Shipping Comicses: Scott Summers/Emma Frost
(Those are X-Men characters. If you didn't know that, you may will be better off scrolling past this entry.)
This relationship is often viewed as a grotesque mishandling of both characters. It pees all over one of the sacred romances in comics. IIRC, it happened entirely because of editorial mandate, and in-text divine intervention is the only thing that kept the two of them together.
I love this 'ship to pieces and I will cry big sad fanboy tears if/when it is done away with.
I've been reading X-Men comics since I was nine. I have always identified with Cyclops. Before Rogue was invented, Cyclops was the character whose powers were the most like a handicap. Much like impaired mobility, Cyclops' problem with his powers is omnipresent in daily life. So Cyclops is the character that makes me pay attention to the X-books.
In the early days he pines for Jean. He occasionally ends up in a halfhearted love triangle with Warren- and always assumes he'll lose, because have you seen Warren? But, eventually, Scott and Jean get together. Squee! (No sarcasm here. I had have such a crush on Jean Grey it is not even funny.) Wolverine takes Angel's place in the Love Dodecahedron. After Jean becomes Phoenix, they have some extremely moving scenes culminating in her tragic death. (Around here, Jean treats Emma to a savage psychic beating, which she thoroughly deserved.) Scott/Jean is the couple. Then she dies. At the time, it's viewed as very, very permanent. And, eventually, he moves on. He dates around for a while, then meets and marries a woman who is Jean's identical twin, but- and this is a big plot point and something the new woman is emphatic about- is not Jean. They have a son. So, to judge by this story, you can be deeply in love with someone and there can be tragedy and you can move on, and it's okay. So there's the first reason I ship Scott/Emma: second loves are okay and healthy.
That moral, or whatever it is, is completely torpedoed when Jean comes back to life. Scott thinks about it for maybe three seconds and bails on his wife and baby. Jesse no likey. See, when Scott insisted that he loved Madelyne, I bought it. But, in the event, it's a big fuck-you to Imitation Jean and back to Famous Original Jean. (Original to an absurd degree- all the love scenes that made them the couple? That was a different Imitation Jean. Boy, did that cry out for a retcon.)
I'm going to skip about a bazillion issues because I don't feel like recapping Every X-Book Ever. The Scott/Jean/Logan triangle keeps almost-but-not-really coming back to life, and I become even more sick of it. Everybody panics about Jean's Spooky Powers every so often. And, eventually, Scott starts hooking up, kinda-sorta, with Emma Frost, who is his teammate by this time. And I'm kind of interested in this because it's a new love triangle. As this iteration of the soap opera plays out, it becomes obvious that Emma is the underdog. She's the other woman, everyone likes Jean better anyway, and anything Emma can do Jean can do better. Emma, because of the aforementioned savage psychic beating, views Jean as kind of a bully. And that's a new way to look at Jean.
Eventually, Scott decides that, ultimately, it's always going to be Jean. I have mixed feelings about this, because a) way to not bail, which is good; b) the only real romance you can have is the first one, which is bad. Then she dies, again. (Like, two pages later, if I recall correctly. Ow!) Then, the really interesting thing happens.
Direct divine intervention by Jean herself convinces Scott to choose Emma over wandering bereft until he dies. And they have a pair of lines that are among my favorites ever.
EMMA: Scott... don't you want to inherit the earth?
SCOTT: ... Yes.
Squee!
But then later writers start to backtrack and it becomes clear that all is not smooth sailing for the couple. Then comes Astonishing X-Men 14. Emma actually talks, out loud, about the love triangles and Scott's insecurity and abandonment issues and the resultant driving need to maintain control. And at the end of all that, it is revealed that Scott's handicap, the thing that defined his entire character in the early days, is self-inflicted. Scott can, if he chooses, move past that and not let his handicap define his life. I... am a receptive audience for that message. Remember, this is why I ship them, not why anyone else does or should.
(Digression: I don't believe that Scott's problem is entirely psychogenic. I think there probably is some brain damage going on, just as the comics had always previously said. So then the question becomes, is "rehabilitation" possible? And that's a variation on the original message.)
And since then, there has been a certain amount of soap opera, and one of the things driving that has been that Emma has a history independent of Scott. I like to read about Emma on her own account. Every X-books character has tragedy in the past; Emma has failure. Massive, repeated failure. And she keeps trying. I find Emma interesting; I identify with Cyclops; it seems plausible to me that he would find her interesting.
And sooner or later, Jean will come back, and it won't be so bad, because monster crush. And Scott will dump Emma, because the only real love is the girl you met at thirteen. But I don't have to like it, and I will miss my ship.
