Dr. Manhattan worked in Watchmen, why can't Omega Class mutants work in X-Men?

[ProfeZZor X]

I guess I was just a little inspired by the Watchmen trailer I saw this weekend attached to the Dark Knight movie, but it got me thinking about the character, how powerful he is, and how he still retained a pivotal role in the Watchmen without being irrelevant or too powerful.

And despite having these God-like powers, there was still a bit of humanity and comprehension to him that allowed him to be grounded to the reality he was in.

Now this is not some ploy to start up another Iceman related thread, but I figured that some of you out there are against Bobby, Jean, Elixir, and other super powerful mutants being too powerful to be a part of any team without dropping off into obscurity or usefullness within the confines of the existing universe. And my arguement is that if someone as powerful as Doc Manhattan can still be relavent and have perception of his environment without being omniscient or disconcerned with people lesser than him, then why can't overly powerful mutants?

EDIT: In a nutshell, what's wrong with omega class mutants being written/developed and retain their God-like powers without seeming too detached from humanity or other mutants?

[LawGiver]

Because no one of Alan Moore's abilities has ever written X-Men, Grant Morrison is the closest and Warren Ellis w/ his one issue of Astonishing.

[Josef F.]

Yeah, cause It's not like Bobby's been in almost constant use since his conception and Elixir's in X-force.

[Jake V]

I guess I was just a little inspired by the Watchmen trailer I saw this weekend attached to the Dark Knight movie, but it got me thinking about the character, how powerful he is, and how he still retained a pivotal role in the Watchmen without being irrelevant or too powerful.

And despite having these God-like powers, there was still a bit of humanity and comprehension to him that allowed him to be grounded to the reality he was in.

Now this is not some ploy to start up another Iceman related thread, but I figured that some of you out there are against Bobby, Jean, Elixir, and other super powerful mutants being too powerful to be a part of any team without dropping off into obscurity or usefullness within the confines of the existing universe. And my arguement is that if someone as powerful as Doc Manhattan can still be relavent and have perception of his environment without being omniscient or disconcerned with people lesser than him, then why can't overly powerful mutants?
Watchmen only went 12 issues and ended with Dr Manhattan leaving earth after siding with the supervillain.

[Pach!]

I guess I was just a little inspired by the Watchmen trailer I saw this weekend attached to the Dark Knight movie, but it got me thinking about the character, how powerful he is, and how he still retained a pivotal role in the Watchmen without being irrelevant or too powerful.

And despite having these God-like powers, there was still a bit of humanity and comprehension to him that allowed him to be grounded to the reality he was in.

Now this is not some ploy to start up another Iceman related thread, but I figured that some of you out there are against Bobby, Jean, Elixir, and other super powerful mutants being too powerful to be a part of any team without dropping off into obscurity or usefullness within the confines of the existing universe. And my arguement is that if someone as powerful as Doc Manhattan can still be relavent and have perception of his environment without being omniscient or disconcerned with people lesser than him, then why can't overly powerful mutants?

because watchmen exists in its own universe, The X-men share it with other metahumans that still need to be used once in a while.

[Indigo Al]

Watchmen is a completely different type of superhero story than X-Men. More than that, it's a finite series. X-Men is an ongoing serial.

[Henry T.]

A smart and creative writer can write powerful characters and integrate them into team team books without them being overly powerful all the time.

Morrison handled Jean very well in New X-Men and only made her over the top powerful in the future and when she was "dead".

Rachel existed in a team book for 9 years with this kind of power...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v40/newmsgt/anti1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v40/newmsgt/anti2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v40/newmsgt/anti3.jpg

[LawGiver]

A smart and creative writer can write powerful characters and integrate them into team team books without them being overly powerful all the time.

Morrison handled Jean very well in New X-Men and only made her over the top powerful in the future and when she was "dead".

