For the Avengers comics, Brian Michael Bendis has Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and Ares. There is some balance though, because Bendis has a tendency to showing his affection by heartlessly breaking them, so all five went through some serious crap under his care. But for many fans it's still not enough to equal all the attention he gives them. And that's not counting Bendis' "love" for Hawkeye, who has become nothing more than a vehicle from which Bendis attacks his critics (and to spite fans whose overwhelming hatred for Bendis' attempt to permanently kill Clint off led to Bendis being forced against his will to bring him back to life, at which point he turned him into a ninja (replacing Echo in the Ronin identity) to further spite fans).
Luke and Jessica have gotten additional flack from fans for the opening arc of The Pulse, where they're the ones who did most of the work in exposing Norman Osborn to be the Green Goblin following his post-Clone SagaVillain with Good Publicity status, with said fans thinking that if anyone should've exposed Spider-Man's archenemy, it should've been Peter Parker himself.
Bendis' run on Iron Man comics have Riri Williams, who's been pushed heavily outside her own comic and disproportionately praised by other characters. She shows up to take the role of Iron Man, is an uber teen genius whose motivation to become a superhero seems to just be out of curiosity more than anything. It's also implied she is based on one of his daughters.
Then there's Kitty Pryde: Kitty became Peter Parker's girlfriend in Ultimate Spider-Man and, after they broke up, remained a part of the cast and was fitted into as many plotlines as possible. Brian Michael Bendis has gone on the record to state that he's always liked Kitty Pryde from back when he was a kid and that he enjoys using her... combine that with a statement he made about Peter "being him" and the conclusion to come to is pretty easy. Some don't mind the attention paid to her... but others do.
Then there's Bendis adding the main version of Kitty Pryde to Guardians of the Galaxy, of all comics, having her date Star-Lord and rapidly become engaged to him. She then became the new Star-Lord ("Star-Lady") and takes Peter Quill's place on the Guardians.
Avengers Arena had several, most of them original characters. The biggest one is probably Apex. She is supposed to be one of the smartest people on the Murderworld, but she was only successful because everybody she went against grabbed an Idiot Ball much bigger than the one she carries around, and because stronger characters were subjected to The Worf Effect to make her look cooler, especially Darkhawk — she can effortlessly take control over his armor and even break its bond with the host. When her plan from the first arc blew up in her face, it's treated as a big accomplishment by the other side, literally being said to be beating her at her own game, despite the fact she made many stupid mistakes that lead to her failure — many people see it as Character Shilling. Many plot points ends up revolving about her, even if they shouldn't, like the broken trust between Chase and Nico. In the second arc, she kills Juston, takes control over the Sentinel, Deathlocket, and Darkhawk and uses them to effortlessly curbstomp X-23 and Nico Minoru, effectively dominating every established character who could be seen as a threat, and is only defeated thanks to a writer-breaking rules under which Nico's magic work to give one of them necessary powerup to fight her off. Also, Deathlocket, one of series initial Ensemble Darkhorses has been turned into Satellite Character, who only exists to make Apex look that much more interesting. Apex is also the only character to get more than one focus issue: #9, which tells her origin, and #12, which is told from her perspective, while some established characters (like Mettle, Red Raven and Juston) didn't get a single one before they died. Critics of the series started calling her Neelix to express how annoying she is.
Cammi is another one — while nobody denies she is an experienced survivalist and badass, she is also set up as an unquestionable team leader in the second arc and other characters, including those who actually are experienced leaders (Nico Minoru, Reptil), follow her without a question and even ask what they should do in situations which they should be better suited to handle in the first place. And worst of all, she keeps this position despite making stupid decisions and when Cullen finally calls her on it, it's treated as him having an emotional breakdown, not pointing out how an horribly incompetent leader she is.
And she only gets worse in Avengers Undercover. She is the one person damaged the least by Arena and the unquestionable leader of the group, the only one to oppose idea of killing Arcade, the only one whose family and friends doesn't seem to turn on when they get arrested after one of them kills him, and the only one to refuse Baron Zemo's offer and the plan of taking down the Masters of Evil from inside, because she wants to stay morally pure. She goes on to play Author Avatar when she says how "people've been hating us for six months now, so I don't care how much more hate I get" (it should be noted that only 3 months passed in-universe and Arena survivors were supposedly seen as celebrities, so it's clear the jab at the hatedom). When she tries to leave, effectively abandoning her supposed friends in the hands of the villains, it's supposed to be seen as the right decision, and when she is attacked by Constrictor, it's supposed to be a dramatic moment. And of course in the finale she steals Arcade's godmode-technology and single-handedly defeats Zemo and Masters of Evil, solves everything, and flies off to space, like if somebody realized she turned into a Poochie.
