Uncanny X-Men #183 - 'and they called it puppy love'

[perletwo.insanejournal.com]

neuhallidae requested Peter and Kitty's post-Secret Wars breakup. Because it features lovely, lovely John Romita Jr. art in nice quiet scenes, I decided to seek it out. 5 and 2/3 pages from a 22-page story in Uncanny X-Men #183, not my scans.

Of course, this affects more than just Peter and Kitty, and consensus opinion among the X-Men seems to run to Kitty's side. Ororo comforts Kitty, mentally damning Peter, as Kitty packs for an extended visit with Mom. Logan drags Peter out to dinner in Westchester, with Kurt along as referee; he accuses Peter of cowardice, trumping up his Secret Wars love to avoid a deeper commitment to Kitty, and privately confides to Kurt that he plans to take a piece out of Peter's hide.

That becomes unnecessary, though, when Peter happens to bump into an out-of-costume Juggernaut, coincidentally making time with the succubus at the other end of the bar (this is the first appearance of Selene, I think). Bar fight ensues; bar gets destroyed; Logan and Kurt sit back to watch the chaos; Juggs walks away gracious in victory, even tossing them a roll of bills to give to the bar owner to cover the damage; and Logan gets the last word on the subject.

Comments

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

And this is why the Whedon era pairing of them never sat well with me. Never mind that the scene between Kitty and Piotr that Warren Ellis gave them in Excalibur was a much healthier resolution to their relationship than fanfic style out-of-the-blue boinking.

Oh, and she should have stuck with Doug. Much better for all concerned!

[perletwo.insanejournal.com]

I was out of comics collecting - and especially X-titles, which had proliferated like fungi by then - by the time those scenes happened. But when I heard about them later on, I thought, meh, this is the last word on Peter and Kitty as far as I'm concerned. Ain't no broken heart like a first broken heart.

[sandoz_iscariot.insanejournal.com]

Ain't no broken heart like a first broken heart.

Truth. And honestly, I'm a bit sick of the "your first kiss at age 13 is your TRUE LOVE" trope I've seen in fiction lately.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

Well, I would have to disagree with you. I saw it as a "the one that got away" hook-up. As time passes you wonder about it more.You get a chance to act upon it and you do. Maybe for a wekk or so your like "cool",but in the end you realize as the french say, "you can't reheat a souffle".

[freezer818.insanejournal.com]

As I said below, if Whedon hadn't regressed them both to be less mature before putting them together, you might have a point. It played out more as junior high crushes hooking up Senior Year.

[xdoop.insanejournal.com]

They made up in Uncanny #197.

[chains_of_irony.insanejournal.com]

Oooh, what scene?

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Piotr shows up and beats the snot out of Pete Wisdom for laying hands on "his" Katya. It goes downhill from there and ends up with Excalibur locking Piotr up until he calms down and they can sort it out. As was the wont with Piotr at this point, no one had had a clue what to do with him; Simplisitically put, he'd joined the Acolytes after noticing that siding with Xavier kept getting family members killed, and then left them after he was disillusioned by them.

The various members comes to try and see what's up with him, and when Kitty shows up he goes into drivel overdrive and goes on about how they were destined to be together. Kitty basically tells him to shut up, grow up and grow a pair, and realise that they were both kids when they had... whatever they had had 20 years previously (real time wise) and she had long since moved on. Peter was a different sort of person completely, but she had a much better handle on her feelings now, and was an adult, whilst Piotr was still pining after her like an embarassing 15 year old with a crush.

[freezer818.insanejournal.com]

Why would it not surprise me if Whedon has never ever read these issues?

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

Or he took something different from them than others did.

Frankly, I can see this going both ways on that issue.

[freezer818.insanejournal.com]

Not sure what that could be. Sure you could make the "Reconnected As Adults" tack... if Whedon hadn't regressed them both, in both age and maturity. Not-Yet-Dead!Peter/Post-Excalibur!Kitty would be something to get behind (unless you're a Kitty/Pete Wisdom shipper)

How it actually played out... not so much.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

I believe Whedon's said on numerous occasions that he's a HUGE fan of Claremont's X-Men. I'd be surprised if he never read it.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

Whedon's comic-book dork bona fides are all over "Buffy" like a rash, but more importantly, Astonishing is a complete love letter to the Claremont years from the word "go," from the moment Kitty walks into the mansion in issue #1.

