X-Men #1 Discussion Thread [Spoilers]

[jwatson]

wrong thread. lol

[H-E-D]

The second someone needs a jobber of the week, they'll bring back Crud (aka Creed lol).

When they don't want too many minorities, they'll kill off Synch & Skin again, and revert Bishop to a child murderer.. lol

Relationships will go back to being closed, etc.

Villains will revert to evil and reek havoc.

There's a good bit that can be undone and / or ignored. I can't wait for that last one. All these villains being perfect angels is eye-roll worthy. Omega Red, Sinister, Mystique, Emplate, and Selene need to be causing so trouble and soon.

That's my point. Those are all things that can be done without making it so HoXPoXDoX never happened.

[PrezValentine]

None of Hickman's retcons need to be undone to move the X-Men back to a traditional status quo. I think the X-Men will, of course, eventually return to something more classic. But they don't need to remove Hickman's stuff form canon to do that, and it seems absurd to believe they will.

I don't think that the people are nearly sure believe it will happen, as much as they root for it to happen.

[zinderel]

#NotAllHumansAreTrash

That said, I’d love to see the return of a certain aspect of status quo - human allies. And with that, an end to the constant genocide plots. It might be nice to go back to the casual, occasional racism of the Civil Rights era metaphor, rather than the chemical warfare/nukes/concentration camps angle that the franchise has been pushing HARD for over a decade.

But to do that, there has to be a shift in perspectives. Humans in the 616 HAVE to stop being portrayed as ravening, genocidal, moronic bigots with occasional decency. But since that has been status quo for so long, it can’t just go away with a snap of the fingers. and the X-Men, in the face of all that bloodlust from humans, have ZERO reason to put humanity above their own interests any more.

Demanding that mutants provide their drugs for free to their oppressor is like this: Imagine a black, trans woman discovers the cure to cancer. She decides to share with the world, but only with those nations who agree to enact laws that protect the rights and interests of LGBT+ people. Some nations would have no problem with those conditions. Some would demand that she share with white, cishet people first to prove that she is a hero and not a secret monster plotting to poison any non-queer who takes her miracle drug. Some would understand her perspective but think that it would be better and show more ‘goodness’ if she gave it to everyone. Others would work within their nations to change the government into a less awful version of itself. And some would be thrilled to live in a country that isn’t an awful $@“$-hole to people who are different, and reap the benefits of their leadership’s and populace’s decency.

In no way, shape, or form should Krakoa be required to share their miracle drugs with their oppressors. but they are. And quite freely, as long as you live in a nation that acknowledges the right of mutants to exist. If you live in one of the nations remaining antagonistic to Krakoa...well, that sucks for you, but it’s not the mutants fault that you can’t get your miracle drugs. It’s your nation’s leadership. Take it up with them. The mutants of Krakoa have zero obligation to give you the literal fruits of their labors. They have an obligation to protect the Earth because they live there and #NotAllHumans. But they have zero obligation to stop mankind from killing itself off. And no real desire to do so, given the last several years.

Add to that that mutants show up CONSTANTLY to aid non-mutant heroes who rarely ever show up to help mutants, and you have a race who has no reason to trust the better angels of their oppressors. And the excuse that ‘if Avengers showed up every time a mutant skinned his knee’ are garbage. Genocide is not a skinned knee. Concentration camps are not skinned knees. And the repeated refusal of other heroes to acknowledge or address atrocities committed by the people they fight to protect makes them complicit in the actions of those people. The Germans who quietly supported the Nazi party but didn’t go out rounding up Jews are just as complicit in the actions of the Nazis as the concentration camp guards. That is obviously on the heads of the editors who gave the green light to racist BS escalating the way it has. Where we are now is a natural result of bad editors and lazy writing. And criticisms of the lack of concern from other heroes while mutants were being slaughtered is valid. As Killerbee pointed out, evil isn’t only in the actions of the aggressors, but in the inaction of the complacent.

And what mutants have suffered in recent years is EVIL.

