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Edge & Christian posted:A quick skim of a list of X-Men shows the 'missing' X-Heroes are Mimic, Changeling, Thunderbird I & II, Joseph, Stacy X, Lifeguard, Slipstream, Cloak & Dagger(?), Namor, Danger, Frenzy, Legion, X-Man, Jimmy Hudson, Ink, and Pyro II, and then some even more obscure characters who are either still students or haven't been seen in forever like Skids or Adam-X The X-Treme. Wait. . . does this mean Rusty has appeared? Namor not being around is probably the weirdest of all that just because he seemed like a character Hickman liked.
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Feb 27, 2020 04:36
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Rick posted:Wait. . . does this mean Rusty has appeared? I would put money on him showing up eventually, but he's not an omega level mutant (like, he's powerful as hell but there's a good dozen people on Krakoa who could wrestle him to a pin, and he can't do anything no one else can on the island) and he has his own country to deal with right now.
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Feb 27, 2020 04:42
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Rick posted:Wait. . . does this mean Rusty has appeared? Xavier tried to recruit Namor, and Namor called him out that Xavier didn't really believe what he was saying about superiority. Magneto or Apocalypse are probably the ones you want to send to recruit Namor. Also I don't think Reed is 100% in the right. The X-Men said they were willing to wait for Franklin to make his choice, but had to accelerate their recruiting him because he was losing his powers. Losing an omega level mutant would be a big deal to them and they don't want that to happen.
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Feb 27, 2020 04:56
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Rick posted:Wait. . . does this mean Rusty has appeared?
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Feb 27, 2020 05:03
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I’d have liked to see Reed and Charles do more talking in a room, pulling Illuminati power moves on each other, but this is more fun. The Doom Sentinels are a nice touch.
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Feb 27, 2020 05:06
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Codependent Poster posted:Xavier tried to recruit Namor, and Namor called him out that Xavier didn't really believe what he was saying about superiority. Magneto or Apocalypse are probably the ones you want to send to recruit Namor. If Reed was ever 100% right he wouldn't have super powers
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Feb 27, 2020 05:09
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danbanana posted:Is Leach on Krakoa? Does it turn into a regular island where ever he is? Leech at last check was hanging out with Alex and Julie Power in the Future Foundation along with Artie. Power Pack is in that new Outlawed event so who knows after that.
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Feb 27, 2020 05:30
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RE: Giant size Jean + Emma : 'Oh no you're dying... which is bad but not fatal I guess?' :v
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Feb 27, 2020 06:22
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I haven't kept up with issues recently, so I'm just sort of sifting through second-hand information in this thread, but it really struck me how far X-Men has drifted away from mutants-as-metaphor and mutants as actual loving superheroes. What really drew me into them was the superhero melodrama as a backdrop to a lot of that stuff that resonated with me for reasons I didn't fully understand (initially) or was actively running away from (later on). They're not bad stories, but, like, gently caress. Sometimes it's starting to feel like it's been stripped of all but the most basic, watered down 'bigotry bad!' kind of message that's so broad you could be applying it to racism against loving space aliens instead of anything that's actually still going on, right now, in twenty loving twenty. I dunno. Like I said, not bad stories. In a vacuum, in fact, they're pretty good. I just find myself wishing everything would go to hell sooner than later such that things might migrate to a status quo that's recognizable as superheroics or relatable in any capacity.
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Feb 27, 2020 07:08
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Cabbit posted:I haven't kept up with issues recently, so I'm just sort of sifting through second-hand information in this thread, but it really struck me how far X-Men has drifted away from mutants-as-metaphor and mutants as actual loving superheroes. What really drew me into them was the superhero melodrama as a backdrop to a lot of that stuff that resonated with me for reasons I didn't fully understand (initially) or was actively running away from (later on). You should maybe read one or two of the actual comics you're complaining about before you complain about them.
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Feb 27, 2020 07:13
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Skwirl posted:You should maybe read one or two of the actual comics you're complaining about before you complain about them. Seems defensive. When I say 'recent issues' I mean 'last two weeks'. I apologize if the latest issue of one of the X-Books completely reversed course on this, legitimately, and if you want to point me at whichever ones you're referring to I'll move 'em to the top of the list.
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Feb 27, 2020 07:21
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You know I thought Reed Richards was being kind of a dick in X-Men/FF but now finding out that the X-Men's primary form of power rehabilitation is putting you in loving Thunderdome with Apocalypse I'm siding pretty solidly with the Richards clan.
