Magnus Family Appreciation 2019

[jmc247]

Inks from DS.



As of next year it will have been 20 years since the only time in the 616 that Lorna, Magneto, Wanda and Pietro were in the same 616 comic series together and 15 years since HoM.

I will say it feels like they are building to something in regards to Wanda and Pietro or at least they were. We will see what happens in that regard.

[jmc247]

I don´t think Hickman would make a reference for Wanda during one of the most recent and biggest X-men event just to make a snide comment, I think it has to do with referencing the origin of the decimation as a way to show the X-men were going to move forward from that point of their story and they did during the event, what´s left to do is to move on Wanda´s character from that point in her relationship with mutants, my guess is that "THE PRETENDER WANDA" is a device of Hickman to create conflict between the two teams until it all comes to a point of confrontation. Of course I may be wrong and this conflict will be lead by the Avengers side of marvel, still I just don´t see Hickman making a big deal of calling Wanda that way and then do nothing with it, that´s not his style.

Wanda and Pietro are nominally avengers still, so I can see them being there during a conflict with the X-men like during AvX. We don´t know yet it Hickman or someone else is planning to fix Magneto´s relationship with the twins but imo maybe that´s why Hickman is making way to develop Magneto´s relationship with Lorna just before the twins become a part of the story imo, I am all for a family reunion but I can see why some fans would not like that.

If we are being honest with Wanda’s take on Magneto and the mutant rights fight Wanda is at the far end of the spectrum where assimilating into human governmental structures is the key to relations between groups. Lorna and Magneto are on the far end of the other end of the spectrum and Quicksilver is somewhere in between.

[AbnormallyNormal]

Painful reading those panels. I can't even imagine anyone taking those at face value and going "mm hmm yup she right"

But such people do exist unfortunately

[gurkle]

Well, those panels were intended to set up the "Dark Seduction" story that Fabian Nicieza (who worked closely with Busiek and Brevoort at the time) was writing. Unfortunately that story wasn't very good and didn't go anywhere; a year later the Magneto/Genosha storyline was over and Pietro was back on the Avengers.

It's interesting to speculate whether there might have been a larger Avengers/X-Men crossover if it hadn't been for the huge management change - and change in direction for the X-Men - that happened a few months later. As it is we never got the Pietro/Wanda/Magneto-focused Avengers/X-Men crossover until (sigh) "House of M," but the comics had been trying to make one at least since "Bloodties," which had to be changed at the last minute when Magneto became unavailable.

It is at least a fair point that the twins didn't really have any parent-child relationship to Magneto except by blood (at the time), something stories like House of M seem to either forget or downplay. Plus the comics at the time were heavily invested in the idea of Magneto as a monster, something that continued into the Morrison years.

I don´t think Hickman would make a reference for Wanda during one of the most recent and biggest X-men event just to make a snide comment, I think it has to do with referencing the origin of the decimation as a way to show the X-men were going to move forward from that point of their story and they did during the event, what´s left to do is to move on Wanda´s character from that point in her relationship with mutants, my guess is that "THE PRETENDER WANDA" is a device of Hickman to create conflict between the two teams until it all comes to a point of confrontation. Of course I may be wrong and this conflict will be lead by the Avengers side of marvel, still I just don´t see Hickman making a big deal of calling Wanda that way and then do nothing with it, that´s not his style.

I guess, but you said it yourself that the Decimation had to be referenced anyway because it is the ultimate example of the kind of depressing atrocity the X-Men were moving on from. The retcon of Wanda and Pietro as non-mutants simply gave Hickman the opportunity to categorize it as a human-on-mutant atrocity, and an example of how the X-Men aren't even safe from the so-called "good guy" humans like the Avengers.

Given how he never used Wanda or even referenced her in all the years he wrote the Avengers, I have trouble believing that he would be setting up anything for her in an office that has to get special permission to use the twins. But at this point I'd be happy to be wrong (even a terrible HoM-focused storyline would be better than nothing, which is all we're getting now).

[jmc247]

Well, those panels were intended to set up the "Dark Seduction" story that Fabian Nicieza (who worked closely with Busiek and Brevoort at the time) was writing. Unfortunately that story wasn't very good and didn't go anywhere; a year later the Magneto/Genosha storyline was over and Pietro was back on the Avengers.

