Powers of X [01] : The Last Dream of Xavier *spoilers*

[salarta]

Why ask questions if you don't want answers? Or have opinions yourself? Either take a stance or don't.

I didn’t say I didn’t want answers - though there are other reasons to ask questions. I said I wasn’t going to post more on it.

[JKtheMac]

Okay, well, look. The X-Men of today are not like other franchises. In other franchises, you start your new run as a clear entry point and you can take your time if you're on a flagship. That's how Hickman did it with FF and Avengers. He got straight to his teams and he dropped things incrementally and blah blah blah. The X-Men are different. They've been stagnant, they've been retro, they haven't done a good job at being that, they've lost franchise capital, it's been a wash.

So when you're relaunching the line today, it's actually a really good idea to just dump tons of big concepts one after each other and barely even have the big characters speak or do anything because that's what the series needs. People don't want more basic with this franchise. They want the reasons to care immediately, they wanna see the change immediately, they wanna know why they should get their asses on the rollercoaster immediately, and when you can provide that, they will love it. They will love your 12 issue, 62 dollar, graph orgy series primer. They want cool and dope.

People don't want the traditional fresh start that evolves into something big and satisfying because they've been waiting for that, spending money waiting for that, for years with X-Books. You've gotta put the cards on the table quickly.

Interesting way of looking at it. My take is that we have seen this phenomenon already in the rare negative reviews of this run. The people rushing to tell us this is yet another ‘alt universe’ story, or from the other angle how without specific fan favourite characters they are just not interested. In general fandom doesn’t really know what it wants.

They want the familiar but then when you give them that they complain it’s just rehashing. They want big concepts, but when those concepts remind them of something that inevitably came before they jump to conclusions about what is happening. Fan favourite minor characters continually get sidelined by major characters because people want the familiar or writers want to work with the main characters. Those smaller fan favourites then get even more focus from fans because they are underdogs and because some people don’t appreciate them, and they would probably be robbed of this if they suddenly became main characters.

The problem is that corporate comics do betray a certain amount of cynicism. Even if nobody can think of a great new X-Men story they still have to publish 8-10 issues of content per month. That rehash story just might be born out of a lack of originality. So the audience becomes jaded. They get used to these notions and they reflexively throw the same critique at new books because they have been fooled before.

At some point I half expect 50% of the people enjoying this to turn against it.

The Bendis O5 example is a great case in point. If a writer has a grand plan for why they brought some characters into the story but then never get the chance to execute those plans then everyone says it was pointless and jaded. We have no idea. The story could have been great. From where I was sitting it was pretty interesting. Then the whole story juggernaut came to a screaming halt. No wonder there was wreckage.

[houndsofluv]

We gotta go back to basics. As basic as things can get. No art, just charts.

hold on maybe Hickman is taking us back to basics then. we’ve been duped

[Tycon]

But what in "back to basics" has to mean "back to Claremont?"

If the intent is to recreate Claremont, then I agree that such an effort would be dead on arrival.

Oh, my fault. I had that tab open so long that I didn’t see your comment when I posted mine. But the Claremont style with the characters he most used, plots he ran through, and status quo he initially implemented is usually what people refer to when they say they want the X-Men going back to basics.

The first arc of Gold was literally called “Back to the Basics.”

On the subject of Jude the Terror (who I usually really enjoy reading), he’s been poorly arguing that HoXPoX is itself a nostalgia run.

H-How????? I love him, but that’s a pretty fuego take.

At some point I half expect 50% of the people enjoying this to turn against it.

Me. Too. When we get to the end and it turns out not to be “pod people” or “Maker/Cassandra/Sinister under Xavier’s Cerebro” or “mind-controlled X-Men” or “an alternate universe/Moira’s Sixth Life/etc”, then I can see this run becoming much more controversial to people who don’t want the X-Men evolving past their outdated ideology warfare of pacifism/non-violence vs forced integration.

[Omega Alpha]

Jude Terror will never be satisfied until every X-men book is written by Claremont, featuring style, plots and every character like it was in the 80's.

[JKtheMac]

Me. Too. When we get to the end and it turns out not to be “pod people” or “Maker/Cassandra/Sinister under Xavier’s Cerebro” or “mind-controlled X-Men” or “an alternate universe/Moira’s Sixth Life/etc”, then I can see this run becoming much more controversial to people who don’t want the X-Men evolving past their outdated ideology warfare of pacifism/non-violence vs forced integration.

You make a good point that some theories tend to hold the possibilities at arm’s length. A lot of them are about denying the future we have seen or even rewriting HoX #1. Others excuse fan favourites from apparently acting in a sinister manner, or partaking in the very radical situation we are now in.

Whereas JD White is pretty much telling us that this is the new status quo and we have nothing to suggest things will significantly change that. PoX seems to hint at a solution to HoX2 as opposed to being something that needs to be changed.

[Tycon]

You make a good point that some theories tend to hold the possibilities at arm’s length. A lot of them are about denying the future we have seen or even rewriting HoX #1. Others excuse fan favourites from apparently acting in a sinister manner, or partaking in the very radical situation we are now in.

Whereas JD White is pretty much telling us that this is the new status quo and we have nothing to suggest things will significantly change that. PoX seems to hint at a solution to HoX2 as opposed to being something that needs to be changed.

Yes, a lot of these theories are ways to downplay the big change that Hickman and X-Editorial has said for awhile will come with HOXPOX. What’s so radical or revolutionary about the X-Men not being in control of their destiny because some malevolent force is guiding their every decision and they just apparently reap the benefits afterwards? And the game-changing issues are still coming out after HOX2, one of which is the very end of this status quo-breaking story.

I think that whatever happens in POX6 is gonna consolidate the present and future eras and lead to a new mysterious future.

