Hickman is leaving this soon? We've had no resolution in regards to a lot of the stuff put forth in HOX/POX. That would suck.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
I don't think he is. But there is a bit of a minor concern because the editor is being cagey about Hickman's long term commitment post-Inferno. He says "don't worry" but then at the same time talking about how plans change all the time, Hickman has laid the groundwork for ages to come, and a lot of "we'll see." Lol.
This entire story can only end in a disaster for the mutants, right? Because even I begin to have anti-mutant sentiments and I've been a fan since the 90s.
Back then the mutants were humans who were different, who were born that way and just because some of them were bad didn't mean they should all be blamed for the crimes of some. But now the mutants themselves have removed the distinction between good and bad mutants and they put themselves in opposition to humans, they created a mutant supremacist state, they terraformed Mars and declared it the capital of the solar system which means on a galactic level mutants now speak for earth, they often refer to themselves as the new gods of humanity ...
I'm not even sure how the X-Men are planning to sell themselves as a team heroes to the human public because how heroic are you really if you go home to have dinner with villains who have disregarded human lives since forever?
I'm interested in where the story's going but it has become very hard to sympathize with the mutants, right now they are proving the people who want to wipe them out right because they themselves play into the us vs. them mentality.
Back then the mutants were humans who were different, who were born that way and just because some of them were bad didn't mean they should all be blamed for the crimes of some. But now the mutants themselves have removed the distinction between good and bad mutants and they put themselves in opposition to humans, they created a mutant supremacist state, they terraformed Mars and declared it the capital of the solar system which means on a galactic level mutants now speak for earth, they often refer to themselves as the new gods of humanity ...
I'm not even sure how the X-Men are planning to sell themselves as a team heroes to the human public because how heroic are you really if you go home to have dinner with villains who have disregarded human lives since forever?
I'm interested in where the story's going but it has become very hard to sympathize with the mutants, right now they are proving the people who want to wipe them out right because they themselves play into the us vs. them mentality.
But plans do change all the time and always have, that's why we have countless stories of abandoned plans and storylines and obviously an editor (or anyone else speaking for the company) will be cagey about future developments, even if they knew Hickman will leave at the end of June 2024 they probably wouldn't say that right now. This is just typical non committal and non spoilery stuff people say all the time.
Last issue of inferno + 1 month for what happens next - 3 for solicits.
My guess is whenever they release January or February solicits… so Oct/Nov? Unless there's a delay.
Doesn't seem so hard for the Avengers when at any given time half the roster is usually filled with entitled assholes who would happily go back to their small privileged corner of the world after beating a big bad guy. Lots of heroes dine with villains when they are not fighting. It has never been black and white. Heroes, especially teams, are really only heroes because they are strong enough to beat some threat as it arises. It doesn't always mean they are a moral beacon or something to look up to. They will be for some but not for others. Black Panther is a great leader and hero for his people, but how much regard does he have for lives outside of Wakanda? Or Atlantean lives?
They didn't remove the distinction between good and bad mutants; they just gave everyone a reset. Most of the mutant villains of the X-Men were villains by circumstance: they were pushed into a corner and lashed. And of course, you have outliers, but those are outliers. Xavier offered them a sanctuary from a world that tried to hunt them down and kill them and only asked they started fresh.
We already know what happens to those who don't start fresh; they get dropped in a hole. Unless they're too important and too connected financially to punish, like Selene. Then again, that just mirrors human society.
They didn't make a mutant supremacist state; either. That would imply that humans would be treated as second class citizens. X-Men have human family members that live with them on the island and the Council established refugee areas from trafficked and oppressed humans.
And if anyone were to declare a planet the capital of the solar system, it would be the people who by far have the most contact with alien races and societies on Earth. It's an event when the Avengers outside of Carol and Thor go into space; the it's a coffee run for mutants. Hell, some of the mutants on Krakoa are literally aliens with X-Genes.
Mutants have been speaking for Earth for years, in-universe and outside of it. The Shi'ar skip through six galaxies to get to the Milky Way in order to have chit chats with Xavier and Jean; who the fuck does that for Captain America?
That's the same thing. It also shouldn't matter, Krakoa can't decide for the rest of the world who's a criminal and who isn't. Declaring that humans do not fall under the jurisdiction of humanity is complete bullshit for example, if a mutant commits a crime outside of Krakoa they should absolutely be judged by local authorities and laws. Do humans also not fall under mutant jurisdiction? Probably not.
I wasn't really talking about random schmucks who were driven into a corner, I meant mutants like Apocalypse, Mr. Sinister or Magneto who have done so much evil shit that they are really beyond redemption.
