House of X #3 *spoilers*

[Glio]

All this talk about Moira's 'lifespan' I think cannot ignore that the Moira we all knew died as a human. I know Hickman is doing a lot of crazy stuff but I would wonder more how that human death came to happen as opposed to wondering what amazing way Hickman might come up with to kill her for a final time.

It was a Shi'ar Golem.

Whatever that is.

[cranger]

It was a Shi'ar Golem.

Whatever that is.

No offense but you missed the point lol.

(edit: if you read this again, I just found it funny because my point was that maybe we should not be trying to take the timeline and retcon stuff but treat it as separate)

[loke13]

No offense but you missed the point lol.

Tbh I'm kinda having a hard time understanding what you mean too. Care to elaborate?

[Frobisher]

She was never a human. That’s retcons for ya.

[cranger]

Tbh I'm kinda having a hard time understanding what you mean too. Care to elaborate?

There is a lot that is going to be explained in HoXPoX, one of which is what actually is Moira's 11th life. Another is what is Moira's final death. One line of thought leaves just about all of the 616 intact (i.e., everything we have read prior to HoXPoX is in the 11th life and we have seen her final death), the other tries to rewrite history, make the 11th life not happen, and then come up with some magic way to kill off a character in a way that won't just New 52 the Marvel Universe.

[Triniking1234]

There's still 6 issues left. This ain't Netflix.

[TOTALITY]

I can empathize with the human characters because they are scared and want to ensure that their world continues. Dr. Gregor, the woman scientist with Karima in this issue, once worked to ensure the survival of the mutant species after the whole Decimation thing. This was explained in issue 1 of HoX. She's not some snarling bigot.....she's a scientist who wants to help a species continue to exist. Was she wrong when she wanted to do that for mutants?

Now, I'm not saying that I think their plans are perfect, or that they're not in any way wrong....building Sentinels has tended to lead to one thing....but we also have no indication that they want to hunt mutants down or any of that stuff. We as the audience know that it will go that route, but they do not. It does not seem to be their intention. Their goal is the survival of the human species.

I'm just happy they aren't like the Purifiers or the Right or the waves of X-villains who are snarling, monolithic supremacists. So this fact, coupled with the fact that I don't know if I agree entirely with everything the X-Men are doing....amnesty to Sabretooth, fully separating from the human world, the creepy suicide bomber pep talk Xavier gave to Scott.....makes me see things from their perspective.

The idea of Krakoa is intimidating. Here is a nation of a few hundred people that is immediately on par with the major world powers. They've deemed themselves as separate from and above human society. So there are certainly supremacist elements to Krakoa that are cause for concern.




Dr. Gregor isn't anti-mutant.....in fact, we have been told the opposite.




They don't know that Nimrod is the possible end result. We do, and Xavier does as a result of the Sleeping Giant program, and knowledge of Moira's lives.

There's no indication from this story that the Orchis characters have any intention of going on the offensive toward mutants. It's possible that they could do so, or that they could be co-opted to do so....but so far, from what we've seen, they are approaching this purely as a defensive measure and seem concerned about how they implement the program.

If they said "once Mother Mold is online, we'll bombard the muties' little island with dozens of Master Molds and watch them all burn muhu haha hah ha" then yeah, I'd say they are not characters I can sympathize with.



I think that we can all understand why the X-Men are doing what they're doing. The WHY of it is laid out pretty clearly by Cyclops in the first issue when he talks to the FF. But I can also understand why the FF would be a bit concerned about WHAT they're doing.

Honestly, dispatching Sabertooth, Toad, and Mystique to commit theft and then to have Sabertooth kill a few innocent guards in the process? That is absolutely questionable. If one of those guards had a kid, should that kid simply understand that their dad died for the greater mutant cause? Suck it up kid, the mutants have had it rough! Do most of the X-Men know all those details? We don't know yet....but the leadership does.

Magneto telling the human delegates that they don't have any choice but to cooperate with the offer from Krakoa, and flat out stating they have no choice because the mutants are their superiors? Yeah, that's questionable.

