Thoughts on RessurXion

[TOTALITY]

Addendum to my last post; no-prize: whoever told Nightcrawler he didn't have a soul was just trolling him and/or trying to assert their own dogma, as if one couldn't just hop 5 dimensions over and get a totally different reality. Their dogma is just head-canon and my head-canon cancels theirs out, so there!

[TOTALITY]

From my experience, the rules depend on the specific story. I mean, when Spider-Man did the Clone Saga, Ben Reilly was just a normal clone but had all of Peter's memories and sense of continuity to the point that had Peter been killed during that first encounter and Ben not realized he was the clone, he could've just stepped into Peter's life and no one would've been the wiser. Conversely, X-23 was a normal clone, too (albeit with a modified genome), but was always her own person from day one, with no memories or anything inherited by Wolverine.

So, I guess the question is if Hickman is intending this to be actually resurrection (soul given new body) or if it'll turn out to be something else?

Hickman actually has Magneto use the word "soul" to describe what Xavier is transferring to their bodies, because Hickman anticipated these conversations and wanted to address them up front. He spent multiple pages explaining how these are as true as resurrections could possibly be short of saving the original bodies and reanimating them, so I don't think it's complicated: we are meant to think of these characters as real, and in possession of a soul, whatever that means to you in Marvel terms.

[Stormultt Divine]

What bothers me is how people can have a problem with this when we all know comic characters never die, especially x-men. Jean says hi and Logan stands behind her....

[Snoop Dogg]

IRON MAN: If my body was rebuilt from scratch, with my mind being rebooted from a machine's backup, am I real? Is the original Tony Stark dead?

XAVIER: Oh Scott, my precious boy, it hurts so much to back you up from my Google Drive : ((( But it's okay, son. I mean sure, I could just use the backups to make several of you and you not knowing if your mission was a success means that you are explicitly not the same person, but it's really you my boy 4 realz so proud of you : )))

[Sapfiryt]

I don't think Hickman will explain this topic(who is original and who is not, and where is soul).
But he could easily explain it:
1) Dani Moonstar as the Valkyrie returns soul to body.
or
2) Xavier returns dead mutants (consciousness) from Astral plane to their body (Like he returned in last astonishing x-men). And this will be original, because backup mind is like you copy any file on your computer - yes this is exactly the same file(i mean same information) but actually this is a new file.

[JKtheMac]

What needs to be focused on is not the individual parts of the process. Not the Cerebro copy, not the DNA, not even the ‘reality warping’. This is a gestalt process. Equal part religion and science. The process contains cloning and consciousness recording, but essentially those are just part of the recipe, not the product.

Overall this is a mystical process and it resurrects. Cyclops is not dead and replaced by a copy party because of the gestalt process. This is resurrection. There is a sci-fi religion wrapper around this. Talking about souls without fully defining them is partly playing safe, but it would seem to me Hickman defines soul as the essential person. In other words he is using that word to reassure us that this is not cloning. Those not reassured should perhaps read the issue more closely and less ideologically because comics are generally not ideology they are stories.

There is even an explicit line that states there are circumstances where duplicates would be tolerated for the greater good under specific protocols, the ‘Force conventions’, evoking X-Force. But the reasoning for the clear taboo of copies is partly ideological. Two identical souls is a moral problem. Something that could cause division and ideological rifts. Something that is bound to come up in the story at some point in the future.

As is Hickman’s want, there is commentary here. This story is partly a reaction against comic book deaths and duplicate characters. “So let’s not do that again” is almost a mission statement. Ruling against duplication except when essential to the story is potentially a commentary on many of the comics we have seen in the last few years as comics turned in on themselves.

[WeaponX]

So here is the important things

1.Anima originated from Latin, and was originally used to describe ideas such as breath, soul, spirit or vital force

2. Direct quote from the book The first thing was copying the mind "the essence" "The anima" of any mutant found ... So that one day he could put the soul back into it mutant shell

3. Cyclops, Jean Grey, NightCrawler, Wolverine, etc have all come back from the dead. So if you accept them coming back as "originals" then you believe their essence can be put back in a body. Jean Grey and Psylocke have examples of them recreating their body psionically/telepathically what is are they now?

Hickman is playing around a little with the concept of what is a soul imo. People have in their head your soul functionally is a ghost essence that leaves your that leaves your body when you die. Hickman, as I understand saying your soul, is your mind. If you believe in basically a spirit essence you might not think these are the original. If you believe the mind is your essence then this is the same person. I will put it like this Cyclops body was dying and he created a husk and transfer his mind through a machine. You would say that is the original cyclops. If Cyclops transfer his mind to a machine that could hold it and his body died, They create an exact copy of his mind and instead of using the original put the copy in his body and revived it. Is that Cyclops? All I can do is suggest watching Alter Carbon on Netflix that covers this concept in very interesting way.

These “resurrections” are completely different from how characters came back from the dead previously. In those cases the original body is revived no need to put a soul back in. This is a copy of a body that they download copies of memories into.

