Kalen O.
02-21-2007, 02:50 PM
Searching through some old computer files while conversing in the Astonishing X-Men #20 thread, I came across something I once wrote for a friend just getting into comics in an effort to....simplify the Summers history for her.
....Yeah, it didn't help. But I figured I'll post it, because it pretty well highlights the SHEER ridiculousness of certain storylines and character histories. And yet we love 'em anyways. Despite all their cheese. So here's what I affectionately refer to as the Idiot's Guide to the Summers Family, and in the spirit of cheese, I challenge everyone to come up with characters and storylines that can trump the Summers for sheer head-ache inducing brain trauma.
So anyways, these days, the top of the Summers family tree looks something like this:
Hepzibah (weird alien cat thing) ------------------------------ Corsair (retro space pirate)
Katherine Summers (only normal person in the whole damn family, figures she's been dead since before the comics started) --------------------- possibly D-Ken Nemerani (weird alien bird emperor thingie...not to mention schizoid psychotic)
Now the latter pairing leads to Adam-X, according to speculation, but since that's unlikely to ever be confirmed, Adam is spared from joining the Summers Clan, meaning he will NOT be required to kill/attack/attempt to maim a close relative, marry the clone of a former loved one, seduce/be seduced by his brother's wife, be the object of some ridiculous prophecy, be the object of his psychotic mother's initiation to the I'M SO UNLOVED THUS I WANT TO BE AN EVIL BAD GUY AND DESTROY THE WORLD IN A FIT OF PIQUE club (by ritual sacrifice on a demonic altar of course), jump around the time stream for lack of anything better to do, jump around alternate dimensions for lack of anything better to do, use the word flonq every other time he opens his mouth in order to show the world just how bad ass he actually is, meet the love of his life while in a coma, or appear on the Jerry Springer show. Yay Adam.
Then we have Scott and Alex, the result of normal person plus normal person turned retro space pirate... Now Scott, other than being the object of Mr. Sinister's unrequited lust...err scientific curiosity, naturally grows up to be the stalwart leader of the outlaw X-Men, inspired by too many viewings of Robin Hood and His Merry Men, and gives his heart to the beautiful Jean Grey. Except of course, for all the times he thinks Jean's dead and goes off to boff the nearest redhead. But to be fair, Colleen wasn't a redhead, and neither was Lee Forester, which is probably why he dumped her so she could later go on to hook up with Magneto (Ewww).
Eventually of course, Jean goes super power crazy, a la Dark Phoenix, but sacrifices herself to save the universe from...herself. Because, you know, it was the seventies. All the cool kids were doing that. After the ritual period of mourning (which is cut short because this happens so often, they'd never get anything done otherwise, and besides, everybody whose anybody KNOWS that they all come back eventually anyways), Scott commemorates his love's great sacrifice and indulges his redhead fetish by marrying her identical likeness, Madelyne Pryor. It was a two for one deal.
And naturally neither his teammates nor his bald, crippled telepathic mentor with the degree in psychology had a problem with him marrying the identical likeness of his dead love, because he didn't have issues, and it had nothing to do with emotional transference, it was a union founded in the love of two kindred spirits. Duh.
And naturally Madelyne had no problems marrying Scott, despite the fact that she freaked out all his friends with her uncanny resemblance to his dead girlfriend, because she knew that deep down, he really loved HER, Madelyne Pryor, and he'd love her just as much if she were fat and ugly and the red in her air came from the feminine products aisle at the local grocery store. Because, you know, she was a naturally bright and optimistic person. Duh.
Scott, being the trend setter that he is (after all, look how the spandex thing caught on), proceeds to be the first X-Man to build a happy family. He inspires others through his own relationship with his wife, who by this time has revealed her own latent mutant powers of excessive self delusion, and he astounds all his friends with his incredible parenting skills. Except, you know, that one time when he missed his son being born, and that other time he left his wife and child in Alaska to go have an affair with his resurrected ex-girlfriend, but those don't really count. They were on a break or something.
Anyway. Then of course, his wife takes the whole "Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned" thing a bit too literally and tries to send the world to Hell in a handbasket by sacrificing the apple of his eye in the place where the bridge between Earth and Limbo is thinnest, which I personally always thought was Las Vegas, but hey, guess not, its the Empire State Building. Go figure.