And if they get a reset and everything is fine as long as they don't do it again why is Wanda vilified for her crimes against mutants? Shouldn't she get a reset too? There are clearly different rules for mutants and non-mutants and that is not right.
Who represents humans on the quiet council? Can a human even join the council? Allowing some humans to live on Krakoa doesn't make them equal parts of society and it doesn't make the state not supremacist.
But why does Mars have to be the capital of the solar system? If mutants already have the most contact with aliens they speak for earth by default, they don't have to declare anything to aliens. The "Mutants speak for the solar system" was a message directed at humans to once again declare mutant supremacy.
It's not like I don't understand why they're doing it, they're trying to survive but I don't see how this doesn't end blowing up in their faces. Sooner or later there will be a mutant civil war, there's no way they'll be able to work together longterm, Mystique is clearly ready to fuck them up already and she won't be the only one. Nightcrawler also has problems with the way the council runs things for different reasons than mystique but there's clearly conflict brewing and when Krakoa as a unified nation breaks down mutants are even more screwed than before.
This era is a fascinating Rorschach test. I don't think this is true at all, myself.
Krakoa only has the power to judge mutants themselves internationally because governments are willing to sign diplomatic agreements giving mutants immunity. This is because they want the benefits offered by Krakoa in terms of drugs. Mutants are only using human instruments of diplomacy and government interest to their own benefit. Here's a question for you - if a human commits a crime against a mutant in any country, or there are hate groups who act against mutant interest and fund crimes against mutants internationally, would any government actually extradite these criminals to Krakoa? I don't think so. Would local laws provide justice in these cases, or are they generally ignored? :)
Even before the current era, I don't think we agree on the morality of Magneto. With the context of the current stories in mind, I don't find Apocalypse irredemptively evil either- I like the current justifications for his past misdeeds.
I think a lot of folks have questions about the motives and means at play in the current era, and I'm pretty sure we're supposed to, to some degree. But at the same time, this is a setting where giant robots have been allowed to attempt literal genocide against the mutants (sometimes more than just attempt) and even such heroic human paragons of that world as Captain America and the Avengers largely did nothing about it- so I don't see why the mutants shouldn't be allowed to exist outside of that paradigm and see how many still care to act destructively, (mostly just the Sinisters and the like, which is an unfolding story but I don't expect he comes out of this scott-free) which is what the amnesty deal is largely about by my read. Ymmv, of course.
A fun detail i like to think about regarding the amnesty is that all these big bad villains that took the deal also stopped doing such heinously villain things. mags, apoc, sinister (kinda lol) and whoever else have all curbed their worst behaviours thanks to Krakoa.
Like its hardly the most just way to deal with them, but its actually solved the problems they were much more handily than fighting them ever did.
Like its hardly the most just way to deal with them, but its actually solved the problems they were much more handily than fighting them ever did.
They're not deciding who's a criminal or who isn't, they're ignoring past crimes to give them a chance to live in a new country full of people not immediately out to kill them. In function, it's no different than giving pardons or expunging criminal records, except that it comes with a passport.
If Mutants commit crimes outside of Krakoa, they are treated by local laws. Molly is still beholden to Kamala's law and can get arrested by CRADLE, the mutants in the beginning of CoTM aren't sent off to Krakoa, either.
Magneto is a random schmuck who was driven into a corner. He's also a random schmuck who's also saved the world a bunch of times since the 80s. Besides, it's not like anyone's handwaving away Mags, Apoc, and Sinister outside of a few people. And those are very much Operation Paperclip style grabs, anyway. Especially Sinister.
Quiet Council as a government was formed before there were humans living there. Krakoa being a place for all mutants doesn't mean it's only for mutants. Given that every mutant safe haven has been obliterated, by giant ass robots or genetically modified humans bent on genocide, allowing only a slow trickle makes sense.
Because humans don't want mutants in charge of anything on Earth out of sheer spite. So the mutants took their ball and went home, and their cosmic connections with them. Why wouldn't Mars become the capital of the solar system if the people who have the most contact with things past the Kuiper Belt are mutant.
Humans are too busy fighting themselves and fighting mutants, which is why every civilization still considers Earth a backwater even though the people from the planet have handed the galaxy, the neighboring supercluster, and the rest of the universe its ass several times.
Mutants are a "united front", so engaging with extra-Earth peoples, Mars being the capital makes sense. It's either Counter Earth or Wakanda as the only other two options, and Wakanda doesn't give a shit given that T'Challa has his own galactic empire.
The whole point of this era is that it will blow up in their faces and it'll be spectacular because they're constantly fucking up when the general idea should be un-fuckupable.
