3.

Maxwell Dillon is a victim

In the introduction we talked (or rather, i talked, you listened and tried hard not to fall asleep) about the cyclical nature of comics and how the characters of these comics suffer for it. Electro is a perfect example of the odd effect we, the fans, have on the development or lack of development of certain characters.

Electro, when first introduced had such a messy and illogical origin that it was best to simply focus on his powers, their danger, and what that meant for others. He was juggled between a variety of heroes until finally the fans decided that since he started with spider-man, that's where he'd stay. His introduction was old enough that the simple idea of an electric man was threat enough to make him popular, after all, what was more dangerous to a simple spider themed geek than a walking lighting storm that hated you.

However, i find myself asking why we should care? the character is flimsy, lacks any true personality, and his gimmick has lost it's flair with the advent of electric superhero after electric superhero.He has no real thematic connection to spider-man, at least not one that warrants his constant appearance..where's the potential?

Electro's potential, my friends, lie in the poorly written details of his life. Let us consult Wikipedia for a moment.

Electro's page states:
While Maxwell Dillon, an electrical engineer and lineman, was repairing a power line, a freak lightning accident caused a mutagenic change that transformed him into a living electrical capacitor. His powers were initially weak, so he spent some time stealing electrical equipment from Stark Industries to charge himself. During this time, he was approached by Magneto, who considered him a potential recruit for his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, claiming that Dillon's power rivaled his own.

In that paragraph alone, electro enters the world of both Ironman's mythos, and the X-men. Granted, this was a different time, stark industries popped up any time a writer needed to reference technology and magneto was nowhere near the powerhouse he is today...but thus is the nature of comics, it doesn't matter what they use to be, the cycle of what we chose for them means the narrative changes with it, so in canon, the magneto we know and love once told electro he was his rival in power, the same magneto who dismantles giant robots with a wave of his hand or needs little assistance messing with the worlds magnetic field. the same magneto who takes on the x-men before breakfast and more often than not wins!

We`ll come back to that, but it`s the start of a beautiful place for the potential of this character, but we need to dig deeper, we need to look at what max can be.

Well, first off, he cant be much of anything looking like this.



For as long as electro lives, this design will still make no sense for him. Goofy doesn't begin to describe it.

The look has been the cause of much debate and re-invention among nerds, both uninvolved and professional. people have tried to make this thing work over and over, sometimes scrapping the look entirely.

In order:Spider-man: Web of shadows(videogame). Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2,(videogame) Ultimate Spider-man (Alternate Universe) and The Spectacular Spider-man (Cartoon Series)

Now the top four are all from different versions of electro`s character appearing in alternate mediums, none of them are from the actual book. Out of these four the closest to finding an actual core for the character was the last, the Spectacular Spider-man`s rendition of the character has max dillion become a man driven over the edge by the way his new found power had destroyed his livelihood, only to be attacked by spider-man in a moment of weakness due to a misunderstanding. That rendition of the character is the closest i`ve found to the core of max`s potential, Marvel had other ideas...
Last year they did attempt to give us an electro who had reached a greater potential. Now, max was a man representing the voice of the under appreciated. Max now too had gained far too much power to handle and as a result had become 100% lethal when in direct contact with anyone else. However, he made the decision to channel this anger into...politics. Electro formed his own rag tag band of victims suffering from the financial crisis and uses them to target right wing figureheads etc. etc. etc.

And he did it looking like this



I understand, really Marvel i do. the silliest part of Electro`s look is his mask and everyone under the sun seems to want it gone forever. but simply removing it, giving him scars and pretending it`s an improvement is just that, pretending.

The Proposal
If Max`s character barely has a stable core, lets give him one, and expand from there..

The key word here is Desperation.

Let`s go back to the paragraph from electros origin from earlier, the hit points were essentially this.

1.Maxwell dillion suffers accident
2.Receives powers
3.Steals from tony stark to increase said powers
4.During the crime, is approached by magneto
5.Magneto states Maxwell's powers rival his own.

Now the rest of that story is essentially as follows. Maxwell refuses, accidentally kills someone, decides hes a villain now, names himself Electro, spider-man stops him with a fire hose, The End ...until he comes back again and again.

Lets return to the origin and give it a little logic. Max wouldn't get powers through touching a power line during a storm, we all understand that. We also know his origins have ties to tony stark, so well use what we have and say maxwell dillion was an electrical engineer working for stark industries, perhaps installing something mysterious enough to be the questionable genesis for a power set like Electro's.

So Maxwell Dillion, electrical engineer is installing the new stark industries clean energy generator, a device meant to give twice the power to a city block for five times as long without the need for any maintenance once installed. Max, already upset over the idea of being put out of a job, isn't paying attention and is doing his job during unsafe conditions. Storm hits, max gets zapped with a ton of experimental energy and the full force of a lightning strike, and volia! we have our new Comic-Booky-Science origin.