I’ll ask this if they are bring back the original person than how come they could complete the whole process with the original still alive? It’s the whole reason for the confirmation of death protocol they mention. If you were really bringing back the original how could you possibly do it while they are still alive? To me that screams it’s a copy.

As far as your third point would you ever consider yourself immortal because your memories are stored on a computer? I wouldn’t. And your Cyclops example is wonky as well unless his becomes an empty shell when said mind is downloaded into the machine all he did was make a copy of himself.

[Snoop Dogg]

As a natural immortal, I can confirm that I consider my digital duplicates to be my progeny, not extensions of myself.

[WeaponX]

I don't think Hickman will explain this topic(who is original and who is not, and where is soul).
But he could easily explain it:
1) Dani Moonstar as the Valkyrie returns soul to body.
or
2) Xavier returns dead mutants (consciousness) from Astral plane to their body (Like he returned in last astonishing x-men). And this will be original, because backup mind is like you copy any file on your computer - yes this is exactly the same file(i mean same information) but actually this is a new file.

And he absolutely should have used one of those explanations because I don’t know anyone who would consider a copy of their experiences and brainwaves as being their soul or being. If that were the case how does the original body not become an empty shell the minute Cerebro downloads them? Why would they need to backup weekly? It’s like printing Moby Dick off your computer and claiming it’s the original writings.

[Zelena]

What puzzles me more is readers' attitude. The characters change a lot depending on the author who writes them and still, they are considered, judged like they are the same person.
I liked Claremont's Xavier and Magneto. I don't like Hickman's. They have the same name, almost the same design, they are not the same persons.

[WeaponX]

IRON MAN: If my body was rebuilt from scratch, with my mind being rebooted from a machine's backup, am I real? Is the original Tony Stark dead?

XAVIER: Oh Scott, my precious boy, it hurts so much to back you up from my Google Drive : ((( But it's okay, son. I mean sure, I could just use the backups to make several of you and you not knowing if your mission was a success means that you are explicitly not the same person, but it's really you my boy 4 realz so proud of you : )))

Excellent point there. That pretty much proves it’s nothing but a copy. If they actually got Scott’s soul he’d know Wolverine and Nightcrawler sacrificed themselves to complete the mission.

[WeaponX]

What puzzles me more is readers' attitude. The characters change a lot depending on the author who writes them and still, they are considered, judged like they are the same person.
I liked Claremont's Xavier and Magneto. I don't like Hickman's. They have the same name, almost the same design, they are not the same persons.

Um ones questioning a plot point while the other is questioning the very nature of ongoing fiction.

[Tasuxeda]

Based on Ben Reilly being cloned causing his soul to resurrect into his clone I tentatively assume that if the mutant is dead then their soul are likely to be restored to their copies and if they are not dead then there would be a new soul in the clone, I would still like someone like Dr Strange, Valkyrie, Dani or Illyana to confirm that they do get the originals soul.

[jwatson]

There are a number of things that trouble me about the X-Men's ability to resurrect themselves. So much so I think the topic merits its own thread. But, let me focus on the thing that confuses and alarms me the most.

What Professor X via Cerebro implants into an embryo is a "copy" of that mutants consciousness, or animus as it is called in House of X #5. But, it is not the original. For example, the consciousness of the Cyclops who died on Sol's Hammer ended when Cyclops died. The consciousness of Cyclops #2 is not contiguous with the consciousness of Cyclops #1. So, what died on Sol's Hammer wasn't just a body but a unique consciousness as well. This was not a case of Cyclops' soul leaving his old body and migrating through space to possess a new one. So, the new Cyclops is a perfect copy of the old Cyclops, but he is not the original Cyclops. There was a unique being whose existence ended on Sol's Hammer.

Here's what bothers me. The mutants seem oblivious to the fact that the Scott Summers they knew and loved is dead, or they just plain don't care as he has been replaced by a perfect copy of himself. People die and nobody cares. Does that freak anybody else out?

Or, have I misunderstood what Hickman intended? Does the Cyclops clone actually contain the "soul" of the original Scott Summers? Am I making a big deal out of nothing?

But if that's the case then Scott been dead so does it matter. He died dur to the gas so whatever cable brought back with the Phoenix shard isn't Scott anyway since that consciousness already left that body. Storm and the seige perilus group are dead because though they were resurrected their consciousness had to leave their bodies even for 10 minutes. Nightcrawler is a fake. Colossus died so he must be a fake to, the real Colossus died from the legacy virus. Jean died when she reconstructed herself. Mr. Immortal must have like a thousand consciousnesses out there somewhere. Xavier been dead for decades. Everybody's dead and nothing is original.

[jpmst17]

I think the mind makes the person, not the body. Xavier "downloaded" the latest version of the character before they went on the mission. I just accept that it is still them. Scott even asked if they succeeded, so if he lost anything, it was just the mission stuff, which i can deal with