Character Derailment/Comic Books/X-Men


 * The occasional writer has portrayed X-Men's Magneto, typically portrayed since the 70s as Well-Intentioned Extremist, as a loony who is interested only in racking up as high a body count as superhumanly possible. In fact, Magneto probably goes through more (and more varied) character derailments than possibly any other non-main-character in the MU.
 * Writer Grant Morrison tried to defend his decision to make Magneto a raving drug-addict who rounded humans up into death camps by saying that "What people often forget, of course, is that Magneto, unlike the lovely Sir Ian McKellen, is a mad old terrorist twat. No matter how he justifies his stupid, brutal behaviour, or how anyone else tries to justify it, in the end he's just an old bastard with daft, old ideas based on violence and coercion. I really wanted to make that clear at this time."
 * Neither the fans nor the other writers were convinced by Morrison's explanation, and the latter group very quickly retconned the story. Despite the overly convoluted result (The whole thing was Xorn pretending to be Magneto pretending to be Xorn. Oh, and there's more than one Xorn.) This is generally considered (barely) preferable to letting Morrison's characterization of Magneto stand. It should be noted that Magneto, as originally written, was indeed an anti-human terrorist--it was his transformation into a baby (by his own creation, Alpha the Ultimate Mutant) and his later being aged up again, that cured him of his more extreme tendencies. So Morrison was right in his assessment of him-- he just failed to consider all the character development Magneto had since then, or did not properly explain the reversion.
 * Not that "stopped being a terrorist because he was turned into a baby then aged again" is particularly organic character growth (and, indeed, in the first post age-up stories, Magneto was as cackling villainous as ever suggesting it was a Retcon to begin with). Besides, if you're known for starting something called "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants," you're pretty much granted no protection from being Ret Conned back into an Evil Mutant. That said, the fact that Morrison clearly threw in a Retcon Author's Saving Throw (Magneto's addiction to a drug that had its basis in alien mind control spores) that went unused doesn't help.
 * He was such an extremist in the '60s only. And, frankly, superhero or supervillain, if you were a comic book character in the '60s, you probably were a Jerkass or carried the Idiot Ball all day long. Or both. Magneto's real character development starts in the '70s, and that's the actual personality of the character (opposed to not having a realistic one, like before). Not all future writers managed to understand who Magneto really was, and many even believe that the Well-Intentioned Extremist should be considered the same as the Complete Monster for trying to Kill All Humans, anyway. As for Morrison, he is a great writer: his only mistake during his whole X-Men run was not doing his homework. He didn't know the characters, Magneto being just the biggest example among many.
 * So Grant Morrison believes that being a drug addict is typical of terrorists?
 * Doubt it - Morrison's not exactly known for being anti-drug.
 * It also bears noting that in the 60s, while Magneto's sympathetic backstory had yet to be written, he was a generically evil villain as opposed to being in it only because he's kill-crazy. Even in the days of the Comics Code, he could have tried to do what Morrison's Magneto did but simply been prevented, but he actually passed up many opportunities for puppykicking. He felt mutants should rule the world because mutants are more awesome, and so your average Magneto issue involved him trying to recruit the latest newly-discovered mutant and calling Toad a dolt a lot. And then the 70s come along and he grows into the Magneto we've known for the past 40 years. While other writers have had trouble balancing the "well intentioned" part and the "extremist" part, Morrison's Magneto is Morrison's alone, and when that's coupled with his statement, it really seems to be a Take That against a character he personally saw as a Draco in Leather Pants.
 * Special mention must go to his sudden reappearance in Uncanny X-Men #500. Not only does he show up and attack the X-Men with apparently nothing resembling a plan or motives (something ill befitting a character who's always been best portrayed as a Well-Intentioned Extremist), but it's revealed that not only was he taking orders from the High Evolutionary, he was actually using a mechanical device to replace his lost powers, something a proud believer in mutant supremacy over the "inferior" humans would never do. Compare his appearance in X-Men Legacy, mere months earlier, where he was portrayed as having no loss of dignity or pride whatsoever post-depowering, and even managed to beat his still-powered former Acolytes without any powers at all, in defense of Xavier. All the while refusing to concede to his former second-in-command's claim that as a human he was no longer the worthy leader of the Acolytes he once was.
 * He's used tech to bolster his powers before.
 * This was because his attack was a distraction for High Evolutionary, who gave him (after their plan worked out) back his mutant powers. So this was just Magneto doing what he must to become once again what he once was. Next time we see him in the series he arrives at a funeral and submits himself to Cyclops, who is one of his main enemies.
