X-Girls and their awful futures

 

There was something weirdly sad about this cover for an X-Men First Class comic from a dozen years ago, with the dynamic artwork of Roger Cruz loaded down with some unexpected melancholia by the weight and history of the Marvel Universe.

There's just something about the way these incredibly cool and groovy young women, so full of life and fire and potential, are going to go through so much shit over the next few years, with all sorts of death and pain and tragedy falling down upon them. They're all heroes, through and through, but will lose children and lovers and their own lives in the years to come, going through hell at the hands of their (mostly male) creators.

They are all absolute queens, and they all deserved better.