Is Limbo a Necessary Evil?

[darknessatnoon]

It's a necessary good for the cast of X-Factor.

[Sanji]

If they don't have good stories for the character, let him be in Limbo. I don't mind, as long as they don't completely forget him.

[carabas]

After excluding characters that were created to be wallpaper, say, ugly-John, whose mutant power was having three faces or Alain Weiss, who's killed by Iceman, Marvel actually doesn't have that many characters. And I guess what OP talked about was characters in Limbo who had fans (but not popular), so the list can be further narrowed.

Yes, after excluding those.

[The Black Guardian]

It's not even "evil." It's a necessary and desirable thing. It just sucks on a personal level when it's your favourite in limbo. Better in limbo than any alternative.

[Omega Alpha]

This. Too much focus is now on a handful of characters with them showing up in multiple titles and featuring prominently in every major story arc. It also becomes cyclical. The more Marvel just focuses on these few characters, the more new readers expect to only see those characters -- they don't know a damn thing about any others. Take Cyclops and Emma for example. They were semi-popular in the 80's and 90's, Scott more than Emma of course. For the past decade, readers have been inundated with these two characters in every freaking story arc involving the X-Men. Why? Because Alonso and Lowe like them. They've become A-list as a result, and there's more demand from readers for stories centering on them. We have more Scott and Emma fans than ever before. Yet other good, fan favourites have been side-lined as a result. If Marvel hadn't developed two characters at the expense of what, 8-10 others(speaking of other fairly well-known X-Men with a strong fan base), there would be many more for fans to choose from, right? With what they're doing now, they're limiting their own fan base. This doesn't attract new readers, and, in fact, eventually drives away old ones who finally get fed up of seeing the same characters over and over, ad nauseum.

If there were no fans of Cyclops and Emma, then the characters wouldn't be getting a push; the writer wishing so doesn't make them automatically popular and interesting (see Claremont with Thunderbird III), and they wouldn't be used by a dozen different writers. And they never started as regulars in more than one title, with the exception of New X-men v2, for obvious reasons, and Cyclops as a supporting player in X-force, but he wasn't in every arc.

In other words, your post is just another variant of "Waaaaaaaah, my favorite character is not as popular as I want! WAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

[Kizmet]

Even if Marvel were a little less inclined to have certain characters taking up slots in multiple books there are still too many characters to have them all in use all the time. Limbo is always going to exist.

There are always going to be stories that call for the introduction of a new character. Even when Decimation was at it's height, new characters were still being created, Marvel caps the number of mutants at 200 and yet the writers still find ways to include new characters. Yes it's easy to go too far, while Morrison was on NXM it seemed like every title had it's own group of student-mutants who were all new characters and there probably should have been more sharing rather multiple casts of extremely minor characters, but saying no new characters is too far in the other direction. And massive kill-offs to reduce the accumulation of minor characters are just aggravating, I'd rather have limbo than repeats of 40 students put on a bus and blown up.

Also if there are a bunch of unused characters sitting in limbo it actually reduces the need new characters. Before making a new character I'd really like it if the writers took a good look at the characters not currently in use and made sure that there wasn't an existing character that could fill the roll in their story.

Sometimes characters just need a break. Stories need conflict to be interesting, bad things have to happen to the characters. Eventually anyone would reach a breaking point, but if you've got a cast large enough to rotate you can let some characters be off in limbo having a nice boring life for a bit where good/uninteresting things are happening to them while someone else is getting put through the wringer. It avoids the need for regular mental breakdowns ala Matt Murdock.

[Sundowhn]

If there were no fans of Cyclops and Emma, then the characters wouldn't be getting a push; the writer wishing so doesn't make them automatically popular and interesting (see Claremont with Thunderbird III), and they wouldn't be used by a dozen different writers. And they never started as regulars in more than one title, with the exception of New X-men v2, for obvious reasons, and Cyclops as a supporting player in X-force, but he wasn't in every arc.

In other words, your post is just another variant of "Waaaaaaaah, my favorite character is not as popular as I want! WAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

Bit dog barks first, hm?

I've been reading for over 30 years, as many other fans probably have as well. I remember when Cyclops was basically just Jean's b*tch and the dull as dirt anal retentive leader of the X-Men. Xavier was even portrayed as more interesting at times. He got a full make-over the past ten years and went from boring boy scout to meglomaniac mutant freedom fighter. He has been pushed, hardcore, for the past decade and that's why he is where he is now. They appear to be of the thought process to pursue the same tactic with Havok next, so we'll see just how much Remender focuses on him in upcoming months.

As far as Emma goes, she has been used as arm candy to make Cyclops look good. She's another telepath, like Jean, she's got a wild streak and a pin-up personality to go with it, yet Scott is the only one man enough to make her fall in love and "tame" her. He's clearly the one in control in that relationship, unlike with Jean. What happened to that cold, in control, independent woman she once was?

Don't get me wrong, I like both characters well enough, but they are where they are because Marvel editorial wanted it that way.

[ohsnapulon5000]

In a franchise like X-men, where the most cohesive and propelling focus is "community" I think long term Limbo is kind of silly. Claremont, Lobdell, and as weak as some of his plots were, Davis, showed that you could gradually shift focus through the mythos and focus on various characters and their respective stoirylines. That in fact is what made the series have a feeling of scope, of breadth. Yeah, it was oft wordy but, sometimes even a little convoluted, but There was a shared world that the X-men were involved in and the fact that the overarching stories involved such a large cast made their plight more believable. For this reason, Fraction's run, is at the very least respectable because he attempts to recapture this idea. It foundered only because all the mutants happened to share a specific geographic location and specific motivation. Fans just naturally expected to see thier favorites because they were on the same island.

Let's take the 90's, for instance. Even more specifically, let's look at the 300's of the uncanny run. The Legacy Virus was the overarching plot, the Phalanx and the formation of Gen-X were subplots, X-Force's disassembly and it's inclusion into the Westchester Mansion was a focus plot along with Rogue and Bobby's roadtrip, Gene Nation's breaking of Storm, Gambit's trial, and Space Quest Bishop and to finish things out: Onslaught. Lobdell GOT AROUND . All if not most of the mutants of repute got featured, even the obscure ones, and the focus was never on JUST one fractal group of moneymakers. The Legacyt Virus touched ALL plotlines in ALL of the books and the rest of the stories trickled inevitably into even the satellite titles. Marvel is trying to recreate this cohesion, and they're doing an admirable job, admittedly. The only difference is the fact that only a small group of "cashcows" is showing up to tell the general story when yeah, D-list or otherwise, there are a treasure trove of characters that are being ignored.

[Waterlily]

I look forward to my favorite characters taking a vacation in Limbo. I can just make whatever up about them while they're away.

[vampiric_cannibal]

Right now is the perfect time after the tight casts since Decimation for the X-Men to become a massive ensemble again. I'm reading some 80s Claremont, and the diversity of the stories and characters focused upon I can directly link to the quality of the franchise today. Perhaps Bendis is going for the classic approach. If not, I'm either going to have to get over how boring the main characters in ANXM or skip it entirely. A mutant civil war would be a great thread to run through the X-verse.

[HotWire]

LIMBO is the same when th character says "i want a normal life"?

[Zero Hunter]

It's not even "evil." It's a necessary and desirable thing. It just sucks on a personal level when it's your favourite in limbo. Better in limbo than any alternative.

Definetly. I would much rather see a character I like sent off to limbo instead of being killed off for shock value or used as wallpaper. At least in limbo they are out there to be used again by a writer who has an idea for them. Plus good writers can come up with good backstories of what the characters have been doing since they were sent off to limbo when they return if needed.