House of X & Powers of 10 discussion

[powerpax]

Emma Frost back to White Queen.

A formal title she has long held with the Hellfire Club and is best known by to much of the non-mutant public. The Black King thing may likely have more negative connotations she has disposed of.

The strange "Mom" thing from the Cuckoos, probably some other stuff that doesn't come to mind right now.

She's been a mother figure to them since their inception, despite bumps in the road. It's an affectation they can easily have picked up. You don't always need a line of exposition in the main event book explaining why the Cuckoos call their longtime mentor 'mum' now. As TOTALITY indicates, these kind of small details illuminate themselves over time.

[powerpax]

They are just chill with Rapertooth killing humans and don't want him to sit trial for it. There is quite a bit continuity work to be done to connect the world of House of X to anything that came before.

That's not a continuity error. That is a (controversial, but valid) choice to uphold mutant law and mutant justice. Morally gray, yes. A continuity error, no.

[TOTALITY]

They are just chill with Rapertooth killing humans and don't want him to sit trial for it. There is quite a bit continuity work to be done to connect the world of House of X to anything that came before.

All we know is that they don’t want him tried by a human court, not that they’re all fine with him murdering people. I feel like the only explanation needed is the one we’re given: Mutants are establishing their own society separate from humanity, they’ve negotiated certain terms with other world powers, and now they have to deal with the moral complications that come with the imperative of enforcing those terms. “He’s a bit of a monster—on that I cannot disagree—but he’s our monster.” It’s not about feeling Creed is good. He may yet face punishment from his peers.

[Silver Fang]

All we know is that they don’t want him tried by a human court, not that they’re all fine with him murdering people. I feel like the only explanation needed is the one we’re given: Mutants are establishing their own society separate from humanity, they’ve negotiated certain terms with other world powers, and now they have to deal with the moral complications that come with the imperative of enforcing those terms. “He’s a bit of a monster—on that I cannot disagree—but he’s our monster.” It’s not about feeling Creed is good. He may yet face punishment from his peers.

Agreed. I think people were jumping the gun with that. Nobody said Creed would not be punished. Just that he would not be punished by humans.

He's not a Villain Sue like Mystique, so unlike her, he doesn't get away with everything. He gets his ass beat routinely. Hell he just recently got manhandled by Rahne of all characters.

The entire situation with Creed was to get laws established & show how disconnected mutants & humans now are, to the point that humans won't be permitted to judge even one of their nastier members.

Nobody said he was good or that he was off the hook. He may be in Krakoa jail for the rest of this series & throughout Dawn of X for all we know. He may get killed off for good here. etc. He's the type villain who's a mild annoyance at best. So given his low caliber, I think his scenes inspired a lot of overreactions for someone who kills a red shirt everyone few years, but is easily manhandled by anyone with power. lol

Apocalypse, unlike Creed, has been a legitimately dangerous villain, and they're letting him join the X-Men later, plus working with Sinister. I think that's more of a red-flag than anything Creed is offering.

[Maestroneto]

You mean like Uncanny 141 and 142?

- not a paradigm shift story
- majority of the story took place in the present

[jamesslow]

I don't know if it's filler, but the idea that a couple of characters have been manipulating all the past stories is unsatisfying. So far, however many issues in, I'd rather see the establishment of Krakoa as it happens instead of just randomly being in the middle of it with no continuity. The more I see with House of X/ Powers of X, the less intriguing it becomes, particularly since we have all these random character changes with seemingly no explanation coming.

I totally agree. If Life X is "616" that'll mean Moira, Charles, Erik and now Sinister have been puppet masters since the first decade or so within their timeline (and since 1963/ 1981 in ours). There is no way this retcon fits with 99% of the stories we've read (it would be pointless and endless for me to give examples).