You could accuse Whedon of maybe not reading any X-Men comics after maybe #200 or so, but you cannot accuse him of not doing the research. He regressed; he did not ignore.

[angelophile.insanejournal.com]

I think he certainly sat down with a stack of comics from his youth and reminded himself of his "glory years". And then having been told that Emma was now a vital part of the team he skipped straight to Morrison's run where she joined and read that. I suspect the only thing he read inbetween was the single issue where Colossus died. Other than that, I can see no evidence in his stories he read anything else.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

ew,nothing like a total heart crushing...

[neuhallidae.insanejournal.com]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Secret Wars drove me absolutely batshit for many reasons, but my biggest gripe was how Shooter handled Colossus, so this, seeing what happened next and a little of the consequences, makes me feel a bit better.

[perletwo.insanejournal.com]

Not at all, I love this issue. It was a nice breather after months and months of STUFF HAPPENS ONOEZ! and gave them a chance to react. We also see Rogue working herself to death in the Danger Room after a solo issue where she flipped over to the Carol Danvers persona, Mystique moving some pieces into place for a future storyline, some discussion of Logan's aborted wedding to Mariko, and what Selene does to people. They had a lot to process.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

I wonder if the Secret War lover was Claremont or Shooter's idea. I know the editorial directive was that each title would undergo one major change as a result of Secret Wars (e.g. She-Hulk replacing the Thing, the black Spidey costume), but I was never clear on whether the changes were decided by Shooter or by the various titles' authors themselves.

[neuhallidae.insanejournal.com]

IIRC, Shooter thought that the age difference between Peter and Kitty was inappropriate and creepy. I have serious problems with his handling of it, though, considering that in the very same arc that he had Peter emotionally cheating on Kitty with someone more his age, he had Wasp sleep with Magneto, who's old enough to be her dad.

[saxon_brenton.insanejournal.com]

When I was reading this at the time it was published the breakup of Peter and Kitty looked to me like payoff from a line/piece of foreshadowing in the 'Days Of The Future Past' arc. The remaining X-Men are about implement their plan to change history; Peter draws Kate aside and asks she really wants to go through with this because of all the other changes that might happen, including the possible negation of their relationship; Kate counters that saving the lives of millions is more important than their relationship; and Peter smiles and says "I am selfish. It matters to me." This was when Claremont was noted for his long term subplots and was just about to get the reputation of going insane with them, so it looked like it was planned.

Then years (no, wait: decades) later I read that it hadn't worked that way, and IIRC that it was due to Shooter's intevention, and taking into consideration the editorial inteference that led the the reworking of the conclusion of the 'Dark Pheonix saga' this seemed plausible as well.

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

That is such a well-written heart-breaking.

Ugh, Peter, you goon. Simple simple goon.

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

And the colouring is fantastic.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

I'm torn on this - on the one hand, Peter is absolutely doing the right thing. He's being honest and direct, and not trying to dance around the truth. On the other - damn, Petey. You could've let her down a little easier than that. She still thinks you're her knight in shining armor - she's sacrificed a lot for you - you could've been a bit less blunt, is what I'm sayin'. You're well-intentioned here, but it still cut deep.

[neuhallidae.insanejournal.com]

I think the two panels that cemented the "Damn..." for me is Kitty's obvious agony over him being poetic, something he'd never done for her, and he's so busy mooning over his lost "one true" love that he doesn't even notice he's absolutely crushing the girl who spent a long time thinking she was that love.

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

I have to disagree with Wolverine. Just because you're teammates with someones, doesn't mean your personal relationship can go in other directions. If, for instance, Scott and Jean were having relationship problems, what shouldn't carry over into how effectively they work together as X-Men. They'd still back each other up in any X-Man situation, even if they'd go back home and yell at each other over whose turn it was to take out the trash.