Wait...why are you considered a good guy, again?

There's a category of hero in the Marvel Universe who have no redeeming characteristics whatsoever, yet we're told over and over they're good guys – despite the fact they have a clear, real history of actual villainy and no real heroic characteristics.

To be clear as possible: I am not talking about "cool jerk" characters who end up extremely likable because they're badasses that don't take guff and they play dirty, like Wolverine or especially U.S. Agent. Likewise, I'm not some Spanish Inquisition lunatic (the type Superboy-Prime was created to parody) who thinks anyone who so much as uses bad language is a bad person forever.

I'm not saying every character needs to be the same to be considered a hero…but at least give us something, anything, to make a hero someone you can root for.

Remember this moment from the Bloodstone Hunt storyline? Arguing U.S. Agent's not as cool as other heroes because he's got a lot of swagger and doesn't behave himself is a little like arguing Vincent Vega from "Pulp Fiction" was the cooler of the two hitmen because he was more polite.

Besides J. Jonah Jameson, John Walker Lyndh may be the only conservative Republican in the entire Marvel Universe, a guy who, unlike the typically rebellious Marvel heroes, was a patriot of the "love it or leave it" variety who had more in common with Oliver North than Steve Rogers, a guy who was totally okay with being a full-time civil service agent of the government.

Then again…and here's my point…U.S. Agent is a guy who occasionally shows signs he can be redeemed, some of the other people I've mentioned haven't. Take Spectacular Spider-Man 137, where the Latin American assassin Tarantula was trying to kill politically inconvenient asylum seekers in the United States with the consent of the U.S. Government. Good old U.S. Agent showed he had something of a glimmer of a conscience and helped Spider-Man against orders to stop the Tarantula.

Besides, U.S. Agent brought a lot to West Coast Avengers, a book referred to as the "Wackos" because unlike the east coast team they were, like their leader Hawkeye, wilder, prouder and more unorthodox. U.S. Agent was the "heavy" who was all for following the rules, which made him personally unlikeable, but meant he brought a lot to group dynamic and reminded us that Hawkeye only learned how to "turn off" his brashness because of the responsibility of leadership.

Moondragon

Defined by her baldness and desire to have sex with Quasar and the Mighty Thor because they were the only guys good enough for a true goddess like herself, Moondragon's massive sense of superiority, haughtiness and arrogance alienated everyone she met. The primary characteristics defining Moondragon's interactions is a haughty disdain for most of the earthbound Avengers, intrusion on their private thoughts, and her revulsion with human sensuality.

Moondragon was also "religious" and raised by monks, and she had all of the vices but none of the virtues of religious people: a simultaneously depraved and sexually repressed egotist who is sanctimonious but without compassion.

On first joining the team, Moondragon's first acts were to try to undermine Thor's status on the team by wondering why a god like that palled around with lesser beings…an action typical of her winning personality.

Moondragon is, in a historical footnote, the first Avenger to actually turn evil: in Avengers 219-220, she used her mental powers to enslave an entire planet.

Let that sink in: Moondragon was actually the villain of an entire story-arc where she used her mind powers to enslave an entire planet "for the greater good," and then betrayed and lied to her former Avengers team-mates when they came poking around. She then used her powers to make Thor love her and then set him against his friends.



What's more, she even attacked her own father when he realized the full extent of her plans and influence, and she used lethal force and killed him (it didn't take, but that's not the point). The full scope of her intentions beyond Ba-Bani was not known, but she and the mind controlled Thor used creepy language like "bringing order to the universe."

How is it possible after a morality-horizon crossing event like that Moondragon can be taken seriously as a superhero? It absolutely shocks me how much effort has been spent in Solo Avengers and elsewhere trying to "redeem" her.

A lot of time and effort was spent rehabilitating Wanda Maximoff to a whole generation that knows her only as the psycho bitch who pulled "no more mutants," but Wanda was a beloved character that was one of the mainstays and longest serving of the Avengers. On the other hand, I've never met a Moondragon fan in my entire life.

I understand they tried to say the devil made her do it, but when they pulled the "devil made him do it" card when Iron Man had the Kree Supreme Intelligence executed after Operation Galactic Storm, it made sense as that was obviously a real lapse and really unusual, out of character action for Tony. Yet Moondragon betraying her team-mates, and using her mind powers to take over a planet because she knows better was perfectly in character: arrogant, snotty, with an elitist view of her own importance over lesser mortals.