Other Braddock Academy kids, especially Cullen Bloodstone and Anachronism, are this to a certain point as well, because, with the exception of Cammi, other characters rarely get a chance to show any initiative and are constantly Demoted to Extra and subjected to the Worf Effect to make them look better.
Anachronism got worse in Undercover, where suddenly he is hailed as great leader material and Hazmat suddenly gets over her dead boyfriend and falls for him out of nowhere. Made worse by the fact many consider him to be Dennis Hopeless's self-insert.
And of course Arcade is one too, being portrayed as a genius who managed to outsmart everybody in the Marvel Universe to have his sick game run for a month without anybody noticing, when in reality his plan worked only because everybody who could stop him had either been handed the Idiot Ball or been written as uncaring jerks. We're supposed to see him as a clever mastermind who manipulated the cast into fighting each other to death for his amusement, when in reality he needs to make one ham-fisted interference after another to try make the kids play his game, clearly showing he didn't think his plan through. Furthermore, with three exceptions, two of which don't really count anyway (Apex, who was already playing without his push, and X-23, whom he can get to play if he sprays everybody with Trigger Scent, that sets her into state of uncontrollable rage, which cannot be counted as playing on her own will), all of them failed. In the last arc, when everybody starts fighting each other, Arcade claims he broke the kids, and we're supposed to see him as right. There's only one that has been lead naturally to the point where he has understandable reasons to try to kill somebody else (Aiden trying to avenge Nara). Others not only don't have one, but one of them (Nico Minoru) experienced things that make her suddenly trying to kill others make no sense whatsoever (she died and came back to life to save the same people she now suddenly tries to kill). It also happens after Arcade rants in defense of making the game last thirty days, which looks like Dennis Hopeless putting words in his mouth in defense of a commonly criticized plot point.
And he gets worse in Undercover — suddenly the whole world loves watching the videos of Murderworld he put on Youtube, and a single one of them has more views than everything most popular Youtubers did combined, despite the fact that a) they would be instantly pulled down for violating Youtube terms of service and b) they are videos of kids being killed. Arcade is hailed by media as some underestimated genius and the kids who survived it are seen as celebrities. Nico gets even chewed by Chase for daring to be traumatized by Arena — she should accept Arcade won and enjoy the fame. When the kids supposedly kill him, it's seen as first-degree murder by SHIELD and their friends and family immediately turn on them. And in the end he gets away with everything again — not even being killed, just losing his godmode powers. Even Baron Zemo, fan-favorite villain, says he disapproves of what Arcade did, but still goes on a page-long series of praises to him. Eventually, Arcade's luck ran out in Secret Wars (2015) when his eyes were torn out and all the Spirits of Vengeance ran him over until there was nothing left of him but a bloodstain.
Roger Stern really liked Monica Rambeau, the Captain Marvel of The Avengers, and actively pushed her into the limelight. He repeatedly had other characters talk about how powerful she was, men gushed over her beauty, and she was even made chairman of the Avengers for a time. The fans never quite took to her, but she was never really hated. She did develop a larger fanbase once Warren Ellis made her a member of the Nextwave series.
Kate Bishop in Hawkeye normally isn't this, being given plenty of panel time while not overshadowing Hawkeye, her mentor and the main protagonist. However during Jeff Lemire's run on the book during All-New, All-Different Marvel, she seemed to be suddenly suck up loads of attention and was shilled massively, being depicted as much better at fighting than Hawkeye to the point that a villain at one point calls her "the real Hawkeye" for no particular reason. This may have been an attempt to reverse Badass Decay Kate suffered in the previous writer's run, but if so many fans feel that Lemire went way overboard.