Emma arranging for the release of Creed...an admitted and unrepentant homicidal maniac...due to diplomatic immunity, and saying that mutants are above human law, even though the issue was the death of several innocent humans? Seems questionable to me.

Xavier and Magneto telling Scott that he shouldn't worry about going on a suicide mission because people who do such things will gain immortality for their actions? Pretty friggin questionable.

So, as an audience, being aware of all these details on both sides....how the Orchis plans will turn out, the shady stuff Xavier is doing in the name of his cause.....I see both sides as flawed. Neither side is entirely right nor wrong based on the way this story has presented the information. Which is great, actually. But I think anyone who is willing to turn a blind eye to some of the shady stuff on the X-Men side is doing so out of habit, or if they're willing to overlook those things, then they're basically also justifying what the humans are doing. Either the ends justify the means, or they don't.

It's a bit more nuanced, I think, than similar stories from the X-Men's past.

That you can write all this really shows how substantive this story (and apparent new status quo) is.

The humans’ motivations track to relatable psychology in such a nuanced way relative to past human-supremacist villains.

I do think they are wrong, because anyone who takes the increased proliferation of another demographic as inherently threatening to their own way of life, or who feels like other people having a semblance of the power they’ve always enjoyed lessens their own, or even just people who feel like they have to make a forceful stand against the organic evolution of culture and society, I don’t think those are usually ‘the good guys’ in real life.

But in real life (for just one applicable example) we’re so often hesitant to label any individual a white supremacist unless we see them in white hoods burning crosses. Yet white supremacist attitudes are prevalent and systemic in society as a whole, even though actual KKK guys are hard to come by. This idea of white supremacy being the sole domain of unrepentant villains — that it couldn’t possibly be propagated by anyone with a real life, loved ones, a sense of compassion — leads to it going unexamined in most of the places it actually lives. I imagine that any white person, myself included, is or has been complicit without even realizing it, even though of course I don’t dislike other races and I don’t think most people do. Because the bias is so often structural, and can be reinforced just from enough of us failing to see it. And then of course there are all kinds of levels between that and actually matching with the Klan, and often that comes in forms that don’t feel like they’re about white supremacy at all. Maybe it’s just about wanting a good life for your kids, “keeping crime off the street”, etc.. things that should be perfectly fine and good for an individual to want, but what does the implementation look like? En masse, over enough people, does a pattern emerge?

My point isn’t “we should all be ashamed of ourselves”.. and clearly the Orchis people are several more steps up the ladder in being actively, personally involved in actualizing a xenophobic “defense” system. But the brilliant thing is that you know none of them probably think they hate mutants, they’re just clinging desperately to “their” version of a world that should never have been any one group’s world in the first place. Their actions can still be bad, but evil rarely announces itself like the KKK or Purifiers, and evil systems are often carried out by people whose priorities are much closer to our own than we usually like to think.

And of course the X-Men are also making people uncomfortable — in universe and readers alike — and that’s very cool and valid too. I don’t think they’re categorically ‘in the wrong’ yet, but you raise good points. I think it seems fair enough that they would be able to extradite Sabretooth, but I would hope that they plan to pass some judgement on him themselves. And Xavier and Magneto’s god complex is inflating to a concerning degree, so hopefully that will soon be tempered by other voices.

But this is a really interesting, nuanced, provocative dynamic they’re building here between mutants and humans (and machines) and I hope they keep leaning into that.

[TOTALITY]

There is a lot that is going to be explained in HoXPoX, one of which is what actually is Moira's 11th life. Another is what is Moira's final death. One line of thought leaves just about all of the 616 intact (i.e., everything we have read prior to HoXPoX is in the 11th life and we have seen her final death), the other tries to rewrite history, make the 11th life not happen, and then come up with some magic way to kill off a character in a way that won't just New 52 the Marvel Universe.

I could totally see Moira’s 10th life continuing well after this miniseries, with the question of if she makes it to an 11th life, and what form that might take, being a question for a much later time; maybe even the end of Hickman’s run.

I’ve also been thinking lately that I could imagine them never specifying which life the year 1000 stuff is. Which would drive everyone here crazy. But what if it ends up not being really necessary? That its significance is as a future that we may or may not be headed toward, rather than as something for Moira to carry to another life?