The only other character I can think of where so much effort was expended on explaining away evil actions was Hal Jordan. In fact, I wonder if the "dragon of the Moon spirit made Heather conquer the planet Ba-Banis" explanation in Solo Avengers might have been the inspiration for the Yellow Fear Monster.

I can't think of a single other Avenger that everyone on the team hated - even the otherwise alienating U.S. Agent earned Captain America and "bleedin' heart" Hawkeye's respect eventually. The other Avengers feel the same way about her that the audience does. The single most shocking thing about Moondragon's turn to evil in Avengers 219 -220 is that nobody, except Thor and her father, were all that shocked or surprised...and how none of her former teammates really were choked up or conflicted at all about having to slug her, either.

Oh yeah, and Moondragon is apparently gay now, a fate usually reserved for unimportant, minor-league, unimportant X-Men supporting cast members like Richter, Karma and Shatterstar…despite the fact that 1) Moondragon was revolted by sexuality, and 2) most of her master plans involved getting laid with Quasar or Mighty Thor. As nonsensical as that gay revelation sounds, it basically means Moondragon will never go full villain now as she ought…because how would it look if one of the few Marvel homos is a bad guy?

It is for this reason the now badly "Flanderized" out-and-proud Northstar will never be an interesting or edgy character ever again. The whole point of Northstar is that he was a pompous, pretentious guy who had an intriguing political past as a former Quebecois nationalist-separatist – a terroristic past Northstar was utterly unrepentant about.

Now the only thing anybody knows about someone as cool as Northstar is that he's gay – an incidental and minor element of the character – especially since Northstar had been around for a decade as a regular part of a team book before he outed himself. Northstar is a jerk, but a cool likeable jerk who you love to hate. How does it look if the one well-known Marvel gay character is a jerk…even if that's kind of the whole point? Not looking bad in the press trumps consistent characterization, I guess.

Juggernaut

There are some bad guys it's impossible to accept they'd ever reform because they don't have any redeeming characteristics or glimmer of a conscience. Crossbones is evil trash, the Red Skull is a depraved sociopath megalomaniac, and Viper/Madame Hydra is a cold, casually murderous nihilist and terrorist.

Juggernaut is one of those villains. A brutish criminal who happens to be totally unstoppable, Juggernaut is a mean, dumb thug and bully who worships power and does what he feels like: in his mind everybody else is a "pencilnecked geek" and "twerp."

Juggernaut made for a good protagonist during the "8th Day" storyline because unlike the other avatars of the Octessence for whatever reason his original human personality was dominant. He was a goon, but he was a normal person that wasn't a crazy fanatic.

Chuck Austen, that human disaster area, seriously wanted us to believe the Juggernaut would stay a good guy…because he made friends with some mutant kid that thinks he's cool? That's absolutely unbelievable. The only way that story could have been more emotionally manipulative was if it involved cute kittens, good hearted blue collar people, and possibly Forrest Gump.

Of all the low points of his Marianas Trench-like X-Men run, Chuck Austen's "Juggernaut befriends a little kid which makes him turn good" was not the worst, but it definitely was the sloppiest and most sentimental. The X-Writers have for the most part collectively agreed to never discuss anything from his run again, so why is it the Juggernaut reforms bit of crap is still sticking around? And it gets worse: Juggernaut has thus far been in more superteams than any other X-Character other than Wolverine, including not only the X-Men but the renewed Excalibur and Luke Cage incarnation of Thunderbolts.

There are so many villains in the Marvel Universe who have redeeming characteristics and who could possibly reform, that I have no idea why Juggernaut was the one who got this plot, other than the subhuman hominid Chuck Austen fails at everything from writing to walking erect. Batroc the Leaper would be a great choice to reform: a man of honor with lines he would not cross, he once helped Captain America against Mister Hyde when it was obvious Mr. Hyde would have destroyed Manhattan, and once saved Steve Rogers when he was outnumbered and attacked by sharks, for instance.

Sunfire

Wasn't Sunfire raised by an arch-fascist who never forgot Japan's loss in World War II and trained his son to bitterly continue the struggle against his American enemies? I mean, wouldn't that basically make Sunfire a Japanese version of the second Baron Zemo?

Sunfire's major role in stories tends to be abandoning fellow heroes in deadly situations with a forced apology because his responsibilities to Japan outweigh trying to help them fight for their lives.

