If the red shoes refers to the ruby slippers from Wizard of Oz, indicating the ability of someone to return to their own world/universe/timeline, then I'm curious as to what "truly sinister" means. The modern meaning of the word is evil or threatening, but going back, "sinister" simply means "left-handed". A left-handed Sinister? Who would that indicate? For some reason my brain keeps slipping to AOA Sinister, perhaps because AOA was mentioned in the solicits but hasn't had much of a mention in the books so far, but he wasn't notably left-handed more than any other iteration. Unless it does mean left-handed but isn't meant to be taken literally, in which case the fact that AOA Sinister sat at Apocalypse's right hand but betrayed him by creating X-Man might be interpreted as him being a southpaw?
Possible alternate interpretations for "red shoes" are the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, the 1940s film (and metatextual opera within) based on it, or the Kate Bush album based on that. The titular shoes cause the wearer to dance uncontrollably, with their removal resulting in death (or in the original fairy tale, the amputation of the dancer's feet). I'm not sure how to relate that to Sinister/the X-Men (Sinister can't stop cloning, perhaps?) but the interpretation of "sinister" as left-handed makes me wonder if Hickman is hinting to us to look for the less obvious interpretation. Or I could be reading too much into it.
Captain Marvel became a Sinister in Secret Wars IIRC, and she wears red shoes. Hmmmmm.
Personally I still feel like if “red shoes” was meant to be a Wizard of Oz reference, it would just say “ruby slippers.” That wouldn’t make it too obvious — everyone would still be racking their brain trying to figure out how Dorothy could possibly apply to this story — it would just make it a better-worded clue. If they’re already dealing in a super abstruse metaphor, there would be no need to add another layer of obfuscation by deliberately using duller, more general words — and I feel like it would have to be deliberate, because who ever talks about Wizard of Oz’s “red shoes”? They’re ruby slippers! If that’s what Hickman was going for I think he’d rather get the reference right than add another layer of difficulty.
it's always tempting for writers to do that
look at how X-23 has become a mainstay, while the mutants of her generation like Surge or Limbo havent, and while other Wolverine style mutants like Wild Child or Feral havent. I don't like it, but he may want to create a popular character relative of Cyclops- it would be a 616 one like Vulcan. it's a cheap trick but those characters tend to succeed.
I need a Summers sister so Scott can have a female mutant presence in his life that
1. Is not an ex-girlfriend/wife/casual fling (Jean, Emma)
2. Was pretty much his enemy at some point (Storm, Hope, Emma when she was a villain)
3. Is or was involved in some complicated way with one of his close friends or brothers/children (Domino, Polaris, Moonstar)
The non-couple couple has been shown to us: it’s Destiny and Mystique. “ The children are alright.” That feature about the same-sex female couple matches up. Destiny was called “mum” by her crew.
Wasn’t it shown recently in invaders that Xavier erased some of Namor’s memories, inadvertently creating this evil inside Namor? “Current” “washed ashore” has to be Namor, who has a reason to be pissed at Xavier. I’m not reading Invaders, but it looks as though Namor helped recruit students in the distant past.
Last edited by Maniacal; 09-15-2019 at 09:07 PM.