The entire faction of The Inhumans was seen as this for a good while. For most of their history, they had been an inoffensive corner of Marvel's cosmic stable, but between about 2012 and 2018, mainly under the direction of Ike Perlmutter, Marvel attempted to push them as the next big thing and a replacement for the X-Men, mainly due to X-Men’s film rights still being tied up at 20th Century Fox at the time, as Perlmutter felt it didn’t make sense to promote characters they couldn’t use in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, the Inhumans have always been at best morally grey and better suited as supporting characters than ongoing protagonists, which meant the attempt to retool them as straightforward heroes couldn't be more of a square peg in a round hole. There were even attempts to treat them as the victims of Fantastic Racism — and as this is something the X-Men struggle with on their best day, a race of isolationist nobles who are only superpowered by choice never really had a chance with making it work. Pretty much every other event involved the Inhumans heavily, every other new character was an Inhuman or got retconned as one, and invariably, the only ones to have any success (mainly Ms. Marvel) were the ones to have basically no connection to the overall franchise. It certainly didn't help that the writers and editors had the bright idea to try to stoke the fires of the Fandom Rivalry by placing the Inhumans frequently in opposition to the X-Men (including the idiotic reveal that the Terrigen Mists kill or sterilize mutants). The period ended with the double-bill Franchise Killer of Disney buying Fox and the TV series bombing hard, at which even Perlmutter could no longer deny their lack of value as a going franchise.
Mantis, under Steve Englehart. He became notorious for his over-use of the character in his The Avengers run. She appeared, beat the snot out of all of the Avengers at once, and then immediately became the central character in a huge Myth Arc that took up years of storytelling. Then, when he was out of Marvel, he created a Captain Ersatz for her in DC. Then another company. Then tried to use her again at Marvel. To date, he is the only writer to ever seriously use her as a major character (a few writers have gone on record that they hated the character behind-the-scenes, and didn't see what Englehart saw in her) — her next-biggest appearance is likely as a supporting character in Annihilation: Conquest, followed by being one of the title characters in Guardians of the Galaxy. Englehart also, weirdly, decided to make her a big focus in his Silver Surfer run. Fan reception was no better there, with Strangled by the Red String occurring as he tried to make readers believe that she was Norrin's true love, when everyone was already hoping he'd get together with Nova... which he eventually did, when Mantis was written out of the series, to the relief of all.
The Red Hulk under Jeph Loeb, dear Lord... shortly after being introduced he beat Odin-forced Thor with his own hammer, punched out the Watcher, killed the Grandmaster (who is immortal), casually killed off the whole Defenders (including the Silver Surfer!) and much more. Luckily, he got depowered when Parker took over, and every hero that has been beaten by him before returned to return the favor in some very satisfying ways. His getting casually owned by Galactusat the height of his wankery◊ was pretty satisfying as well. He would still get membership as an Avenger after this, but he hasn't descended back into the worst depths of his misuse in a while.
Carlie Cooper, Spider-Man's Replacement Goldfish after Marvel ended the Spider-marriage. She was introduced after the much-loathed One More Day and was quickly established as being Peter Parker's next love interest. Initially starting off as a minor character who just happened to have a crush on Peter, writers cranked up how much she's perfect for Peter, having both Peter complain about not being worthy of her and Mary Jane telling him he needs to hook up with her. Oh, and did we mention she's named after Joe Quesada's daughter? At best she came off as a Composite Character of Peter's previous love interests.note It was originally intended for Gwen Stacy, who Carlie is similar to, to be resurrected in the role, but despite the Cosmic Retcon nature of One More Day, Quesada was vetoed After breaking up with Peter when she found out about his life as Spider-Man, she stuck around as a supporting character and even began popping up in other Marvel books. Within the pages of Superior Spider Man, it's her — not Aunt May, the Avengers or even MJ — of all people who is able to discern that Peter Parker has been acting out of character when he was possessed by Doc Ock, despite him blatantly doing so and Ock making almost zero effort to act like Peter, using a method that requires him to grab the Idiot Ball. When she's eventually hit with some Goblin formula, she is able to resist its brainwashing powers. Fortunately, she was later dropped from the book, and has since been reintroduced and Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
Many detractors towards Dan Slott tend to paint his usage of Doctor Octopus as this, especially after he became the Superior Spider Man. A major complaint by fans toward this end is that Otto's thus-far-successful attempt at hijacking Peter Parker's life has less to do with him being clever and strategic, and more with all of Peter Parker's friends, allies, and family becoming total, brain-dead idiots, with the plot at times bending over backwards to keep Otto from getting egg on his face.