Rachel existed in a team book for 9 years with this kind of power...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v40/newmsgt/anti1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v40/newmsgt/anti2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v40/newmsgt/anti3.jpg

Jean is being written well now.

[ProfeZZor X]

Jean is being written well now.

...Because the last guy wasn't creative enough to know what to do with her and her abilities. :rolleyes:

[Flâneur]

Uncanny X-men has 500 issues and however many spin offs and Marvel has 5000ish characters licenced to their name in just the main MU.

Watchmen has 12 issues and a very limited staple of characters in comparison.

You can make a mini or a movie about a god figure quite easily but you can't make a serial with 100 god figures each threatening their own apocalypses and what not. It gets cheap, gimmicky and lame.

[LawGiver]

...Because the last guy wasn't creative enough to know what to do with her and her abilities. :rolleyes:

Yes, Grant Morrison is the bad writer, obviously.

[Trississ]

Did you read a different Watchmen than I did? I too was inspired by the trailer and re-read the series this weekend. Dr Manhattan was very detached. (He moved to Mars for pete's sake). Okay, maybe that's an overstatement, but I would argue that his role in the real time arc of Watchmen was far less significant than Rorchach, SSII, NOII or Ozy. You say he wasn't disconcerned (not a word btw, should be unconcerned) with lesser people, but he was ready to let earth die until SSII convinced him to help save it, and he didn't do it for any humanitarian reasons, but because he recognized that human life was such an improbability (bad paraphrasing, but essentially that was the case).

[Slung]

Yes, Grant Morrison is the bad writer, obviously.

Grant Morrison did a great job with Jean. Its just too bad Grant broke up with his girlfriend and got a new one. When he first started writing X-Men he said Jean was one of his favorites and that she reminded him of his girlfriend. Then he broke up with her and got a new one. After he killed Jean off, he said that Emma reminded him of his new girlfriend.

You do the math.

[Indigo Al]

Did you read a different Watchmen than I did? I too was inspired by the trailer and re-read the series this weekend. Dr Manhattan was very detached. (He moved to Mars for pete's sake). Okay, maybe that's an overstatement, but I would argue that his role in the real time arc of Watchmen was far less significant than Rorchach, SSII, NOII or Ozy. You say he wasn't disconcerned (not a word btw, should be unconcerned) with lesser people, but he was ready to let earth die until SSII convinced him to help save it, and he didn't do it for any humanitarian reasons, but because he recognized that human life was such an improbability (bad paraphrasing, but essentially that was the case).

Beyond that, Dr M was the only superhuman in existence - everyone else was just a masked vigilante. That's a much sharper contrast than the billions of mutants running around the x-verse with varying levels of power.

[Pach!]

Beyond that, Dr M was the only superhuman in existence - everyone else was just a masked vigilante. That's a much sharper contrast than the billions of mutants running around the x-verse with varying levels of power.

And even then, most stopped after the Keene act.

[ProfeZZor X]

Uncanny X-men has 500 issues and however many spin offs and Marvel has 5000ish characters licenced to their name in just the main MU.

Watchmen has 12 issues and a very limited staple of characters in comparison.

You can make a mini or a movie about a god figure quite easily but you can't make a serial with 100 god figures each threatening their own apocalypses and what not. It gets cheap, gimmicky and lame.

I understand your comparison of the volume of Marvel comics versus Watchmen's 12, but then that raises another question...

Why give Jean the power of the Phoenix if no one is going to let her use it for any consistent length of time? ..or any of the other powerful muntants out there, for that matter.

Look at the Silver Surfer and how long he's been around. Even his run has had it's ups and downs, but there always seemed to be a couple of good writers out there that brought him back and made him interesting, despite his powers...

[Jake V]

Grant Morrison did a great job with Jean. Its just too bad Grant broke up with his girlfriend and got a new one. When he first started writing X-Men he said Jean was one of his favorites and that she reminded him of his girlfriend. Then he broke up with her and got a new one. After he killed Jean off, he said that Emma reminded him of his new girlfriend.