From there max is a man cursed. His body constantly conducts an excess of bio electricity that he can't control and he blames stark industries for the damage. The stress of the accident lands him in the hospital. Naturally, after a media frenzy and an array of unwanted attention, max escapes from his hospital bed and the "interested" people to try and go to stark directly, since all stark sent was an apology package from his secretary, standard procedure Maxwell's sure.
Max wants to sue, or to be compensated, or to be cured. More than anything he just wants to be cured. his life has been taken from him and the man to blame wont even show his face. Max is turned away at the lobby of stark industries, so he tries a different way, he tries to use the powers he has to get in through the back, through the doors at his old job, and when he gets to the factories things go out of control. People recodnise him, theres a scuffle, max tilts the wrong way or a bolt of his now sudden electrical outburts archs and damages very dangerous technology. Before anyone can think stark industries has an incident on its hands, a massive one. People die in the chaos, max feels trapped, surrounded by explosions, by fire, unable to move properly with the power hes generating slipping him up in his panic.
We have him see a red figure approaching, iron man coming to save his factory perhaps...
no, instead we bring in Magneto. attracted to the display of power in an early marvel universe, the technologies don't exist to detect mutation anywhere but Xavier's school, so Magneto's been recruiting on pure instinct... and powered individuals on this scale are rarely anything but mutant.
Magneto feels the presence of this electric phenomenon in the air, he is a manipulator of electromagnetisim after all. He makes the assumption, the leap in precaution from a rushed man building a rushed army.

Magneto saves maxwell from the chaos, reassuring him that power attracts power, and that he will be safe with a rival better educated in what having such power means. Once done, Magneto offers Max the right to join him in his brotherhood...but max lashes out, he isn't a "dirty mutant", this is an accident, this is a curse, this is starks fault! the two argue, the two fight, the two match powers and words until magneto leaves max violently abandoned. In the end Maxwell is burnt, alone, broken, and lost in new york city.

It would be no mistake to imagine a man who just accidentally killed his co-workers would have people looking for him. it would be no stretch to imagine it would be very easy to find this man if he were a starving storm cloud .Max goes on the run, he is unsuccessful, the media covers the entire thing and eventually max gets cornered by cops, only to 'shoot' his way out...

Enter spider-man. Any way you imagine it is fine, but the timing it perfect. It's at this moment that the desperation in max turns into the beginnings of motivation. Max wants out, and this costumed idiot is in his way. hes not even the right costumed idiot, he seemingly wont die, he wont go away, and he thinks this whole thing is funny?
Who the hell does he think he is?
Spider-man, as he is one to do, will eventually capture max. max will be branded Electro in the papers and his humiliation over the whole thing will be the beginning of the rest of his life. he'll be summoned by that name now, forced to answer too it just to continue any semblance of a life, because now Electro needs help to get cured, and the wrong kind of people are the only ones listening.

Now, thats how we get max integrated with the right cast of characters...but what about the Super Villain part.

Max is an engineer. hes an electrical engineer with electrical powers who is desperate, who needs to find a way to get the resources he needs to fix this problem he has in a world that just wont help him. max is not a true criminal, he doesnt want glory or success or money, if he does take money, it to pay what he hopes is a cure, or to pay a guy who says he can fix him. max is popular enough as the man who went toe to toe with magneto, who took out starks plant, who constantly burns spider-man, that he gets job offeres from the wrong kind of people all the time. enter kingping, enter the master planner, enter silvermane, enter the sinister six. this is all you need to give max the motivation to be a reoccurring character,

we gave him a theme...can you see it yet? can you see the tie in to spider-mans world?

Great Power. max is all power and no responsibility.
Max is the utmost example of everything peter is fighting to prove in this world. If spider-man takes responsibility for the powers he is given, if by taking that responsibility hes been able to do great things with the grief and the heartache in his life, then max is the exact opposite of that morality. max was given great power, and instead of trying to use it, and his knowledge to help humanity understand the nature of energy and the human body, or to help with the energy crisis or just plain asked for any real assistance without hurting someone...he'd likely be living a happier life, a healthier one!
However, Max took his great power and he threw it in the worlds face, blamed everything and everyone else in his anger hoping that the chaos he causes will force the world to turn him back. max refuses the responsibility, so unlike peter he will never move beyond what he is now, a desperate man doing desperate things to get out of a desperate situation.

Maxwell Dillon is a victim, and he is responsible for that.


So, we know who he is..what does he look like-



max, fully committed to the mission that is his life as Electro, eventually builds a suit which both contains and adds functionality to his ever increasing power-set.

the suit is simple, durable rubber and flame resistant fabrics make up the body,the gloves expel electricity offensively when max channels his powers through them, the rest of the suit is covered in metal rails which catch Max's charge easily enough without Max needing to think about it.



