Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

There's a great scene where Nova calls Viv emotionless and she explains that she used to be more emotional, but then her brother died and soon after her mother committed suicide.   She simply doesn't want to feel that pain again.   He'd said it disdainfully but quickly apologized.   He hadn't known; none of them had.   He was sorry for her loss.  

Viv deals as well as she can, but she's clearly been greatly disturbed by these losses.  I've been waiting for something like this to come up and I'm glad it has now, and I hope it continues to be something that this series explores.   After all, it does so well with all the other issues.   The education of women, the empowerment of those who want to make real changes, diversity, fairness, not just fighting in the streets and cleaning up.   They want to clean up after, they want to make a difference that doesn't leave people, their homes, and their livelihoods devastated.   They want to be concerned with the damage they cause, to lessen it as much as possible and to help fix what they do repair. 

This issue deals with airspace - the airspace that Atlantis has claimed, specifically.   It deals with those who stumble into sovereign spaces accidentally and it deals with a repressed, and underrepresented people, who have bee told time and again by intruders that they mean no harm.   But harm they do, and Atlantis is not buying it anymore.   They can't take down The Champions completely, so they take them as prisoners of war.   

Yes, the Champions want to escape, and while it could have been dealt with more immediately, I don't think they wanted to hurt the Atlanteans.   They fight, but they don't kill.   Also, a lot of this issue dealt with leadership.   (And I don't get why everyone wants Nu!Cyclops to be leader.   Did the past decades teach you nothing?    Scott Summers is a terribad leader.   The argument presented to me by a co-worker was that Nu!Scott wasn't old, and douchier, Scott, but he was trying to redeem himself.   But if he isn't Douchy!Scott, he doesn't need to redeem himself.   If he himself is afraid that he might be predisposed to be douchy in the future, then maybe people should take a page from his book and realize that, hey, maybe putting him in charge is a bad idea.   Because in at least one future, he grows up to be one of the worst things to happen to mutantkind ever, so, yeah... maybe not put him in charge?)

Kamala, by the way, would be a much, much better leader.   Viv has half her brain patterns from her father, who led the Avengers and created the West Coast Avengers.   Her other half is Virginia, who was based on the Scarlet Witch and who managed to redeem herself instead of pushing all that guilt onto the shoulders of her younger self.  (So, yeah, she put the world in danger, but manages to be not a douchebag about it!  Unlike Douchy!Scott.)

Why do I have to read about any Scott Summers to get me some Viv?   So.   Frustrating.   Worth it for Viv, though.   She's in my top five Marvel characters.  (Vision, Vin and Virginia are three of the others and the last one kinda goes through a rotating cycle, so there you go!)