You do the math.

I dont want to go too far into the creators personal lives, but Morrison married his longtime girlfriend over the course of his writing New X-Men.

[Henry T.]

Yes, Grant Morrison is the bad writer, obviously.

Grant Morrison's Jean was awesome. For the most part she was the perfect blend of so called plain-Jean and Phoenix-Jean. She was a little too conservative at times but not too bad and it was to play her against Emma.

Morrison is definitely intelligent and creative.

Greg Pak.... not so much.

I don't blame Grant for killing her because he also made a way for her to return.

The writers and editors could simply of had Jean hatch from her Phoenix Egg with limited power and continued on from there.

[Slung]

I dont want to go too far into the creators personal lives, but Morrison married his longtime girlfriend over the course of his writing New X-Men.

Thats fine. I just remember him saying Jean reminded him of his girlfriend when he started his run.

Then I remember him saying Emma was like his current girlfriend and Jean was like his ex when he finished his run.

[Indigo Al]

Why give Jean the power of the Phoenix if no one is going to let her use it for any consistent length of time? ..or any of the other powerful muntants out there, for that matter.


Phoenix was about unrestrained passion and human heroism. Dr manhattan as a character existed for a different purpose altogether.

[ProfeZZor X]

Phoenix was about unrestrained passion and human heroism. Dr manhattan as a character existed for a different purpose altogether.

The point is that both characters have God-like powers and were still able to interact and connect with humans. One may be more empathetic that the other when it comes to human interests and stayed on a team for a longer period of time, but regardless, they both have extrordinarily great power.

[Indigo Al]

The point is that both characters have God-like powers and were still able to interact and connect with humans. One may be more empathetic that the other when it comes to human interests and stayed on a team for a longer period of time, but regardless, they both have extrordinarily great power.

It's all in the Watcher's speech at the end of the DPS. "Jean Grey could have lived to become a god. it was far more important to her to die as a human."

[Muggs]

I understand your comparison of the volume of Marvel comics versus Watchmen's 12, but then that raises another question...

Why give Jean the power of the Phoenix if no one is going to let her use it for any consistent length of time? ..or any of the other powerful muntants out there, for that matter.

Look at the Silver Surfer and how long he's been around. Even his run has had it's ups and downs, but there always seemed to be a couple of good writers out there that brought him back and made him interesting, despite his powers...

The Phoenix powers didn't start off as powerful as they are today. Claremont kept amping her powers up until everyone realised that that they were backing themselves into a corner storyline wise. Why do you need the other X Men when Jean could take out all their enemies singlehanded?

Iceman and Magma would be able to destroy all life on Earth and take out any threat to the X men on their own if they were able to gain full control of the powers. Which is why the writers haven't let them.

Making any of the X Men that powerful, makes the team redundant and at that point you have to either turn the character into a villian, remove them from the team, depower them or kill them off.

[Zombie Uatu]

Because for some reason, there is a myth that very powerful characters do not work. Despite the fact that X-Man laster for 75 issues and was only ever interesting when Nate had the full complement of his powers and it was killing him. Despite the fact that Neil Gaiman's Sandman lasted just as long and became a much better story after the main character became more powerful than a God once again. Despite the fact that Superman has been around for nearly 70 years with super-strength, invulnerability, and times whatever else the writer at the time wanted him to have, and still manages to remain at least occasionally interesting (for anything to still be even occasionally interesting after 70 years is pretty much an achievment in my book).

It's like the bollocks with Cable where he for some reason seems to only have TK or TP, never both these days. Writers just choose to ignore the fact that his technovirus is the limiting factor on both these abilities, or in the case of Swierczynski, I'm not even sure he's aware of that. It massively detracts from the character IMO.