Due to sliding time, the last decade or so of genocides and murderbots and and concentration camps happened in the span of a few short years. That does NOT make the constant threat of death of the last decade easier to cope with. It makes what mutants are doing right now make even more sense. Imagine having to live through a handful of deliberate and accidental attempts at eradicating your species. Now imagine that those attempts are spread out across the same number of years as, say, Supernatural has been on air. Now imagine all of that compressed into the span of time that The Good Place has been on air. And try to imagine how you might react if something changed that gave you some leverage against the people who are responsible for all the death and suffering of your people in that time.

Yeah.

As to the whole ‘villains on Krakoa means Krakoa is corrupt!!!’ angle...I agree that it’s troubling to see the likes of Apocalypse and Gorgon and Sinister given trust and respect, but it’s a brand new world. The hope is that these villains were, like Magneto, operating out of a sense of mutant pride. Acting against humanity because they believe they know what mutants need. That the horrors they committed were due to being oppressed or due to rage at seeing their people oppressed. It’s surprisingly magnanimous and optimistic, considering all the paranoia and negativity and ‘evil intent’ some are attributing to Krakoa.

And we’ve seen how Krakoa will deal with those who prove themselves irredeemable.

[powerpax]

No villains have been behaving as 'angels' thus far.

[AbnormallyNormal]

No villains have been behaving as 'angels' thus far.

Sinister is written as a cartoonish madman

Apocalypse though... standoffish and frankly in Moira IX, he basically was heroic.

Mystique is written oddly enough very in-character and in keeping with her past continuity.

Exodus we haven't gotten really anything much from.

Shaw seems just like a ... corrupt tycoon or something. Which is I guess a bad thing but he doesn't strike me as a "global threat".

Sabretooth did a bad thing with the guards I suppose but he was basically made into a scapegoat more or less, he didn't seem close to as evil as many of his incarnations

The other assorted mutant villains haven't really gotten explored much. I don't even consider Magneto a villain in the first place but he's been basically chill, maybe a bit "too proud" but :shrug:

If anything Moira seems villainous. Notice the panel not showing her eyes and focused on her like cheshire cat grin in PoX6... there's some things about her going on... I think it's impossible to expect a person to stay psychologically stable after going through all that she has

Ah I forgot about Vulcan. Well yeah he's really really really really different and OoC for sure. But I guess that's "explained" using the whole "when did they back up his consciousness" stuff. And maybe they modified him in some way

[CoCoBandz]

#NotAllHumansAreTrash

That said, I’d love to see the return of a certain aspect of status quo - human allies. And with that, an end to the constant genocide plots. It might be nice to go back to the casual, occasional racism of the Civil Rights era metaphor, rather than the chemical warfare/nukes/concentration camps angle that the franchise has been pushing HARD for over a decade.

But to do that, there has to be a shift in perspectives. Humans in the 616 HAVE to stop being portrayed as ravening, genocidal, moronic bigots with occasional decency. But since that has been status quo for so long, it can’t just go away with a snap of the fingers. and the X-Men, in the face of all that bloodlust from humans, have ZERO reason to put humanity above their own interests any more.

Demanding that mutants provide their drugs for free to their oppressor is like this: Imagine a black, trans woman discovers the cure to cancer. She decides to share with the world, but only with those nations who agree to enact laws that protect the rights and interests of LGBT+ people. Some nations would have no problem with those conditions. Some would demand that she share with white, cishet people first to prove that she is a hero and not a secret monster plotting to poison any non-queer who takes her miracle drug. Some would understand her perspective but think that it would be better and show more ‘goodness’ if she gave it to everyone. Others would work within their nations to change the government into a less awful version of itself. And some would be thrilled to live in a country that isn’t an awful $@“$-hole to people who are different, and reap the benefits of their leadership’s and populace’s decency.

In no way, shape, or form should Krakoa be required to share their miracle drugs with their oppressors. but they are. And quite freely, as long as you live in a nation that acknowledges the right of mutants to exist. If you live in one of the nations remaining antagonistic to Krakoa...well, that sucks for you, but it’s not the mutants fault that you can’t get your miracle drugs. It’s your nation’s leadership. Take it up with them. The mutants of Krakoa have zero obligation to give you the literal fruits of their labors. They have an obligation to protect the Earth because they live there and #NotAllHumans. But they have zero obligation to stop mankind from killing itself off. And no real desire to do so, given the last several years.