Because they got what they wanted. Magneto wanted his people to not be persecuted, to stop fighting his best friend, and for his people to have a home. Apocalypse wanted his people to prove their worth by coming together and demonstrating their worth in the process. Everyone else either followed in their beliefs or were regular ass criminals doing criminal things for all of the reasons criminals do criminal shit -- lack of care, resources, etc -- and the moment someone who was just an asshole to be an asshole did something explicitly assholeish, they let his ass get tossed into a maximum security prison and then broke him out and tossed him into something way worse than what humans could do outside of throwing someone into the Negative Zone.
And the technology for that belongs to people who aren't willing to just up and do that again. And anyone else smart enough to even attempt to replicate it don't give a shit.
On the question of mutant criminals, I'll just point out that :
- mutants are de facto Krakoan citizens. That citizenship is the cornerstone of everything they're doing. The point of PoX was that ultimately, anything else can't work and will lead to a form or another of violent subjugation and genocide.
- in the real world, international justice is mostly shit and full of grey zones, it often comes down to "might makes right". That's the actual operating framework of human societies, even for liberal democracies, because it often comes down to a clash between values applied to citizens on national territory on the one hand and what is viewed as sovereign interests.
- in the Marvel universe, you have people constantly running around deciding who they're gonna take out in the name of the general interest and effectively what punishment they'll dish out. This is discretionary and relies on individual or team judgment calls. That's a suspension of disbelief comic readers naturally accept.
If anything, I feel Krakoa is incredibly more transparent about what it's doing, its rules and its decision making.
That they had to use capitalism as leverage to get recognition says more about the human world than about them.
- mutants are de facto Krakoan citizens. That citizenship is the cornerstone of everything they're doing. The point of PoX was that ultimately, anything else can't work and will lead to a form or another of violent subjugation and genocide.
- in the real world, international justice is mostly shit and full of grey zones, it often comes down to "might makes right". That's the actual operating framework of human societies, even for liberal democracies, because it often comes down to a clash between values applied to citizens on national territory on the one hand and what is viewed as sovereign interests.
- in the Marvel universe, you have people constantly running around deciding who they're gonna take out in the name of the general interest and effectively what punishment they'll dish out. This is discretionary and relies on individual or team judgment calls. That's a suspension of disbelief comic readers naturally accept.
If anything, I feel Krakoa is incredibly more transparent about what it's doing, its rules and its decision making.
That they had to use capitalism as leverage to get recognition says more about the human world than about them.
It really is. Though it's not particularly surprising, we have the same thing happen IRL whenever a minority group diverges from the status quo.
For clarity, I'm agreeing with the first statement! 😅
Last edited:
I think ultimately my main issue is that I'm not rooting for the X-Men anymore. They used to be underdogs, now they're anything but underdogs. It's like making Peter Parker a billionaire, it takes away something essential from the characters.
I don't even dislike the stories themselves, I like reading them but in the past there was usually some kind of hope involved that they'd succeed and things would get better, in this scenario it can't get better because they're already at the top so the only way is down and that's not so great.
I don't even dislike the stories themselves, I like reading them but in the past there was usually some kind of hope involved that they'd succeed and things would get better, in this scenario it can't get better because they're already at the top so the only way is down and that's not so great.
Except in real life minorities can't just band together and force the world to accept them with their inherent power and by teaming up with terrorists, that analogy doesn't really work.
I think you've missed the point of the analogy. And given what we know about the future, saying they're not underdogs seems laughable. The stakes are the same as they've always been, total annihilation, the only difference is they're being proactive.
Diverging from the status quo is fine, as long as it directly benefits the non-minorities and doesn't threaten their hegemony on power. Because if it does, that's when you get a Tulsa.
Besides fantastic art, X-men #1 didn't do much for me.
I found it rather boring to be honest.
I found it rather boring to be honest.
I mean, I do think Beast enslaving an entire country to bend it to Krakoa's will is a decidedly not-good thing to do, lol. Hard to root for that!
To me it felt like just a basic "X-Men are superheroes saving the city" story -- which is standard stuff in a vacuum, but has also been something kind of missing from the current era so far.
It's a fucking comic book, wanting a fictional minority at the bottom fighting against prejudice instead of at the top has no implications on real life.
Why you getting so up in your feelings and defensive? I didn't say word one to you.
EDIT -
But while we're at it:
Fuck that noise. As a part of one of the many groups the X-Men have been allegorically linked to in the past? It feels real fucking good to see stories about them coming together, coming out on top, and being unapologetically themselves while doing it instead of more metaphors for the real world suffering of my folks and that "Call me Alex" assimilation, cowtowing to the majority bullshit.