Miles Morales became infamous for being Bendis' creator's pet. Despite being a new, amateur kid hero, he has the tendency to beat everyone when written by Bendis (who wrote Miles' ongoing for the first seven years of Miles' existence), including his far more experienced predecessor Peter Parker from the main universe. The worst example was probably Miles defeating the uber powerful Eldritch Abomination Blackheart, just after this one had taken out all the other heroes. Thankfully, this isn't the case under other writers — in fact, the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse does the opposite and is all about Miles not measuring up to the other Spider-people's standards and learning to do so while being his own Spider-Man.
This seems to be a running trend with Dan Slott and Spider-Man characters. Peter's newest love interest Silk has had even less of a relationship with him than Carlie had, being clumsily shoehorned into Peter's backstory during the Original Sin event. From there she essentially hooked up with him on the spot, thanks to having Spider-Man focused pheromone powers, showcased having superior powers to Spider-Man and somehow being just as skilled as him despite utterly lacking in training, experience or education. Her place as Peter's love interest also came at the cost of either writing out his previous love interests or turning them evil, in the case of Black Cat. During the Spider-Verse event, she also got a disproportionate amount of focus, overshadowing other popular alternate universe Spider-Men. Dan Slott has even gone on record to say that Silk was responsible for the sales of Amazing Spider-Man (a comic that normally gets high sales, and was obviously benefiting from the fact that it was a relaunched series that debuted alongside Amazing Spider-Man 2) and that he has received a high amount of fan mail praising her yet refuses to post any evidence to that fact when asked for proof. Once Silk got her own comic, her role as a love interest was abandoned and the pheromone power retconned, leading her out of being a creator's pet.
Another creator pet for Dan Slott and his co-writer Christos Gage is Anna Maria Marconi. Introduced during Superior Spider Man, Anna Maria was quickly romantically linked to Otto Octavius — then inhabiting the body of Peter Parker — and presented as his Morality Pet. However, the book went out of its way to establish how amazing Anna Marie Marconi is at everything, and that it was Otto's love for her and solely his love for her that "redeemed" him. Established characters like Aunt May where thrown under the bus to make Anna Marie look good, and she took up more and more of the page space over more popular established characters. This got even worse once Superior ended, as Anna Marie remained in the book and became Peter's Secret-Keeper and sole confidant in his role as Spider-Man. Anna Marie was a young woman meant to be Peter's age and just graduating from college, yet Dan Slott presented her as knowing how to run a business with little experience, capable of riding into battle on the back of the Living Brain to assist Peter, and assist Peter in practically every single endeavor and be a key component in resolving every issue or threat. It got to the point where the only two important characters in the book were Peter and Anna Marie. After the Fall of Parker arc, Anna Marie was shipped off to San Diego where she once again played a major role in the Superior Spider-Man spinoff book. To date, Anna Marie's last appearance has her slut shamming Mary Jane Watson and Felicia Hardy — two incredibly popular characters — in order to prop up Otto Octavius, showing how he's totally not shallow in any way since he isn't interested in women solely for their looks (which completely ignores the fact that Peter did not fall in love with either woman solely because they were physically attractive).
Spider-Gwen in Web Warriors. While in her title, she's shown to be a rookie way out of her league against superhumans, in Web Warriors, writer Mike Costa turns her into The Ace who can handle both armies of Electros and Dr. Octopuses with ease. Spider-Man Noir ends up describing her as someone who really doesn't need to be part of the team when most of the heroes shown in the series have been fighting for so much longer and dealt with a lot more.
Thanos of Titan and Adam Warlock have fans, but many readers find Thanos' continual presence at the center of crisis crossovers annoying, along with how Jim Starlin will delete or handwave less glamorous showings of Thanos, unless the reason for them was his other pet Adam Warlock. This is also part of the reason Squirrel Girl has fans, because she was part of a gag that parodied Thanos' uber-competence and the tendency for his screw-ups to be explained away as inferior clones or part of his plan. In addition, many of Thanos' fans like him for being a vile villain, but don't like the attempts to make him seem sympathetic, as he hardly does anything sympathetic, routinely killing billions of people — and not just in A Million Is a Statistic ways but takes much joy in causing as much suffering as he can individual to individual. We're supposed to feel bad because he's in love with the personification of death and was rejected when she realized he was no good. Most Thanos fans enjoy Thanos not from his original appearances, but from the 90s where this is how he was portrayed, along with some Deadpan Snarker thrown in. This created a bit of irony of sorts, as Thanos received a great deal of character development from Starlin in the 90s at the expense of Adam Warlock in terms of Warlock being reduced to Thanos' emo sidekick.