Max can do many things with electricity, but he can't shape it, so when it came time to protect himself from the constant danger of the authorities bullets and the frustration of Spider-man's webbing so often landing directly in his eyes, he found a way to have the suit shield him...especially his face.



Here we have a suit that is functional, expresses the characters back story, maintains the iconicisim of the original but makes it..wait for it....reach its POTENTIAL.

OOOOh that felt good!

Alright i'm Sorry, forcing you to read puns is criminal and requires a peace offering...heres a dynamic look at The Potential Projects Electro to apologize ;)





As always, thank you for reading, watching, and remember that you have every right to adore or despise the opinions presented above.

2.

  If i do this right, i hope i blow the mind of everyone who's ever attempted what i just attempted.


Wonder woman is a bit of a conundrum to the few of us who try to tackle her ever growing list of contradictions. She's an amazonian warrior princess goddess walking tank ambassador one woman army activist tactician pacifist Nazi hunter secret fetishist's wet dream prude sometimes lesbian who sometimes isn't despite being raised on an island with all women who owns an invisible jet but can also fly and deflects bullets she didn't even know existed before she began deflecting them.*INHALE*
as a symbol, shes the tip top of femininity to some, the embodiment of womanly strength to others. a sex object to a few more. she represents loves ability to conquer all in many of her works, and even slung a space ring representing that very concept for a while about a year ago.

I'll admit to being a pretty big fan of Diana up front. I will also admit that being a fan has been hard. Wonder Woman is meant to be one of DC's trinity, the big three being Superman, Batman, and the Greek demi-goddess herself, but despite the claim almost nothing she does seems to stick with the greater universe of DC Comics enough to matter.
Wonder woman has her ups and downs because her run tends to be all over the place, and with the list of "character guidelines" above how could you blame anyone? the balance is hard, and it's been pulled off successfully before but for some reason the character just doesn't fly outside of her initial fan base.

as a result, Diana gets re-invented...a lot.


The above is about half of the varying representations wonder woman has undergone over her long career. sometimes she's worn more armor, sometimes she's worn less clothing than pictured above (I'm serious) but no matter what changes, the character remains stuck in this place of almost to the top

These redesigns(official or not) in the current comic crazed community seems to have one central focus. do a search for "Wonder Woman Redesign" when you have the chance to see what i mean. Notice any similarities?

The similarity is focus, namely, it's a focus on one specific thing:  Diana's heritage. Left right and center it seems everyone is clamoring for more "God of War" related heroics from our powerful princess. I don't exactly disagree with the consensus, it sounds fantastic to have Diana battle gods and essentially be a modern day Greek herculean archetype, and i think DC heard the collective comic fan's cry for more.

See, that many redesigns means that the community is on to something, and the newest look says even more about that



That, right there, is the axe wielding bad-ass i think we all had in mind. To top it off, things are looking up for our girl.The book is great, it's selling well, and people are excited to read about wonder woman again.

many fans seem justifiably satisfied. few fight the changes introduced to her origin but their voices are being drowned out by the collective 'WOO' of the masses... but I'm still slightly concerned.

Right now everything is good, yes, but is this a permanent change, or simply another positive notch in an otherwise poorly made belt? the writing is great, but Brian Azzarello wont be around forever, and, if we're going to be truthful...wonder womans costume is a fickle, fickle thing because the current design is weak.

don't get me wrong. In her flagship title eonder woman looks fantastic, but that's simply because of the talent of cliff chiang. Cliff makes the suit work, but it's already proven flimsy at the hands of other artists.
Here, take a look

Strong:

Weak:




Strong:



Weak:





What i'm trying to prove is the state of things right now is temporary. The way things are going we have an entire saga who's existence hinges on the talent of the current creative team because everyone else seems to be missing something. Somewhere there's a misconception regarding what wonder woman should be, and the rare thing seems to be finding people that get it, or at least an aspect of it.

The wonder woman we have now is compelling because the book regained it's focus, but she's a lesser character for it. we keep omitting things from her in order to see what will be easiest to swallow, but with each omission we take a step back from her throne at the top next to superman and batman. Is the wonder woman we have now capable of winning a war with love alone? of being the pacifist or the motherly voice of discipline in a testosterone fueled world gone mad? is she capable of giving the speeches a country needs to hear to fight for what it believes in?

do you really see her standing beside superman and batman, and being their equal?

Things are good, but they could be better.

The Proposal:

lets look at the alternative. rather than designing her with her amazonian aspects in mind, lets remember that superman is more than being an alien, batman is more than the promise of a traumatized child.

Lets include everything.

We need a look that has the durability of a warrior, the regal elements of a princess, the modesty of a mother figure, the strength of a leader and symbol of feminism, all of the iconic nods we think of when we hear wonder woman. we need elements of Greek heritage, of modern fashion, and we need just a twinge of sex appeal.