Big old mess, lots of blood and gore and weird freaky things that go bump in the night, but its New York in the eighties. Not that unusual, so nobody really noticed. So that whole mess gets straightened out, all's well and good, back to shacking up with Jean Grey in a sentient spaceship that's aware of their every move, even the ones in the bedrooms (Eww). Of course there's the occasional spat with Big, Blue and Butt-ugly, otherwise known as Apocalypse, or Bozo the Clown Meets the Terminator. Come on, you've seen the guy's lips. You know what I'm talking about. Anyway.
Eventually little baby Summers gets sent into the future, because the sentient spaceship doesn't have any kids his own age to play with and it's bad for his emotional wellbeing or something. After being appropriately devastated over the untimely plot device, the grieving parents look at the silver lining and go back to having hot mutant sex in the bedroom. Where the sentient spaceship is watching. Eww. Oh wait, phew, never mind, the spaceship got blown up on the moon, and they're all back at the mansion because someone clicked their heels together three times and said "there's no place like home." Or Marvel decided to do another X-Men relaunch. Or something like that. Duh.
But hey, all in a day of the life of a Summers, right? And Scott's the strong, silent type. That's why we love 'im, right? He can take it. Erm, at least until Big, Blue and Butt-Ugly pulls off another of his Annual Grand Masterplans to Take Over the World and ends up possessing poor ole Scott, due to Scott's heroic sacrifice to save one of his numerous children from alternate dimensions/future timelines. Has the dude not heard of birth control? Seriously.
Anyway. The merged Scott and Apocalypse put their heads together, and BY THEIR POWERS COMBINED...they summon Captain Planet. Heh. Umm, no, actually they manage to come up with an even stupider name than either of them could have managed on their own, and they run away to Mexico, calling themselves Cyclopalypse. Yay creativity.
After the requisite "grieving cuz we think he's dead even though we should know by now he's really not" period, his loving wife and doting son track him down by asking people if they've seen a guy with a really bad fashion sense and an even worse name. Then in an act of love, Nathan pokes his father with a big, pointy stick and kills Apocalypse in a very anticlimactic scene, before breaking into a victory dance that looks suspiciously like a epileptic gorilla hyped up on steroids having a seizure. Well, he doesn't do the dance part. But he should. It's a very anticlimactic scene.
Anyway. Scott goes off to find himself, and instead finds a somewhat acceptable outfit and one of Logan's old motorcycles, before coming home, where he has an epiphany. His life sucks and he needs a change. But because it would be too much hassle to change his last name, he decides what he really needs to do is get off that redhead kick that's been plaguing him for forty years. He had tried the Purple Haired Telepathic British Spy Turned Purple Haired Telepathic Ninja Assassin brand before, but that didn't work out so well, and besides, it wasn't Betsy it was Kwannon. Duh. And if you don't already know, don't ask. Trust me. So instead Scott does the reasonable thing and chooses the Telepathic Blonde Fake-Busted Villainess Turned Manipulative Teacher And Corruptor of Adolescent Youth Turned Amateur Sex Therapist brand. Also a good choice. Anyways, he proceeds to commit psychic adultery with her, because like I said, he needed a change and boxers to briefs just wasn't doing it for him. But on a plus side, his taste in women has improved over the decades. At least this one hasn't tried to sacrifice her firstborn. Yet. It's all about the baby steps people.
And then of course we can't forget Summers Junior, aka Alex Summers. We love Alex. He has all the makings of a great character. He angsts, he broods, he sleeps with his brother's wife and tries to kill him because, gosh, that stupid old Mr. Sinister likes Scott better than him. I mean, wouldn't you be jealous? Okay, so that isn't really why he tries to kill his brother, but he does it so many times I've lost track of the reasons. Let's just go with this one. It's more fun. So after numerous years spent living in his brother's shadow, complaining about living in his brother's shadow, getting brainwashed into trying to kill his brother, and going out to dig up rocks in the desert because its far away from brainwashing villains and his brother's shadow, he joins the X-Men, tries to kill his lover because she tried to kill him first, dies, comes back to life, tries to kill his lover again, becomes his brother's wife's lover, tries to kill his brother….
