Favorite Female Character: Pryor Bad Acts

[auggie18]

I've got a bit of a fondness for the Grey girls, that's no secret. And honestly, you're probably gonna see a few posts from me this month. So why not start off with Scott's first (and in my opinion,best) wife, Madelyne Pryor! (For added effect, trying playing an Adele song while reading this post. Rolling in the Deep fits Maddie's story pretty well.)



Scott and Madelyne always felt like the most solid of Scott's relationships due to the fact that they actually had stuff in common. Both were from Alaska, both were pilots. That's something lacking in a lot of X-relationships, where the most common things it seems couples have in common is "mutant" and "hot."



Scott started dating Madelyne a bit after the Dark Phoenix Saga, when he took a temporary leave of absence from the X-Men. She was working as a cargo pilot for his grandparents and the two quickly fell for each other.



Madelyne had a good rapport with the rest of the X-men. She wasn't one of them, but she got along well with them. The things that they did and the things that happened to them were bizarre, but she managed to take things relatively in stride. (Unlike, say, Nurse Annie.)



She had her own trauma, but it was just supposed to coincidental. That did not last.

And of course, there was the fact that she looked like Jean. This caused Scott quite a bit of grief and eventually he confronted her about. She reacted...strongly.




Oh man, can we see that again?



Ha! Awesome!



A lot of what I liked about Madelyne was her quiet strength. She would handle things as they happened. She knew she could handle herself, even when things got rough.

On their honeymoon, Scott and Madelyne get caught in a storm. Their plane crashes and they repair it, all while talking about the possibility of joining Scott's father in his life as a space pirate.









Madelyne got pregnant and ending up giving birth entirely by herself, while her husband was off fighting in the Secret Wars. The baby would one day grow up to be Cable, but that's a different, incredibly long and convoluted story.

Then Jean Grey came back from the dead. Scott left. And Sinister attacked. But Madelyne survived.





She fought alongside the X-Men. She kept looking for her baby. She died and came back.



And then she made one big mistake.



The demons unlocked her true power, at the cost of turning her evil.



Still, she did get some pretty kickin' lines.


 

Comments

[salinea]

Ooooh Madelyne! I love her! She was badass in a very down to earth way. I absolutly adore the panels with the Lockheed in the the bag. And she made a kickass villainess too asides from the other problems with turning her evil.

[thenicochan]

Maddy is awesome, and the panels where she discovers Lockheed are some of my favorite ever.

[icon_uk]

Complete agreement, love that scene!

[lynx212]

I have this entire saga... all the way through Inferno's end and I love it beyond words. Still my favorite comic arc to date.

[ancarett]

What a great blast from the past! I was cheesed how Maddy got thrown over on Jean's return and sadly misused.

You overlooked one of my favourite tidbits about Madelyne - her name comes from the English folksinger, Maddy Prior whose music ought to really get a nod over Adele's as the character's soundtrack. See here with her bandmates in Steeleye Span: Thomas the Rhymer.

[xakko]

is it sad that I went out and got a Steeleye Span CD when I found out?

still, loved the character, since she and Scott were together when I got into comics. then everyone got derailed.

[ancarett]

Not sad at all! I've got a stack of CDs myself (to replace my vinyl).

That roundhouse punch and the tie pull in the post were well chosen. Both are wonderful scenes highlighting how Madelyne was a woman who had no problems expressing herself!

[xakko]

speaking of Steeleye Span, I just saw on Terry Pratchett's twitter feed (@terryandrob, a tweet from them that they will be collaborating on an album based on Wintersmith.

[speedingtortoise]

Can anyone provide me with a little more context for Maddy hitting Scott? Did he just say that he wasn't sure if he really loved her?

Because without any in depth context, I dunno, the scan just kind of bothers me. It just seems kind of awful to physically punch your partner in the face (even if it is Cyclops who definitely wouldn't win the "greatest guy of the year" award)

Been a while but..

[steverodgers5]

IIRC, He said he was going to talk to her about something important. She hugged him and thought it was going to be something romantic. And then he asked her If she really was the re-incarnation of Jean Grey. (Sigh!)

I like Cyclops. But on the list of dumb thoughtlessly stupid things he's said or done. That one was pretty damn high.

Re: Been a while but..

[speedingtortoise]

Probably not the best thing in the world to say, yeah.

To be fair though, given the crazy shit with the Phoenix and all that I almost can't blame him for wondering.

Still, I guess it just bugged me that she straight up decked him in the face.

Re: Been a while but..

[auggie18]

This had been a bone of contention in their relationship for a while, though. She was always a little unnerved by the fact that she looked like his dead ex and the implications that he was dating her just to be with some version of Jean. Keep in mind, this takes place directly after he proposed to her. He proposed, she said yes, he asked "by the way, are you sure you aren't Jean?"

Re: Been a while but..

[practicalcat]

It's still not something I'd bring up as a selling point for Maddie, especially not twice. Yes, that's awful timing on Scott's part, but punching him so hard that it knocks him to the floor, breaks a table, and knocks off the glasses that are the only thing that keeps him from destroying everything around them? Not an "okay" reaction, not a "haha, isn't she awesome?" reaction. That's a big, flashy warning sign that there are serious issues not being dealt with, and aren't GOING to be dealt with because they can't talk about them. If a male character punched a female character in that exact context, it'd be a PSA on domestic abuse.

[starwolf_oakley]

One thing about "revelations" was that they had to give reasons for certain things. Why did Mr. Sinister clone Jean Grey? He (somehow) knew a child of Scott Summers and Jean Grey would be VERY powerful. And why did he wanted to create such a child? To use as a weapon against Apocalypse. Huh.

[silverhammerman]

Every time I see scenes with Scott in civvies from years ago I'm really reminded that sunglasses are one element of fashion that is definitely not timeless. His glasses always wind up looking dated after a few years. I do kind of like the ones in the first scan though, they've at least got charm.
I'm with speedingtortoise on that punching scan though, even with context it's still kind of uncomfortable to see Maddie just full on decking Scott.
That scene with Lockheed sleeping in the bag is adorable though, and I imagine that it must have been supremely frustrating for fans reading back then to see Madelyne get screwed over the way she seems to have been.

[his_spiffynesss]

So, what secret uncontrolable power was behind Scott being a complete dick to Maddie?

[pallas_athena]

I absolutely love the punch panel. No motion lines, no sound effects, no impact-flare, no comics special effects at all. Just a moment frozen in time. The hatching on the windowpane suggests movement, but it's very subtle.

[kylara]

I love Madelyne Pryor, and I'm super sad that I found this post late and all the pictures are gone. It's still a fantastic read and I enjoyed it. I'd love to see Maddie in a character-building story arc that has nothing to do with Scott or vengeance.