Quote Originally Posted by kozzi24
I guess it's different strokes for different folks, but IMHO it has got to be one of the worst AF appearences ever. Writers treatment of Wildchild has always been a bug bear with me. To begin with he was just your bog standard feral type that swamped Marvel. Lobdell and Furman made him an excellent character, that battle he had against his doppleganger during Infinity whatever really strengthened him. In X-Factor he was ruined and as for the teeth in #116, lets not go there.
By the Infinity whatever thing, he had started to grow on me a little bit, but I never liked him as a mamber of the team. Part of this is a general revulsion for the sheer population of feral characters, and another, greater part was that he was writer-du-jour's pet character. When Scott came on Alpha, he cleared a lot of chaffe and brought in Wildheart, and the book began to get a feel of "Wildheart and Alpha Flight." This isn't a specific criticism of Scott as many writers do it. On Alpha alone, there was Mantlo and Jeffries, and Hundall and Talisman. Nicienza and Furman
did manage a better balance of characters, which should be an objective on a team book. Wildheart came on too strong, and followed the Mantlo pattern of pet character: build a relationship with Heather.
While I personally don't really have a problem with Feral types, given that if you catergorise Super Heroes/Villians then the majority would show up to be modelled on a some previous type. With Ferals and Gun toting Enhamced types, you have the problem of the prototypes being such strong popular characters. This gives characters of those types being immediately measured up against them and failing miserably.

I understand your problems about certain writers concentrating on specific characters, but I work from the fact that those you mentioned were very two dimensional before this concentration on them. Wildchild was a feral type, he became Kyle Gibney, kidnapped youth, this opened up more possibilty for character depth and something more than the Snarl, slash, hissy fit type of behaviour we had seen from him before. I do think that Scotts and then Simon Furmans depictions of Wildchild were some of the best in regards to what you reference as writer-du-jour's pet character.

Quote Originally Posted by kozzi24
I kind of look at Wild Child as a foil for Wolverine, that WC's failure to stay risen above feral nature strengthens Wolverine's heroism in maintaining the fact the he overcame his yet retains the feral streak as a personal "Weapon Omega" if a fight is just too down and dirty.
We saw that from Wildchild during the infinity what not, but all that developement was lost after vol 1 went bye and bye and WC's treatment in X-Factor. How many times has Wolverine lost or come close to giving in to his feral side, it's a tired old plot line that gets dragged out every now and again. I work on the theory that when Wildheart first appeared in #101, he said that he was in control because of medications provided by Dept H. I hold out hope that if returned to Af and put back on that same medication than the more controlled strong character can re-emerg.

Quote Originally Posted by kozzi24
I like what has been done with WC in Weapon X, in a "White Fang" kind of way, that this man is sadly an animal, but one that can be domesticated. WC remembers Aurora by scent and appearance, but I would imagine a sever split personality might be stressful to a household dog. I've liked Tieri's story along those lines greatly because the Program has made WC victim enough, and Aurora increased the victimization by nature of her character, with character consistency. Aurora's dirching of Jeffries is justified because he was never really all that nice to her. Her abandonment of WC is something else entirely.
I have no qualms with what Tieri has done with WC in Weapon X because that the was the natural path to take following events in X-Factor #143. It's been shown that WC is more than an animal and could be again, but as he is at present, then yea, he's nothing more than a subservient pet who retains some knowledge of better times, surely if he still has a devotion to Aurora then it would suggest that, he is probably more human than animal. Also is his subservience down to his regression to Beastial form, or the fact that he was horribly abused by Sabretooth, who stripped away a lot of WC's humanity?