It's interesting to speculate whether there might have been a larger Avengers/X-Men crossover if it hadn't been for the huge management change - and change in direction for the X-Men - that happened a few months later. As it is we never got the Pietro/Wanda/Magneto-focused Avengers/X-Men crossover until (sigh) "House of M," but the comics had been trying to make one at least since "Bloodties," which had to be changed at the last minute when Magneto became unavailable.

The heavy Avengers side influence you describe helps explain why the x-books straight up ignored a lot of its impact. Dark Seduction was I will admit a pretty poor story that reduced the characters including Magneto to almost Silver Age cardboard cut outs. It felt like before the management change the Avengers and X-Men sides of the franchise were heavily managed by editorial, but after they ran less of a tight ship letting the different offices set their own paths. Dark Seduction ended with Pietro and Lorna leaving Genosha by boat something that the x-office ignored at least for Lorna and kept her there.



I will also say Dark Seduction was the last time Lorna, Max, Wanda and Pietro were all in the same 616 comics together. Brevoort and the Avengers side choose for whatever reason not to recognize Lorna's connection to the twins in the post Decimation to Axis time frame which made for some odd situations such as for as we know from what we have seen on panel Lorna doesn't even know about the Axis retcon. Wanda in Axis said you have no family. That was a sign of at very least a lack of coordination.

[Lucyinthesky]

If we are being honest with Wanda’s take on Magneto and the mutant rights fight Wanda is at the far end of the spectrum where assimilating into human governmental structures is the key to relations between groups. Lorna and Magneto are on the far end of the other end of the spectrum and Quicksilver is somewhere in between.

In the 90´s I 100% agree with this but after Krakoa I would say Wanda and Pietro are in the middle because they are not oficially part of the avengers or any other goverment institution, it´s was a goverment agency the one who destroyed Vision originally so I don´t see Wanda being close to any of them, she´s now more like a free magical agent just like Quicksilver is a free agent who does missions in solitary, while Lorna and Magneto are definitely outside most goverment institutions except Krakoa and the UN.

Wanda´s feelings towards mutants are born from personal experience, not idology imo, as you well said her time in the Brotherhood colors her perception of her father and mutants by association and Pietro, while still being biased, was willing to see other sides of the situation, given his part working for X-Factor it´s to be expected, he just has way more experience in the middle of things about mutants than Wanda.

[Lucyinthesky]

Well, those panels were intended to set up the "Dark Seduction" story that Fabian Nicieza (who worked closely with Busiek and Brevoort at the time) was writing. Unfortunately that story wasn't very good and didn't go anywhere; a year later the Magneto/Genosha storyline was over and Pietro was back on the Avengers.

It's interesting to speculate whether there might have been a larger Avengers/X-Men crossover if it hadn't been for the huge management change - and change in direction for the X-Men - that happened a few months later. As it is we never got the Pietro/Wanda/Magneto-focused Avengers/X-Men crossover until (sigh) "House of M," but the comics had been trying to make one at least since "Bloodties," which had to be changed at the last minute when Magneto became unavailable.

It is at least a fair point that the twins didn't really have any parent-child relationship to Magneto except by blood (at the time), something stories like House of M seem to either forget or downplay. Plus the comics at the time were heavily invested in the idea of Magneto as a monster, something that continued into the Morrison years.



I guess, but you said it yourself that the Decimation had to be referenced anyway because it is the ultimate example of the kind of depressing atrocity the X-Men were moving on from. The retcon of Wanda and Pietro as non-mutants simply gave Hickman the opportunity to categorize it as a human-on-mutant atrocity, and an example of how the X-Men aren't even safe from the so-called "good guy" humans like the Avengers.

I agree

Given how he never used Wanda or even referenced her in all the years he wrote the Avengers, I have trouble believing that he would be setting up anything for her in an office that has to get special permission to use the twins. But at this point I'd be happy to be wrong (even a terrible HoM-focused storyline would be better than nothing, which is all we're getting now).