And then there's the recent slaughter of our most famous mutants, at the hands of unpowered humans -- for... what? To establish the new status quo going forward that X Men are endlessly replaceable so that they can be killed multiple times in one issue with zero dramatic tension, like the Wile E Coyote Sinister clones? Incredibly unsatisfying...

...which makes me very anxious to read how Hickman's gonna resolve these questions -- anxious in the sense of eagerly anticipating but also in the sense of having anxiety that he's not gonna stick the landing.

[jamesslow]

Covers don't need to be literal.

I'd even say it's in JH's interest to create fake preview art as misdirection -- see how many of the covers so far don't match the interior content

[powerpax]

I totally agree. If Life X is "616" that'll mean Moira, Charles, Erik and now Sinister have been puppet masters since the first decade or so within their timeline (and since 1963 in ours). There is no way this retcon fits with 99% of the stories we've read (it would be pointless and endless for me to give examples).

Many of us have been over some of them, as have tons of folks on twitter. You can read any number of stories as either being from a) their first iteration in Life 4 or b) Life 10 regardless. Sinister, meanwhile, was mindwiped at least on some level.

And then there's the recent slaughter of our most famous mutants, at the hands of unpowered humans -- for... what? To establish the new status quo going forward that X Men are endlessly replaceable so that they can be killed multiple times in one issue with zero dramatic tension, like the Wile E Coyote Sinister clones? Incredibly unsatisfying...

I think it makes them much more alien and dangerous to the rest of the Marvel Universe (if it happens). Like the Eternals or the Asgardians, mutants cannot be wiped out anymore - not forever, anyway. They will ultimately evolve, survive and outlast. They are finally the highest form of life on Earth.

[jamesslow]

Many of us have been over some of them, as have tons of folks on twitter. You can read any number of stories as either being from a) their first iteration in Life 4 or b) Life 10 regardless. Sinister, meanwhile, was mindwiped at least on some level.



I think it makes them much more alien and dangerous to the rest of the Marvel Universe (if it happens). Like the Eternals or the Asgardians, mutants cannot be wiped out anymore - not forever, anyway. They will ultimately evolve, survive and outlast. They are finally the highest form of life on Earth.

I don't see how JH intended us to read that some of the 616 stories we've been reading happened in Life 4 which has been reset while others happened in Life 10.

Also, Eternals and Asgardians can be killed and these deaths have impact (to the extent that we readers know those characters may not return for a long time, if ever). To establish a status quo that X-Men can be instantly reborn in pods would be to turn them into comic relief a-la the Gillen UXM storyline "Everything is Sinister".

[TOTALITY]

I totally agree. If Life X is "616" that'll mean Moira, Charles, Erik and now Sinister have been puppet masters since the first decade or so within their timeline (and since 1963 in ours). There is no way this retcon fits with 99% of the stories we've read (it would be pointless and endless for me to give examples).

And then there's the recent slaughter of our most famous mutants, at the hands of unpowered humans -- for... what? To establish the new status quo going forward that X Men are endlessly replaceable so that they can be killed multiple times in one issue with zero dramatic tension, like the Wile E Coyote Sinister clones? Incredibly unsatisfying...

...which makes me very anxious to read how Hickman's gonna resolve these questions -- anxious in the sense of eagerly anticipating but also in the sense of having anxiety that he's not gonna stick the landing.

This retcon doesn’t make them puppet masters behind everything we know, though; Hickman brilliantly built a refutation of that into the retcon from the beginning, by showing in Moira’s previous lives that much of the history we know happens in some form anyway with or without Moira. So this setup allows Hickman to surgically insert some precise things into the history we know which took time to plan for and aren’t coming to fruition until now. And beyond that, not everything Charles and Magneto and Moira have done was in adherence to this plan. It’s not like they have a precise map for how to live every day of their lives. With Moira’s knowledge they were able to identify some things that could help, but they’re still figuring things out as they go, and Charles and Erik are naturally inclined to come into conflict with each other as much as they can find common ground, so all of the conflicts we’ve seen over the years can be genuine and still compatible with them knowing Moira’s message.