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Feb 27, 2020 07:30
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Cabbit posted:Seems defensive. Most recent issue of New Mutants leans hard into "Mutants as superheroes." Also how on earth was I supposed to know what you meant by "recent issues?" People will complain about recent poo poo in comics and what they're complaining about is something from a book from 5 different writers and four different relaunches ago.
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Feb 27, 2020 07:32
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Cabbit posted:I haven't kept up with issues recently, so I'm just sort of sifting through second-hand information in this thread, but it really struck me how far X-Men has drifted away from mutants-as-metaphor and mutants as actual loving superheroes. What really drew me into them was the superhero melodrama as a backdrop to a lot of that stuff that resonated with me for reasons I didn't fully understand (initially) or was actively running away from (later on). Also, those mutant super-drugs probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives since they were introduced, so how do you like them apples, Richards! 
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Feb 27, 2020 07:32
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TwoPair posted:You know I thought Reed Richards was being kind of a dick in X-Men/FF but now finding out that the X-Men's primary form of power rehabilitation is putting you in loving Thunderdome with Apocalypse I'm siding pretty solidly with the Richards clan. That's for people who lost their powers on M day. Franklin's situation is different (and Dr Doom will probably fix his problem).
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Feb 27, 2020 07:35
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Skwirl posted:Most recent issue of New Mutants leans hard into "Mutants as superheroes." Well, I thought it was pretty apparent I was talking about the post-relaunch stuff but I guess I'll be more clear next time. Unfortunately I can't move New Mutants to the top of the pile because it's already there on account of how much I adore Rod Reis' art.
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Feb 27, 2020 07:38
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Cabbit posted:Well, I thought it was pretty apparent I was talking about the post-relaunch stuff but I guess I'll be more clear next time. Well, don't be a dick then.
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Feb 27, 2020 07:40
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Skwirl posted:That's for people who lost their powers on M day. Franklin's situation is different (and Dr Doom will probably fix his problem). I'm kidding  ... mostly.
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Feb 27, 2020 07:42
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Codependent Poster posted:Xavier tried to recruit Namor, and Namor called him out that Xavier didn't really believe what he was saying about superiority. Magneto or Apocalypse are probably the ones you want to send to recruit Namor. There we go, I remember that now. Edge & Christian posted:Nah, Rusty has been dead since (real life) 1995, Skids at least appeared as recently as the Tales of Suspense mini-series in 2018. So she's at least hypothetically on Krakoa "not doing anything". And again, I realize mutants can be resurrected but "eighth best mutant at shooting fire" is probably neither the top priority of Krakoa or a glaring example of how they/writers aren't giving enough characters the spotlight. I've always had a soft spot for Rusty, even though yeah it makes sense he's low priority. I just figured since he wasn't mentioned but Skids was, maybe he appeared somewhere.
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Feb 27, 2020 08:49
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I think... I think we're going to start to need some line-wide ironclad rules and settings for what goes and doesn't go in Krakoa or else we're gonna start having Civil War levels of inter-series contradictions soon. Sue accuses Cyclops of caring more about Franklin than Valeria because Val's not a mutant. Now...that's objectively correct on multiple levels. There's some problematic-as-hell racial extremism going down on X-Island and the denizens see it as a feature instead of a bug. So there's a bajillion reasons why completely forward-thinking, non-racist humans would still not want their children exposed to this naked suicide cult. That said though...there...are humans on Krakoa. Humans are allowed to go there. If they made a case for it, there's absolutely no reason why Franklin's family wouldn't be allowed there, even on the long-term, as long as they don't act like discourteous guests. Right? Am I reading this wrong? They're going to be the outliers of course, and they're not going to be catered to by the society at large, but...no one asked you to be there anyway if you don't like it? It's first and foremost a home for mutants made by mutants, so Sue (and Reed, on a different degree) going off about how humans are being reversed-racism'd at just smacks of going into someone else's house and complaining about the contents of the fridge. Do all lives really matter here, Sue? Really? I don't think the Four are in the wrong, really, as much as there's just no high ground for anyone to begin with. I can absolutely see both sides here staring across the moat at the other thinking, really? What the heck are you thinking? In regards to X-Men #7...the writing is just gorgeous. This may be the most impressive issue of the main series yet, in terms of content and execution. Hickman managed to craft a really drat interesting way for them to deal with the...unique problem that they encounter here. It just...it really doesn't alleviate the ongoing impression that this...all this, the whole Krakoa experiment...is this weird monkey's paw of a half-baked idea and the X-Men are just...kinda dupe-ish for just going along with it without much of a fuss. And it's understandable that they've been burned out by all the pain and death that went on in the old days, and here comes Professor X with his shiny dream of mutant paradise...who wouldn't be enticed? Who wouldn't be inclined to ignore the fine print, to not look too deep into what it all means? But it's just...wow, they really just had no idea what they were getting into, did they? They didn't give it a thought at all, what all of this would actually entail. It's very understandable. Drench yourself in that Kool-Aid, 'cuz the alternative's a fair bit worse. But I just don't love the impression of all these X-Men and all these mutants being so...complacent with all this. You guys are all in deep. You're all in some deep shenanigans and this issue, which is all above questioning these shenanigans, just kinda answers it all by going "ay yo these sure are some tough questions and we sure are conflicted by them,, eh? Aiight peace out til next month!"