I agree Hickman interest lies more in science fiction themes than magical or super natural so but he also was developing Secret Wars when he was writting the avengers and I seem to remember Wanda had her own solo at the time, I don´t remember well. I have no idea how he would write her if given the choice but while working on the X-men and as a fan of Magneto there´s a possiblity he will write her, of course, I can be wrong and the next meeting of the twins, Lorna and Magneto will happen on the avengers editorial side.

[gurkle]

I agree Hickman interest lies more in science fiction themes than magical or super natural so but he also was developing Secret Wars when he was writting the avengers and I seem to remember Wanda had her own solo at the time, I don´t remember well.

Secret Wars was just before her solo. Up to then she was in Remender's Uncanny Avengers, which apart from trolling X-Men fans a lot, was sort of a containment book for classic Avengers characters Hickman didn't want to use on his team, like Scarlet Witch, Wasp and Wonder Man (plus it used the old mansion as the headquarters, the better to mark it as the book for more nostalgic fans).

I'm not criticizing Hickman for not wanting to write the classic Avengers, mind you, I'm just saying that this was his approach to the franchise and explains why he never wanted to write characters like Wanda, Pietro, Vision, Jan etc.

[Lucyinthesky]

Given how Hickman had Captain America hunt down the iluminati as his end game before the Secret Wars event my guess is that he didn´t use Avengers classics like Jan,Vision, Wanda and Pietro because he wanted to do a story about the Avengers as a goverment corporation and those characters have never really been about that kind of thing, so it makes sense they were send with Duggan who made them be kind of the rebelious side of the avengers lead by Rogue similar to Luke Cage´s New Avengers imo.

[GenericUsername]

I agree



I agree Hickman interest lies more in science fiction themes than magical or super natural so but he also was developing Secret Wars when he was writting the avengers and I seem to remember Wanda had her own solo at the time, I don´t remember well. I have no idea how he would write her if given the choice but while working on the X-men and as a fan of Magneto there´s a possiblity he will write her, of course, I can be wrong and the next meeting of the twins, Lorna and Magneto will happen on the avengers editorial side.

There are so many characters that are in multiple books at a time that I can't imagine her solo standing in the way. If writers wanted to use her, she'd be in places. I don't think Hickman wants to use her.

[Lucyinthesky]

The question is Hickman´s doesn´t want to use her for a particular story like Secret Wars? or he doesn´t want to use her in general?. Before POX and HOX I would agree he probably doesn´t have interest in writting her but after those series I don´t think it was an accident he made that much of a deal for decimation and went as far as having Xavier or all people calling her a "pretender", to me this sounds like he has plans to deal with matters that concern her or at the very least bring some conflict around her part in decimation, add to this that the X-men have now a title dedicated to magic "Excalibur" by Tini Howard who also made a story about Billy, how X-men first issue was all about"family" and Excalibur too and the possible danger of families being kept separated by their human-mutant differences all this tells me that the possibility of Pietro and Wanda interacting with the X-men or Magneto, of them going to Krakoa seemsl like a real possibility. I don´t know how Hickman personally feels about Wanda, it would be interesting to ask him in his twitter account.

[Witchfan]

The Marvel Book, which was recently released, says that the Magneto-Maximoff relationship was based on circumstantial evidence and has been discredited. The powers of the Maximoffs are attributed to the High Evolutionary. I don't think they would have included that in their publication if they had plans to undo it.

[jmc247]

Most of the larger encyclopedia type books are compiled a year or two or longer before the current comics and no aren't talking to Brevoort or White before writing them. If the retcon is coming down we will know it when a big Magnus family story is announced. Not before.

[gurkle]

Yeah, while I find it hard to believe Wanda and Pietro will play a role here, the book is not proof that they will never be mutants again, any more than "The Life of Captain Marvel" was proof that Carol was going to be half-Kree in the movies. Nobody who writes these things is privy to the secret plans of the people who outrank them.

[AbnormallyNormal]

I am still in favor of Wanda joining with mutantkind and attempting to find her place with them. It hasn't really been tried except during Age of Apocalypse and then only very briefly since Wanda died early on.

Of course there will be understandable animosity against her but I want her to sort of feel "lost confused adrift" with all her Avengers/mystical stuff over time and have a time in her life she wants to connect to her "roots" as a mutant. But this time without the horribly abusive relationship in the original Brotherhood, and treated more like an equal.