I think the simplest explanation for how this retcon fits with “99% of the stories we’ve read” is that those stories existed in a world where Moira had these memories and eventually Charles and later Erik were privy to them, but 99% just weren’t driven by this knowledge. It was on back burner while they got some pieces together over time, but in the meantime life went on.

I do think that cloning will bring the recently deceased mutants back, but I can’t imagine that it will be as simple as “say goodbye to the dramatic tension of thinking these characters are in life-or-death jeopardy!” Whatever happens, I trust that it will have a purpose that leads to more possibility than what it takes away. This could be from the inevitable reaction from everyone when they find out what Xavier is doing, or a shift to where the stakes aren’t the life or death of individuals but of systems and ideas. Or some combination of both of those, or more likely something cleverer than I’ve thought of. Maybe he won’t stick the landing, but every issue suggests so much possibility for the future that I can’t imagine the ending taking that away.

[jamesslow]

Or that the original Scott, Jean, Kurt, etc, are safely on Krakoa and it was their clones who died... then something happens to Krakoa or the pods, and no clones can be created again in future.

(Until the next retcon or reboot...)

[JKtheMac]

I don't see how JH intended us to read that some of the 616 stories we've been reading happened in Life 4 which has been reset while others happened in Life 10.

Indeed it is so unlikely we can easily dismiss such convulsions. Neither Marvel nor Hickman will want to turn continuity into a patchwork quilt.

What we used to call the 616 will remain intact and contained in a single timeline and most probably the main and final timeline, and any theories that suggest parts of it exist in different timelines is just theorising going too far.

Even my theory that timeline 6 and timeline 10 are almost but not completely the same and that the old way of reading continuity could exist in 6 while the new way exists in 10, is pretty unlikely. That’s about as far as I think they could go down that logical rabbit hole without breaking continuity and rendering decades of comics a meaningless, disconnected mess.

[JKtheMac]

This retcon doesn’t make them puppet masters behind everything we know,

Indeed, this is where many theories start to go off the rails from my perspective. We see that Moira has a unique and powerful insight into what will happen throughout her life, but that doesn’t suddenly make her all-powerful. She has manipulated a few key things not everything.

[jamesslow]

Last crackpot theory for the road: Life 10 is 616 and forges a bold new path ahead, with all mutants united against humans and AI. This is a years-long story plan of JH's, connecting numerous X books and having massive repercussions in the wider Marvel universe. The publishers and writers agree to let these tales evolve organically even if it means we end up in a Miracleman type of near future which is far removed from our actual reality --knowing from The History Of Comics that a reboot is inevitable, even if that's 10 years down the road-- and, when that day comes, and everyone has forgotten what Destiny foretold waaay back in 2019, Moira will sacrifice herself to reset the MU... and Life 11 begins, all new and all different, all over again...

[JKtheMac]

Last crackpot theory for the road: Life 10 is 616 and forges a bold new path ahead, with all mutants united against humans and AI. This is a years-long story plan of JH's, connecting numerous X books and having massive repercussions in the wider Marvel universe. The publishers and writers agree to let these tales evolve organically even if it means we end up in a Miracleman type of near future which is far removed from our actual reality --knowing from The History Of Comics that a reboot is inevitable, even if that's 10 years down the road-- and, when that day comes, and everyone has forgotten what Destiny foretold waaay back in 2019, Moira will sacrifice herself to reset the MU... and Life 11 begins, all new and all different, all over again...

Which is pretty much what I said on the day they published HoX #2. That the possibility of 11 is just an insurance policy if this whole thing doesn’t work in the longer term. A reversible retcon.

I enjoy the theories as much as anyone, but we shouldn’t imagine anything too radical will happen. I am already hearing people saying “why should we care, none of this is in our reality” which is precisely why it almost certainly is in our reality.