In this story, I take no prisoners.

X-Factor #10 - "Survivors Guild" (2025)

It’s important to understand I love ALL Bobby Drake interpretations equally (except for AOA Bobby… but like… if there was an X-men I’d wanna die to it’s definitely Nightcrawler, so good on him)

But I do enjoy a lot of what movie Bobby (the OG X-men trilogy… plus the DOFP movie… I guess) brings to the table in terms of Bobby’s characterization.

Is this my nostalgia bias talking from watching the films and having a childhood crush on Shawn Ashmore?

Yes. Yes it is. (and he is still very handsome in my eyes)

Some of the BEST stuff from comic Bobby in my eyes is when he’s able to drop his “class clown/comic relief” side, and actually get very serious and emotional. (I adore his humorous side, but sometimes it does get a bit cringy)

Movie Bobby kinda does this, by having him almost drop the jokester aspect of his character entirely, say for a few small quips.

Problem is, at face value, movie Bobby is kinda…. bland. Outside of the “coming out” scene in X2 and mostly just the scenes with him and Pyro in X2 and Last Stand, there’s not a whole lot of depth to him, which I mostly blame on the romance & later love triangle between Rogue and Kitty. (Not that i dislike those characters, just that their romance with Bobby feels… forced if not cliche and boring)

I feel if Bobby had more time to develop his character past his romances, he’d be so much fun in the movies. Especially if they went further into his relationship with Pyro, and how their ideals contrast each other (in a similar fashion to Xavier and Erik, which Pyro & Bobby parallel PERFECTLY)

This would DEFINITELY be more enriching if we got a closer dynamic between Bobby and Warren in the 3rd film. Not only because they’re best friends in the comics, but because Warren is technically one of Bobby’s first real crushes.

Imagine if John resents Bobby because he feels as if Bobby just replaced him with Warren? That’d be amazing!

Not only that, but what if we add a bit of contention between Bobby and Warren? Let’s say Warren is envious of mutants like Bobby, as he can hide their mutation, but he can’t. They have a heated argument, but this eventually pushes Bobby to use his ice form more, accepting that side of him.

All of this, and then add a bit more of Comic Bobby’s funnier personality into the mix, make it slightly more snarky and sarcastic, and still keep a bit of Movie Bobby’s personality (a split 50/50)

I think that would be a perfect change to Bobby in the movies, and his story as a whole.

Marauders #24 (2019)

or, alternatively we can call this: marvel’s what if… pyro gave his speech to cassandra nova?

X-Factor #3 - "Project Paperclip" (2024)

I keep misremembering this line as the 'second best living hockey player' for some reason. Probably because of the sheer something it takes to say this in a world that still has Wayne Gretzky but.

This is a little more serious than some of our previous conservations.

So I few years back, I made a post on the X-Men subreddit about how I thought it would be a cool idea for a potential Wolverine and the X-Men revival to explore LGBT themes with Iceman and Shadowcat (given how their canonically now LGBT).

But I was meant with a surprising amount of backlash.

Saying things like that they shouldn't do that just because they weren't LGBT in the original run, or how it's just me trying to be woke or something.

And unfortunately, this isn't the only time I've seen this.

I saw a similar post about wanting to explore themes in a potential X-Men Evolution revival, but that also received a lot of backlash.

It's honestly strange how X-Men fans seem to be cool with LGBT representation in the comics, but when it comes to literally every other medium, the idea of including it is apparently just horrible.

(How much to want to bet that these are the same people who bitched about Morph being non-binary?)

But if there was Wolverine and the X-Men revival and they were allowed to have LGBT representation, how do you think Iceman and Shadowcat would be handled?

I could honestly see both of them starting off as being in the closet, Iceman especially.

I mean, his parents definitely seem like the type of people to be openly homophobic.

Also, who do you think would be a good match for them?

Kitty feels like the more brave and confident to pull Bobby out of the closet in WATXM, while she was more shy in Evolution.

That backlash is ridiculous, but sadly not surprising: there are still people who treat you like crazy if you point that the movies included queer themes like Bobby's Coming Out as Mutant and Charles and Erik being in love because Ian McKellen, an activist for gay rights, made sure to explore this angle along with director Bryan Singer who is bissexual.

But on the fun side: Besides the famous ship with Illyana, it has been popular to pair Kitty with Rachel Summers (Claremont being a huge advocate of these two together) and Xian Coy Manh (Karma).

Personally, I like the later, Kitty X Karma, and also enjoy the ship of Kitty X Dani Moonstar introduced to fandom by their interaction connecting trough dreams in Evolution.

Is important to have a ship that is both queer and interethnic.

As for Bobby, I like to pair him with St John Allerdyce (Pyro): Besides the theme of Fire and Ice love, both are the most playful members of their respective teams, with Bobby having a mathematical mind as an accountant while Pyro has a more imaginative mind of romance novel writer, and both are younger mirrors of Charles x Erik in terms of being a romance between members of X Men and Brotherhood rival teams, that could avoid the mistake of their older leaders and embrace their relationship wholeheartly instead of being separated by Mutant Infighting.