I saw a post on CMV that took a deep dive into the character of Jean Grey from the new Spiderman film and I immediately thought about all the discourse around Obsession and the hate for the character of Bear.

Bear is not a perfect character by any means. He's selfish and he benefits in certain ways from the horrible effects of the one wish willow's curse.

I have commented on other posts about how I don't consider him to be a rapist and that he is also a victim of the curse, and that has drawn extreme ire from progressives, mostly women, who see him as a pure villain. They condemn him and anyone who dares to defend his character, usually calling the people making that point misogynists, rape apologists, and even implying that anyone who defends him is likely a rapist themselves.

Rather than go into all the reasons I don't think Bear is that bad of a person, let's talk about Jean Grey from Brand New Day, a character who is very hot right now with Sadie Sink being praised for her portrayal of a revenge driven anti hero trying to rescue her sister from the clutches of an evil government agency trying to exploit mutant powers.

Jean Grey knowingly robs dozens and dozens of innocent people of their autonomy. She causes the deaths of innocents and the destruction of property on a grand scale; at one point, someone she is mind controlling walks backwards into traffic and is struck by a car (perhaps he didn't die, but he's certainly crippled for life). She makes two non consenting people kiss each other; MJ is literally mind controlled into kissing someone she doesn't love or want to kiss, and Peter is tricked into thinking he's kissing the MJ who remembers him and how she felt about him. Jean rapes them both.

Contrast that with Bear, who never intends to harm Nikki at all and is, throughout the course of Obsession, living in constant fear of "freaky" Nikki.

Jean Grey is far far worse than Bear in virtually every way.