*pauses for breath*
....Yeah, it didn't help. But I figured I'll post it, because it pretty well highlights the SHEER ridiculousness of certain storylines and character histories. And yet we love 'em anyways. Despite all their cheese. So here's what I affectionately refer to as the Idiot's Guide to the Summers Family, and in the spirit of cheese, I challenge everyone to come up with characters and storylines that can trump the Summers for sheer head-ache inducing brain trauma.
So anyways, these days, the top of the Summers family tree looks something like this:
Hepzibah (weird alien cat thing) ------------------------------ Corsair (retro space pirate)
Katherine Summers (only normal person in the whole damn family, figures she's been dead since before the comics started) --------------------- possibly D-Ken Nemerani (weird alien bird emperor thingie...not to mention schizoid psychotic)
Now the latter pairing leads to Adam-X, according to speculation, but since that's unlikely to ever be confirmed, Adam is spared from joining the Summers Clan, meaning he will NOT be required to kill/attack/attempt to maim a close relative, marry the clone of a former loved one, seduce/be seduced by his brother's wife, be the object of some ridiculous prophecy, be the object of his psychotic mother's initiation to the I'M SO UNLOVED THUS I WANT TO BE AN EVIL BAD GUY AND DESTROY THE WORLD IN A FIT OF PIQUE club (by ritual sacrifice on a demonic altar of course), jump around the time stream for lack of anything better to do, jump around alternate dimensions for lack of anything better to do, use the word flonq every other time he opens his mouth in order to show the world just how bad ass he actually is, meet the love of his life while in a coma, or appear on the Jerry Springer show. Yay Adam.
Then we have Scott and Alex, the result of normal person plus normal person turned retro space pirate... Now Scott, other than being the object of Mr. Sinister's unrequited lust...err scientific curiosity, naturally grows up to be the stalwart leader of the outlaw X-Men, inspired by too many viewings of Robin Hood and His Merry Men, and gives his heart to the beautiful Jean Grey. Except of course, for all the times he thinks Jean's dead and goes off to boff the nearest redhead. But to be fair, Colleen wasn't a redhead, and neither was Lee Forester, which is probably why he dumped her so she could later go on to hook up with Magneto (Ewww).
Eventually of course, Jean goes super power crazy, a la Dark Phoenix, but sacrifices herself to save the universe from...herself. Because, you know, it was the seventies. All the cool kids were doing that. After the ritual period of mourning (which is cut short because this happens so often, they'd never get anything done otherwise, and besides, everybody whose anybody KNOWS that they all come back eventually anyways), Scott commemorates his love's great sacrifice and indulges his redhead fetish by marrying her identical likeness, Madelyne Pryor. It was a two for one deal.
And naturally neither his teammates nor his bald, crippled telepathic mentor with the degree in psychology had a problem with him marrying the identical likeness of his dead love, because he didn't have issues, and it had nothing to do with emotional transference, it was a union founded in the love of two kindred spirits. Duh.
And naturally Madelyne had no problems marrying Scott, despite the fact that she freaked out all his friends with her uncanny resemblance to his dead girlfriend, because she knew that deep down, he really loved HER, Madelyne Pryor, and he'd love her just as much if she were fat and ugly and the red in her air came from the feminine products aisle at the local grocery store. Because, you know, she was a naturally bright and optimistic person. Duh.
Scott, being the trend setter that he is (after all, look how the spandex thing caught on), proceeds to be the first X-Man to build a happy family. He inspires others through his own relationship with his wife, who by this time has revealed her own latent mutant powers of excessive self delusion, and he astounds all his friends with his incredible parenting skills. Except, you know, that one time when he missed his son being born, and that other time he left his wife and child in Alaska to go have an affair with his resurrected ex-girlfriend, but those don't really count. They were on a break or something.
Anyway. Then of course, his wife takes the whole "Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned" thing a bit too literally and tries to send the world to Hell in a handbasket by sacrificing the apple of his eye in the place where the bridge between Earth and Limbo is thinnest, which I personally always thought was Las Vegas, but hey, guess not, its the Empire State Building. Go figure.
