Decimation was a blessing for the franchise. It gave them a ton of stories even if a lot of them didn't get done right. It was dark indeed and lingered forever.
P.S. the bus explosion gave hope to the future. Fewer losers for the X-Men to have to babysit.
Decimation! It almost destroyed the entire mutant population, and kicked off a decade+ of extinction agendas.
Originally Posted by The General, JLA #38
Age of X-Man, despite how tryhard Rosenberg was at making it grimdark, was actually a pretty dark period thinking in-universe. With most of the mutant heroes dead, a mandatory mutant vaccine, a country demanding the immediate death of any and all mutants (Transis), and any stragglers in the US could be shot down or captured and tortured by O.N.E. with literally no legal repercussions
That was tragically tonedeaf. Especially for an issue that called it out several times, I guess a sob story beats nightmarish discrimination bots.
Eh, Rosenberg dragged it too far into Warhammer 40K levels of grim dark that it becomes impossible to take seriously. If all the humans are waiting for is for the X-Men to vanish for a time to go full on genocide mode, there is no reason the X-Men shouldn't be using lethal force at all times.
Objectively, Decimation. Subjectively, Genosha genocide.
Decimation as an instant culling of the mutant population essentially took mutants from rising toward the majority to permanent slim minority. They had entire industries that collapsed immediately, in turn radically changing society and culture.
Genosha, on the other hand, was a combination of two matters. The first, a blow to the idea of mutants being able to carve a place out for themselves dedicated to their interests, in turn becoming a meaningful political/world power. The second, a blow to the idea that a concentration of mutants in one location could protect themselves better as opposed to getting picked off easily while divided.
That Marvel's repeated both storylines incessantly for the past two decades speaks to how impactful they were as dark moments.
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Ghosts of Genosha minicomic focused on Polaris, written by me and drawn by Fin_NoMore.
Polaris 50th anniversary minicomic written by me and drawn by Mlad!
Gallery of Polaris commissions (without NSFW or minicomics)
Hurt even more that this came after Gold/Blue/Red that we’re moving away from this sort of thing. It does make the shift to House of X much more digestible if you weren’t already on board with the mutants going in a more radical path. I do like that the X-Men in Nate Grey’s world kind of had that same journey but it was to bring the characters to that point since the X-Men in Rosencanny learned nothing and gained nothing.
Leave purple Brittany alone!
I don't blind date I make the direct market vibrate
Mutants: Genocide.
X-men: Decimation.