X-Men Classic Love Triangle Is Now Polyamorous

Wolverine/Jean Grey/Cyclops is one of the top three love triangles in comics, along with Betty/Archie/Veronica and Superman/Lois Lane/Superman with glasses. For decades, the world's angriest Canadian has been lusting after his telepathic teammate while she settles for a guy with the charisma of a potato. That is, until the latest X-Men revamp by acclaimed writer Jonathan Hickman, which strongly implies that the three are now involved in a polyamorous relationship. And when you think about it ... that's how these three were always going to end up.

The first clue is in last year's X-Men #1, which shows a diagram of the lunar house Jean and Cyclops share with their time-displaced children, Cyclops' brothers ... and Wolverine, for some reason. That "some reason" becomes more apparent when you notice that the rooms for Wolverine, Jean, and Cyclops are connected, allowing the occupants to move freely between them at any time. But, we're guessing, mostly sexy time.

The next issue has a short exchange in which a being from another dimension asks Cyclops if he loves "someone." Instead of just saying "Yes," as the now very awkward outerdimensional being probably expected, he goes: "Complicated question. But for the sake of expediency let's just say yes. I love a single someone." Emphasis in the original. It's obvious that he's dying to tell people that boring ol' Cyclops is poly now. Maybe Wolverine wants to be the one to officially announce their relationship on his Instagram?

Then, in X-Men #7, Cyclops is chilling with Wolverine late at night and convinces him to go on a tropical vacation with the prospect of seeing not only "Jeannie in a bikini," but "Scott in a speedo." Presumably he means himself, Scott Summers, though maybe Wolverine is a huge Scott Baio fan and it just never came up. Speaking of things "coming up," the scene is framed in a way that leaves it up to the reader to decide if this is only a joke or if they're sporting massive tents right now.

The threesome hasn't been made explicit yet (and it never might be), but it fits perfectly with the themes of this comic. In Hickman's X-Men, Professor X and Magneto have founded a new country where all mutants are welcome, even the evil or really ugly ones. Ultimately, the series seems to be about abandoning the dumb, pointless conflicts of the past and moving forward to build a future in which mutants can truly be happy. And what's dumber and more pointless than a love triangle between three people who clearly can't keep their hands off each other?

And it's not like this came out of nowhere. Although she married Cyclops, Jean's feelings for Wolverine have been well established: at one point she quit the X-Men because she was so horny for him. Perhaps the other two are trying an arrangement they'd never considered before out of love for her, or perhaps something beautiful blossomed between all those fights, team ups, and drinking endurance competitions.

Also, bear in mind that all three of them recently came back to life after spending years dead ... only to die again at the start of Hickman's run, then come back again on the next issue (let's just say Professor X has borrowed a little trick from The Venture Bros.). When your significant other spends long periods of time deceased or possessed by ancient evil entities, it's only natural to develop affections for other people. But what happens when your original paramour comes back? When you die so often that you qualify for frequent flyer miles to hell, a polyamorous relationship almost seems like an inevitability.

In X-Men #1, Cyclops even talks about how he's decided to remove the metaphorical stick from his butt and start enjoying life "surrounded by the people I love" (he says this only a few pages after the revelation that he lives two rooms away from Wolvie). All three know that, at any moment, they could be squashed by a 30-feet purple robot, get taken over by a genocidal bird from outer space, or have their entire industry deemed unprofitable by Disney -- so why waste more time fighting amongst themselves? Why wouldn't these people spend all day banging?

What's for certain is that at this point, these characters are galaxies beyond giving a shit what society thinks about their relationships, whatever those may be. That goes for angry fans commenting on internet articles, too. Just sayin', bub.

Follow Maxwell Yezpitelok's heroic effort to read and comment every '90s Superman comic at Superman86to99.tumblr.com.

Top Image: Marvel Comics