Macho, proud, arrogant, prejudiced, inflexibly traditionalist, cynical, easily insulted, vengeful and woman-hating, if there's a single redeeming characteristic there that justifies his consideration as a hero, I'd love to hear about it, yet this guy shows up every so often in the X-Books because people remember his short-lived appearance in Giant-Sized X-Men #1. It says something that even among the many snarly, short tempered characters in that book like Wolverine and Thunderbird, Sunfire was distinguished enough to be the only one that couldn't even complete the mission. That's like winning the chode Olympics!

Namor is an arrogant, proud guy who has a legit grudge that leads him to be prejudiced against outsiders, but Namor is occasionally very courageous, fights fair, and has a tremendous personal dignity, regality and other traits that make him a compelling and fascinating antihero. And every so often Namor fought alongside the good guys and been instrumental to their victories over enemies like Doctor Doom and Magneto, whereas every word from Sunfire tends to be "I am sorry, because of my duty to Japan you're on your own."

Look, Marvel – Sunfire's a dick. Why not just admit he's kind of a bad guy? He's basically a mutant version of every single jerk Asian Dad.

Sunfire is an especially tragic victim of the Marvel sliding timescale, since his origin is that he was born a mutant as a result of his parents getting rads thanks to Hiroshima, which caused illnesses that eventually killed them and filled Sunfire with wrath at Americans and Westerners. In the mid to late 1960s, he'd be about college age, the same as the original X-Men...but a lot of time has passed since then. Unlike Baron Zemo II, who kept young as a result of his father's Chemical X, there has, as of yet, been no explanation for Sunfire's longevity.

Sunfire can be born later, even as late as the 1970s assuming his parents were younger than supposed and had children late - and Hiroshima could still have cut their lives tragically short. After all, contrary to Hollywood voodoo science, most people exposed to huge amounts of radiation don't die right away. Some can live for decades before developing serious and lethal illnesses.

Things about the X-Men people forget

These things are not just cute little factoids but elements of the characters that ought to really be important, things that ought to influence characterization and propel stories.

Toad had access to the power and technology of the Stranger

The Toad and Magneto were captured by the powerful, superadvanced cosmic being known as the Stranger. The Toad was left behind in the Stranger’s captivity coldly by Magneto when Mags escaped. There the Toad remained, studying the Stranger’s technology. In Avengers #137, the Toad was actually able to use the Stranger’s science well enough to impersonate him and pretty much whoop on the entire Avengers, including powerhouses like Thor and Iron Man.

Consider the implications of that story. The Toad studied for long, long periods of time the science and technology of an advanced being that is either on par with the Watchers or at the very least the Overmind. The Toad was always an underrated genius with a surprising intellect for someone so underconfident and sycophantic, which is an interesting idea in and of itself...but mastery and use of the Stranger’s technology puts him in a very scary category of Marvel Universe high-level tech users. And who’s to say Toad doesn’t have a Stranger gadget or two stowed away? Even if Toad barely understood what he was working with (which Avengers 137 seemed to contradict - every indication was the Toad knew what he was doing and working with), the slightest application of the Stranger’s science can result in superweapons that can put Toad in one of the top tiers of X-Menaces...or at the absolute least, make him a believable villain.

The Angel had an adventuring career long before he joined the X-Men

To the best of my knowledge, no one has mentioned this since the J.M. de Matteis “New Defenders,” but Warren Worthington III was the only one of the X-Men that had an adventuring career and costumed identity prior to joining the original group as the Avenging Angel. We get this element of his origin in Uncanny X-Men #54, where not only did he have a career as a hero, he also fought crime on his own, acquired some moderate fame independently, and even had a classic superheroic secret identity. Back when the Angel left the X-Men and joined the Defenders, he was much more comfortable without the X-Men and in a superheroic occupation because they said he’d gone it alone before. Heck, the Avenging Angel costume is so important it became Warren’s regular outfit when the X-Men acquired real costumes as opposed to training uniforms.

The Avenging Angel period can’t help but arouse curiosity and we only saw the barest hint of it. What villains did he fight? What adventures did he have?

Rogue started off as a supervillain

I can see why writers just let this one drop. After all, doesn’t that poor kid have enough angst and problems in her life, they have to add one more source of internal drama? What with her cruel total inability to have anything like intimacy and the way her powers provoke an identity crisis, and her ultimately heartbreaking attraction to men that are all wrong for her like Magneto and Gambit.