Uber-powerful characters can be and are interesting, even compelling, because the question then becomes about what a usually normal person does once they have that kind of power (but as Sandman shows, they don't even have to be anything close to normal). Like Jean's reaction was to go crazy and eat a Sun, killing millions - which when you think about it is a perfectly reasonable reaction to Godlike power coupled with normal human flaws and weaknesses. If Jean had that power again, would she bring the D'bari back? We might never know, because Very Powerful Characters Are Not Interesting. Even though that story is inherently interesting precisely because Jean is that damn powerful.

Iceman and Storm don't even have the problem that their powers allow them a 'get out of jail free' whenever they like. Both have enough flaws with their personalities or limitations on their powersets that they are still interesting, but people think that because they have seemingly off-the-scale powers they therefore cannot be compelling and must be 'difficult to write'. Never mind the fact that characters like Xavier, Rogue, or Peter Petrelli have proven this madness wrong time after time. Never mind what PAD might be doing with Jamie Madrox in X-Factor by making him more interesting as he gets more powerful. We all know characters without limits on their powers must be boring, right?

There are countless other examples I could give of characters becoming more interesting once they get more powerful. Practically the oldest trick in the book is 'loses control of one's own powers'. Maybe it's actually because writers are afraid of this very idea becoming a cliche that they now actively duck any powerful character. Choosing to remake the world once you gain the power of a God is obviously once option, but what about the character who chooses not to. Aren't they more interesting?

[Flâneur]

I understand your comparison of the volume of Marvel comics versus Watchmen's 12, but then that raises another question...

Why give Jean the power of the Phoenix if no one is going to let her use it for any consistent length of time? ..or any of the other powerful muntants out there, for that matter.

Look at the Silver Surfer and how long he's been around. Even his run has had it's ups and downs, but there always seemed to be a couple of good writers out there that brought him back and made him interesting, despite his powers...

CC originally planned for her to lose her powers after the DPS. It was then suggested she die and stay dead, forever, as there wasn't any room in a narrative for a god without capping her or offing her. The sacrifice and the horror of this kind of power is part of the storyline too - the whole point was that mortals cannot be gods.

Also the X-men is heavily branded so you can't just off the icons without bringing them back so Jean will always be in a never ending cycle of power.

The Surfer & Strange also either get set outside the earth based routine so that their powers aren't godly in comparison or they're routinely depowered. Otherwise the book is littered with deus ex machina.

They just don't work on a long term basis. Even when Jean and Rachel were being written in the long term as Phoenix, they weren't written as women who could devour galaxies instantly.

Gods just can't walk around men. DD, Batman etc. don't really make sense in the shared universe, as it is. Read their books and see just how much of the 00ber power leaks in. They really seem as if they're in their own world.

[Flâneur]

Because for some reason, there is a myth that very powerful characters do not work. Despite the fact that X-Man laster for 75 issues and was only ever interesting when Nate had the full complement of his powers and it was killing him. Despite the fact that Neil Gaiman's Sandman lasted just as long and became a much better story after the main character became more powerful than a God once again. Despite the fact that Superman has been around for nearly 70 years with super-strength, invulnerability, and times whatever else the writer at the time wanted him to have, and still manages to remain at least occasionally interesting (for anything to still be even occasionally interesting after 70 years is pretty much an achievment in my book).

It's like the bollocks with Cable where he for some reason seems to only have TK or TP, never both these days. Writers just choose to ignore the fact that his technovirus is the limiting factor on both these abilities, or in the case of Swierczynski, I'm not even sure he's aware of that. It massively detracts from the character IMO.

Iceman and Storm don't even have the problem that their powers allow them a 'get out of jail free' whenever they like. Both have enough flaws with their personalities or limitations on their powersets that they are still interesting, but people think that because they have seemingly off-the-scale powers they therefore cannot be compelling and must be 'difficult to write'. Never mind the fact that characters like Xavier, Rogue, or Peter Petrelli have proven this madness wrong time after time. Never mind what PAD might be doing with Jamie Madrox in X-Factor by making him more interesting as he gets more powerful. We all know characters without limits on their powers must be boring, right?
Those are all really shit examples, tbh.