But most of all. if we want her to look like she owns her spot in the trinity she needs to be one thing above all. She needs to be a Superhero.




This look is strong enough to bypass any mistakes about what Wonder woman should represent. All of her normal elements are included: The tiara remains, though now it also functions to hold  the princesses power-pompador. the cape is a permanent fixture, she's worn one on and off for years but among DC's pantheon she's the one who it makes the most sense for. the cape tucks nicely into the gold breastplate. I chose the simple double W's for this design rather than the eagle or other variations because this way she has a similar brand recondition to her peers. Diana symbol has always been the gold W's, it makes sense to make it the centerpiece of her suit. The red extends to the entire body now, i think covering her skin more adds a sense of adulthood to the character she's previously been without. Of course the bodysuit has functional seams as a nod to the corset look previously showcased, the durability provided by the seams feel right at home with Diana. The star spangled briefs/shorts/panties (depending on the artist) were always the central complaint of the costume. I took the idea of making them a leathery spartan inspired garment. the clasps act as a lasso hold by unclipping the sides and sliding the lasso over the latch before reattaching the clasp. functionality insures that now they're too durable to be illustrated as anything as ridiculous as a thong. The stars on the costume have all been replaced with the common Greek interpretation of stars, rather than the Americana cookie cutter ones which do not make sense for her character no matter which way you cut it. The gauntlets are a dull silver, thick and stone-like, meant to instantly show just how much punishment wonder woman can take with those things. i wanted them to look like someone had taken mountains of silver and rolled them around Diana's wrists.
And finally, the boots...the boots are the same as the current ones which i find hilarious, personally, because they're the one element of the costume I've always hated and wanted changed. But when looking for an alternative and settling on the other elements of the look, i finally realized the boots weren't what felt wrong, it was the rest of the suit. Now i love the damn things.

So this is the wonder woman i dream of reading. She could just as easily fly an invisible jet and fight Angle man as she could slay Medusa with a sword without the readership feeling out of place. Much like superman can fight alien invaders or solve the 5th dimensional magic of mister mxyzptlk, or batman can solve a hard boiled noir case and then shoot darkseid with a god killing bullet.

This is Wonder Woman: Queen of Superheroes.

As always, thank you for reading, watching, and remember that you have every right to adore or despise the opinions presented above.

1.

The X-men: one of comics most diverse and character driven treats. the story spans the struggles of nearly hundreds of mutants fighting to live in a world that hates and fears them, and as a result has become a perfect mirror for those who feel like outcasts in any way among the series' vast readership.

Or at least, that's what people will tell you. That is in a nutshell what people think of when they think "X-MEN". mutants with justified angst, political struggles between heroic mutant activists and stern mutant terrorists, metaphors for death camps and genocide, debates about religion, love, sex, humanity, morality, ethics, death, purpose, all with the odd love triangle tossed in, that's why we read the book...or, thats what why we stay with it, a lot of us just came for the explosions and fight scenes. (be honest, you were seven, it's fine).

The issue with all of the above is it's barely what it means to read x-men anymore. the team is more often reality hoping or fighting space wars and time travel prophecies than it is upholding the lessons they learned in that vast mansion in westchester. It isint anyones fault, not really, the book was never intended to be a metaphor for anything and some fans like it best that way. When x-men first came out it was simply a way for good ol' Stan the man to bypass an unnecessary power-origin for every member that came along. As the book grew, and teams changed, writers picked up the slack of a then failing work by injecting some humanity into it, namely by cashing in on the Type-A:Nerds' feelings of being shunned and isolated by giving them a little 30 page sign of hope. The message: Yeah sure they don't like you, but look at how great you could be despite them!

As the book grew so did the cast...and boy did it grow.





With a cast this size something odd began to happen. With most comics new characters are hard pressed to get any screen time, but not in the X-Men. All you needed was a power that felt even remotely interesting and you were in, maybe not among the mainstays but enough to be feature again and again.
This sounds like progress, but it never really was. For every character that stuck an entire team would be left behind, only to have the remaining characters become the literary versions of kids who never got chosen for dodge ball. for every character in the X-Men franchise you can name, there are five that were tried, failed, and completely forgotten about.


Forgetting the characters means forgetting their stories means forgetting the reason we even read these books to begin with. We need to be honest with ourselves, the X-men are cluttered, convoluted, and overly complex, which wouldn't be a problem if the complexity came with meaning, but here we have back stories and expanding story threads that span generations without a single paragraph meaning anything to the way some characters are represented today. how important are Scott summers children to his character? how many teams has angel really been on? why?

This is a classic showcase of quantity vomited all over quality...we need an escape route, we need to find the moment the potential of this series was strongest, and work our way up. As my favorite bearded drunk use to say...