But lest we forget, Rogue was not only a supervillain, she was the nastiest, cruelest member of Mystique’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which was the nastiest, cruelest incarnation of the Brotherhood ever. Just check out Uncanny X-Men 158.

In that story, Rogue shot to kill and was capable of murder. She delighted in mayhem. Rogue was, in short, not a crook that was just in it for the cash or because they were framed or tricked, the way Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were.

Rogue was scum that could melt acid, but redemption came when she realized she was losing her mind, going mad, and forgetting who she really was and couldn’t control her power. When she showed up at the X-Mansion wanting help, she was so pathetic and humbled that it was possible to forgive her past cruelty out of sheer pity. This is surprising, because her draining Carol Danvers’s powers and memories (to the point Carol couldn’t recognize her own father) was such a nasty crime that, like the murder of Gwen Stacy by the Green Goblin, it would be very, very easy to consider Rogue totally unredeemable afterward.

To be fair, from Avengers Annual #10 to about Uncanny #158, Rogue was scarred by the power and identity transfer with Carol Danvers and a case can be made she wasn’t 'herself' in these stories. But that doesn’t explain how conflicted Rogue was in her early appearances in X-Men and in Secret Wars, where she was totally uncomfortable being a superhero in light of her past, a person with divided loyalties that could jump ship and turn bad again if the occasion presented itself or the going just got too rough. There was even an intriguing but dark possibility she might become a villain again if it meant being on the winning side in the Secret Wars.

To the best of my knowledge, this inner conflict fell away as Rogue felt more and more like an X-Man, which is to be expected, but it's surprising how few people have brought up that Rogue started off evil. Contrast that to how Hawkeye and the Black Widow’s criminal origins have been a regular part of their characters.

Come to think of it, this whole list could actually be made up of things about Rogue writers forget. One of Ms. Marvel’s powers they just ignored and allowed to disappear was Carol Danvers’ Spider-Man like “Seventh Sense,” although there was one occasion it was stated in dialogue that Rogue lost the Seventh Sense at some point. This makes sense. Considering Rogue’s genetic instability, it would be logical if the power transfer from Danvers was far from perfect.

Alright, so they explained that one…but if Rogue has Ms. Marvel’s powers and physiology, she therefore has Carol’s Humanikree genetics. Did you get that? Rogue is part-Kree.

Fabian Nicieza and Erik Larsen's unused 1991 "X-Factor" proposal

In 1991, the X-Titles were up in the air, as all the books, with the exception of Larry Hama's Wolverine, lost their creative teams - including Chris Claremont, who wrote the X-Books since 1976, an incredible 15 years. On the other hand, the X-Men were at the height of their popularity: X-Men #1 sold 8.3 million copies, numbers not seen since the Golden Age. There was talk of movies (back in the day when no comic ever got a movie) and an animated series was on the way. So the X-Titles were not only superpopular but also looking for a new direction, a winning combination for really dynamic new proposals.

We all know how all of this ultimately turned out: X-Factor, which was originally a team book with the original five X-Men, which Peter David revamped with characters the X-Office wasn't using, as a government sponsored mutant superteam that received paychecks from Uncle Sam for fighting evil. It was great to see Alex Summers leading his own superteam, as well as old standby favorites like Quicksilver, Wolfsbane, and Polaris.

But it almost didn't happen if Bob Harras had instead gone with Fabian Nicieza and Erik Larsen's proposal for the team!

The above image was the only part of it. Notice that the only two characters to remain the same between the Nicieza proposal and the Peter David run were Havok and Polaris. People forget this, but in Uncanny #250, Lorna Dane lost her magnetic powers and gained tremendous size and superstrength in the Savage Land.

Incidentally, the Erik Larsen costume design for Havok and Pyro (yes, the proposal had Pyro reforming and becoming a good guy) are my favorite, which isn't that hard considering how Alex Summers has never had an interesting look.

Two characters in the proposal would later be used by Erik Larsen in other projects. The cyborg design was re-used by Larsen for the successful Super-Patriot series, and the cute but monstrous lizard girl became a part of Larsen's comic Freak Force. The girl dinosaur would have, as I understand, been a heretofore unseen member of the Morlocks that joined X-Factor.

All things considered, even though the proposal was rejected, things worked out fine. Erik Larsen would go on to found Image and become a multimillionaire, and Fabian Nicieza created with Mark Bagley "the super-team for the 90s," the New Warriors.