X-man was widely panned and you've even admitted the power cap right there - using his power was killing him. He wasn't that powerful for those 75 issues. He was even completely powerless for a while. Once he became powerful they took him outside of this reality and eventually killed him. Nowhere you can go with that anymore.

Neil Gaiman's Sandman was not a serial. It was a finite series with a set ending which featured many characters who were equally god-like. He quite frankly wasn't exactly god in that story.

Superman had to be re-invented with the Crisis because he was incredibly fucked up with his powers. They had to be ignored at will for a story to work.

And - Cable hasn't had the T-O virus for a long time. He's not fighting it with his telekinesis. He's not currently being written that way in his series because he has no T-O virus and he was specifically depowered. All he has is a fragment of what the Mummudrai tried to utilise. Hasn't been forgotten.

No one has brought Ice Man, Storm, Multiple Man, Xavier or Rogue up as too powerful, either.

[Henry T.]

If Jean had that power again, would she bring the D'bari back?

I would love for them to explore Jean's temptation to resurrect her family. Or they could have her bring the Grey's back and be punished by cosmic forces or there are negative unforeseen consequences of it.

I think Ultimate X-Men might touch on a similar theme with her though.

[rwsmith]

Jean worked in the X-men---even as an Omega class mutant---for a lot longer than Dr. Manhattan did in the Watchmen. The series was only 12 issues, as others have pointed out.

Omega class characters can work fine, just not indefinitely. At some point their powers either have to burn them out (i.e., X-man or Cable in 'The Burnt Offering') or they mess up in a very big way (i.e., Jean going all Dark Phoenix and killing the D'bari planet). Otherwise what do you need any of the other X-men for?

[eurazn]

A smart and creative writer can write powerful characters and integrate them into team team books without them being overly powerful all the time.

Morrison handled Jean very well in New X-Men and only made her over the top powerful in the future and when she was "dead".

Rachel existed in a team book for 9 years with this kind of power...


I never thought power levels of that magnitude fit very well. She's having a cosmic battle while the rest of the X-ers are just trying to protect a world that fears and hates them. It's very telling that she's alone in space rather than part of a team in that scene ...

[DarthCyclopsRLZ]

Why give Jean the power of the Phoenix if no one is going to let her use it for any consistent length of time? ..or any of the other powerful muntants out there, for that matter.


Poor planning? Not thinking five steps ahead?

Overanalyzing this ain't the way to go. Doesn't exactly serve well the 'It ain't convoluted!!' argument, lol.

[Sunbird]

Best reason I can think of has stupid long blonde hair, an even dumber costume, and spends almost every major event doing nothing except brood and whine. Oh, okay, he fought the Hulk, but only after he sat out the rest of the series.


(Power corrupts, and absolute power is actually kinda neat. Can't remember who said that but it was the first thing I thought of when I read the question. )

[DarthCyclopsRLZ]

Just you wait til' Manifest Destiny.

[Blackroom]

I think this biggest difficulty of writing a character with a omega level power isn't the power level so much as it's presence in the context of an ensemble story. In Watchmen, Dr.Manhattan served as the outsiders view on humanity and a convenient Deus ex Machina. This worked because of Watchmen's finite nature, and even then Manhattan ultimately left the world for greener cosmic pastures.
In Sandman, Dream was incredibly powerful, but was balanced off of beings such as Death and Lucifer, who were almost as powerful, keeping the character interacting with a peer group that made sense.
In a serial story, where the majority of the protagonists are pretty much mortal, you have to go through some pretty convoluted plot gymnastics to answer the constant question of "Why the Space God doesn't fix the problem du jour by snapping his fingers?"
While "All Powerful Queen of Space and Time" Jean Grey makes for fun fan fiction, she is a dreadful plot knot to work around simply because in the action/adventure comic book world she will destroy anything that represents a challenge to the team. Take River Tam from Firefly/Serenity. By the end of the movie she is a psychic ninja super warrior who is better than everyone at everything. Since the movie was pretty much the end of the story, this kind of works. But if there was a magical second season post -Serenity, what story could you tell that wasn't resolved by "Throw River at the problem".
So, to actually have conflict and a good amount of dramatic tension again, you depower her to something less overwhelming you kill her off, you exile her to plot limbo, or you treat her like the Sentry and limit her power by making her a basket case. All of which are unsatisfactory solutions.
Can a "God among mortals" work in a long running serial adventure story? I think it could, given the proper plot hook. But it is a daunting task for even a talented writer and it has been done poorly 10 times for everytime it has been done well.