THE PROPOSAL: the X-men didn't become what we know of them until well into the series' run. they've been everything a superhero can be and we need to pinpoint from the get go what the theme of the series will be
However, there are so many characters that redesigning them all would..well..it would likely kill me, so we start with the first line-up.

Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman, and Marvel girl. the original X-Men.

Marvel has tackled this team and applied the ideas suggested here before. Making these outcast teenagers the forefront for the fight of mutant rights would be incredibly compelling, and can been seen to a degree in the mini-series X-Men: First Class and in the X-men segment of MYTHOS. However, if we take the idea seriously we need to go further than just telling the story.

The issue is the look, not just how the students look but what the look means.

I see this, and though every nostalgic bone in my body may love it nothing about this registers as a logical choice. Of course, the look is a classic and thus holier than a house of god to some, so it's been updated a few times...

Here: pleasing, keeps the same basic elements of the classic intact while respectfully deviating in ways to attempt an appeal to modern readers.
It still doesn't work. The problem is we're thinking of the x-men as superheroes when, if we can be honest, they're not. They are super-heroic, yes, but they shouldn't be stopping bank robberies or keeping muggers scared of their favorite alleyways. The x-men don't patrol, they don't instigate super-powered incidents, they take care of their own and attempt to show the world they mean well. This is civil rights sci-fi at it's best...

and as a result they're going to get shot at..a lot.
So I'm saying scrap the spandex. Remove the masks. But...I'm not saying get rid of costumes...actually I'd argue the x-men need costumes.These are teenagers, trained like a militia, with the sole purpose of promoting peace through protection, capture, defense, mass rescue, and public outreach. that's scary, slapping spandex on them makes it even worse "the circus acrobat is screaming at me about his rights as a mutant, and he's ON FIRE".

Going casual has adverse effects as well, making the public think "anyone can be one of those x-men, hiding in the shadows with nukes for hands" isn't the goal here. The X-men need a look that is tactical, up front, uniform, and will protect them from more than just bullets, since mutants tend to pack heavier artillery than that.

So, my suggestion.

Cyclops
On Display:1.demonstration of optic-rays reflected on ruby quartz lenses.2.Pouches contain a variety of handy tools I.E spare protective shades.3.Alternate angle of the visor.4.Demonstration of Scott's mutant ability canceling out when in direct contact with his body.5. Side view of visor mechanics, including stability bars and shifting ruby quarts lens pieces.6.Top:required padding for extensive use.Bottom:Interior view of ruby quarts lens' and rotor attachments.

We start with scott because i believe he would, in any circumstance, be the one to wear the uniform as is. Scott is the poster boy of this team. Strong willed, precise, intelegent, tacticale. Scott is a natural leader and his look should show him attempting to lead by example. The man buttons every button, cleans his uniform, and takes pride in his position, likely to cover for how afraid he must be.

I look liberities with the visor. I chose to bulk it up so it would seem more plausible that it was holding back a force that can punch a hole through mountains. The new visor is industrial, tough, and expresses a bit about the iron convictions of the X-men's top dog.
As with every uniform i chose to keep things simple; the blue bodysuit is an above-military grade soft-shell fabric beast worked up. 4 layer hard plastic pads can be found around the major joints embedded into the suit. the suit also features padded tactile gloves, All terrain, flexible steel-toed boots and interchangeable pouches around the waist.
The X-Vest is the real protection however. Bullet/fire/acid/radiation/heat/sonic/ice/energy/everything under the sun-proof. Essential protection for a team who faces a random collection of escalating dangers every week. I shaped the vest into a giant X so a symbol felt unnecessary, i dont believe the team would place the X-symbol on themselves, at least not in the very beginning. a stark branding like that when among group members creates a sense of authority i don't believe they would want to associate with at first.

Next:

Beast
On Display:1: hanks oral anatomy is a mix of gorilla, feline and human traits.2.Diagram shows two sets of claws, exterior nails and protractable claws.3.Gorilla like hands, much larger than a typical humans.4.Eyes a mix of human and feline anatomy.5.Feet feature ape like physiology granting great pedial dexterity

Beast wears more-or-less the essential uniform, modified by removing the soft shell top and the combat boots, as both impede his natural acrobatic and offensive abilities. Beast also has additional carrying equipment for his field research regarding mutation and its effect on the greater environment, as well as other studies that come his way.
Obviously, beast places his reading glasses into one of the common pouches when active. i always wondered why beast would need glasses if his mutation increased all of his senses, my answer would be he must miss that aspect of his pre-mutation lifestyle, the comfort of placing those glasses on the bridge of his nose when he finally got to take a solid look at something interesting. As beast, i imagine the glasses, at least in hanks mind, express his intellect even beyond the dramatics attached to the rest of his appearance.

I just made myself sad. On to the next one.