Yeah, this is an exercise in power fantasy for some of us that we never get. The X-Men don't have to mirror my actual experience at all for me to get the point and live vicariously through the current status quo. And that's clearly been their intention to start with.
Last edited:
I'm also part of one of those groups and I don't care about allegorical representation, it's 2021, how about more actual representation? Allegories are for cowards these days, it's not like the comics code is stopping them.
Wildly unfair oversimplification, especially when you have marginalized people writing and drawing some of these books.
I don't think it's unfair, decades ago creators had to use coding and allegories to tell those stories because it was either that or not at all due to censoring. Today all minorities can be shown and portrayed accurately, if it's not happening it's because publishers are prejudiced, fear lower sales etc., I'm not saying marginalized creators are the cowards, publishers are. Having marginalized people working on books is great, letting them tell their stories without allegories would be even better.
As a gay man I'm officially over "If you squint they could be gay" representation because if it can be interpreted differently it's not real representation, it's winking at your minority readers and throwing them a bone while also allowing everyone else to not see it, you can disagree but I see that as cowardly.
Kamala Khan is great because she's muslim (among other things) not because she follows an unspecified religion that could be either or depending on the reader's preference. Often things have to be spelled out to have a real impact.
I don't think anyone here is disagreeing with you. Some just want to see mutants roll over everybody once in a while. These past two years of xmen have been refreshing.
I'm as over subtext as the next bi dude, but like there's a shit ton of LGBT representation in the X-Men books in general. Like half the cast of X-Factor was LGBT
X-Corp is just...
I want to know who approved "Monet and Angel go to business meetings" as a concept for a book.
I'm glad Excalibur is finally exploring Otherworld now, though, and that Rogue's removal has granted Gambit a personality. This is how it should have been from day one.
Way of X continues to be strong. It's not the best it's been, but it only has double Howard to measure up to, so I'm happy with it. More please.
I want to know who approved "Monet and Angel go to business meetings" as a concept for a book.
I'm glad Excalibur is finally exploring Otherworld now, though, and that Rogue's removal has granted Gambit a personality. This is how it should have been from day one.
Way of X continues to be strong. It's not the best it's been, but it only has double Howard to measure up to, so I'm happy with it. More please.
Just read Excalibur.
This was very good.
And yeah, I've been saying this for years now, but both Gambit and Rogue are at their best when they don't share a book.
This was very good.
And yeah, I've been saying this for years now, but both Gambit and Rogue are at their best when they don't share a book.
I still think this is actually gonna be Moira alley-ooping Mystique to put some plan into action and I think Emma is in on it.
I think it makes all the sense in the world that after Sinister coming on board earlier than planned + her being worried about Charles and Erik in the long run, Moira made contact with Emma and established some kind of plan B. I think people thought this would be Logan for a while, but what can Logan do other than kill Moira mercifully?
Emma is perfect, really. Her motivation is mutants first (particularly mutant youth), she isn't caught up in a bunch of red tape, in terms of morales, she's as capable a schemer as anyone you could name if not moreso, she's on the council, and she's a very strong telepath in her own right; No one would know she's in on something, barring a slip up on her part.
She did dedicate that hospital in Madripoor to Moira in Marauders ages ago. She made a point to have them both there. I've long thought she knew more than she was letting on.
I'm still on the Moira, Destiny, and possibly Mystique gamed this out in her previous life tip. Those two would know exactly how to piss off Mystique in just the right way to get her to do what they need and Destiny would know where to find her own journals.
I think this is the big play to beat Nimrod. Bring him to life on their terms when they're ready for him. Not too early, not too late.
Emma being in on it would be great too.
Intentionally bringing about Nimrod would certainly qualify as "breaking all the rules". Especially if Moira now thinks their true enemy are the final post humans that result from the man-machine alliance.
I could just be bitter at this point, but this Marauders issue just seems like more content that isn't the premise of the series, which was:
I don't even remember the last time I saw Bishop or Iceman outside their Gala appearances.
Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the series a lot, I'm just pining for the swashbuckling adventures I was promised.
I don't even remember the last time I saw Bishop or Iceman outside their Gala appearances.
Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the series a lot, I'm just pining for the swashbuckling adventures I was promised.
Last edited:
Yeah the book really aught to have been called The Hellfire Club or something to that effect, while i very much like where its gone its not at all the book that it was billed as.
Ideally we would have both lol.
She was the first mutant I thought of when they announced the resurrection protocols. But even prior to that it's wild the X-Men just left her a brain in a jar considering what was done to her.
Guardians of the Galaxy this week is the start of a crossover with Sword that should be the next couple issues of that, so just be warned if Sword just drops you into crazy shit next issue.