Add to that that mutants show up CONSTANTLY to aid non-mutant heroes who rarely ever show up to help mutants, and you have a race who has no reason to trust the better angels of their oppressors. And the excuse that ‘if Avengers showed up every time a mutant skinned his knee’ are garbage. Genocide is not a skinned knee. Concentration camps are not skinned knees. And the repeated refusal of other heroes to acknowledge or address atrocities committed by the people they fight to protect makes them complicit in the actions of those people. The Germans who quietly supported the Nazi party but didn’t go out rounding up Jews are just as complicit in the actions of the Nazis as the concentration camp guards. That is obviously on the heads of the editors who gave the green light to racist BS escalating the way it has. Where we are now is a natural result of bad editors and lazy writing. And criticisms of the lack of concern from other heroes while mutants were being slaughtered is valid. As Killerbee pointed out, evil isn’t only in the actions of the aggressors, but in the inaction of the complacent.

And what mutants have suffered in recent years is EVIL.

Due to sliding time, the last decade or so of genocides and murderbots and and concentration camps happened in the span of a few short years. That does NOT make the constant threat of death of the last decade easier to cope with. It makes what mutants are doing right now make even more sense. Imagine having to live through a handful of deliberate and accidental attempts at eradicating your species. Now imagine that those attempts are spread out across the same number of years as, say, Supernatural has been on air. Now imagine all of that compressed into the span of time that The Good Place has been on air. And try to imagine how you might react if something changed that gave you some leverage against the people who are responsible for all the death and suffering of your people in that time.

Yeah.

As to the whole ‘villains on Krakoa means Krakoa is corrupt!!!’ angle...I agree that it’s troubling to see the likes of Apocalypse and Gorgon and Sinister given trust and respect, but it’s a brand new world. The hope is that these villains were, like Magneto, operating out of a sense of mutant pride. Acting against humanity because they believe they know what mutants need. That the horrors they committed were due to being oppressed or due to rage at seeing their people oppressed. It’s surprisingly magnanimous and optimistic, considering all the paranoia and negativity and ‘evil intent’ some are attributing to Krakoa.

And we’ve seen how Krakoa will deal with those who prove themselves irredeemable.

Yes, yes, yes.

Mutants are the best.

To all the rest there's no contest.

Long live the Krakoan orgy fest.

#MutantAndProud

[powerpax]

Sinister is written as a cartoonish madman

Not off-brand for him, especially recent a.k.a. his only good incarnations.

Apocalypse though... standoffish and frankly in Moira IX, he basically was heroic.

In Moira IX he was fighting against Nimrods. We saw nothing else of him. We know he and Moira lay waste to humankind, the Avengers, etc.

Mystique is written oddly enough very in-character and in keeping with her past continuity.

It's only 'odd' if you dislike this story.

Shaw seems just like a ... corrupt tycoon or something.

Like always.

Sabretooth did a bad thing with the guards I suppose but he was basically made into a scapegoat more or less, he didn't seem close to as evil as many of his incarnations

He threatened to kill everyone in the room and their children's children.

The other assorted mutant villains haven't really gotten explored much.

So what was the point of your claim?

[ARkadelphia]

Important to note...

"In. My. (Your). Mind" makes it applicable, ONLY for you. And while absolutely valid to you and your enjoyment of the product, does not speak to how it's perceived in general or the writer's actual intent.
Perhaps, if you were to view it from a different perspective..."Outside yourself"...then you might see things differently.

Well obviously not only in my mind, as others appear to agree but as I made clear, yes, we are in the minority as far as the she subset of readers who post here go.

[Silver Fang]

Sinister is written as a cartoonish madman

Apocalypse though... standoffish and frankly in Moira IX, he basically was heroic.

Mystique is written oddly enough very in-character and in keeping with her past continuity.

Exodus we haven't gotten really anything much from.

Shaw seems just like a ... corrupt tycoon or something. Which is I guess a bad thing but he doesn't strike me as a "global threat".