Angel
On Display:1.Back of angels X-Vest is specially designed to accommodate the space needed for his wings.2.Warren's bone structure is hollow, displayed here.3.Warrens' muscle structure is compressed, he contains twice the set of necessary muscle structure to accommodate the physiology of his wings and the lost density provided by solid bones.4.Warrens wings are capable of compressing directly against his back, making them easily concealable.5.Warren contains a hidden, organic hard- lens which protects his eyes from debris during flight.6.Anatomy of the attachment of warrens wings to his additional back muscles.

Angel's body fascinates me somewhat. he should be incredibly muscular to have wings that size just sitting on his back. The books always explained his wings as having super strength, which i find ridiculous since having an appendage that size that's stronger than the rest of your body would cause a dangerous amount of stress to the surrounding structure of the subject. So i propose his entire body be super-strong, which would be necessary for all the strain extended flight would cause warren, especially with the poses he does during.(to some, i know they will feel a musclebound angel would detract from his pretty boy persona, but just think of him as a younger Aaron eckheart and you'll see where i'm going with this.)
Angels' suit is perhaps the most modified to suit the needs of his mutation. the soft shell bodysuit has been replaced by a skintight environmental armor. The fabric protects against the shifting temperatures of high altitude flight, as well as conforms directly to warrens shape with no drag so nothing rips off when he reaches 70MPH. because of this he has no pouches, since carrying them in any way would be incredibly frustrating. the suit retains the same padding as the initial soft shell, as well as highly durable soles embedded into the foot of the suit.
The vest is the same as the others, but features a thin back which clasps in the space between angels wings.

Next...

Marvel Girl
On Display:1. vest adjusted to better suit female build.2.jean using her abilities while wearing her stress shield.3.Attention to pants and occasional broach on sash in later stories (possibly bird related).4.Stress shield, special nanite technology weaved through glass which filters communication between psychic frequencies.5.Powers burn hot when pushed past their limit.Possible foreshadowing to phoenix connection.6.Back pockets replace pouch system.

Marvel girl required a lot of thought. Visually, she isn't pinned down as anything but "that redhead" before her manifestation as the phoenix.I took a few ideas from her past looks, attempt to find a lingering iconicism and introduce it here in subtle ways.
The uniform here is the basic, same bodysuit, same boots,same gloves, same vest. the variations here are less about jean and more about the changes needed for female members of the team, as the series expands the other women would have jeans uniform as a template before adding their own personal flares.
The sash is jean adding a splash of color and life to the uniform. Jean was always the first to comment on the fashion of the teams uniforms in the initial series and i believe she would be the type to add little touches of warmth to her suit. It also nicely ties her look to the look she maintains as the phoenix later on.
Due to the sash the pouches have been removed, but jean has plenty of pockets.

The mask is something i'm calling a Stress Shield, it releases the tension of constant psychic feedback in situations of panic or strain, especially when jean is in crowded areas (expanded above).
Iconicisim is all in the face, and if you have a face that can be easily mistaken for someone else in the comic world, you get docked points by me (hold up portraits of jean, mary jane, angelica jones, black widow, siryn, and medusa and tell me this shouldn't be a real rule.)So to fix that for jean i tried to find something that separates her from the rest of the auburn heard. Once i found her 70's look i knew where to pull from.

The streams of wisping light are a representation of expelled or unnecessary thoughts from jeans environment. i imagine it gets stronger the more her mind requires relief to carry on. It would make for a nice visual indication during all of those "I CANT HOLD THIS HEAVY OBJECT/I CANT FIGHT THIS STRONG PSYCHIC"moments the books seem to be so fond of.

And finally.

Iceman
On Display:1.Breath is a constant stream of cold air.2.Eyes are a series of snowflake patterns which thin near the iris, unique patterns appear with each transformation.3. Ice is abnormally hard, enough to deflect bullets with minimal damage.4.Exposed feet allow bobby to use and create his ice bridges with ease.5.X-men under armor is worm under the sheath of ice, bobby's shirtlessness is an illusion.6.Ice can be easily created from thin air through extracting heat from water particles in the air.

Bobby was my favorite to draw. His design seems to vary from being so basic to being almost unnecessary in everything I've seen with him. fully iced up, bobby is boring, a near white silhouette isint nearly as remarkable as you would think.
Bobby refuses the vest because he doesn't need it, he's protected already. He also likely thinks showing off his literally sculpted physique will impress the girls he saves.
The pants are the uniform materials, with two long pockets for any spare objects he may be required to return to the mansion.i exposed the feet so bobby could create and bond with his ice bridges without issue, i also left an X brand on his belt so he'd tie closer with the rest of the teams look.