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Feb 27, 2020 15:43
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Cabbit and Skwirl, both of you, cool it. Step back from the thread until you can post in it without going for each others' throats. Anyway one thing I do admire about this run is that it does pull back from analogizing mutants as stand-ins for one real-life marginalized population or another. As a queer person it always bugged me-- being queer didn't give me green skin and pulsating hives but it also didn't give me telepathy or a healing factor. Jean Grey, as an attractive white woman, is not going to be followed around in a store in the same way that a black teenager would be. It felt facile-- politics as written by people without a real material stakes in the politics at hand. That's why I like that Hickman et al are digging hard into the high weirdness of mutants as such. They aren't like LGBTQ+ folks, they aren't a racial minority as such, they aren't forced into an abject subject position by patriarchy necessarily. They are a superhero minority and insofar as they can be a useful lens for telling stories about political struggle and community formation, they're better whenever they embrace that they are a suis generis fictional construction and not a neat stand-in for much of anything in the real world outside of incidental moments of intersection (for example, I thought the "coming out" scene in X-2 was really well done). This issue in particular really took a look at what the actual demands and desires of this community would be given the resources at hands and the facets of identity at stake. If your community is made up of people who can bring back the dead in new and strange forms, why not ask to be put into an able body with good powers? I know if I died on Krakoa in my AMAB body I'd either want to be brought back in an AFAB body or not brought back at all, a hypothetical instance in which queerness intersects with the mutant concept without the two being shallowly treated as interchangeable (and something which Leah Williams has suggested will be dealt with in X-Factor). How do you deal with someone who has been "depowered" but still desires to be a part of that community (note again, one can't be "de-blacked," despite the very real phenomenon of passing privilege, and being "de-gayed" or "de-transed" is something much different than the explicitly fantastic scenario here). It's using a fictional identity to tell a story about politics and ideology using the rules provided by that fiction, a real, substantial story about politics and ideology as such, instead of being lazy and using a square peg to tell a story about round holes. Consider the moments of discomfort and unease in this story, moments precision-tuned to be generated by the text, compared to the discomfort and unease from Rosenberg's grotesque story in which Rahne being killed for being a werewolf was tackily derived from real-life stories of trans-bashing. quote:That said though...there...are humans on Krakoa. Humans are allowed to go there. If they made a case for it, there's absolutely no reason why Franklin's family wouldn't be allowed there, even on the long-term, as long as they don't act like discourteous guests. Right? Am I reading this wrong? They're going to be the outliers of course, and they're not going to be catered to by the society at large, but...no one asked you to be there anyway if you don't like it? It's first and foremost a home for mutants made by mutants, so Sue (and Reed, on a different degree) going off about how humans are being reversed-racism'd at just smacks of going into someone else's house and complaining about the contents of the fridge. Do all lives really matter here, Sue? Really? How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Feb 27, 2020 |
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Feb 27, 2020 15:53
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BrianWilly posted:STUFF Disclaimer: I haven't read this week's issues yet but... I think all of the things you point out here are intentional. That is, you're supposed to see how the X-Men are justified in telling the FF that they're lovely mutant allies if they can't stop the mass murder of mutants. You can see the positive idea of mutant identity politics, and how appealing that would be to Franklin. You can also see a parent's perspective about physically losing their child to those identity politics, as well as a general the fear about what a nigh-exclusive identity-based commune means. This is real loving ethical theory in a mainstream comic book in a way that something like Civil War failed so loving miserably to do. This is true complexity in story-telling that moves well beyond the "fear and hated" thing based on the simplistic idea that you can tell the real racists by whether or not they have skull faces or talk in terms of genocide. When the whole thing with Rahne's transphobic death happened, I wondered if the concept of mutants-as-minority-representatives shouldn't just be killed altogether. Deep into the 21st century, we should have trans characters in our comics, not someone who is a metaphor for a trans character. Hickman and Co. have broken that thought. They've fully brought the idea of mutantdom into 21st century racial/sexual/gender concepts and it loving slays.