 * It may bear noting that Magneto's first attack using his power suit happened in issue # 500. It was meant to be a special landmark issue, and it had tons of stuff tacked onto it for no other reason than simple nostalgia: an early scene had the team stumbling into an X-Men themed costume party that showcased about a hundred past and present X-Men in all of their various costumes, and the main plotline involved them duking it out with Magneto and two classic-design Sentinels at the same time (because Magneto and the Sentinels are the two most iconic villains in the X-mythos). It was meant to be a light-hearted break from all the high drama following the events of Messiah CompleX, and a fond look-back at 500 issues of X-Men. Some dramatic license was to be expected.
 * Joseph the Clone was a very different example of a Magneto derailment that just didn't work. Originally, Joseph was a younger, regenerated Magneto, but he was so much of a loser that he was retconned into a clone...which was rather pointless given that for almost his entire existence, it was hinted that Joseph could easily revert to villainous form if he ever fully recovered the memories of his previous life. Given how overdone clone plotlines are in the Marvel Universe in general and X-Men in particular, that would've been a better and simpler way to go.
 * If you want to keep an X-Men fan happy, don't talk about the way Storm's being written in Black Panther. Having her declare her strong love for one of Marvel's few other black characters out of Reginald Hudlin's desire to get a Token Romance going snag a hot black babe for his badass black Canon Sue was bad enough. Throwing away most of the strong characterization that made her a leader of the X-Men many times over to turn her into a love-struck woman whose major concern is her marriage and her husband? (At least she's back with the X-Men, having grown bored with queening.)
 * Not to mention that Storm is someone who was once so into female empowerment that she defied all stereotypes by getting a mohawk... and is now content to play the good wife to a man who is still keeping his royal harem. Or that she once berated Dr. Doom for the sheer amount of helpful technology he was keeping from the world, but seems perfectly content to let Black Panther hoard every bit of technology, including cancer cures, from everyone that's not Wakandan. Would "pot and kettle" be a little too edgy a punalogy to invoke?
 * Another thing to keep in mind is that Storm has a long romantic history with Forge, which was neatly ignored in favour of Black Panther. And Forge is a Cheyenne, so beating the man down provides a case of Unfortunate Implications if I ever saw one.
 * With Scott Summers, aka Cyclops of X-Men, it's hard to decide where to begin. First off, Cyclops had always been a more or less admirable hero, and the contrast to, say, Wolverine (the X-Men's resident Anti-Hero during the 80s). Aside from that, he was romantically involved with Jean Grey until her death in the Phoenix Saga. Since Jim Shooter wouldn't allow them to bring her back as a mass murderer, Madelyne Pryor was used as a substitute and he married her. So what does Scott do when he finds out Jean is back? He suddenly forgets all about his wife and baby son, and joins Jean in X-Factor with the rest of the original X-Men, and comes across as a complete jerk. (A Retcon a few years later sez he did this due to Mr. Sinister's mind control, but still.) The baby was eventually sent into a Post Apocalyptic Future and grew up to become Cable. Madelyne, meanwhile, went with the X-Men to Australia, and then suffered Character Derailment of her own, eventually changing from a noble and courageous young woman to an evil psychotic . From there, she became one of the principal villains in the Inferno crossover, and then was killed off. Scott fortunately didn't marry Jean until years after that (despite what some trying to demonize their relationship claim). This lasted until his further derailment during Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men, where he ended up cheating on Jean with Emma Frost (who herself was derailed into a Spoiled Brat, when she spent the 90s as The Atoner), and in the final issue of Morrison's run Cyclops ended up kissing Emma at Jean's grave site (and Jean herself is derailed by her now wanting nothing more than "Scott to live"). Then after the mutants are depowered, he's now "suddenly" willing to kill his enemies off.
 * And FIRE Professor Xavier.
 * That's supposedly justified because of the things Xavier has done, except those things themselves are derailment. He's been turned into a Magneto-esque "I'll run over anybody for my good cause and you're supposed to forgive me because I look sad for a panel or two when called on it" sort of character. Among the things he's been Retconned as doing: The Danger Room was sentient and he deliberately left it in And I Must Scream condition than go back to the previous version? And using Mind Rape to cover up his recklessly assembling and losing a half-trained second team between the original X-Men and Storm, Wolverine, and company.
 * Forge in the recent "Ghost Boxes" arc of Astonishing X-Men, written by Warren Ellis. Suddenly for no particular reason Forge is completely insane and decides to save the Earth from extra-dimensional invaders by... sending his friends to the other dimension and then killing them. And then Beast and Agent Brand blow up the other world with a laser after Forge just goes "Screw it." and opens up the Ghost Box risking all life on Earth. And then he whines to Storm for rejecting him and stays in his complex as it blows up. Character Derailment isn't a strong enough term for what happened to Forge.
