X-POSITION: Rick Remender - My Questions Asked and a Bit of Ranting

Let's not mince words. I fucking love Uncanny X-Force. If it was a line of blow, I'd snort it up off the toilet seat of a truck stop in New Jersey after six guys came in with a bout of explosive diarrhea. It's been one of the best things Marvel has come out with since Emma Frost's bra size. So naturally when CBR has Rick Remender over for their X-POSITION column, I jump at the chance to ask questions. And by Odin's beard, they were asked and answered! Guess bathing in the blood of a bear and sacrificing ten goats was enough to appease the comic gods. It's almost worth the cleaning bill and the public indecency charge that's currently pending. Next time, I'll try to remember to keep my clothes on.

CBR: X-POSITION - Rick Remender

Lord, Buddha, and Odin all know I have many. If you read my last review, you know that Uncanny X-Force is in the middle of the Dark Angel Saga. It's Uncanny X-Force meets Age of Apocalypse. It contains a live Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, and Sabretooth. It has Fantomex Frenching Psylocke. It has Angel becoming more badass than he's ever been. You can't get much more of a high without rolling it into a joint! My questions were pretty basic, but one in particular left me hung over in ways I only get after trips to Bangkok.


Let's go next to the big picture from MarvelMaster616:

1) It was mentioned at Comic-Con that "Schism" will affect X-Force. What kind of repercussions can we expect?

Jason, Kieron and I have been in close contact to make sure that these books not only feel like a family of interconnecting stories, but to ensure our future plans respect the future plans of the other writers. The new status quo after "Schism" will add a new job on top of X-Force's already hectic schedule. Conversely, the events of the "Dark Angel Saga" will also greatly affect both of the other titles. And what we're talking about now, it could well grow into something that we can all reconnect on. There will be a lineup change in X-Force and a few other drastic changes as well.


2) I'm glad you got Jean Grey involved in the "Dark Angel Saga," as she's been absent from the X-books for so long. What is your approach to writing Jean Grey? And why do you state she was the love of Wolverine's life when he arguably has a deeper history with Mariko Yashida? And where would Melita fit in?

I guess it comes down to interpretation. I see this coming from the idea that an unrequited love is somehow more powerful than one that was fulfilled. I see Logan's first years in the X-Men, and his powerful attraction to Jean Grey, as the love that should have been. Logan and Jean did love each other, and they were obviously very attracted to each other, but there were so many things between them, so many reasons that could never happen, that they both went on with their lives and their other romances. Wolverine is an old, old man. He' s had many loves in his life. Think about writing a vampire, who's been alive for a couple hundred years. You have more than just one or two wives/long term girlfriends that he spent years in love with. Jean was the one fate conspired against and the one that haunts him.

3) I really enjoyed the scene in "Uncanny X-Force" #12 where Fantomex broke down Betsy's relationship with Warren. Can we say at this point that the seeds of doubt have been sewn in Betsy? What will the "Dark Angel Saga" do for their relationship as a whole?

I could tell you, but then there wouldn't be much reason to read the book. It's one of those questions that's impossible to give any answer to without spoiling the current storyline. Sorry.


Question's 1 and 3 were fairly satisfying. I'm glad Schism will affect what's going on in Uncanny X-Force since it seems to be fucking with every other X-books. But it's his response to the Jean/Wolverine relationship where I call bullshit. Now I've also made my feelings about this relationship clear. Hell, I did whole blog post on them. The jist of their relationship is it's unrequited. Wolverine loves Jean. Jean's attracted to him, but doesn't love him back. That creates tension, which was okay for the first few issue but it got old and boring fast. It fucked up X3 and it's fucked up their characters in pretty much every other incarnation, except for Age of Apocalypse.

Now Rick Remender's response implies that he thinks that Jean and Wolverine were more passionate than they really were. I'm sorry, but that just completely flies in the face of what's transpired over 40 years of X-men comics. Look at that underlined part. Should have been? Why the fuck should they have ever been? He seems to forget that before Wolverine came along, Jean had a pretty strong history with Cyclops. And by strong, I mean it was a central feature to the Dark Phoenix Saga (also known as the greatest fucking X-men story ever told). Not only that, Jean went with Cyclops when she came back even though Wolverine was alive and well. She stayed with him, married him, and raised a fucking kid with him in the future. That kind of shit is pretty hard to overlook. And somehow she and Wolverine share such a passionate love that it's worth saying it should have been?

Maybe I'm reading too much into his choice of words, but I also think he's not reading enough into his own shit. Wolverine and Jean stated outright that it couldn't work between them on more than one occasion. It wasn't because shit was between them. It was because the feelings were one-sided. Wolverine loved her way more than she could love him back. That's why she stayed with Cyclops. That's why they never did anything other than kiss.

He also doesn't seem to understand the very history of this relationship. It wasn't done because the two had chemistry. The only reason Chris Claremont wanted to hook Wolverine up with Jean was because he was pissed about Cyclops leaving Madelyn under Louise Simonson's X-Factor run. That's it. He preferred Jean with Wolverine simply because he wasn't Cyclops. I'm sorry, but that's a fucking stupid premise for a real relationship. I hope Rick Remender knows that because it kind of matters if he's writing this series. If he makes this relationship out to be more than it is, then it looks like he's not reading his own comics.

But I digress. Uncanny X-Force is still an awesome series and I hope Remender's skewed perspective of the Jean/Wolverine relationship doesn't skew the Dark Angel Saga. For now, it's been very nicely done. I hope it stays that way because this series is too awesome to be brought down by some bullshit misconceptions about a relationship that stopped being interesting back in 1991 and was forever tainted by X3. So Mr. Remender, if you're reading this, keep up the great work! I'm your biggest drunken fan and I shall continue to sacrifice goats and my neighbors cats to appease the comic gods in your name! Nuff said.