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Feb 27, 2020 15:59
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How Wonderful! posted:Cabbit and Skwirl, both of you, cool it. Step back from the thread until you can post in it without going for each others' throats. This is much better expressed than my attempt.
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Feb 27, 2020 16:01
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danbanana posted:
This is precisely where I was at pre-HOX/POX (and the point about having queer characters and not just metaphors for queer characters is still mega apt) and I think it's a testament to this relaunch that despite my reservations about Hickman I'm totally onboard with telling meaningful stories about power and identity using mutants in 2020.
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Feb 27, 2020 16:09
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I agree that there's a lot of great stuff here. I guess what I'm wondering is, wouldn't this go a lot better with Xavier as a well-intentioned cult leader rather than have him be obviously evil and creepy?
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Feb 27, 2020 16:12
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Rand Brittain posted:I guess what I'm wondering is, wouldn't this go a lot better with Xavier as a well-intentioned cult leader rather than have him be obviously evil and creepy? This is just a side-product of Hickman's apparent distrust of anyone in a leadership position. I'm not sure if he could write an earnest Xavier if he tried.
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Feb 27, 2020 16:28
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the problem with ff/x-men is the same problem that’s existed forever in that the antagonism between mutants and non-mutant super heroes doesn’t make much sense? i think claremont tried to address this somewhat in the 80s, with government entities grouping mutants and super heroes as an existential threat and showing a future where mutants are hunted and put into camps also involved the eradication of the non-mutant heroes as well. i don’t think that idea ever really went anywhere though, so i always wonder if mutants would work better in their own separate, contained universe. like hey, has anyone ever told Reed that they’ve seen a future where sentinels vaporize franklin, but not before vaporizing the FF and all their super friends first?
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Feb 27, 2020 16:31
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Going back here, this at least *kinda* address the F4 living on Krakoa thing if you want it to. (I won't pretend to comprehend Zdarsky's brain or writing.) In any case, the human F4/FF members would basically need to be chaperoned any time they want to come and go, and I wouldn't all be shocked if Krakoa was like "uh, look at those powers NOPE" and just not let them through. This doesn't address letting Franklin come and go as desired, of course, but Reed protecting his family by being an as and Sue not wanting her son joining a weird cult isn't particularly out of character for either. None of which is to say they couldn't have slightly tighter editorial control here.
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Feb 27, 2020 16:43
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Endless Mike posted:Going back here, this at least *kinda* address the F4 living on Krakoa thing if you want it to. (I won't pretend to comprehend Zdarsky's brain or writing.) In any case, the human F4/FF members would basically need to be chaperoned any time they want to come and go, and I wouldn't all be shocked if Krakoa was like "uh, look at those powers NOPE" and just not let them through. This doesn't address letting Franklin come and go as desired, of course, but Reed protecting his family by being an as and Sue not wanting her son joining a weird cult isn't particularly out of character for either. And as this week's issue shows, you probably couldn't stop Reed coming and going if he really wanted. Or Sue for that matter. Maybe even more so.
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Feb 27, 2020 16:55
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Rand Brittain posted:I agree that there's a lot of great stuff here. I guess what I'm wondering is, wouldn't this go a lot better with Xavier as a well-intentioned cult leader rather than have him be obviously evil and creepy? I think it's also a role Xavier is playing. He doesn't truly believe that mutants are superior, but he's trying to come across that way because of what Moira showed him. Take that away and he'd want to stay in NY and try to integrate with humans. I think there's a lot he doesn't agree with, but he's doing it because if he doesn't, they're going to be wiped out. You can see this trickle down to others like Scott, Kurt, and Logan. They aren't sure about all of this, but they want to try and make it work as best they can.
