House of X & Powers of 10 discussion

[JKtheMac]

Pretty much. HiX-Man knew/know exactly what he's doing to trigger the readership.
And he's been quite successful in that.

I did make a point early on that many seemed to be projecting their own wishes onto the then unpublished story and assuming a high profile writer would do all the things they have wanted for so long. The fact that many of them wanted entirely different and contradictory things was always a sign that in the medium term a number of them would be disappointed. Yet somehow each of these people thought they were representative of fandom at large.

One specific poster (no idea who it was now) tried to tell me that Hickman would respect canon unlike other recent writers, and seemed unconvinced when I pointed out Hickman’s philosophy on canon was probably contradictory to their views given his ending in S.H.I.E.LD. which is itself an exploration and critique of the two standard approaches to canon, neither of which Hickman seems impressed by.

I was always expecting this kind of controversy, but on the other hand I was also expecting broad critical acclaim and high sales. The way I see it, this is how books should be written. A nod towards canon while doing its own thing and moving the story in new directions.

[jamesslow]

You can say it over and over but it doesn’t make it any more logical than when you first said it. This is the story. The story can’t be compared to a nonexistent one that resides unwritten in your head.

JK, you're right. Hickman's the writer, no one else is. Certainly not me! And the story's been published so everything else is What If fanfic. If i had any point to make, it might be this. I am excited and intrigued by this new direction. But as a reader i felt the way Hickman reached this point was rife with logic and continuity problems. I just probably went a step too far in suggesting how some of these problems could have been avoided. No, I could not have come up with such an ingenious set-up in the first place. And yes, playing armchair rewriter is less than pointless. I do agree that I've fallen prey to L'esprit D'escalier. Thank you

[Rosebunse]

Hickman is gonna do what Hickman is gonna do. And to his credit, he at least makes it entertaining.

[JKtheMac]

JK, you're right. Hickman's the writer, no one else is. Certainly not me! And the story's been published so everything else is What If fanfic. If i had any point to make, it might be this. I am excited and intrigued by this new direction. But as a reader i felt the way Hickman reached this point was rife with logic and continuity problems. I just probably went a step too far in suggesting how some of these problems could have been avoided. No, I could not have come up with such an ingenious set-up in the first place. And yes, playing armchair rewriter is less than pointless. I do agree that I've fallen prey to L'esprit D'escalier. Thank you

I laughed aloud at that last bit, so you paradoxically didn’t fail at that moment.

In general though, this is a bit of a red rag for me because the more I have learned about literary criticism over the years the more I am convinced this lesson is being discarded by modern internet debates and other online critics. That one should only review or critique what is in front of us, not an idealised version that the reviewer can perceive. It is of course so easy to do, and the problem is exacerbated in serial fiction because we convince ourselves we know where the story is going before we get there.

[jamesslow]

I laughed aloud at that last bit, so you paradoxically didn’t fail at that moment.

In general though, this is a bit of a red rag for me because the more I have learned about literary criticism over the years the more I am convinced this lesson is being discarded by modern internet debates and other online critics. That one should only review or critique what is in front of us, not an idealised version that the reviewer can perceive. It is of course so easy to do, and the problem is exacerbated in serial fiction because we convince ourselves we know where the story is going before we get there.

100%

If HOXPOX had been released as one giant book or all 12 episodes aired simultaneously Netflix-style, I wouldn't have come up with (or read online) so many plausible theories over the past dozen weeks, which turned out to be wrong... and I'm very sure the more innocent me would have enjoyed the whole work more!

[Rosebunse]

100%

If HOXPOX had been released as one giant book or all 12 episodes aired simultaneously Netflix-style, I wouldn't have come up with (or read online) so many plausible theories over the past dozen weeks, which turned out to be wrong... and I'm very sure the more innocent me would have enjoyed the whole work more!

But theories are so much fun!

[Emesem]

100% this. Making X3 Life 6 seems like he made it up after the fact. Why would 6 be the mystery? Why a mystery life at all if this is all that he came up with? Some of the theories on these boards were far more clever/ I did not think the "revelation" that humans were the enemy was that big a reveal? No duh? Who did they think they have been fighting all this time. Seems Hickman boxed himself into a corner like George RR Martin and "ITS LIFE 6!" is what he came up with.

Then there are readers like me who felt taken out of the story by plot holes and logic gaps. Yes yes these are comic books but we've all agreed to suspend disbelief within the rules (and canon... not Canon) set within this 616 universe. But a retcon is a retcon is a retcon, and Hickman has pulled an egregious one to fix that Moira and Xavier have been privy to her past 9 lives from the beginning.