Venom has Lee Price, the fifth man to don the mantle of Venom. Introduced as a morally dubious wounded military veteran, Mike Costa clearly wanted readers to sympathise with Lee on some level, showing glimpses into his troubled upbringing and having him be a victim of circumstance, while also making it clear that the guy is suffering from severe PTSD. However, to differentiate him from Flash Thompson (also a wounded military veteran and the previous Venom), Lee was given some... wrinkles. He's casual about murder, lacks any empathy and uses the Venom symbiote for purely selfish acts. That the character exhibits zero redeeming qualities made him not so much a complex Anti-Villain or Anti-Hero as much as a straight up Villain Protagonist who conveniently has some excuses for being a dick, and readers were counting the days until either Eddie Brock or Flash Thompson would become Venom again. That the character has zero ties to Spider-Man doesn't help, since Eddie Brock has a personal beef against Spidey, Mac Gargan was created specifically to kill Spidey and Flash Thompson is a long-time supporting character (having debuted in the same issue as Peter Parker himself). After Eddie Brock regained the symbiote and the Venom name, things actually only got worse. Lee was repositioned as a villain, but the manner in which they made him a credible threat... was to have him steal Ensemble Dark Horse Mania's symbiote, rechristen himself as "Maniac" and proceed to become a wannabe crime boss. Except even then, readers found him underwhelming (especially since the Marvel Universe already has an abundance of crime bosses) and he was quickly beaten. Fans were undoubtedly satisfied when Lee wound up trying to intimidate a disguised Carnage, who promptly ripped out his spine as he pitifully begged for his life.
Chuck Austen introduced nurse and single mother Annie Ghazikhanian during his run on Uncanny X-Men. Word of God stated that she was based on Austen's wife and she became a central character in many storylines. Annie is mostly remembered for her relationship with Havok, which started as a crush when he was in a coma and she was caring for him. Once revived, Havok showed an immediate attraction to Annie and it was eventually revealed that Annie's mutant son had been setting them up on 'psychic dates' for months before he awoke. Austen's run depicted Havok's longtime partner Polaris as insane, homicidal and bitchy, emphasizing that Annie was a far better choice for him. Fan reaction to Annie (and the run in general) was negative, which led Austen to dismiss critics as unreasonable "trolls". With his final story arc with the X-Men franchise, Austen wrote Annie and her son out of the X-Men books. The pre-Austen Polaris/Havok relationship was eventually restored. As of 2022, Annie has only reappeared once since Austen left.
Grant Morrison had the Stepford Cuckoos, Beak, and Angel during their run on New X-Men run as the Cuckoos tended to save the day as much as already existing X-Men and the Grand Finale was advertised as being one for the whole mythos, but in reality, outside of the core five, it tended to focus on characters Morrison created, including the grandson of Beak and Angel. Said run also originated the below-mentioned Glob Herman and Quentin Quire.
Gabby (AKA Honey Badger), X-23's clone, has been accused of being her creator, Tom Taylor's pet. After being introduced early into Laura's latest book, Gabby is quickly cemented as a quirky Deadpan Snarker that everyone loves. Gabby gains more and more prominence in the story; many issues have Laura herself just being there to enable whatever quirks Gabby has, or just being Demoted to Extra. This is continued in Taylor's X-Men: Red where Gabby is put on the team, continues her comical antics, and has much more presence than Laura, despite being her sidekick. Laura's next solo book also heavily focuses on Gabby's inane complaints about wanting a birthday, while also being central to the main conflict. On top of all this, Word of God confirmed that Laura's romance with her boyfriend, Warren was almost completely cut out of Laura's story to make more room for Gabby stories. Now, even the idea of Gabby's mere presence in a book makes fans turn their nose at it, with many Laura fans actively wishing for the character's death.
Another pet X-Man is Glob Herman, the odd, weak, and pitifulBlob Monster. In recent years, he's become a major favorite among the X-Men's editor and some of the writers, resulting in him getting near-constant use for years, including being one of the few non-core mutants to play a major role in the 2018 relaunch, and being the focus of one of its spin-off books despite barely contributing anything beyond comic relief. Meanwhile, fans have had a more tepid reaction to the character, especially due to him getting unwarranted constant attention in a franchise infamous for reducing beloved characters to wallpaper. Tellingly, he was actually one of Quentin Quire's friends when he was first introduced.
