It's interesting, unexpected and non-conformist. I like that. As for the outcome, I'm willing to just wait and see... though I imagine one day, some purist writer or editor will come along and reunite Scott & Jean.

OK,

I hear most people say that Emma is aligned with the Shadow King or some other baddie and will eventually make her move against the team.

BUT, wasn't it Prof X who invited her to join the X-Men? Is the greatest telepath on Earth getting duped here too?

Can somebody recap what happened to the Shadow King? Last I heard he was destroyed or imprisoned by Psylocke, who sacrificed her telepathy to do him in.

DR

I think Emma is a complex character. And the X-Men have a long history of generating richer characters with more depth by having their "heroes" and "villians" swap sides and perspectives over the years. Remember when Magneto was running the school and Xavier was off in Shi-Ar space?

Besides, I would imagine Emma has sort of done the "bad boy" thing to death.

What actually made less sense for me was Jean still being interested in him. If ever there was a case of "He's just not that into you" it's Scott and Jean. I think Scott wanted Jean as long as she was a weak "auxiliary" character, but lost interest in her every time she started to get more powerful and individuated.

And I really never liked him much after he ditched Madelyne and Nathan Christopher the nanosecond Jean was found alive. So much for his "straight arrow" character. Take that with his affair with Emma while married to Jean, and that whole Psylocke fixation he had years ago... Geez...What a self-righteous hypocrite.

Judging by Endsong, they'll probably bring Jean back, since it seems she and the Phoenix are and always were the same person. Whenever she buys it, she just goes to the White Hot Room and regenerates. What would be really interesting would be to see how confirmation that she is, in fact, basically immortal would play out. Which oddly, would make Wolverine a better match, since he's one hard-to-kill mofo who doesn't age. But I digress

Cat's out.

Emma is working for the old Hellfire Club, Sebastian Shaw & co. Hopefully there will be a few more twists before this completely unravels. I would like to see Roberto DaCosta, the new Hellfire leader, involved in this story arc. Also, I can't wait to see more of Selene, the Black Queen. She rocks. I hope that Astonishing handles the Hellfire Club better than Uncanny did recently. It was another story arc that was told too quickly, with too many characters. That's what I love about Astonishing, they take their time to do it right. I mean, the whole story concept of Danger was kind of innane, but they way they told the story was brilliant and fun. More Hellfire would be good. We shall see...

DR