[hawkeyefan]

That you can write all this really shows how substantive this story (and apparent new status quo) is.

The humans’ motivations track to relatable psychology in such a nuanced way relative to past human-supremacist villains.

I do think they are wrong, because anyone who takes the increased proliferation of another demographic as inherently threatening to their own way of life, or who feels like other people having a semblance of the power they’ve always enjoyed lessens their own, or even just people who feel like they have to make a forceful stand against the organic evolution of culture and society, I don’t think those are usually ‘the good guys’ in real life.

Yeah, I agree that they're wrong....I just understand their view, even if it's no one I would share. The same way that I could understand Magneto's motivations when he was a villain even if I thought his methods were wrong. But that understanding made him a relatable villain. I think the same applies here with Orchis.

I do think that your point about proliferation of another demographic is a good one, but while it applies to our real world, it doesn't map so well to the Marvel world. There is no doubt that a nation of mutants would be dangerous in the same way that many nations may see nuclear nations as being dangerous.

If something goes wrong with them, it could end the world.

But in real life (for just one applicable example) we’re so often hesitant to label any individual a white supremacist unless we see them in white hoods burning crosses. Yet white supremacist attitudes are prevalent and systemic in society as a whole, even though actual KKK guys are hard to come by. This idea of white supremacy being the sole domain of unrepentant villains — that it couldn’t possibly be propagated by anyone with a real life, loved ones, a sense of compassion — leads to it going unexamined in most of the places it actually lives. I imagine that any white person, myself included, is or has been complicit without even realizing it, even though of course I don’t dislike other races and I don’t think most people do. Because the bias is so often structural, and can be reinforced just from enough of us failing to see it. And then of course there are all kinds of levels between that and actually matching with the Klan, and often that comes in forms that don’t feel like they’re about white supremacy at all. Maybe it’s just about wanting a good life for your kids, “keeping crime off the street”, etc.. things that should be perfectly fine and good for an individual to want, but what does the implementation look like? En masse, over enough people, does a pattern emerge?

My point isn’t “we should all be ashamed of ourselves”.. and clearly the Orchis people are several more steps up the ladder in being actively, personally involved in actualizing a xenophobic “defense” system. But the brilliant thing is that you know none of them probably think they hate mutants, they’re just clinging desperately to “their” version of a world that should never have been any one group’s world in the first place. Their actions can still be bad, but evil rarely announces itself like the KKK or Purifiers, and evil systems are often carried out by people whose priorities are much closer to our own than we usually like to think.

I think I usually tend to view white supremacy and systemic bias as two different things, though I would say they're certainly related. But I agree with your points overall on this.....many of us are guilty of reinforcing the system as it exists, knowingly or unknowingly. And sometimes that's far worse than the blatant hatred of the supremacists.

What I think makes it interesting, and what helps grant it a bit of nuance, is that Hickman has not limited the difference to simply a cultural one....the first thing he did was that he made it more geo-political. Criticizing the foreign policy of a nation seems very different from being biased against that nation's culture, right?

And once we're looking at it that way, then I think it makes it a little easier to stop thinking of one side as right and one as wrong, and simply looking at it as two different factions with goals that are, or at least are thought to be, in opposition.

So for instance, if Sabertooth has indeed been extradited back to Krakoa because he's going to face some kind of mutant justice...okay, great. But would a human who somehow hurts a mutant and is then brought into custody on Krakoa....would they return the offender to the humans to face their justice? Or would it be seen as a matter of mutant safety, and therefore they must be involved.

It just kind of makes you think.

And of course the X-Men are also making people uncomfortable — in universe and readers alike — and that’s very cool and valid too. I don’t think they’re categorically ‘in the wrong’ yet, but you raise good points. I think it seems fair enough that they would be able to extradite Sabretooth, but I would hope that they plan to pass some judgement on him themselves. And Xavier and Magneto’s god complex is inflating to a concerning degree, so hopefully that will soon be tempered by other voices.

But this is a really interesting, nuanced, provocative dynamic they’re building here between mutants and humans (and machines) and I hope they keep leaning into that.