Goldballs, created by Brian Michael Bendis, was randomly transplanted into Bendis' Spider-Man book despite existing as a Joke Character at best. He received disproportionate praise and stuck around in Miles Morales' adventures. Eventually, he would be reduced to a plot device by Jonathan Hickman.
Psylocke is normally fairly popular, but was thoroughly this during Chris Claremont's run on Exiles. Claremont had her placed on the Exiles and had her actually usurp leadership of the team away from Blink, who is a Breakout Character and has been with the team since its inception.
Quentin Quire of the New X-Men started off as a minor character, basically the super-powered mutant equivalent of a school shooter and a teenaged sociopath who manipulated others into joining a small cult of wannabe Magnetos, before dying of a drug overdose of sorts. He was revived a few times, before finally returning during Schism, serving as one source of the conflict between Wolverine and Cyclops to push them apart further, before joining Wolverine's school. He's continued to be written by Jason Aaron, who's since then made him one of the main characters, including being the main student, of his run, with him being at the front of every big event he writes, including his future self being the Phoenix in Battle of the Atom. Aaron even brought back this loathed plot point, with Quentin's modern incarnation being the Phoenix in Aaron's Thor run, despite having almost no place in the events of that story beyond his ties to the Phoenix which Aaron himself created in the first place. All of this, despite being largely loathed by vocal aspects of fandom. Every writer tends to have one kid they push, and usually it works. This case, however, it most certainly has not, and isn't helped by his continued use.
Sage, under Chris Claremont, was shoved down fans' throats upon his return to the X-Books. Suddenly this character who'd only been "Sebastian Shaw's Secretary/Assistant" before this was everywhere, getting constant cover appearances, saving the day, and becoming central to several stories. Despite no fans really liking her, Claremont used her again and again in subsequent books, as every time he got taken off one series, he'd transplant her to his new one. This got most egregious when the mainstream Sage ended up in Exiles, which almost always used Alternate Universe versions of mainstream characters.
For his run on Uncanny X-Men (2013)Brian Michael Bendis introduced yet another creator's pet in Tempus, an original character who in a very short span of time got two entire annuals dedicated to her, defeated the entire Avengers team in a total Curb-Stomp Battle, and gave a suspiciously meta "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Cyclops (who was on a Villain Protagonist kick at the time). Except many found her amazingly overpowered, her personality flat and Bendis' random (and misused) insertions of Australian slang to be awkward. While some readers liked Tempus despite (or occasionally even because of) these things, following the book's end she was shunted into Comic-Book Limbo and was only brought back after several years to be used as part of a plot device to resurrect deceased X-Men.
Kitty Pryde for Joss Whedon's Astonishing Xmen run. She gets brought back to a regular series role after having largely been absent since of the death of Colossus in 2001. Not only does she get promoted to the main team as The Heart but becomes a Deadpan Snarker who many thinks is Joss' Buffy the Vampire Slayer substitute. Joss has also admitted, like Bendis, that he had a crush on her as a child.
X-23 gets hate for this too. Being a teenage Opposite-Sex Clone of Wolverine, she is everything everyone hates about him, with very few of his redeeming qualities like wisdom and compassion. Instead, she comes across as an antisocial jerk, and yet the writers fight themselves over who puts her in what. Her role in New X-Men in particular, once her creators Craig Kyle and Chris Yost took over the title, you could be forgiven for thinking was written by a thirteen-year-old girl. She's portrayed as having New Powers as the Plot Demands, usually something related to animalistic senses, that enable her to figure things out before anyone else, as well as ten times the competence of the other kids with none of their charm coming with the territory of being inexperienced teenage superheroes. As the final punch to the gut, she hooks up with the hot bad boy character after his original love interest is clumsily written out. And it didn't do her any favors that the original main characters of the series were either unceremoniously killed off, written out or Demoted to Extra to make room for X-23 being the primary focus. For reference, any time Craig Kyle (one of her creators) has done writing for an X-Men-related series, she is a main character, the only exception being when she was in the flagship X-book and he was writing a tertiary X-title with a team opposing the one in the flagship. This is ironic, given that X-23 was initially an Ensemble Dark Horse when she originated on X-Men: Evolution. Perhaps it's the fact she has poor characterization these days while being a regular (always a failure of a combination for any character).
◊ was pretty satisfying as well. He would still get membership as an Avenger after this, but he hasn't descended back into the worst depths of his misuse in a while.