All in all these looks show the beginning of an idea. Does it fix where the x-men are right now? no. but if we present the idea concisely from the get go maybe the train will stay on the tracks, The uniforms can easily be taken and tweaked for any x-member from this point and beyond, hopefully an idea like this would expand into something similar to what grant moorison tried to achieve. A world where mutants have their own culture, music, political views, media representation and schools beyond just the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Let's avoid house of M this time around...

I had fun with this, who knows...maybe a second genesis overall is in the potential project's future.

As always, thank you for reading, watching, and remember that you have every right to adore or despise the opinions presented above.

A long and overly analytical introduction.

Comic book characters are a funny thing.

Specially, the characters populating the "Cape" genre of comics are, at least to me, funny, strange, a little odd.
It has nothing to do with the illogical choice of fabrics for the heroic/villanious (and taxing) deeds they're required to perform, nor does it have anything to do with the strange powers and monikers that get further and further away from plausible as the years go on...no the strange thing goes deeper than that

here,i'll attempt to expand the thought. but i'll need to go off-point for a while to illustrate the oddity inherent of our caped crusaders.

See, comic book heroes and villains follow a sense of development you rarely find in other mediums. in film a franchise can carry on and on if there's a demand for it, but that demand tends to come from constant re-invention. a franchise can get stale, sales will dip, and behind the scenes the studios will meet and attempt to inject life into their characters and stories by following current trends.this is how we get things like the bond saga, horror franchises, and the infamous reboot model. the formula isint perfect, but it's there because a films audience isn't a stable thing. the "general audience" phenomenon is what sells these stories and as the years pass that audience gets older, generations loose touch with the story in between the year long gaps it takes to produce new entertainment and so the studios take the characters that work, examine them, and try to adapt what that thing, that little idea of a fictional persons life, purpose, and narrative might mean to a modern viewer.

Books are nearly the opposite, they're subject to re-invention yes, but they more often than not come from one creator, their influences, and the ongoing ideas that creator might have about the characters ongoing adventures. in the few continuing sagas that do feature one character over the course of many,many books, the audience is following because they have a love for what these characters bring to the table, as well as what the author might come up with next. bookworms are inherently more loyal than filmgoers. Film does feature it's purists, but they tend to understand the nature of the medium enough to embrace or forgive drastic change. If things are bad enough these fans will just drop the new product, pick up the old one and ignore the existence of a continuing story until someone new "gets it right".
Not bookworms. The fan of a literary saga has two roads they can go down- ascending excitement, or sudden disappointment. if you follow an ongoing narrative book after book it is often because the first experience was intoxicating enough to persuade you back,  you, the reader, had experenced an overwhelming cocktail of wild experiences through the lives of the characters between the text, and coming back for more is no question. Either that feeling continues indefinitely with each work, or sometimes, something changes on you. You journey with these characters and then midway, near the end or sometimes even on the last page of the latest work something shifts, and loses a part of what you love about the work.
The problem with change is it does not mix well with expectation. In film, the audience changes, the creators wonder what doesn't work when it use too, and they strive to adjust. in Literature, the author is working based on what they feel the story must be and that stays the course until something  influences change the mind of the author, like an editor, a life partner, a sudden change in the authors own life, or sometimes it's just a need to shock/pacify/reward/screw with/ the fanbase. Whatever the reason, an author captains a ship and as readers we can only hope the trip is everything we've wanted, it isn't up to us.

That, in a nutshell is the difference between these mediums, and comic books. if you're a fan of a character in film or in literature you are constantly at the mercy of the general audiences instability, or the inevitable shake ups of the authors need to express the changes of their environments through their characters. these are not necessarily bad places to be as a fan... but they do differ.
In comic books, or at least the ones that last decades, everything is cyclical.
Everything.is.cyclical.
If you began to follow a character when you were ten that character will be the same through and through by the time you are 30. no exceptions, no debate. there ARE changes and they occur quite frequently but the formula of that character and what makes them tick will always come back. This is brilliant and damaging depending on how you look at it. Superman will always stand for truth and justice (and sometimes, when bold enough even the American way) batman will always be protecting Gotham from those who would feed on it's wealth, spider-man will always be the guilt ridden and quick witted underdog who's sense of responsibility has the proportionate power of a spider, and so on.

It's like this because the fans want it to be like this. it's like this because we, the readership are a strange mix of filmgoers and bookworms. we want the stability of an authors vision but, unlike literature, these stories never end. not only do they not end, but they come out far more frequently than any other medium. bond fans have to wait years for a new book or movie to appear and calm their 007 itch. a fan of spider-man needs only wait from month to month, sometimes less, for as long as they live. this means that the creators involved eventually need to move on, and some of them just outright die before they can complete the work. but the medium sells on the backbone of only a handful of franchises, and the deaths of those franchises could mean the death of the medium, and as a result the studios hire a new team, look for a new direction, throw their characters into cross overs and events, anything to keep business running and us paying attention

This cycle wouldn't be so bad if it just stuck to the central characters...but it doesn't. any time something sticks with a book it is required that the idea stick forever. Introduce a villain that works, that villain is now a central part of that narrative. kill someone off, and that death is important enough that it needs to be a permanent part of a characters personality, so much so that eventually it becomes easier to tell more stories about it by just bringing the dead back to life.