Yeah, absolutely. I don't think that the X-Men are overall in the wrong....but there are reasons for concern. I also think that they're all being portrayed in a very monolithic way in the sense that so far, every mutant character we've seen seems to be totally onboard with the entire Krakoa plan. Granted, actual opinions on the matter haven't really been portrayed, but generally speaking, they're all onboard. I hope to hear some differing voices among the mutants as things progress.

Also, are machines being portrayed as the next step in evolution? That kind of seems how it is being portrayed to me with the Phalanx and Ascension as portrayed in PoX. If that's the case, then aren't the mutants just as wrong for opposing machines as the humans are for opposing mutants?

To be fair, it seems that the mutants ultimately decide to merge with the machines in year 1000. So some kind of assimilation is their goal. Or at least, that's kind of the cliffhanger that we were left on in that era.

In that sense, isn't it odd to fight assimilation into human society only to, after centuries of hardship, decide to assimilate with the machines?

These are some of the thoughts that have been going through my head with this story.

[useridgoeshere]

Please show me the panel i missed...everything they talk about is defensive not genocidal...they are not being agressive at all.

Erasmus and Gregor talk about the survival of the species. Which is going to be surpassed not because mutant aggression but because of natural evolution and birth rates. Gregor is the one who supposedly knows this. So how can they stop mutants from growing? Not by stopping Legion. The only way is to eradicate them. There's literally no other reasonable way to take their actions or statements.

And there's more than enough in-universe awareness that Sentinels are genocidal machines that exist to eradicate mutants. They're not making more human babies in a creche. They're not even making something to help humans give birth to humans. They're making killing machines. To stop evolution. Which is happening naturally and can only be stopped by changing the number of mutants that are alive.

It's kind of ridiculous to argue their actions are solely defensive and not aggressive.

[HeartofTheStoriesWeTell]

Erasmus and Gregor talk about the survival of the species. Which is going to be surpassed not because mutant aggression but because of natural evolution and birth rates. Gregor is the one who supposedly knows this. So how can they stop mutants from growing? Not by stopping Legion. The only way is to eradicate them. There's literally no other reasonable way to take their actions or statements.

And there's more than enough in-universe awareness that Sentinels are genocidal machines that exist to eradicate mutants. They're not making more human babies in a creche. They're not even making something to help humans give birth to humans. They're making killing machines. To stop evolution. Which is happening naturally and can only be stopped by changing the number of mutants that are alive.

It's kind of ridiculous to argue their actions are solely defensive and not aggressive.

I see none of that on the page. If i remember right back when the shoe was on the other foot one of these guys tried to help mutants...and you know what the mutants got as guards...Sentinels.

So no not being rediculase just reading the nuanced story with many layers...

[Devaishwarya]

Their actions while not overtly aggressive and sell-rationalised as defensive are still problematic in that they are building a killing machine to eradicate a known living species.
They themselves may not plan or intend to use it but it won't be long before some crazy mutant-hating shyt-bag decides to take control of the system and use it...they may not pull the trigger but they manufactured the gun knowing fully well how it will be used and on whom.
They're still culpable and deserving of whatever fate they meet.
Instead of building a Genocide Machine how about actually meeting the mutants face to face and hearing what they have to say, meeting them halfway, in good faith and understanding and come to a solution beneficial to both species?
Instead...
We are scared! Mutants are monsters! Mutants must DIE!!!
...Not if we kill you first shyt-bags.

[HomoSuperior]

Back to the issue. Some are saying Hickman wrote the characters with the same voice. I don’t agree. M was her usual smart but obnoxious self. Here she is overexplaining and ending on an condescending control freak note. Which makes me wonder — did Nightcrawler really mean to say “itchy,” or something that rhymes with it?

A8C9B910-B424-4BCB-BF84-B96264E7E904.jpg

A2EEB83A-142D-425E-9C1D-5BEF5AE06874.jpg

[Strong Girl Daken]

What are ejection collars? Pop the releases? I didnt quite follow this part of the plan

[BishopsJuice91]

What are ejection collars? Pop the releases? I didnt quite follow this part of the plan

They plan on popping the release collars so the MM would fall into the sun...