Tony Stark was fine and entertaining when he was a boring stuffy businessman and all-purpose lame guy. He was also more likable then. That version of Tony i.e. the Errol Flynn look-alike was JMS' take. And it's also Warren Ellis' in EXTREMIS which is maybe the best Iron Man story.
However, I never bought Tony Stark as general center of the Marvel Universe especially because it was achieved as the result of CIVIL WAR which is a bad story, and one in which he is clearly the villain but given a pass for. I do like Fraction's run, and I think Worldwide Man Hunt (a story where Tony spends most of the time strapped to a gurney and ends up being saved by Pepper, and ends with Norman beating him up on TV) is great. After that you had RDJ and then comics Tony becomes this quippy guy with worse jokes than Peter. That's the problem of having a great actor define a character because the comics can't replicate all that made RDJ in images/words/panels.
But any way Stark drools...X-Men Rules. Quite literally in Krakoa. I love the entire sequence in HOX #5 that came today with the stuff with Storm. That's controversial to some and it's meant to be ambivalent and strange but it's also beautiful.
When I say event I mean an an event mini and tie-ins. Stuff like War of the Realms (where Spider-Man actually is featured well and there's a hilarious Tom Taylor tie-in that's easily the best Spider-Man/Thor story ever) and now Absolute Carnage. HOX/POX is 2 inter-related miniseries published Spencer HUNTED style (weekly for the duration and then monthly).
You know...I actually got to know the X-Men through Spider-Man. I first read Spider-Man in the newspaper strip and the villain in that newspaper strip was Magneto. Even in that strip, I grokked how cool and badass Magneto was. Then the first X-Men movie came out and Magneto was there.
What makes guessing this hard is that the X-Men have been out of the spot light for quite a while, really. And yet, it makes sense that the X-Men stuff will start reaching out into the larger MU.
It just feels like there's some X-Men vs Everyone Else event coming up.
Yeah, seems like it. Though with the reverse-racism towards non-mutants (human, mutate or otherwise), I wonder if there will any instances of "positive racism" to their non-mutant friends and allies. As in, a condescending sense of compassion.
Like with Spider-Man, I can see Magneto saying to him "You may not be a true mutant, but you've been a friend to mutantkind. For that, you will be rewarded by having a new place in our world."
Sounds like an interesting way to go.
With X-Men, I was introduced through my Dad. He was a huge fan, and somehow he got me into it. I bought a random Uncanny X-Men issue with Sabertooth held captive, and it was awesome. But X-Men and Spider-Man teaming up was in Ultimate Spider-Man for me. So it's even better to see in 616!
Not the island in the present, more like in the future where mutants make up the majority of the world and presumably take over. Magneto alluded to this with that "new gods" speech. I can see Magneto, and the other mutants of this time believing that their non-mutant friends and allies, both close to the X-Men and in the greater superhero community, as being "friends" and are rewarded by not being persecuted in the cycle of revenge, or at least not as badly. It's the "you will be spared" mentality. That's what I meant.
Make sense?
Yeah, I imagine he would. However, I also imagine that such a case of generosity doesn't refer to them being equals to the mutants, just not vermin. That's what the "positive racism" and "condescending compassion" things refer to. Racism comes in many different flavors, and doesn't adhere to logic. I'm really interested to see how they handle that. Just stuff to think about.
In the current scenario, I can see Spider-Man chasing some random mutant criminal who's trying to access one of the portals created by the flowers of Krakoa, and then transported there and then Spider-Man meets Xavier and sees the mutant society. Either he gets mind-wiped or Xavier lets him go back but keeps the mutant criminal with him.
In any case, Hickman is a huge fan of Shooter's SECRET WARS (no surprise) so I think there might be a call-back to the time that Spider-Man beat up the X-Men.
.
They could make a good callback. You could even have Xavier not mind wipe him, and send him away, alluding to that event. I remember how Xavier regretted mind-wiping Spider-Man, saying that "in that moment of weakness, I was no better than Doom... or Hitler... or anyone else who ever used power to usurp another one's freedom."
I'm not sure if this was ever referenced again, but such a case would be a good time, especially if it's an act that Xavier "long regrets" like he said in the story.
Alas, Spidey can't get any respect. It's the Parker Luck.
Still, he's always been on good terms with the X-Men, as they've gone on many adventures together and Spidey's been good friends with Wolverine, Beast, Iceman, Firestar, and others I can't recall right now. I remember Nightcrawler gushing about him as Spider-Man was kicking all of their asses in Secret Wars. So I imagine they'll have some level of decency if the mutants rise up and take over the world.