Chad Halcom
Maybe no one is Team Cyclops6/12/2021 Obviously, Marvel Comics did not invent the love triangle. Every entanglement and scuffle between Wolverine and Cyclops over Jean Grey hearkens back a little to Guinevere wrestling between Arthur and Lancelot, or Daisy Buchanan choosing between Gatsby and Tom. I call it “the debutante plot.” Others say the ménage, romantic rivalry, love triangle and so on. And until now, I may have been thinking about it all wrong. Debutante is my favored term, because the story most often turns on a young woman who has recently come of age, and must choose between two rival suitors for a lasting relationship. We don’t care for it as much when a man can’t decide between two equally suitable women (Pitt-Aniston-Jolie was a love triangle, right?). Most tropes in fiction may be patriarchal, but in this case the reverse might be true – a man who vacillates between two women is weak and indecisive, while a woman who does so is prudent and discovering herself through her choices. Invariably the conflict cleaves into two archetypes. One is the choice society dictates or deems acceptable, versus the riskier choice whom the heroine truly loves. The other is the man who appeals to her heart, versus the man who appeals to her loins. Jean Grey’s dilemma is more of the latter. And I always figured Jean, Scott and Logan were like Katniss, Peeta and Gale. You write those stories to make the rivals each appealing in their own ways, and make the reader feel the heroine’s internal conflict. My own recent four-book series as Devin McRee, Lands Forlorn, dealt extensively with Kira's choice between nerdy and lovable werewolf Flint versus tattoo-covered and sinewy MMA fighter Vance. You can read all about them here. But if there’s a clear front-runner, the choice is no fun. An equal appeal breaks readers into “teams” and camps who favor one plot line over the other. Regrettably, readers will enjoy that conflict more than the inevitable resolution -- so of course you drag it out. I always thought so anyway. But maybe not. “Everyone, even the girls, (are waiting for) Wolverine to jump her bones,” a female writer and friend told me recently. “In real life, you totally marry Cyclops. But this is fantasy. This is where you retreat to explore the choices you would never make, and indulge your darker impulses. And through them you can see how they play out.” That makes some sense to me. Cyclops is the stable choice, and Jean’s true north with his psychic rapport and steadfast commitment to her. Wolverine is tougher, more feral and the bad boy your mother warned you about. But I always assumed their equal and opposite appeals carried the tension for women readers. Now I wonder. Maybe no one is Team Cyclops, in the way that some Twilight readers are Team Jacob or some Superman fans prefer Lana Lang. It’s notable that Cyclops is played in the movies by James Marsden, who has racked up many such second-best bachelor roles (losing out to Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, Patrick Dempsey in Enchanted, and less favored than Hugh Jackman here). Pehaps the tension was never the point. It was the lure of the dark horse all along. Have I been giving Cyclops too much credit, people?
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February 2023
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