Sabretooth did a bad thing with the guards I suppose but he was basically made into a scapegoat more or less, he didn't seem close to as evil as many of his incarnations

The other assorted mutant villains haven't really gotten explored much. I don't even consider Magneto a villain in the first place but he's been basically chill, maybe a bit "too proud" but :shrug:

If anything Moira seems villainous. Notice the panel not showing her eyes and focused on her like cheshire cat grin in PoX6... there's some things about her going on... I think it's impossible to expect a person to stay psychologically stable after going through all that she has

Ah I forgot about Vulcan. Well yeah he's really really really really different and OoC for sure. But I guess that's "explained" using the whole "when did they back up his consciousness" stuff. And maybe they modified him in some way

Really, going on things now, the only legit villain the X-Men have is random humans & Creed. Which is sad. lol If their Rogue Gallery wasn't bad enough before, this didn't help.

So far, other villains have high spots on a ruling council, have committed no bad acts, and are playing house. Wolverine will be tucking in & playing daddy with Daken in his solo apparently.

[Zelena]

#NotAllHumansAreTrash

That said, I’d love to see the return of a certain aspect of status quo - human allies. And with that, an end to the constant genocide plots. It might be nice to go back to the casual, occasional racism of the Civil Rights era metaphor, rather than the chemical warfare/nukes/concentration camps angle that the franchise has been pushing HARD for over a decade.

But to do that, there has to be a shift in perspectives. Humans in the 616 HAVE to stop being portrayed as ravening, genocidal, moronic bigots with occasional decency. But since that has been status quo for so long, it canÂ’t just go away with a snap of the fingers. and the X-Men, in the face of all that bloodlust from humans, have ZERO reason to put humanity above their own interests any more.

Demanding that mutants provide their drugs for free to their oppressor is like this: Imagine a black, trans woman discovers the cure to cancer. She decides to share with the world, but only with those nations who agree to enact laws that protect the rights and interests of LGBT+ people. Some nations would have no problem with those conditions. Some would demand that she share with white, cishet people first to prove that she is a hero and not a secret monster plotting to poison any non-queer who takes her miracle drug. Some would understand her perspective but think that it would be better and show more ‘goodnessÂ’ if she gave it to everyone. Others would work within their nations to change the government into a less awful version of itself. And some would be thrilled to live in a country that isn't an awful $@“$-hole to people who are different, and reap the benefits of their leadership’s and populacÂ’s decency.

In no way, shape, or form should Krakoa be required to share their miracle drugs with their oppressors. but they are. And quite freely, as long as you live in a nation that acknowledges the right of mutants to exist. If you live in one of the nations remaining antagonistic to Krakoa...well, that sucks for you, but it’s not the mutants fault that you can’t get your miracle drugs. It’s your nation’s leadership. Take it up with them. The mutants of Krakoa have zero obligation to give you the literal fruits of their labors. They have an obligation to protect the Earth because they live there and #NotAllHumans. But they have zero obligation to stop mankind from killing itself off. And no real desire to do so, given the last several years. Due to sliding time, the last decade or so of genocides and murderbots and and concentration camps happened in the span of a few short years. That does NOT make the constant threat of death of the last decade easier to cope with. It makes what mutants are doing right now make even more sense. Imagine having to live through a handful of deliberate and accidental attempts at eradicating your species. Now imagine that those attempts are spread out across the same number of years as, say, Supernatural has been on air. Now imagine all of that compressed into the span of time that The Good Place has been on air. And try to imagine how you might react if something changed that gave you some leverage against the people who are responsible for all the death and suffering of your people in that time.

Yeah.

As to the whole ‘villains on Krakoa means Krakoa is corrupt!!!’ angle...I agree that it’s troubling to see the likes of Apocalypse and Gorgon and Sinister given trust and respect, but it’s a brand new world. The hope is that these villains were, like Magneto, operating out of a sense of mutant pride. Acting against humanity because they believe they know what mutants need. That the horrors they committed were due to being oppressed or due to rage at seeing their people oppressed. It’s surprisingly magnanimous and optimistic, considering all the paranoia and negativity and ‘evil intent’ some are attributing to Krakoa.

