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Saoshyant posted:Krakoa made us believe Zeb Wells was a great writer. His 2000s run on New Mutants was really good, too! By process of elimination I've concluded he should only be allowed to write X-Men, for the safety of all.
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Mar 17, 2024 03:09
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Sephyr posted:A creepy egg-woman getting drunk at a gala, then smashing a wine glass to try to shiv a fey victorian english vampire, will not be topped in our lifetime. I laughed my rear end off when Sinister was selfconcious without his cape.
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Mar 17, 2024 03:20
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Sephyr posted:A creepy egg-woman getting drunk at a gala, then smashing a wine glass to try to shiv a fey victorian english vampire, will not be topped in our lifetime.
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Mar 17, 2024 03:56
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Also after the intro which promised idk... ten, a hundred, or even a thousand years of krakoa im feeling shortchanged :v
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Mar 17, 2024 05:08
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There was a power outage tonight and I used that opportunity to re-read HOXPOX It's kinda fun to speculate about where things continued on ahead exactly according to plan VS where they were probably altered The way they managed to bring in Rasputin in spite of the events that resulted in her origin being radically altered shows that they were really dedicated to the character. Getting into "Why did no one show up to help Spider-Man?" territory, it's weird how Sentinel-based AI is the only factor in the Mutant VS Machine race to the top of the evolutionary ladder. To be honest Sentinels have always been kind of loving stupid, with the exception of Nimrod and a few of the rarer strains. I realize that getting into Sentinels VS imported Shi'ar Tech VS Ultron VS Machine Man VS Doombots VS probably something Iron Man created and forgot about isn't what the point of the story is, but I have to imagine that if other artificial intelligences caught wind of the zero-sum game that the Sentinels keep playing with mutants, they'd feel compelled to intervene.
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Mar 17, 2024 07:30
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OnimaruXLR posted:To be honest Sentinels have always been kind of loving stupid, with the exception of Nimrod and a few of the rarer strains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrA4-RM_y4k
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Mar 17, 2024 07:39
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Moira's heel turn was something that was decided on after Hoxpox but before Hickman decided to leave wasn't it? I'm not clear on the timing of everything behind the scenes.
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Mar 17, 2024 07:48
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BrianWilly posted:Because what's actually happening here isn't that we're replacing Krakoa with some better concept, or even that Krakoa is collapsing under the weight of its flawed ideals or corrupt leadership or anything like that. No, what's happening is simply that a bunch of bigots got together with bunch of big explodey machines and blew the place up so good that it won't return. That's it. That's my take, too. The problem is that the Krakoa story as it stands now is "the ethnostate would have worked if not for the killer robot from the future and the Victorian chatGPT. Like Krakoa always had a shelf life, of course, I think we all knew there's no way a status quo that divergent would ever last forever, especially with the knowledge that sooner or later Disney was going to incorporate the X-stuff into the MCU, but yeah. Krakoa was a terrible idea in-universe, and a great one out of universe, and its fall should have reflected that. Like as it stands, yeah. I don't know, maybe it's me, but I always thought Krakoa represented the ultimate surrender to bigotry. Xavier and others telling the world openly that they surrender and admit defeat, the bigots are right and co-existence is not possible. Like, hell, it's an ethnostate with a literal Nazi on its governing council - until recently - and where when it was founded Apocalypse was like "of course I'll behave because I've finally won and now after all these ages you realize what I have been trying to teach you." To be satisfying and thematically consistent with what the politics of the X-Men have always been, Krakoa would have to fall from within. There would have to be the come to Jesus moment where someone in charge realizes "holy gently caress what are we doing?" That's not what happened. I dunno. Just really, really, really rubs me the wrong way. My only hopes from day one of all this was "our heroes realize an ethnostate founded on the concession that peaceful and harmonious coexistance is impossible is a terrible and monstrous idea" and that's not what happened.
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Mar 17, 2024 08:00
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Moira's heel turn was something that was decided on after Hoxpox but before Hickman decided to leave wasn't it? I'm not clear on the timing of everything behind the scenes. Moira turned heel during Inferno. I dont have a source but I believe I read an interview with Duggan stating he wanted to "bring villains back into the story." I imagine if Hickman remained, she would have stayed as an antagonist but not the mustache twirling psycho she turned into.
