7 Uncomfortable Superhero Origins That Sorely Need Updating

4. Madelyne Pryor

So here's the thing: Jean Grey has committed suicide after becoming Dark Phoenix and killing five billion people and Scott Summers (aka Cyclops) is pretty torn up about it all. Naturally. Taking a break from superheroics, he visits his grandparents in Alaska and meets a cargo pilot named Madelyne Pryor who bears a strange resemblance to Jean and who also survived a plane crash on the day that the Phoenix died on the moon. The two start a romance and are quickly married and pregnant, with Scott eventually leaving the X-Men to live with her and their son Nathan (aka Cable - more on him later) in Alaska. Unfortunately for Maddy, Jean Grey is soon resurrected and Scott leaves his wife and infant son without a word to be reunited with his dead girlfriend. It later turns out that Madelyne was a clone of Jean created by Mr Sinister so that he could obtain a child of selective breeding between the Phoenix and Scott. Wow. Madelyne's origin is incredibly convoluted and muddles not only her own story but also Jean's and Scott's (he's really not much of a hero by the point he abandons her and Nathan) and was the result of an editorial mandate that brought Jean back to life. Longtime Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont envisioned it all differently, letting Madelyne be her own person without a secret history that Scott could have a child and retire from supreheroics with, which sounds far, far better for a comic as rotational and progressive as X-Men used to be.