It's mostly human persecution that define 'mutant' as a identity. Together, they are different from the humans… but very different from each other too. What want the 'mutants'? Having a 'normal' life, living in peace with parents and friends, building a family, watching fireworks… these things are human things. I find strange that after a lifetime saying that are like any human, just with an X-gene, now, they decide that they let the non-mutants define them and have a 'culture' of their own, out of nowhere. More, if they have children without the X-gene, what will they make of them?
I don't think Krakoa is bad, it's a sentient island, isn't it? What is a island's vision of the world? What are its needs? It's not because it is able to communicate with the mutants that it shares their logic. If a lion or a shark were able to communicate with us, will it stop being what it is?

[AbnormallyNormal]

Not off-brand for him, especially recent a.k.a. his only good incarnations.



In Moira IX he was fighting against Nimrods. We saw nothing else of him. We know he and Moira lay waste to humankind, the Avengers, etc.



It's only 'odd' if you dislike this story.



Like always.



He threatened to kill everyone in the room and their children's children.



So what was the point of your claim?

This is a really heavily exaggerated and flamboyant take on Essex. Not at all his typical norm. Has he started to turn more into this over time yes... but still. It's jarring.

I stand by what I said that Apoc was presented essentially heroically, at least as much as Moira, Wolverine, etc were.

? I don't dislike this story but it's simply true that the characterization is very very different from recent continuity for nearly everybody. Hence Mystique (like Polaris) being written basically "regularly" comes off as odd compared to the others , who are quite different.

Mmm... Shaw has been much more threatening before and directly antagonistic. Here he just seems "in it for #1" or what have you. Not really the same. But sure similar enough.

Creed was just engaging in bluster because of the unfairness of that situation. His back was up against the wall and it was a fight or flight instinct on his part.

My point is the traditional villains are definitely being written if not as "angels" a lot more friendly or on the same side as characters like Kurt, Jean, and Ororo. Storm if anything seemed even MORE passionate about "the cause" than some of the so-called villains who you'd think would be the most hardcore about all this. I'm not even really saying this is bad though, I agree with zinderel that if anything this demonstrates an open-mindedness and flexibility and ethical or philosophical progressivism on the part of the Krakoan society.

[spirit2011]

Yea, stories come and go. Hickman won't be the last great X-Men writer and that's a good thing. He along with the writers that come after him should be given the space to tell their stories without being strictly held to what came before. If a future writer wants to use Krakoa (depending on how this run goes), I'm down. If they want to downsize and start up something new, that's cool too (provided the transition is done well). I hope that the open-mindedness fans have towards Hickman's run is also given to future writers for the franchise.

That being said, even if Krakoa doesn't remain a UN recognized state by the end of this run I could see it displacing the mansion as a base of operations for the X-Men.

you said it well. Future writers will do their thing, maybe they will continue Krakoa thing or maybe not. Comics are constantlty changing. other major writer will want to do his own take in 10, 20, or 30 years.

It's all perfectly normal

Really, going on things now, the only legit villain the X-Men have is random humans & Creed. Which is sad. lol If their Rogue Gallery wasn't bad enough before, this didn't help.

So far, other villains have high spots on a ruling council, have committed no bad acts, and are playing house. Wolverine will be tucking in & playing daddy with Daken in his solo apparently.

Creed is the coco Glenn of X-men. he always get screwed up. Not even Jean can reach Creed's levels;

every villain i sa hero now, except you Creed. none for you

[chief12d]

The criticism about non-mutant heroes is weird. Much like how the Avengers office sometimes includes X-Men in their big events and such, I strongly doubt that the X-office is being barred from showing how human heroes help out when mutants are facing major threats.

The reason we don’t see them react more often is because the X-Office has no desire to demonstrate that not all humans are bad. Showing heroes like Cap or Tony engaging with the X-Men dulls the narrative of 100% ant-mutant sentiment, so they typically get written as aloof to mutant suffering or indirectly responsible.

And even outside the X-office, heroes have dealt with threats to mutantkind in their own stories. But those stories typically end up being one offs that get ignored or have no bearing on mutant-superhuman relations. If people want to see the Avengers and FF be more involved in the mutant cause they should push for X-writers to actually include them in their stories.

[Silver Fang]

Creed is the coco Glenn of X-men. he always get screwed up. Not even Jean can reach Creed's levels;

every villain i sa hero now, except you Creed. none for you

Nobody can. lol He's #1 there. Tied with Monet's ever-changing skin color that nobody can keep straight.