scott & maddy, x-factor #1 (1986)
i guess i'm panel posting for my x-factor re-read. i'm... super sad actually for maddy here knowing what's coming in the future. though let me backtrack: i really enjoy this era of comics for batman and x-men because it felt more like these were comics written For Adults more than for Children or for Merch. it's about people with real interiority and feelings and it lends to the whole "comics as a form of soap opera" that particularly functions well for the x-men.
i'm a huge madelyne pryor fan (i have a side hobby rping her) and i haven't read her x-factor run in a minute and i'm doing so for a game review + to dig more into warren too. so i already know what's goin gto happen but i should say it's been years since i've read this. and well like i said: i feel fucking sad for her. we're on issue fucking one and already the marriage to scott has awful, horrendous cracks in it.
to be blunt: scott is already checked out of his marriage and his child in deep, unfixable ways here while maddy is struggling deeply hard with childcare, with the fact she's aware she's a replacement for a dead woman and all that burden with it all. she is basically a five alarm fire with nathan and scott is just rendered immobile and unwilling to at least try.
she voices her frustration, anger and fear in ways that might not be very clean and yet he says she's "uncalled for" and he can't do very basic tasks. i do understand him feeling dread over the mutant situation yet there's something incredibly normal about having a newborn child with a father who's useless and regretting and a wife who is fed up with her husband who won't do what he's supposed to do with a newborn. it's a situation people have been in for thousands of years and it really does underscore the story well and makes you frustrated and sad.
