October 13, 2008

The problem with Moonstar

Belated User Generated Content Contest--The Final Chapter!The Problem: Part of the problem involved the nature of her power. Purely mental abilities are difficult to portray because when they don’t work, the hero is completely screwed, hence many of them gaining additional powers (Jean Grey’s telepathy and Emma’s diamond form). They tried changing her powers to create physical objects which just shows part of the larger issue, Marvel didn’t know what to do with her, including what superhero identity to give her. They made her a valkyrie, changed her powers, almost killed her, wrote her out of the story, had her join the villains, revealed her to be a double agent, brought her back into the fold and finally took her powers away because there wasn’t a clear idea of how to handle her (or the other New Mutants).

The New Mutants were created to act as the new generation of X-Men (in training) and the idea had great merit as shown by returning to that with Generation X and the New X-Men. However, what do you do when the older generation remains more popular and won’t retire? The New Mutants got shuffled to the side, used as fodder or wallowed in character limbo, becoming more irrelevant as ever more new mutants join the fold.
Comment:  For more on the subject, see Some Talk About Moonstar.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agre with you , marvel have not enough imagination , moonstar is one of my favorite and with the biggest potential .
If you want to make her more visible : bring back his horse with valkyrie/asgardan powers (after all the asgardians survivors are on eath and they need a erth-born walkyrie) turn his color skin in blue or red permanently or when she use his psy powers like illusions (materilized or not) psychic arrows or any forms she needs ...

Anonymous said...

and , more , you can change his sexual identity to make her falling in love with karma who can find in Dani the perfect love partner because she is , perhaps, the only one to know the wounds of her past

Rob said...

Don't keep saying "his" when Dani Moonstar is a "her."

Changing Moonstar's powers, making them too complex, is what hurt her character in the first place. I'd choose one or two simple powers and stick with them.

Making Moonstar a lesbian might work since I don't think she's ever had a (heterosexual) romance. But it might make her seem too much like Gen13's Rainmaker.