[Yogaflame]

I think the whole 'gods cannot exist among men' idea is absolutely baseless and stands only in an uncreative mind. Have you never heard of religion/mythology? Here are thousands of stories told for thousands of years by thousands of priests/scibes/shamans/etc. It doesn't get more serial that that. The real problem is hack writers.

The vast majority of comics are written by people who use the same plotlines over and over. The handfull of interesting writers stand out like prophets in a sea of idiots(Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, and Alan Moore immediatly come to mind, maybe Mark Millar on his better days) because they treat the medium with respect and interject material from other literary works/other artforms or cultures/life in general. Promethia comes to mind. An excellent series that went for maybe 30-odd issues, Alan Moore crafted an excellent story about a girl marshelling awesome magical powers and ending the world. Not only did he transcend normal ideas about good and evil and inform the reader about magical doctrines, he made the story highly entertaining and relateable.

The ability to control____ with unlimited potential is awesome! The power to lift ifinite pounds is awesome! No matter what the power is, it is still guided by a mind that is subject to change, and here is where the story lies. The path that the hero follows is what makes his(or her) story interesting. And the writer determines the path. No need to cop out and complain 'oh this character is too powerful', just make it work!

The Avatar is another great example that comes to mind. Here is a story told over three seasons of animation, perhaps 60 episodes in all, of a young boy who must save the world from the evil Fire Lord. He is fated to be the Avatar, one who control all four elements: the most powerful person in the world. And over the course of the story, he does master the elements, and also learns to tap into his previous incarnations' skills and knowledge. And yet, despite being so powerful and so hooked up, his story was ripe with struggle and drama. In the end he has to decide whether to use his supreme power to kill the Fire Lord or find another way. These are the kinds of struggles a hero must come to face, not some unbreakable wall or hypergun. Moral, mental, psychic, spiritual choices are the ones which imbibe a story with lasting power.

In the end, I think the biggest problem comic fans or comic writers have with uberpowerful characters is the fact that they say they can not relate. Honestly, I dont see how one can truely relate to a billionaire who dresses up in a bat costume to avenge the death of his parents 30 years after the fact or some guy who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and goes around using his great powers responsibly, and yet these two characters are perhaps the most popular in the world. Why is it ok to relate to someone who can develop advanced weapony and be the best detective in the world, but not relate to someone who can rearrange molecules? At the core of this issue lies the fact that most people deny their own divine creative capacity to a huge extent, therefore they feel threatened by someone(even a comic character) who displays a prowess with such activities. We want to root for the good guy, but not one who's too good, then we just get jealous. Ultimately I think that's what this boils down to. Its a shame, for we CAN live and create as gods, in fact it is our destiny as children of the Divine.

Namaste.

[Waterlily]

I think the whole 'gods cannot exist among men' idea is absolutely baseless and stands only in an uncreative mind. Have you never heard of religion/mythology? Here are thousands of stories told for thousands of years by thousands of priests/scibes/shamans/etc. It doesn't get more serial that that. The real problem is hack writers.