This relationship is often viewed as a grotesque mishandling of both characters. It pees all over one of the sacred romances in comics. IIRC, it happened entirely because of editorial mandate, and in-text divine intervention is the only thing that kept the two of them together.
I love this 'ship to pieces and I will cry big sad fanboy tears if/when it is done away with.
I've been reading X-Men comics since I was nine. I have always identified with Cyclops. Before Rogue was invented, Cyclops was the character whose powers were the most like a handicap. Much like impaired mobility, Cyclops' problem with his powers is omnipresent in daily life. So Cyclops is the character that makes me pay attention to the X-books.
In the early days he pines for Jean. He occasionally ends up in a halfhearted love triangle with Warren- and always assumes he'll lose, because have you seen Warren? But, eventually, Scott and Jean get together. Squee! (No sarcasm here. I had have such a crush on Jean Grey it is not even funny.) Wolverine takes Angel's place in the Love Dodecahedron. After Jean becomes Phoenix, they have some extremely moving scenes culminating in her tragic death. (Around here, Jean treats Emma to a savage psychic beating, which she thoroughly deserved.) Scott/Jean is the couple. Then she dies. At the time, it's viewed as very, very permanent. And, eventually, he moves on. He dates around for a while, then meets and marries a woman who is Jean's identical twin, but- and this is a big plot point and something the new woman is emphatic about- is not Jean. They have a son. So, to judge by this story, you can be deeply in love with someone and there can be tragedy and you can move on, and it's okay. So there's the first reason I ship Scott/Emma: second loves are okay and healthy.
That moral, or whatever it is, is completely torpedoed when Jean comes back to life. Scott thinks about it for maybe three seconds and bails on his wife and baby. Jesse no likey. See, when Scott insisted that he loved Madelyne, I bought it. But, in the event, it's a big fuck-you to Imitation Jean and back to Famous Original Jean. (Original to an absurd degree- all the love scenes that made them the couple? That was a different Imitation Jean. Boy, did that cry out for a retcon.)
I'm going to skip about a bazillion issues because I don't feel like recapping Every X-Book Ever. The Scott/Jean/Logan triangle keeps almost-but-not-really coming back to life, and I become even more sick of it. Everybody panics about Jean's Spooky Powers every so often. And, eventually, Scott starts hooking up, kinda-sorta, with Emma Frost, who is his teammate by this time. And I'm kind of interested in this because it's a new love triangle. As this iteration of the soap opera plays out, it becomes obvious that Emma is the underdog. She's the other woman, everyone likes Jean better anyway, and anything Emma can do Jean can do better. Emma, because of the aforementioned savage psychic beating, views Jean as kind of a bully. And that's a new way to look at Jean.
Eventually, Scott decides that, ultimately, it's always going to be Jean. I have mixed feelings about this, because a) way to not bail, which is good; b) the only real romance you can have is the first one, which is bad. Then she dies, again. (Like, two pages later, if I recall correctly. Ow!) Then, the really interesting thing happens.
Direct divine intervention by Jean herself convinces Scott to choose Emma over wandering bereft until he dies. And they have a pair of lines that are among my favorites ever.
EMMA: Scott... don't you want to inherit the earth?
SCOTT: ... Yes.
Squee!
But then later writers start to backtrack and it becomes clear that all is not smooth sailing for the couple. Then comes Astonishing X-Men 14. Emma actually talks, out loud, about the love triangles and Scott's insecurity and abandonment issues and the resultant driving need to maintain control. And at the end of all that, it is revealed that Scott's handicap, the thing that defined his entire character in the early days, is self-inflicted. Scott can, if he chooses, move past that and not let his handicap define his life. I... am a receptive audience for that message. Remember, this is why I ship them, not why anyone else does or should.
(Digression: I don't believe that Scott's problem is entirely psychogenic. I think there probably is some brain damage going on, just as the comics had always previously said. So then the question becomes, is "rehabilitation" possible? And that's a variation on the original message.)
And since then, there has been a certain amount of soap opera, and one of the things driving that has been that Emma has a history independent of Scott. I like to read about Emma on her own account. Every X-books character has tragedy in the past; Emma has failure. Massive, repeated failure. And she keeps trying. I find Emma interesting; I identify with Cyclops; it seems plausible to me that he would find her interesting.
And sooner or later, Jean will come back, and it won't be so bad, because monster crush. And Scott will dump Emma, because the only real love is the girl you met at thirteen. But I don't have to like it, and I will miss my ship.