Wolverine variant.
(Astonishing X-Men #62)
There is so much bullshit here I cannot even…
Exactly when did Colossus make you not feel forgotten? Would it be the time you offered to bind yourself in matrimony to Caliban to save his ass and didn’t even get a ‘thank you’ for it? Or the time he vanished to another world, fell in love with someone he couldn’t even speak to, then came home after she died and dumped your ass? Oh! Or how about the time he ran off with the Acolytes after Magneto crashed the funeral of your best friend?
But let’s remember the good times right? Like the time he beat your boyfriend nearly to death. Or the second time he ran off with the Acolytes, you know, after Magneto tore the adamantium out of that dude you’re bumming steak from. Or when he physically attacked his team leader and a teenage girl for not giving him his way immediately. Or how about all the times that “self-sacrificing” streak of his meant that you got left behind to deal with the emotional fallout.
But no, the moment you’re feeling insecure about your current boyfriend, let’s muse about how the obsessive, violent man-child you fell for at 14 is the love of your life.
Ugh. This is why I hate the Shadowcat/Colossus pairing. Save for a couple of writers who seemed to have some awareness of just how creepy it all is, it generally turns Kitty Pryde into the type of character that makes Bella Swan seem mature, assertive and self-aware.
Oh my god, yuck. Does the writer not realize how creepy and abusive this sounds? “He tried to destroy me.” “Welcome to relationships.” WTF NO THAT’S NOT WHAT RELATIONSHIPS SHOULD BE.
Colossus is the guy who, on multiple occasions now, reacted with violence when Kitty didn’t want a relationship with him—beating her then-boyfriend Pete Wisdom nearly to death, burning and threatening Kitty (and her students) during AvX. It pisses me off that his behavior will probably never be acknowledged on-panel for what it is, and however Bobby/Kitty works out, Kitty will never be allowed to move out of the shadow of her toxic relationship with Piotr. It’s really gross that their relationship is still being romanticized as ~the love of her life~ because no, fuck that guy. And fuck this narrative for abusing Kitty and taking away her agency.
It’s not the first time a narrative has romanticized an abusive relationship and I wish to fuck it’d be the last, but… it’s particularly frustrating in this case because it’s basically become the standard for any time Kitty interacts with or mentions Piotr. About the only time a character has genuinely addressed what a terrible fucking person Piotr has been is when Kurt called him out on it in the issue after his attempted murder of Pete. What makes me side eye even harder is the fact that this kind of narrative often appears immediately after a character, and particularly Piotr, has demonstrated himself to be a terrible person and still excuses that behavior. I know multiple writers may have multiple opinions on a relationship, and that will result on multiple different takes on it, but boy does it send out mixed messages when you have one group of writers romanticizing a relationship and another group writing it as something terrible and abusive. It’s a case where editors really need to get their shit together. It’s especially terrible when, like here, you get a writer acknowledging a character has done something awful in another title, but basically excuses it. Playing the violence Piotr displayed against Kitty as “Ha ha, relationships, huh?” is gross.