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Feb 27, 2020 16:55
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Codependent Poster posted:I think there's a lot he doesn't agree with, but he's doing it because if he doesn't, they're going to be wiped out. You can see this trickle down to others like Scott, Kurt, and Logan. They aren't sure about all of this, but they want to try and make it work as best they can. In HoXPoX, Moira tells Xavier that in all her lives, he never changed. "It wasn't a compliment." I assume he's taking that quip to heart... That said, there has to be a suspension of continuity- and established character- in all of this. If Xavier knew about Moira way before forming the X-Men, his behavior prior to Krakoa seems weird. I know in the last issue of HoXPoX, Moira's diary very distinctly talks about having to break him and Magneto, but the suddenness of Krakoa and his attitude does feel disparate from previous stories. Same with the others. But as someone who is mostly not zealous when it comes to comics continuity, I'm just rolling in the new awesomeness.
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Feb 27, 2020 17:04
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The original story that introduced the idea of machines stomping everybody as an inevitable end, Days of Future Past, explicitly stated that once the robots logically came to the conclusion that mutants come from humans they also enslaved and beat down the humans as well. The fact that Moira hasn't tried the whole "hey dudes, in the future it's AI that win, not humans, not mutants" is a little baffling, but hey, maybe she tried in a past life and it wasn't shown.
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Feb 27, 2020 17:22
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danbanana posted:In HoXPoX, Moira tells Xavier that in all her lives, he never changed. "It wasn't a compliment." I assume he's taking that quip to heart... Wasn't it sort of implied Xavier may have self mind-wiped at some point?
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Feb 27, 2020 17:25
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danbanana posted:If Xavier knew about Moira way before forming the X-Men, his behavior prior to Krakoa seems weird. I know in the last issue of HoXPoX, Moira's diary very distinctly talks about having to break him and Magneto, but the suddenness of Krakoa and his attitude does feel disparate from previous storie It's hinted that he hid these memories from himself for a while, or something of that sort.
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Feb 27, 2020 17:27
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DynamicSloth posted:Wasn't it sort of implied Xavier may have self mind-wiped at some point? Oh poo poo that's right! Maybe to keep up the ruse... Though it (unnecessarily) begs the question about why Krakoa NOW? Gologle posted:The original story that introduced the idea of machines stomping everybody as an inevitable end, Days of Future Past, explicitly stated that once the robots logically came to the conclusion that mutants come from humans they also enslaved and beat down the humans as well. The fact that Moira hasn't tried the whole "hey dudes, in the future it's AI that win, not humans, not mutants" is a little baffling, but hey, maybe she tried in a past life and it wasn't shown. Well... kind of no? The end of Life 6 (where humanity plans to get their knowledge absorbed into the Phalanx) is the furthest timeline that Moira gets to and it explicitly talks about how machines were just a tool for the period when humanity needed a leg-up on mutant evolution. Machines are a stop-gap until man-created evolution- which is basically what Captain America is- happens en masse. It's Hickman answering the question about what's the difference between the X-Men and Avengers in the most simple way: the X-Men represent a literal different species and are an existential threat to humanity's survival. Nothing in that says humans can't/shouldn't have superpowers. It just needs to be on their terms.
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Feb 27, 2020 17:34
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Was Icarus brought back before this or was that just a really cool background thing that'd he'd been brought back off-screen?
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Feb 27, 2020 17:44
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I think the reasoning for "why Krakoa now?" Question is that Moira knew now was the inflection point for the Sentinels/Orchis and so Xavier/Magneto/Moira decided they needed to get everything in motion or it'd be too late. At least that's what I was reading into it.
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Feb 27, 2020 17:46
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Wow issue 7 of X-Men is one of the best comics I've read in a long time. The art was incredible as always but I like to know that Hickman is coming up with the same questions we have. This poo poo is the best the X-Men have been in over a decade.
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Feb 27, 2020 18:12
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It’s funny that even though the entire issue is about the crucible, that the most important page is the one where Cyclops sees Warlock separate from Doug for a brief second, and is told he didn’t actually see that.
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Feb 27, 2020 18:14
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Open Marriage Night posted:It’s funny that even though the entire issue is about the crucible, that the most important page is the one where Cyclops sees Warlock separate from Doug for a brief second, and is told he didn’t actually see that. That was pretty Kubrick of him.
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Feb 27, 2020 18:15
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