X-Men’s Darkest Moments

[Tycon]

We're in a new world with Dawn of X, but that doesn't mean we should forget the past. The X-Men have had highs but they've been known for their devastating lows. Which "low" do you consider to be the darkest moment for the X-Men and mutants overall? Was is the outbreak of the Legacy Virus or the tireless soldiering during Utopia to protect Hope or maybe even the recent bloodfest when most of the X-men were killed by X-Man, leaving the rest to unfortunate circumstances and heightened anti-mutant sentiment?

[AHRNIHAL]

X-men's darkest moment and mutants darkest moment can be different, don't you think?

[Tycon]

Yes, the poll and the thread title are asking different questions. However, if your answer for the thread title coincides with both, then that’s great too.

[LordAllMIghty]

Mutant Massacres was really intense form what I remembered

[Askani's Flame]

For the X-Men I think I would say Decimation, Zero Tolerance, the Purifier's Bus attack, Messiah Saga, and Rosenberg's Uncanny. Others have strong affects on people but those 5 I think hit the teams the hardest with death and psychological terror.

For mutants I would say the top 5 are Decimation, Genosha (XTinction Agenda and the Genocide), Zero Tolerance/Neverland, the Legacy Virus, and the T-Mist. Mutant Massacre is up there but sadly it was a targeted attack on the Morlocks and no mutants outside the X-Men or X-Factor knew of it. These are all large scale events that mutants would have been affected by emotionally, physically, or psychologically.

[JB]

I voted for Decimation because I feel that really set off the lust for ending mutants on a larger scale IMO. But that battle on the bridge in the Messiah saga was one of the best and scariest things I've read in the X-Books. Thanks for the poll!

[RachelGrey]

I voted for Decimation because I feel that really set off the lust for ending mutants on a larger scale IMO. But that battle on the bridge in the Messiah saga was one of the best and scariest things I've read in the X-Books. Thanks for the poll!

Same here, I felt Decimation had so much hardship, all the kids that died in the Purifier attack on the busses. There have been lots of events that have been horrible, but Decimation really felt like Marvel was making things as bleak as possible for mutants.

[pandafarmer]

Mutant Massacres was really intense form what I remembered

It still is, I'm sure it will get some votes. I voted Genosha because it set a huge tone that they carried forward for years. The Morlocks are the only ones who bring up the Massacre and IMO the Messiah Complex just became a mess of "who's who" in the villain world and because of that felt "too easy" to defeat some of them. Granted the whole "bridge scene" and bubble was terrifying but nothing quite like seeing a mis-shapen sentinel loom over your country and precede to incinerate everyone present. Even those who weren't there "felt" that event. Decimation is a close second, as it was the "kick them when they were down" moment.

Oh and LOL at Age of X-Man...

[gurkle]

Decimation is some of the bleakest, most depressing superhero comics I ever read. Maybe a bit more because the writers kept blaming every horror on my favorite character, but not just that. It was pure misery with no solution in sight.

[KangMiRae]

Disassembled/Age of X-Man because I had suffer 6 months of those books. Truly the darkest moment.

[powerpax]

Decimation. Easy.

But Kyle/Yost's reign spun out of that in a lot of ways, and that Messiah page above with the tryhard art, gore, angst and cyborgs really sums up their entire body of X-work AFAIC.

[Master of Sound]

Most mutants death was during the attack on Genosha (16 million I believe) do that was the darkest hour.

Decimation is second.

[Sutekh]

Genosha for sure. Those 16 million people aren't getting cured or brought back. They're gone. That's pretty bleak.

Decimation doesn't even come close for me. It's patently absurd (Wanda's power had been established as working retroactively, so that if she had been able to turn mutants into non-mutants, they would have retroactively never been mutants, and none of them would have fallen out of the sky or suddenly drowned because they were sleeping at the bottom of a pool, or whatever, because there's no reason why a normal human who couldn't fly or breathe underwater would be doing those things...), and it's been undone anyway, making it a non-event. It selectively ignored any really popular mutants, and even the unpopular ones have almost all been cured / re-empowered, so it's ultimately a big fizzle, unlike, say, the Morlock Massacre or Genoshan Genocide, which changed things, and they *stayed changed.*

[xhx23x]

That one time Laura defended the rights of a Sentinel.

[powerpax]

It's worth a discussion, I think, of what the Morlock Massacre actually changed. Unless I'm forgetting some things - it's been a while since I read it again - the Morlocks, mostly a series of recurring guest characters, were slaughtered. And Kitty and Kurt left the team and stayed gone for over a decade. The latter is what I find to be a big change. The Morlocks themselves? Mostly fodder. It did introduce the Marauders and Sinister, and that's also big.

Beyond that I think it's the emotional weight of what happened to the Morlocks that stuck with Ororo and the team, Callisto, etc. - even Gambit, years later. Storm has been talking about failing the Morlocks since the Reagan administration. As for the weight of most of the Morlocks themselves, mostly meh.

The Massacre was also the beginning IIRC of the (in-story) downward spiral for the X-Men which led to Fall of the Mutants, the Adversary, the Outback etc. I love those stories to be clear, but for the X-Men as people it was a dark period. So that is a thematic impact.