 * Ellis, he was not very familiar with X-Men story and asked Marvel editors for help. They gave him a bunch of comics. The problem is that in most of them Forge mental shape wasn't at his best. We can assume that Ellis Did Not Do Research, but really wanted to. Though, even during those issues Forge wasn't anywhere near that crazy, so some of the blame still falls on him.
 * In Ellis' Astonishing X-Men, a much bigger character derailment happens with practically the whole team. In previous stories, the X-Men (like most Marvel superheroes) had always tried to avoid killing their enemies, using lethal force only if there was no other option. However, in Ellis' X-Men the team has suddenly adopted a different morality, so they find it okay to murder a villain even after he's been defeated and poses no threat to them. Even worse, in Astonishing X-Men #30  Ironically enough, the only character to protest against this new stance on killing is Storm, even though in Uncanny X-Men #170   she was shown as the only X-Man capable of killing cold-bloodedly in order to save the life of a team member.
 * #170 was an exception, not the rule; and could in fact be considered Character Derailment itself.
 * However in episode #216 she is ready to kill Crimson Commando and order the death of Stonewall in hands of Wolverine in cold blood. Granted, they are killers who were trying to kill her, but still even Wolverine notes that she is dead serious (no pun intented) with her threat.
 * Actually the X-Men have been shown several times, not just by Ellis, to much more willing to kill in the modern age. Cyclops has an entire TEAM of covert assassins who he sends to torture and slaughter their enemies on a large scale. Given that mutantkind is fighting for its very survival this actually makes sense...it's not the time for kid gloves when the future of your entire species is on the line every single day.
 * Also happened in Nextwave, due to Rule of Funny. Ellis intended for Nextwave to be Non Canon, but it ended up being so popular writers have tended to Canon Immigrate the changed characterizations.
 * Not to mention what happened to Colossus' character in order to cement the Pete Wisdom/Kitty Pryde pairing. As much as I love Ellis, the issue reads like bad Harmonian fanfiction.
 * Even Chris Claremont may be guilty of this - his X-Men: Die By The Sword has Merlyn teaming up with Mad Jim Jaspers to kill his daughter and take over the The Multiverse, despite that, while being Manipulative Bastard, Merlyn was always concerned about good of The Multiverse and almost died to save it from Jaspers. Even when it was later revelaed he faked his death and was manipulating people from shadows, he was still doing this for greater good, in this series however he is just plain evil and mad. Paul Cornell had solved this problem by claiming Merlyn went insane and having his body hijacked by one of his alternate selves (Merlyn was nexus of all Merlins in The Multiverse), who happened to be from Marvel's Doctor Who comics.
 * All of the original New Mutants team has suffered from this at one time or another since leaving the book; particularly noticeable with Cannonball (from competent team leader and commando to "Golly, shucks y'all" junior member on X-Men) and Sunspot (hot-blooded but good-natured brawler to occasional goofy-ass moron.
 * Rahne got one in the second New Mutants series, losing her trademark accent and becoming a bad-ass biker-girl who made out with a student at Xavier's. Old-school fans were not impressed, and the derailed character was removed from the book quickly, and brought back to her old self elsewhere. Canon Discontinuity at it's most extreme.
 * Bishop was given one of truly epic proportions. At the end of Messiah Complex storyline he betrayed X-Men and his whole reason for living suddenly became killing a newborn mutant girl because he thinks her to be antichrist who destroyed his home future. Despite the fact that it went right against his whole previously established history where in his timeline X-Men died in battle with Onslaught and House of M didn't happen.
 * Grant Morrison's derailment of Emma Frost. She was not a Spoiled Brat who manipulated others just because of some issues she had in her past. She was manipulative as a villain because of her ambition and callousness. Yet it turned out she wasn't beyond caring when finding out what happened to her students, after she came out of a coma, and that put her nearly in the Despair Event Horizon. Then she became The Atoner. Morrison basically ignored all that, and even had her being a sex therapist, despite her profession of being a teacher.
 * While her change in personality could be justified by her witnessing Genosha's massacre and spending several days buried alive, in-story it was never brought up and later writers treated her as if she has always been like this and her Atoner period seems to be forgotten entirely. "Sex therapist" is a complete Ass Pull though.
 * Even their alternate versions aren't safe from this. When Ultimate X-Men changed writers to Vaughan, most characters practically became clones of their main universe selves. Professor Xavier was the most heavily affected, suddenly claiming that he would never read anyone's mind without permission, while previously, he read minds for fun.