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Mar 17, 2024 08:27
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Veg posted:Moira turned heel during Inferno. Yeah but interviews like this make it sound like it had been planned much, much earlier. quote:So how far back does her heel turn go? Quite a ways. Did it go back to the beginning? The answer is no — it did not go back all the way to House of X and Powers of X. It was a thing he came up with later, but it wasn’t that much later.
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Mar 17, 2024 08:36
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Moria is really a great villain for the arc. Even if it wasn't the original intent it slots so well into the whole thing. Encouraged most of the original sin of Krakoa, with the ultimate goal of betraying them to the very worst people, and then act in the utmost spite possible when getting caught.
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Mar 17, 2024 09:32
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What is wrong with Betsy's face?
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Mar 17, 2024 10:23
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Yeah but interviews like this make it sound like it had been planned much, much earlier. Hickman's very first draft had a different antagonist that "nobody would see coming" and he hasn't said who it was. At then yeah, he mentions it right there with the Moira series being cancelled. So somewhere between whenever that was announced and it inevitably not coming out. 
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Mar 17, 2024 10:46
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nunsexmonkrock posted:What is wrong with Billy's face? I think the artist traced a very famous sneer
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Mar 17, 2024 12:48
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Honestly I like the costume she wore it for like 2 issues before she became captain britain.
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Mar 17, 2024 13:36
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Air Skwirl posted:I'd only put Hellions above it, and most of that was because Hellions made me like a bunch of characters I used to loving hate, X-Factor was characters I liked or was neutral about. hellions is better than x-factor because the former got to run to completion without being hosed over by a dumb event.
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Mar 17, 2024 14:04
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:hellions is better than x-factor because the former got to run to completion without being hosed over by a dumb event. Counterpoint: Rachel was drawn in X-Factor wearing JNCO jeans. At worst it's a tie.
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Mar 17, 2024 14:28
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:
I can only agree. But pulling that off would have required a consistent vision and leadership across multiple titles for years, and I'm not sure that's doable given the musical chairs style of talent managing that's in vogue. But yeah, I could see Krakoa's path being one of successes and failures exposing its contradictions (some titles did do this, to be far, but not to the point of consequence. Beast going CIA-rear end in a top hat after 6 months of running mutant intelligence just nets another villain, not an examination on why it's happened.), and maybe when that caused a horrible crisis that threatened to unravel everything, the rest of the worlds (or enough of it) would come to the island's rescue, showing that turning its back on it was not the answer, prompting either a big reform or and end to the project if bringing in the next arc was that necessary.
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Mar 17, 2024 16:18
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It's extremely funny to me that after months if not years of hype and buildup for the great Fall of X, the evil plan turned out to be "let's go see the mutants and beat them up". Truly a satisfying culmination of complex plot threads
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Mar 17, 2024 16:20
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Veg posted:I laughed my rear end off when Sinister was selfconcious without his cape. "So, you guys are what? Kings? Gods? I'm pretty much both of those things, too." That's such a great, hilarious line it makes me wish for an animated version just to have some good actors feast on it and the reaction.
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Mar 17, 2024 16:31
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Dawgstar posted:Counterpoint: Rachel was drawn in X-Factor wearing JNCO jeans. Rachel can wear whatever she drat pleases 
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Mar 17, 2024 17:03
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:It's extremely funny to me that after months if not years of hype and buildup for the great Fall of X, the evil plan turned out to be "let's go see the mutants and beat them up". Truly a satisfying culmination of complex plot threads I'm ready for Fall of X to be over but not Krakoa to be over 
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Mar 17, 2024 17:04
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Looking forward to the inevitable nostalgic status quo return in about a decade called Powers of X^2
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Mar 17, 2024 17:54
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:It's extremely funny to me that after months if not years of hype and buildup for the great Fall of X, the evil plan turned out to be "let's go see the mutants and beat them up". Truly a satisfying culmination of complex plot threads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oECsGvS9gc4
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Mar 17, 2024 17:55
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Sephyr posted:I can only agree. But pulling that off would have required a consistent vision and leadership across multiple titles for years, and I'm not sure that's doable given the musical chairs style of talent managing that's in vogue. I guess? I don't know, I just don't think like "maybe our story shouldn't endorse the allegory that the best strategy for minorities to succeed or thrive is self-isolation in an ethnostate and that this plan is good and would work if not for killer robots from the future" is a hard pull. Like Krakoa is so obviously politically/morally at odds with what the X-Men have always been about and with modern generic liberl values that, yeah, it's wild to me that anyone could think there is any way it should end that does not involve our heroes realizing they hosed up hard. I liked Krakoa. It was fun sci-fi stuff. There was a lot of incredible character moments. Sins of Sinister was a blast. But yeah, I can't help but get a bad taste in my mouth when in the end the entire sttus quo/'arc' is one that endorses an ethnostate and implies it would have worked had it not been for the external factors. I get writers come and go, and plans change, but yeah. "Don't have a franchise that has always been about the struggles of minorities trying to find acceptance in society" come out with "actually diversity is a fool's errand and only ethnostates are viable" as the answer. Krakoa was the single greatest and most humiliating defeat mutantkind ever suffered, and we're just not going to acknowledge that, it seems.