The vast majority of comics are written by people who use the same plotlines over and over. The handfull of interesting writers stand out like prophets in a sea of idiots(Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, and Alan Moore immediatly come to mind, maybe Mark Millar on his better days) because they treat the medium with respect and interject material from other literary works/other artforms or cultures/life in general. Promethia comes to mind. An excellent series that went for maybe 30-odd issues, Alan Moore crafted an excellent story about a girl marshelling awesome magical powers and ending the world. Not only did he transcend normal ideas about good and evil and inform the reader about magical doctrines, he made the story highly entertaining and relateable.

The ability to control____ with unlimited potential is awesome! The power to lift ifinite pounds is awesome! No matter what the power is, it is still guided by a mind that is subject to change, and here is where the story lies. The path that the hero follows is what makes his(or her) story interesting. And the writer determines the path. No need to cop out and complain 'oh this character is too powerful', just make it work!

The Avatar is another great example that comes to mind. Here is a story told over three seasons of animation, perhaps 60 episodes in all, of a young boy who must save the world from the evil Fire Lord. He is fated to be the Avatar, one who control all four elements: the most powerful person in the world. And over the course of the story, he does master the elements, and also learns to tap into his previous incarnations' skills and knowledge. And yet, despite being so powerful and so hooked up, his story was ripe with struggle and drama. In the end he has to decide whether to use his supreme power to kill the Fire Lord or find another way. These are the kinds of struggles a hero must come to face, not some unbreakable wall or hypergun. Moral, mental, psychic, spiritual choices are the ones which imbibe a story with lasting power.

In the end, I think the biggest problem comic fans or comic writers have with uberpowerful characters is the fact that they say they can not relate. Honestly, I dont see how one can truely relate to a billionaire who dresses up in a bat costume to avenge the death of his parents 30 years after the fact or some guy who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and goes around using his great powers responsibly, and yet these two characters are perhaps the most popular in the world. Why is it ok to relate to someone who can develop advanced weapony and be the best detective in the world, but not relate to someone who can rearrange molecules? At the core of this issue lies the fact that most people deny their own divine creative capacity to a huge extent, therefore they feel threatened by someone(even a comic character) who displays a prowess with such activities. We want to root for the good guy, but not one who's too good, then we just get jealous. Ultimately I think that's what this boils down to. Its a shame, for we CAN live and create as gods, in fact it is our destiny as children of the Divine.

Namaste.

To be fair, in Avatar, Aang is still learning how to use his powers.

I feel it boils down to who's writing the story, whether or not they can think of a way to make it work in a serial form, and are the editors going to back said writer up.

[Yogaflame]

To be fair, in Avatar, Aang is still learning how to use his powers.


While he, as Ang, is still learning new techniques and such, when he "Avatars out" with the whole white eyes/tattoes, he has complete and utter mastery of his powers, and he can "Avatar out" consciouly now thanks to his training with the Guru. I take it you haven't seen the series(/season?) finale yet? Pure awesomeness!

The reason I brought up Avatar was because here you have a kid who has godly powers, but its his moral and spiritual nature, his jovial nature and kindheartedness that make him interesting as a character. Its all about the personality, not the powers, that make or break a character.

[Waterlily]

While he, as Ang, is still learning new techniques and such, when he "Avatars out" with the whole white eyes/tattoes, he has complete and utter mastery of his powers, and he can "Avatar out" consciouly now thanks to his training with the Guru. I take it you haven't seen the series(/season?) finale yet? Pure awesomeness!

The reason I brought up Avatar was because here you have a kid who has godly powers, but its his moral and spiritual nature, his jovial nature and kindheartedness that make him interesting as a character. Its all about the personality, not the powers, that make or break a character.

I agree with you, it certainly is about the personality/story.

[4com-fiction]

I agree

I would like to see - some of the Heros grow a pair- Like Iceman

If Mr. Sinister who has no Powers- save Control- whatever that is (although somehow now he has telepathy) and he can dominate everyone, why cant Iceman be like we all dreamed of or saw in AoA

Or why cant warren be like he was when he was a horseman- (maybe he will be again in X-force)