It's because of this cycle that we get into issues that bother the readership. The joker is going to kill people every time he appears, batman is going to throw him in arkham every time the joker gets caught, where he will escape and kill more people

Lex will always screw with the public with the power he has over them to get to superman. never mind the legal and social walls that should be held up to him by now. when needed, he will always have an illogical amount of power at his disposal for the sole purpose of thwarting the golden sun-god he so despises.

spider-mans array of villains are going to keep robbing banks and going to jail only to come back out with a new version of their old gimmick, where they will get slapped around and sent back to jail, only to...no longer be in jail in a years time.

ad infinitum.

The thing is this isnt incompetence causing this...it's us. it's the nature of the fan base. the success of these comics ride on the interest of their readership. The readership can sometimes expand if the characters do too, often into other mediums, the issue is the mediums take the stories of the early adventures these characters undertake, and then the newly interested audience, in their hunger for more, need to find a way to catch up to the books those films/television shows/video games are based on. for some this means a lot of confusion regarding the truth of the story they're attempting to expand upon. is spider-man a teenager or in his thirties? isnt his girlfriend Mary Jane? how many people have been venom? how many robins does batman have? doesn't the joker wear makeup? didint batman die? didn't superman die? how strong is superman exactly? were he and lex childhood friends or not? isint he married to Lois lane?

Everything tweeks and expands upon the central idea, which means beyond that central idea nothing is true. nothing is canon since canon isnt safe, at the drop of a hat something irrelevant will get retconned or omitted completely, rebooted or brought back because we, the fans, want it that way. we accept change only when it's necessary, and then we demand, through our actions that the narrative change things back to the way they were anyway.

The readers who stick around with these characters go through the effort of knowing the answers to nearly all of these questions, and thus become part of the fan base. comic books have no general audience. just varying levels of core-readerships. and in a medium this fickle, with a narrative this long, and an inevitable cycle of varying writers and artists on each book forever and ever, eventually the fans end up the ones behind the wheel, trying to expand upon, but still keep true to what they were in love with regarding the characters as young fans.

cycles. comic books work in cycles. the evolution of the fandom, the development of the characters, the hits and misses of the narrative. every aspect turns back around on itself to produce a medium where the fans desperately want a change they rarely allow, and yet, and are in complete control of...

so what do i find so funny?

This is the funny thing.
In any other medium the victim of a cycle like this is either the creator/s or the fan base. With comic books however, it's the characters. The notion is silly, they're not real, and they're essentially eternal so "suffering" on their part seems ridiculous. but it occured to me that as a fan, if things change, they'll eventually change back and you'll have what you love in your hands again in a short ammount of time. as a creator you get to work on the thing you've loved and attempt to apply the change you've so desperately wanted to apply, you get to answer the questions you feel that characters narrative hasn't yet or design a look that expresses what you feel the character should...until another creative team comes in after you and changes everything back, but you had your time, and made your mark on the infinite wall of something you cherish.

Everyone wins but the characters. they become stale, comedic, they represent things then stop then go back to representing them all over again. they live to tell us the story of the middle of their lives, they will never truly reach a goal, not matter how integral to their lives the reaching of that goal is. Batman will never win his war on crime. Spider-man will be "the next reed Richards" forever, but he'll never get there. Superman will save us over and over and over without impact because the things than threaten us can never be vanquished, they're too important to his story arch.

The lesser characters have it worse. the two bit thugs introduced in the early days are doomed to be in the rogues gallery of that work. Creating villains now is difficult, theres no nostalgia to sell them to the current readership, they don't get enough attention to warrant being featured in other mediums and as a result fade into comic book limbo. but the old villains get remembered, they get re-invented and thrown around by creator after creator, each with the desire to place their stamp on them until they have no real core, no real reason for existing in the narrative beyond brand recondition. why does shocker matter? why does the penguin matter? why does metallo matter?

The core issue here can be summed up in one word: Potential. these characters are stuck, and it means none of them can ever really be what they're meant to be, what we demand of them as an audience and as creators.

With that we reach the point of this blog and of this whole project.

The Potential Project is an attempt to look at these characters without the lens of our nostalgia. to take the characters who initally had no real purpose and fix it. We will tackle the obvious elements in the characters back story, in the perception the fans and exterior audience has of them. we will look at what they do or should represent and recreate them with the intention of being more aware of their place in a never ending medium.

We're going to redesign the heroes and villains who need it, and we're going to do it from the inside out.