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Mar 17, 2024 17:58
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krakoa was already falling apart from the inside.
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Mar 17, 2024 19:24
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Yeah actually I kinda feel like editorial telling them to hurry up and finish krakoa couldn't have come at a worse time because right before the gala gillen had the quiet council dissolve itself because they hosed everything up so bad and I think the fallout of that could've been a lot more interesting
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Mar 17, 2024 19:27
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The first tease for the post Krakoa era was back in July of last year and that said Summer 2024. Which is actually before they even had an editorial team lined up to figure out what's going on post Krakoa. So they've known for longer than that if they announced it a year ago.
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Mar 17, 2024 19:34
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That doesn't actually negate the idea gillen had some more story in mind but had to wrap up both his sinister/qc story and then the original orchis plot within a year though Tom was announced as taking over the xline back in August and clearly he wanted the board cleaned off and I doubt that his announcement was sudden to the writers
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Mar 17, 2024 19:43
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Am I going crazy, or are half the Fall of X TPB's not available for preorder yet.
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Mar 18, 2024 02:21
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:I guess? I don't know, I just don't think like "maybe our story shouldn't endorse the allegory that the best strategy for minorities to succeed or thrive is self-isolation in an ethnostate and that this plan is good and would work if not for killer robots from the future" is a hard pull. Like Krakoa is so obviously politically/morally at odds with what the X-Men have always been about and with modern generic liberl values that, yeah, it's wild to me that anyone could think there is any way it should end that does not involve our heroes realizing they hosed up hard. I always saw Krakoa as more of a 'safe space' than an ethnostate - the Krakoan gates meant it was never isolated, everyone's family and friends visited regularly, and plenty of mutants still lived elsewhere.
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Mar 18, 2024 10:56
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I think it's important to remember that Krakoa was always Moira's plan, from Day 1. Without her filling Chuck and Magneto's heads with grim visions from 9 out of an infinite number of potential outcomes, they likely wouldn't have been pushed into working together in such a drastic fashion. And she had always planned to screw them, too. It wasn't an ethnostate or a safe space, it was a trap. The fact that Omega Sentinel's consciousness comes from a timeline where mutants not only assert their dominance over humanity, but went as far as to start culling Dominions, goes to show how little of the full picture our characters are dealing with. This is something that the X-Men's own history bears out time and again: Cassandra Nova was the one responsible for Genosha being wiped out. Apocalypse has probably killed more mutants than any single human. Scarlet Witch would've been less likely to depower all those mutants if Magneto hadn't been such a lovely dad. To quote the Sentinels from the 90s cartoon, mutants are human, and the fact that they're their own worst enemy might be the best illustration of that.
