I've noticed a sad trend in the last several years. I think I first noticed it when Fox Kids was airing that sub-par X-Men cartoon from Saban. And then, when the better-than-I-ever-dreamed feature film came out, it happened again. There were the X-Men, a jumble of old and new. The stalwart Cyclops, the tempestuous Storm, the ubiquitous Wolverine. And Jean Grey.
Wait a second. Jean Grey? So, everybody from Night Crawler to Professor X has a cool, superhero handle and this chick's name is Jean Grey? Kinda sticks out, right? Well, there's a reason for that. She used to have a superhero name. It was Marvel Girl. Now, I don't know if somewhere along the way the folks at Marvel thought that the name was too goofy, or that it was too childlike for their ultimate taking-itself-too-seriously mutant soap opera, but simply calling her by her civilian name got MY attention.
Marvel Girl, you have a great superhero name in a fine tradition of silver age naming conventions. Be proud, be loud, OWN that name!! You go, Marvel Girl!
Yeah, I gotta agree.
ReplyDeleteBut "Marvel Girl" is so generic. Any stranger could walk in to the X-Academy with a name list and match the students. "Iceman...must be the kid covered in ice. Beast...guy hanging from rafters like a gorilla...check. Cyclops..ah, guy with big single lense shades. Angel...well, white wings. Marvel Girl...well, there's only the one girl, so I guess that's her."
If any other female happened to be visiting, this stranger would have to flip a coin.
Then she upscaled to Phoenix and destroyed solar systems. Kind of hard to go back to "generic" after that. Still, the creative minds at Marvel just aren't trying.
Maybe "Telekinetika" ? Or "Levitatrix" ? "Mental Girl"?
ReplyDeleteYou know, I always wondered about that myself. Thanks for enlightening me.
ReplyDeleteToo bad they didn't go with "Professor X's Pretty Assistant" or something equally Vegas-Mentalism-Act-oriented. :D
They could have put her in a sequined jumpsuit with giant ostrich feathers sticking out of her hair or something, and it would have had the added bonus of seeing how they dealt with that in the movie!
~Cheers!
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