Big old mess, lots of blood and gore and weird freaky things that go bump in the night, but its New York in the eighties. Not that unusual, so nobody really noticed. So that whole mess gets straightened out, all's well and good, back to shacking up with Jean Grey in a sentient spaceship that's aware of their every move, even the ones in the bedrooms (Eww). Of course there's the occasional spat with Big, Blue and Butt-ugly, otherwise known as Apocalypse, or Bozo the Clown Meets the Terminator. Come on, you've seen the guy's lips. You know what I'm talking about. Anyway.
Eventually little baby Summers gets sent into the future, because the sentient spaceship doesn't have any kids his own age to play with and it's bad for his emotional wellbeing or something. After being appropriately devastated over the untimely plot device, the grieving parents look at the silver lining and go back to having hot mutant sex in the bedroom. Where the sentient spaceship is watching. Eww. Oh wait, phew, never mind, the spaceship got blown up on the moon, and they're all back at the mansion because someone clicked their heels together three times and said "there's no place like home." Or Marvel decided to do another X-Men relaunch. Or something like that. Duh.
But hey, all in a day of the life of a Summers, right? And Scott's the strong, silent type. That's why we love 'im, right? He can take it. Erm, at least until Big, Blue and Butt-Ugly pulls off another of his Annual Grand Masterplans to Take Over the World and ends up possessing poor ole Scott, due to Scott's heroic sacrifice to save one of his numerous children from alternate dimensions/future timelines. Has the dude not heard of birth control? Seriously.
Anyway. The merged Scott and Apocalypse put their heads together, and BY THEIR POWERS COMBINED...they summon Captain Planet. Heh. Umm, no, actually they manage to come up with an even stupider name than either of them could have managed on their own, and they run away to Mexico, calling themselves Cyclopalypse. Yay creativity.
After the requisite "grieving cuz we think he's dead even though we should know by now he's really not" period, his loving wife and doting son track him down by asking people if they've seen a guy with a really bad fashion sense and an even worse name. Then in an act of love, Nathan pokes his father with a big, pointy stick and kills Apocalypse in a very anticlimactic scene, before breaking into a victory dance that looks suspiciously like a epileptic gorilla hyped up on steroids having a seizure. Well, he doesn't do the dance part. But he should. It's a very anticlimactic scene.
Anyway. Scott goes off to find himself, and instead finds a somewhat acceptable outfit and one of Logan's old motorcycles, before coming home, where he has an epiphany. His life sucks and he needs a change. But because it would be too much hassle to change his last name, he decides what he really needs to do is get off that redhead kick that's been plaguing him for forty years. He had tried the Purple Haired Telepathic British Spy Turned Purple Haired Telepathic Ninja Assassin brand before, but that didn't work out so well, and besides, it wasn't Betsy it was Kwannon. Duh. And if you don't already know, don't ask. Trust me. So instead Scott does the reasonable thing and chooses the Telepathic Blonde Fake-Busted Villainess Turned Manipulative Teacher And Corruptor of Adolescent Youth Turned Amateur Sex Therapist brand. Also a good choice. Anyways, he proceeds to commit psychic adultery with her, because like I said, he needed a change and boxers to briefs just wasn't doing it for him. But on a plus side, his taste in women has improved over the decades. At least this one hasn't tried to sacrifice her firstborn. Yet. It's all about the baby steps people.
And then of course we can't forget Summers Junior, aka Alex Summers. We love Alex. He has all the makings of a great character. He angsts, he broods, he sleeps with his brother's wife and tries to kill him because, gosh, that stupid old Mr. Sinister likes Scott better than him. I mean, wouldn't you be jealous? Okay, so that isn't really why he tries to kill his brother, but he does it so many times I've lost track of the reasons. Let's just go with this one. It's more fun. So after numerous years spent living in his brother's shadow, complaining about living in his brother's shadow, getting brainwashed into trying to kill his brother, and going out to dig up rocks in the desert because its far away from brainwashing villains and his brother's shadow, he joins the X-Men, tries to kill his lover because she tried to kill him first, dies, comes back to life, tries to kill his lover again, becomes his brother's wife's lover, tries to kill his brother….
*pauses for breath*