[houndsofluv]

Big fat agree to all of this. Change is guaranteed, alternate timeline theories only stand because we've got 3 out of 12 issues and a reboot has been flat out denied several times now.

[kevinism]

I wonder if every future in pox is that life of moria so pox 6 is life 6

[JKtheMac]

I wonder if every future in pox is that life of moria so pox 6 is life 6

That could be illuminating, but surely #6 would be marked as red? Besides, we have unanswered questions that I expect to be answered from x^2. Those characters have been fleshed out as protagonists and antagonists.

We could get a What If maxi out of it though. If there is interest from the fans.

[useridgoeshere]

H-How????? I love him, but that’s a pretty fuego take.

On a macro level, I can actually see someone arguing that. So far, both series are using common and previously used X-tropes. PoX, especially, added some charts and exposition pages, but was basically something we've seen many many times. I think the assumption is that we'll see it go in new directions, but I can see how someone could argue that so far, we have a new take on typical X-stories like Genosha/Utopia and Days of Future Past with Moira in the Kitty role.

[powerpax]

Jude Terror has always struck me as a poorly written gimmick character in search of a patreon.

I agree with JK's points and others, but I'll say that as per the O5 I had little faith in Bendis at any point. I'm all for giving a writer time to tell a story, but Bendis had had ample time on many other major books and all but editorial freedom on Avengers, and often whiffed it. He consistently failed to properly structure and deliver on long story and character. I enjoyed a lot of his Avengers run and even some of his X-run, but his weaknesses were glaring and constant before he even wrote a line of X-Men. Also, it wouldn't matter who it was: I saw no point in a 'time-lost original 5 X-Men' story. What was it but rehashing the past, and then sending them back in time? That's how it always had to end. I knew that from Day 1. It could never continue and it impacted next to nothing. It was a lead balloon and just spinning in circles in X-history, which is the last thing the X-Men needed at that crisis point in their publication history. Thank God we're past that. I am all for the Krakoa militants. It's something new.

You make a good point that some theories tend to hold the possibilities at arm’s length. A lot of them are about denying the future we have seen or even rewriting HoX #1. Others excuse fan favourites from apparently acting in a sinister manner, or partaking in the very radical situation we are now in.

The posts that crack me up are the ones Scott meant nothing subversive or aggressive with the FF re: Franklin. Please. That was a velvet fist moment if ever I saw one. It was dangerous, it was slightly shocking and I loved it. The X-Men should be dangerous, not a fannish collection of favorite moments where they're beyond reproach.

[Punch Dimension.]

Jude Terror has always struck me as a poorly written gimmick character in search of a patreon.

I agree with JK's points and others, but I'll say that as per the O5 I had little faith in Bendis at any point. I'm all for giving a writer time to tell a story, but Bendis had had ample time on many other major books and all but editorial freedom on Avengers, and often whiffed it. He consistently failed to properly structure and deliver on long story and character. I enjoyed a lot of his Avengers run and even some of his X-run, but his weaknesses were glaring and constant before he even wrote a line of X-Men. Also, it wouldn't matter who it was: I saw no point in a 'time-lost original 5 X-Men' story. What was it but rehashing the past, and then sending them back in time? That's how it always had to end. I knew that from Day 1. It could never continue and it impacted next to nothing. It was a lead balloon and just spinning in circles in X-history, which is the last thing the X-Men needed at that crisis point in their publication history. Thank God we're past that. I am all for the Krakoa militants. It's something new.



The posts that crack me up are the ones Scott meant nothing subversive or aggressive with the FF re: Franklin. Please. That was a velvet fist moment if ever I saw one. It was dangerous, it was slightly shocking and I loved it. The X-Men should be dangerous, not a fannish collection of favorite moments where they're beyond reproach.

Yeah, that Scott scene was supposed to read that way, i mean, he mentioned their son. I loved it.

Also, imagine saying you want to x-men to go back to basics in 2019. I sure do love those baseball games.

[spirit2011]

Jude Terror has always struck me as a poorly written gimmick character in search of a patreon.

I agree with JK's points and others, but I'll say that as per the O5 I had little faith in Bendis at any point. I'm all for giving a writer time to tell a story, but Bendis had had ample time on many other major books and all but editorial freedom on Avengers, and often whiffed it. He consistently failed to properly structure and deliver on long story and character. I enjoyed a lot of his Avengers run and even some of his X-run, but his weaknesses were glaring and constant before he even wrote a line of X-Men. Also, it wouldn't matter who it was: I saw no point in a 'time-lost original 5 X-Men' story. What was it but rehashing the past, and then sending them back in time? That's how it always had to end. I knew that from Day 1. It could never continue and it impacted next to nothing. It was a lead balloon and just spinning in circles in X-history, which is the last thing the X-Men needed at that crisis point in their publication history. Thank God we're past that. I am all for the Krakoa militants. It's something new.

.

I think Jude Terror is just kidding, he knows Claremont won't be x-men head writer anymore

O5 was a editorial idea, then Bendis used it on his run. I think you can blame it more on editors than on him. There isn't many ways to write O5 without retconning decades of story. It was good use teen Iceman to out Iceman. Jeen was interesting and that is it.

I'd actually say none of the past 10 years has been about going back to basics. It's just been repeating superficial elements of the franchise's history. "We liked the 90s cause that's what we grew up with, so let's make teams with those code names again! The O5 started the franchise, so let's bring them back!" The failure was the superficiality of it all, paired with Marvel really not wanting to support the franchise while feuding with Fox.

Look at Mortal Kombat. Its revival became a success because it went back to basics and then built on those basics to tell new stories.

Yeah, i see no back to basics. Maybe Gold had some nostalgia, but the rest was a fresh approach.

[Diammandis]

Variant by Dustin Weaver