The X-Men are one of the most morally complex superhero teams out there, and one cosplay has brought together several of their darkest members for an amazing team featuring Emma Frost, Magik and Psylocke. These three characters run the gamut of morality, shifting between heroism and villainy over decades, and they show exactly why the X-Men franchise thrives on complicated, multi-faceted stories full of twists, turns and so, so many retcons.
MindFall Media (@mindfallmedia) has shared their photography of this incredible cosplay which brings three of the X-Men’s most complex heroines to life.
As Emma Frost, cosplayer @odfel is wearing a modified version of Chris Bachalo’s costume designed for Uncanny X-Men vol 3. Meanwhile, @sulkysiren also uses Bachalo’s design from that same series for their Illyana Rasputin, Magik, complete with her signature glowing Soulsword. And finally, @lilmoonnn stuns as classic Psylocke, rocking Jim Lee’s iconic ‘90s design for the character and holding up her trademark psychic knife. Special credit is also given to @patloikaphotoworks, whose editing enhances the piece’s ambience and brings the heroes’ powers to life.
Psylocke is Quicker to Kill Than Most Heroes
This choice of heroes is perfect for a theoretical Dark X-Men team because each of them has a complicated history with their personal morality. The simplest, surprisingly, is that of Psylocke, Kwannon. As an assassin, Kwannon was a killer, but became a reluctant ally to the X-Men during her initial stint in the 1990s where she swapped bodies with Betsy Braddock. Only in the recent Krakoan era has Kwannon been given more interiority, especially in Zeb Wells’ Hellions, which further established her as a hero in her own right.
What’s complicated is that, for many fans, Psylocke is still associated with the heroism of Betsy Braddock, who was body-swapped with Kwannon throughout the ’90s, the 2000s and the majority of the 2010s. However, even Betsy has had an interesting relationship with morality. Alongside Wolverine, she fit the “cool hero who isn’t afraid to kill” mold that defined the 1990s, and was always a little more brutal than many of her X-Men counterparts. The cosplay by @lilmoonnn perfectly captures Psylocke’s most famous look from her ’90s appearances, and whichever version is being cosplayed, they’re still a dark hero.
Emma Frost is a Villain Turned Hero
Emma Frost, in contrast, started as a straight-up villain. As the Hellfire Club’s White Queen, she was instrumental in the Dark Phoenix Saga, and it took years of evolution for her to become a fully-fledged hero. In New Mutants vol 1, Emma was the villainous counterpart to the New Mutants’ leaders, leading her own team of students, the Hellions. After the Hellions’ deaths, Emma became more nuanced as teacher co-leader in Generation X vol 1. However, it took till the 2000s, in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, for her to fully join the X-Men, after she experienced the genocide of Genosha.
Since then, Emma’s towed an interesting line depending on her writers’ and editors’ feelings towards her, and the tone of each book. Either she’s a straight-up hero who’s trusted by her teammates, or she’s still somewhat untrustworthy, a former villain who’s a step away from going back to the dark side if given the right motivation. Bathed in the spotlight as she often is, @odfel’s Emma rides the line between these interpretations, sporting her Bachalo heroic look, but also her classic evil era hairdo from her time in the Hellfire Club.
Magik Has Always Struggled with Her Darker Side
Magik has had an even more complicated relationship with morality. In her New Mutants vol 1 appearances, she struggled with the demonic corruption of the hell dimension Limbo that acted as a metaphor for the abuse inflicted upon her. She was constantly fighting her inner demonic self, the Darkchylde. It was this conflict that spurred the New Mutants side of the mega-event Inferno. That event ended with her self-sacrifice and rebirth as an innocent child version of herself, who would also tragically die of the Legacy Virus several years later.
Magik remained dead for years, but when she came back in the 2000s, she was even more complicated ethically. When she came back, it was without a sense of morality, a fact she hid from her teammates, who were simply overjoyed to see their old friend. However, this darker characterization fell away between multiple creative team shifts and her massive jump in popularity that happened with her inclusion in Uncanny X-Men vol 3. For that reason, it’s ironic that @sulkysiren is sporting her Bachalo costume from that series, though it’s undeniably one of her most iconic and stunning looks.
Long-Running Comics Characters are Consistently Inconsistent
If these characters’ histories show anything, it’s that trying to pin down their morality using any sort of absolutes is going to be a losing battle. It would be hard enough if there was only one creative team over the characters’ long histories, but it becomes nigh impossible to draw a straight line when each character has been written by dozens of creators with different interpretations and mandates over multiple decades. Each character could easily fit into a more heroic, anti-heroic, or even villainous role based on a story’s needs but could then flip in the other direction just as quickly.
This isn’t to say that examining characters deeper is futile, nor that you can’t still explain each character’s evolution as a larger character arc, but it is to say that there must be nuance and allowances for deviations. No-one’s favorite hero will ever be consistently written, and the convoluted snare of inconsistency, whether it be fascinating or frustrating, is part of the experience of being a comics fan. Characters like Magik, Psylocke and Emma Frost remain so popular because they mean different things to different fans; fans like all those involved in this jaw-dropping X-Men cosplay.
Source: MindFall Media via Instagram
