Even if this X-Men story was bad, the way people discussed
it may have been awkward
By Avi Green
March 4, 2026
Back in the early 2000s, an animation producer and comics
writer/artist named Chuck Austen got writing assignments in
mainstream comicdom. His work was reviled as it was just so crude,
and by 2005 he was largely gone from the industry. One of his jobs
was scripting Uncanny X-Men, and the story in issue #416 was
despised, based on an embarrassing scene where Archangel and Husk
(the latter from Generation X) were making love in the sky in full
view of her mother, and while it any suggestions of serious
naughtiness in the air were off-panel, her pajama gown fell to the
ground. Yes, it was that stupid and tasteless.
But there's another connecting issue that was brought up – the age
difference between Archangel and Husk. When the latter first
appeared in the 1990s, she was about 16. And readers who know how
she was characterized age-wise took issue with that the story was
about a love affair involving a girl who's allegedly under
consenting age.
Although Austen ostensibly boosted Husk to 18, and may have made
this point 3 times in the script, some could argue today that, as
far as age gaps go, some audiences at the time may have overreacted
based on how, from a legal statute perspective, something was being
overlooked: there are individual states in the USA, in example,
where the legal consenting age is 16-17, including my
native Pennsylvania. And based upon that, if 16's considered a
mature age, was it really worth taking issue with the story from
#416 based on Husk's age?
We may not all find the age setting of 16 in good taste for a story
like this. But if there's real life precedent for how it's done,
then what good does it do argue based on that, rather than the merit
of the story, or lack thereof? The problem is that many of those who
were critical of Austen's story didn't seem altruistic, and even if
she was characterized in Austen's story as 18, they were
probably assaulting the 16 years of age aspect of the story for the
sake of virtue signaling. Yet even those who ostensibly made a point
about Husk characterized as 18 in Austen's story weren't being
altruistic either, and they didn't even provide direct evidence
Austen established Husk as 18. And I remember one who was
particularly obnoxious without making his case equipped with
evidence.
Perhaps a most valid argument that could be made about Austen's
X-Men story is that his establishing Husk as 18 was contrived and
phony, written just as a hasty defense for justifying what was
otherwise a sleazy story. But nobody at the time was willing to
debate that.
So in hindsight, it seems like a very futile charade by the very
kind of people who quite possibly wouldn't have said a word if Grant
Morrison had written the very same story, with Husk as a 16-17 year
old. That's not saying Austen wasn't a bad writer as well. He was.
But it's clear the controversy in question was being debated by
people just looking for a cheap excuse to say "my favorite writer's
better than yours." And that doesn't solve anything.
Today, Austen's mostly out of mainstream comics and had little to do
with them since the mid-2000s, though he did make a return 6 years
ago with an indie project. Perhaps ironically, he was involved in
the production of a
social justice-pandering "remake" of the She-Ra cartoon, which
was part of the whole Masters of the Universe toy franchise Mattel
produced in the 1980s. I guess that's how men like Austen see fit to
obscure the damage he originally caused by giving sex a bad name.
Promote stuff like that which exploits other people's creations for
political agendas, and insults women's status in other ways, and
who's going to seriously take issue with how poor his early writings
are? Certainly not at this point, years after the whole MeToo
movement collapsed into the dust, without making anybody any safer.
The very unaltruistic way it was handled speaks volumes as it is.
And lest we forget, mainstream comics have long collapsed as a
result of PC pandering and sleazy writing. Austen, in his own way,
has some responsibility to shoulder for putting the keys in the
ignition for all of that.
Copyright 2026 Avi Green. All rights reserved.
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