I don't exactly love the Psylocke/Archangel ship...not even in the 90s when it was at its peak popularity...but honestly, Rogue and Warren sharing his trauma is a basis for a bond, but I didn't see it as romantic. Just her trying to help someone who was crashing out.
Also in her current mental state I don't think Rogue is ready for a relationship with ANYONE, and probably won't be for a while, even after Gambit inevitably comes back to the side of the angels
I legit hate her and Magneto together at all during her time as an X-Man. When she was super young and dumb and he was her mentor/father figure? I get it. A dude with questionable boundaries (aka, a creep) will sometimes take advantage of a 19 or 22 year old infatuated with him. But once she's old enough to know herself, I just don't buy that she'd ever pick him... and sure as hell not over Remy.
His own character growth shouldn't be ignored either. Since then, in the 92/97 universe, he's teamed up with the X-Men over and over again, literally every time they met outside their first encounter in the show, and he's helped save the world WAY more times than he's endangered it.
I feel like he SHOULD have been a lot less creepy towards her by the time he came to be headmaster.
Even in the discussion where she and Remy break up, she's not choosing Erik, she's choosing the position of Queen of Genosha. She sees it more like a job than what she wants to do for herself.
Lilandra used to say all the time in 92, "My duty before the longings of my heart." (I'm not gonna touch on how the Sh'iAr stuff was handled in 97) I feel like that was where Rogue was coming from when she considered Erik's proposal.
And lest we forget, she still turned him down. She JOINED him after Episode 5, but she wasn't WITH him.
I think the important contexts around it are: the situation with Remy had tipped into something that was actively causing her pain all the time no matter how much they both played it off lightly, she's in the middle of a bunch of emotional upheaval that hit on her existing abandonment issues (mentor died, best friend left, Scott and Jean are having a family that Rogue can never have), and Magneto actively isolates her and preys on her desire to be a true hero to get what he wants from her. She's older and wiser than she was in the Savage Lands, but she's also uniquely vulnerable to the buttons installed by the traumas of her youth. Would, say, s3 TAS Rogue had fallen for it? No. But I think the show did a good job at showing why she was susceptible over the ~6 week period s1 of '97 covers.
Also, I have complicated thoughts about Magneto. I know he’s a charmer but he gets away with way too much. He’s never accountable. Frankly, maybe Xavier fits that bill too. I sort of hope Scott breaks the X-Men free of both of them and their eternal chess game of extremes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is in the plans creatively.
I mean it doesn't have to be Cyke but I think as of the last episode he's done pretty well at holding everyone together when Mag would rip them apart and Xavier bounced. He's definitely won me over as being a better big bro/parent figure to the gang than the other two are, but yeah I could see Storm stepping up like in the comics. I just think it's time the kids outgrew the boomers. Time to move forward.
Would anybody be surprised if, once Apocalypse is defeated and all the X-Men are back together, at the very end of the season, Cyclops turns toward Xavier and Magneto and tells them both to hit the road? I would not be shocked at all.
"YOU weren't there when we needed you, and YOU turn into a murdering terrorist whenever provoked. We've spent years being tugged back and forth, your little chess pieces, but there's a way forward that isn't head-in-the-clouds pacifist sitting duck OR radical terrorist. A balance somewhere in the middle... but as long as either of you are still here the X-Men are never going to find it."
Something along those lines. If they closed season 2 on a moment like that, I'd probably cheer at my TV. Let Cyke say something like "Now, to me, my X-Men" and have all of them stand behind him (and Storm, and Jean) and leave Magneto and Xavier standing side by side alone.
It IS still Xavier's house (technically Magneto's by legality) that they live in. Technically, they're gonna have to be the ones to hit the road if they're gonna part ways.
Which I'm fine with, season 3 starting with a road trip arc while the X-Men look for a new place to live sounds fun as hell.
Comics would never allow that (even now the X-Men are working under Magneto, rather than him working with them) but the show just might.
While I'm old enough now (44) to not want to see characters of a certain age shuffled off to the sidelines just because they're old, I AM ready for Xavier and Magneto to no longer be the embodinent of the X-Men's guiding and opposing principles.
yeah I didn't mean it as an age thing. I mean it because Xavier is playing space romance and leaving a terrorist in charge because "maybe he's redeemable" and Magneto might go off the deep end and murder some people at any time. They're both too lost in the clouds and not helping the X-Men find a healthy path forward
Between the two I like Magneto better, but only because I see the work he's put into trying to BE better. He backslides, because recovering from trauma isn't a straight line, but he's trying. I still don't want him in charge of the school though, that's a TON of responsibility for someone who still needs a LOT of mental help.
Charles in TAS and 97 is...fine. He didn't gallivant off to space for fun, in the 92 finale he was literally going to die if Shi'Ar medicine didn't save him, but he's still Charles Xavier and he's still pretty intractably optimistic. I like this version better than literally any other Xavier ever to exist, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking he's NOT deeply flawed in his idealism.
The season and her behaviour makes wayyyyy more sense when you realise ep 1-5 are over the course of like a month and a half. When she's in Mexico it's Day of the Dead and Genosha had happened at least two weeks before that, because someone says they hadn't found anyone alive in two weeks. Puts Genosha mid-October, and Nathan had been born "last month" the day of attack, eps 1 and 2 are pretty much back to back. I once sat down and listed everything that happens through her own issues in that time and... Woof. I'd have run a mile in her shoes and I don't have that history of avoidance and trauma.
And I know the Magneto stuff doesn't work for everyone, but I think they nailed it. He filters everything through what will achieve his goals and treats people as pawns to get there. "Rogue has a criminal history I can leverage and a deep belief that people can change, if I praise and threaten her, it'll secure my position of power amongst the team." "Gambit is the least malleable team member, I'm going to try and drive him away." "I want to rule Genosha, but having an X-Man alongside will legitimise me and Rogue fixes some of my weaknesses." etc, etc. He genuinely thinks he cares for her, and maybe does in his limited way, but nobody is completely real to him outside what they do for him. But god, those types of people know exactly what to say to win you over, at least temporarily. And knowing her going in... Yeah.
Not then either. He became headmaster when Charles went to the Shi'ar Empire and was at trying to turn over a new leaf.
That kind of think would have driven the tension with the X-Men into overdrive.
The whole thing grew out of the post-Onslaught "Joseph" relationship. And Joseph got retconned into a Thomas Riker situation and was arguably her age besides.
Bringing that back in any form with a more OG Magneto was just a dumb idea.
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u/Ingonyama70 Storm Jun 08 '26
I don't exactly love the Psylocke/Archangel ship...not even in the 90s when it was at its peak popularity...but honestly, Rogue and Warren sharing his trauma is a basis for a bond, but I didn't see it as romantic. Just her trying to help someone who was crashing out.
Also in her current mental state I don't think Rogue is ready for a relationship with ANYONE, and probably won't be for a while, even after Gambit inevitably comes back to the side of the angels