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Mar 18, 2024 11:56
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Angry Salami posted:I always saw Krakoa as more of a 'safe space' than an ethnostate - the Krakoan gates meant it was never isolated, everyone's family and friends visited regularly, and plenty of mutants still lived elsewhere. That's all true of every ethnostate I'm aware of that has ever existed IRL. Like not the gates thing, but that visitation is allowed and that many of the ethnostate's in-group also lived outside of the ethnostate. Hell, some ethnostates have even allowed immigration, albeit with immigrants living as second-class, or worse, citizens. If Krakoa was just, like, a resort island that catered to mutants and only mutants, that's a safe space. But when you're a sovereign nation, and one that's literally being sold as the one and only path that doesn't result in your race's extermination, I think that's an ethnostate. Like if Krakoa isn't an ethnostate, it's either because you don't consider "mutant" a valid ethnicity/ethnicity-analogue or else the word "ethnostate" simply is meaningless. I'm pretty sure "utopian mutant ethnostate" is probably word-for-word the elevator pitch Hickman might have used. OnimaruXLR posted:I think it's important to remember that Krakoa was always Moira's plan, from Day 1. Without her filling Chuck and Magneto's heads with grim visions from 9 out of an infinite number of potential outcomes, they likely wouldn't have been pushed into working together in such a drastic fashion. And she had always planned to screw them, too. It wasn't an ethnostate or a safe space, it was a trap. Yeah, you raise a good point that 9 out of infinity is also a sample size so small that it is literally meaningless in the most literal sense. Of course, though, there's also audience bias - and I suppose in-universe bias given that Chuck and Magneto know of most of these universes - but yeah. Pretty much every future timeline we see related to the X-Men is some sort of hell future dominated by either Apocalypse or the Sentinels. "Ancient Egyptian fascism or killer robot fascism: take your pick." Although, yeah, the mere existence of the Askani poo poo and other future Ages of Apocalypse is proof enough that Moira is wrong and Krakoa is unnecessary. There are absolutely known futures where mutant dominate the Earth. They suck hardcore, but they exist. EDIT: Like, to clarify, yeah. I always thought the idea behind Moira's past lives was in part playing the joke of all the X-Men futures being incredibly lovely straight and doing something in-canon with that. "Every single possible future the comics have ever shown for mutants has sucked hardcore. Let's explore what that might mean for characters who are aware of this fact."
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Mar 18, 2024 14:14
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:Yeah, you raise a good point that 9 out of infinity is also a sample size so small that it is literally meaningless in the most literal sense. Of course, though, there's also audience bias - and I suppose in-universe bias given that Chuck and Magneto know of most of these universes - but yeah. Pretty much every future timeline we see related to the X-Men is some sort of hell future dominated by either Apocalypse or the Sentinels. "Ancient Egyptian fascism or killer robot fascism: take your pick." Sinister even talked about that, saying Moira was an awful scientist to draw any conclusions from a sample size as small as ten before he unveiled the Moira engine.
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Mar 18, 2024 14:56
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I’m surprised by how well-liked krakoa is in here. I thought it was an ok idea that far over-stayed it’s welcome and far too many plans within plans. About the status quo, I don’t know what you guys expected, the mutants are always going to be in a school that can be blown up. Comics aren’t allowed to change that much. The new creatives look good though, cyclops and Magik is great.
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Mar 18, 2024 15:52
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:That's all true of every ethnostate I'm aware of that has ever existed IRL. Like not the gates thing, but that visitation is allowed and that many of the ethnostate's in-group also lived outside of the ethnostate. Hell, some ethnostates have even allowed immigration, albeit with immigrants living as second-class, or worse, citizens. You could say that the metaphor of Krakoa is that the only way for minority groups to survive is through isolationism and supremacist views, and that's a reasonable interpretation. At the same time though, you can also suggest that that the metaphor is more that the only way for minority groups to survive is by banding together and finding common ground instead of being at each others' throats all the time, which is also a valid message to take away. The takeaways not being exclusively one or the other is kind of the point, because right from the start Krakoa was intended to be a compromise between Xavier's assimilationist vision, Magneto's supremacist vision, and all the other mutant factions out there who have honestly made just as much trouble for each other as humans ever did in some wild parables of leftist infighting. Again, to be very clear, I've always had problems with Krakoa and I don't think any of its writers, even the best ones like Ewing and Gillen, did enough to truly tackle the dark gaping implications of its supremacist ideology that Hickman left wide open. On the other hand, I don't think "We have to work together or else the real fascists out there will kill us all" or "Look at the great things we can accomplish if oppressed peoples stood together instead of apart" are bad driving themes at all for the X-Men to evolve towards instead of the same age-old tired plays at martyrdom while being hated and feared.