I cannot agree this is recontextualisation when you have Moira being raped by Joseph McT, Moira and Charles fighting over sending Vulcan et al to Krakoa, Charles and Erik fighting to the death over and over, occasionally succeeding -cough Onslaught cough-, Charles and Erik dying over and over with no assurance of surviving to continue the good fight, Charles grieving over Moira's death but wait it was just a golem, Dark Phoenix, The Phoenix Five, Xavier letting himself be killed by Scott and his brain be stolen by the Red Skull... this is literally the tip of the iceberg in the catalogue of present retcon contradicting unambiguous tales.

As I'd said, Hickman can tell the exact same story without returning Moira to her birth. With minimum hand waving he could have reincarnated her into Life X (616) after the events of Dreams End.

Wait I haven't finished ranting. X3 would have worked as Life IX. Just say Nimrod smashed Apoc and followed Logan back through the No Place hub, then pull Moira back from the jaws of death. (The caption "So ended the 9th life" can be attributed without shame to an unreliable narrator... it would have been foreshadowed by the two black panels both captioned "And then..." in HOX2.) Nimrod the Lesser then dunks her and Logan into femto tubes next to Cylobel until say Year 990, when they're woken by Nimrod the Greater and introduced into the Zoo. (And we can forget how impossible it is that Logan could look only slightly older after 1000 years and that his blood can give others his healing factor...)

Placing X3 in Life VI falls in many ways. Having lived 1000 years to learn that Mutants lose to Post Humans shouldn't lead Moira to learn under the RAF (there's no BAF...) how to kill Trasks over a span of I forget how many years. At the very least she should have recruited Logan to do the job within a couple of days.

This shouldn't segue into Life VIII, the Magneto option. Why would Moira spend 1000 years with Logan only to fight him with Erik two lives later. Same with Life IX where Moira helps Apoc kill all Earth's heroes including Charles, Erik and the rest of the X-Men.

Being excited for the stories to come, set-up by the latest push towards sovereignty, should not blind readers to the sloppy and wholly avoidable storytelling errors I've listed above...

[Frobisher]

I love how early on I joked that the entire MU was contained within a lifetime of Moira X, and would be annihilated upon her death, and then later that actually turned out to be true.

[JKtheMac]

100% this. Making X3 Life 6 seems like he made it up after the fact. Why would 6 be the mystery? Why a mystery life at all if this is all that he came up with? Some of the theories on these boards were far more clever/ I did not think the "revelation" that humans were the enemy was that big a reveal? No duh? Who did they think they have been fighting all this time. Seems Hickman boxed himself into a corner like George RR Martin and "ITS LIFE 6!" is what he came up with.

Your argument somewhat relies upon a simplification of what life 6 actually represents.

It isn’t just a ‘humans are the enemy story’ it posits that the route that a few humans take ends up defining the culture of humans because of a number of unforeseen consequences.

The librarian talks about it as if it was a forgone conclusion but his subtext is that maybe humans took a wrong path and maybe certain choices made by a minority of humans condemned everyone to an uncertain and undesirable path.

[JKtheMac]

I love how early on I joked that the entire MU was contained within a lifetime of Moira X, and would be annihilated upon her death, and then later that actually turned out to be true.

When most of us said that in the HoX #2 thread we weren’t joking so we may have assumed you were being serious.

[Devaishwarya]

I laughed aloud at that last bit, so you paradoxically didn’t fail at that moment.

In general though, this is a bit of a red rag for me because the more I have learned about literary criticism over the years the more I am convinced this lesson is being discarded by modern internet debates and other online critics. That one should only review or critique what is in front of us, not an idealised version that the reviewer can perceive. It is of course so easy to do, and the problem is exacerbated in serial fiction because we convince ourselves we know where the story is going before we get there.

I really do appreciate you, JKtheMac.
You are good, sensible people and in Krakoa, you can come and go as you please. (You would still have to clear it with the relevant Authority, if you want to bring your significant other, though).

[Frobisher]

When most of us said that in the HoX #2 thread we weren’t joking so we may have assumed you were being serious.

What is a joke but a truth written backwards?

[Astroman]

I love how early on I joked that the entire MU was contained within a lifetime of Moira X, and would be annihilated upon her death, and then later that actually turned out to be true.

And I'm now seeing a St. Elsewhere type series finale where Dawn of X ends with an autistic Moira looking at a snow globe holding a Westchester mansion in it while a bald step-father named Charles Xavier yells at her to make him dinner.

[JKtheMac]

I really do appreciate you, JKtheMac.
You are good, sensible people and in Krakoa, you can come and go as you please. (You would still have to clear it with the relevant Authority, if you want to bring your significant other, though).

What if my significant other was a pet alien dragon?

(Asking for a friend)

[Devaishwarya]

What if my significant other was a pet alien dragon?

(Asking for a friend)

That's PERFECT!!!
Sage will have the paperwork in system already...so...next time your'e dropping by, just give us a heads up and come on through.