don't think the Magneto=Spike comparison works much, especially if that sort of dynamic wasn't in New Mutant as you're saying - The scans here about Magneto relationship with younger teens are more recent than BtVS.
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I think what you say about Giles is pretty much exactly what I was referring to :)
But perhaps we'll just have to agree to disagree. It's always amused me how much was stolen (homaged if you like) from X-men for Buffy (specifically Claremont/Byrne X-men) and I think Joss must have died of joy when he finally got to write X-M :)) just a shame he hasn't scripted any of the movies..
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Yeah, I'm sure Whedon was very happy to write Astonishing. :)
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Magneto was kind of the opposite of fun when he led the New Mutants, wasn't he? I love him with kids, but I don't think he should be the sole authority in charge of them EVER.
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