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Mar 18, 2024 16:40
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BrianWilly posted:I think we have start being careful about making direct 1:1 comparisons between fictional societies and IRL situations. There are definitely some valid comparisons between the fictional ethnostate of Krakoa and some real life nations, and then there are some blunt differences as well. Krakoa didn't displace anyone, it's not out to colonize anyone, and its systemic objective was always to work for the betterment of all races...again, aside from the blatant bad actors within that system who were working as much against Krakoa as they were against anyone else. Is that an unrealistic fantasy portrayal of an isolationist ethnostate? Absolutely, but the X-Men have always been an unrealistic fantasy portrayal of bigotry in a lot of ways, even as they tell great stories about bigotry in other ways, because the concept of the X-Men works as a metaphor and not a case study. Also the betterment of all races is explicitly not their goal. Xavier tells the UN when he announces Krakoa that mutants are the true inheritors of the Earth, and likewise Magneto makes even more extreme statements in that meeting in Israel. Just as Krakoa is saying the bigots are right and coexitance is impossible, they are also literally justifying Orchis' existence by saying that Gregor's thesis is correct and unless the mutants are wiped out, they will displace and replace baseline humanity. By Krakoa's own implicit admission, Orchis is racial self-defense, not simply another in a long line of hate groups. Hell, you could argue that Orchis represents Krakoa's human equivalent - a group founded for racial survival due to a mistaken belief in the inevitability of racial conflict, that then becomes co-opted by an rear end in a top hat with their own agenda. BrianWilly posted:You could say that the metaphor of Krakoa is that the only way for minority groups to survive is through isolationism and supremacist views, and that's a reasonable interpretation. At the same time though, you can also suggest that that the metaphor is more that the only way for minority groups to survive is by banding together and finding common ground instead of being at each others' throats all the time, which is also a valid message to take away. The takeaways not being exclusively one or the other is kind of the point, because right from the start Krakoa was intended to be a compromise between Xavier's assimilationist vision, Magneto's supremacist vision, and all the other mutant factions out there who have honestly made just as much trouble for each other as humans ever did in some wild parables of leftist infighting. Like if this was not the X-Men I probably wouldn't consider the metaphor so deeply. But it is the X-Men, something that has always been a metaphor for this sort of stuff, and Hickman is also a generally fantastic and thoughtful writer. Like if Hickman didn't realize the problems of Krakoa and all the poo poo he set-up, and is a guy who literally wrote a scene of Apocalypse and Xavier shaking hands without intending that to be seen as a sign of something - heh - sinister, then yeah, he's much dumber than I thought he was. EDIT: Like to repeat and be clear both Krakoa and Orchis share the same initial starting premise: if nothing is done mutants will replace baseline humans as the dominant species on the planet, and mutants and baseline humans cannot coexist peacefully now or then. They differ only in their conclusion ("gently caress yeah!" vs "ready the killer robots!") RoboChrist 9000 fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Mar 18, 2024 |
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Mar 18, 2024 16:55
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Ehhh I would hardline disagree that anything Orchis did was justified by anything Krakoa did...which, despite any of Magneto's tough talk, lest we forget, can be more or less summarized as "going to their own island and leaving everyone else alone" and "giving everyone a bunch of free life-extending medicine." The idea that humanity would have legitimate cause to "defend" itself against that is an utter projection of self-victimhood, and if humans think that mutants are taking something away from them just by thriving on their own...well, that's their own fears and insecurities talking, much like real life bigots will see minority success, visibility, and mere existence as a threat to their own well-being, because in practice Krakoa was definitely not threatening anyone with anything other than a good time. The premise of Krakoa wasn't that humans and mutants couldn't coexist peacefully. Krakoa was absolutely attempting to coexist peacefully with humanity. They made great efforts and great concessions to maintain peaceful relations with humanity (except for Beast, who was a fuckface). The difference was that mutantkind was no longer attempting to coddle humanity, or to pussyfoot around its own success in order to appease humanity, which was the result of melding Xavier's dream with Magneto's.
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Mar 18, 2024 17:36
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BrianWilly posted:Ehhh I would hardline disagree that anything Orchis did was justified by anything Krakoa did...which, despite any of Magneto's tough talk, lest we forget, can be more or less summarized as "going to their own island and leaving everyone else alone" and "giving everyone a bunch of free life-extending medicine." The idea that humanity would have legitimate cause to "defend" itself against that is an utter projection of self-victimhood, and if humans think that mutants are taking something away from them just by thriving on their own...well, that's their own fears and insecurities talking, much like real life bigots will see minority success, visibility, and mere existence as a threat to their own well-being, because in practice Krakoa was definitely not threatening anyone with anything other than a good time. I mean, wasn't just Magneto. Xavier seems pretty clear here that Orchis' thesis is correct and mutants will inherit the Earth. 
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Mar 18, 2024 17:39
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Considering that mutants arise from humans, but have super powers, one might see this as a good thing, but this view seems to never arise in the comics. Then again I guess it lacks dramatic fuel.
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Mar 18, 2024 17:43
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