Looking back on E for Extinction

[Lucyinthesky]

That, I find stupid, considering how paranoid Magneto has always been. No defence system? No planes? No radars? The Genoshans have been completely surprised? They were supposed having built an advanced society.

It is like they have been waited to be slaughtered to become the symbol of mutant martyrdom.

I think the X-men narrative didn`t really take Genosha as a symbol or even a plot point until Hickman`s who`s taking a more realist approach to an event like that happening in the MU, it should have had an impact since Morrison`s run but imo my guess is that he just wanted to get rid of the island and build a mutant society closer to the X-men mansion in NY this fact really made me not care about his run that much given he himself didn`t take seriously the events happening in his own story and Planet X was the worse for me, even decimation was it`s own thing and Genosha was forgotten for a long time until now, except of course for the characters more affected by it Magneto, Emma and Lorna.

[pkingdom]

Really?

ugh

Morrison's Jean was great imo. I loved that Jean and I loved her interactions with almost all the cast members. Beast was great too. The gay thing was weird but it's something I'd expect Hank to do to prove a point lol.

What gay thing are you talking about? I read this story partially out of curiosity, because I've seen that exact sentiment of "why didn't X hero try to stop it?" on these boards before. Based on the story, it happened so fast nobody realized what was happening.

I mostly started this topic to get my thoughts out after reading this story. If Morrison built on it later in his run that's great. Its just that during the initial story it felt kind of like an afterthought.

Its hard for me to care too much about Genosha, because after digging in to the backstory of the country its such a clusterfuck of terrible implications that nobody comes out looking great

[Wiccan]

What gay thing are you talking about? I read this story partially out of curiosity, because I've seen that exact sentiment of "why didn't X hero try to stop it?" on these boards before. Based on the story, it happened so fast nobody realized what was happening.

I mostly started this topic to get my thoughts out after reading this story. If Morrison built on it later in his run that's great. Its just that during the initial story it felt kind of like an afterthought.

Its hard for me to care too much about Genosha, because after digging in to the backstory of the country its such a clusterfuck of terrible implications that nobody comes out looking great

Hank pretended to be gay because... I think he wanted to troll his ex, and make a point about how ~Why deny it if it shouldn't really matter?~

He does a bit more with the Genosha thing later, but probably still not enough really.

[Lucyinthesky]

Really the Magneto`s funeral issue was just that, one issue made to get the impression that the destruction of Genosha had some impact for some of the characters, even if it was just for Lorna but still it didn`t made much sense for the X-men, Xavier and the rest of the marvel super hero population to be so uncaring about it, In a way Krakoa is the more in character continuation of the story.

I liked Hank a lot better before Morrison made him so bitter there were times when I didn`t feel like I was reading the X-men, just Morrison making social comments using the characters as mounthpieces.

I enjoyed his Cassandra Nova as a good new villain for the X-men, Phoenix Jean, Xorn before planet X, Sage and Bishop but I can really forgot the rest of his run without much trouble

[yogaflame]

My thoughts exactly. No run since Morrison's has topped his for me. We'll see where Hickman shakes out when he's done but for now he's great too. Claremont deserves all the praise he gets for his character work but I've always preferred writers who deviate from the status quo of the book/team to do something different with the franchise.

Claremont's run is still number one, but I agree, Morrison's is number two. He was just so spunky and stylish, coming off of the 90's it really was a fresh injection [of creativity] to a somewhat stagnant franchise. That said, Morrison's novel ideas are still hung on the framework Claremont largely built(so far it's the same with Hickman, who just for HoX is already placing himself as number three), so I don't think either of them will be able to eclipse Lord Claremont's work. He just built too much that's become too important to the overall franchise.

That, I find stupid, considering how paranoid Magneto has always been. No defence system? No planes? No radars? The Genoshans have been completely surprised? They were supposed having built an advanced society.

It is like they have been waited to be slaughtered to become the symbol of mutant martyrdom.

Magneto had just been stabbed through by Wolverine essentially the arc before New X-Men, so that's why he was in a wheelchair when the Tri-Sentinel attacked. In Eve of Destruction(which was Lobdell's arc that had Magneto's Genosha reinvigorated after Piotr cured the Legacy Virus and they almost went to war with the whole world), it made it clear that Genosha's main weapon was Magneto's own power, and the powers of all the mutant population, not traditional technological weapons. It's fair to imagine the wild Sentinel was not expected, nor it's outright ferocity in destroying the nation. That said, it did always strike me as odd that not a single other Genoshan besides Magneto(who was targeted immediately) could have rose up against the singular[albeit ginormous] target. 16 million mutants and no one has a good power? I get that Morrison just wanted this overwhelming destruction to set up Cassandra as this monster, but it was definitely a poor showing for Genosha as a whole.




(Wow! It boggles the mind to realize these issues were published before 9/11. The imagery is prescient...)

New X-Men was a decent comic but last arcs were a bit too ludicrous especially with Magneto/Xorn retcon. It was too much of a mess.

I agree, overall Morrison did a great job on his run, but I too think the ending sucked. It was almost like you could see the breakdown of his professional relationship with Marvel on the page, and the killing of Magneto and Jean seems to be quite petty in that regard.

Was the worldbuilding of Genosha has been explored in comics b4 ? Because if it's not then It was fair for Morrison to do that.

Genosha was granted to Magneto [by the UN] after he held the whole world 'random' by flipping the poles or something, and then there were a mini series or two that showed him actually taking control of the country(which had been in a civil war between the humans and mutates essentially since X-Tinction Agenda in 1990), but overall, no, Genosha as Magneto's mutant homeland was not very well developed/explored before Morrison destroyed it. Lobdell's Eve of Destruction was the most we really saw of it at its prime(the Legacy Virus was ravaging the mutate population just before that arc), but yes, it was presented as having been transformed into this amazing city on a hill sort of society, in broad strokes. Certainly it was not explored as deeply as Krakoa already has, in terms of leadership, laws, commerce/economy, culture, etc.

Really the Magneto`s funeral issue was just that, one issue made to get the impression that the destruction of Genosha had some impact for some of the characters, even if it was just for Lorna but still it didn`t made much sense for the X-men, Xavier and the rest of the marvel super hero population to be so uncaring about it, In a way Krakoa is the continuation of the story.

I liked Hank better before Morrison made him so bitter there were times when I didn`t feel like I was reading the X-men, just Morrison making social comments using the characters as mounthpieces.

I think some writers excel at the sci-fi/plot elements, and some writers excel at the emotional explorations, and rarely do they excel at both. I think Morrison is a more cerebral writer(Hickman too), compared to more emotional writers like Lobdell or let's say, Bendis. I think Claremont is a writer who is(at least in his classical runs) able to do a bit of both, which is why his run is so satisfying(especially as a whole). That said, it is clear from Morrison's run, that the destruction of Genosha was definitely a catalyzing factor for the X-Men, and Xavier in particular. As for the rest of the Marvel heroes, remember, they were ready to go to war with Magneto just a few arcs before(Genosha had been essentially threatening the entire world with war just before...), so it's almost like what if North Korea or Iran got destroyed by a tsunami just after threatening the world with nuclear war. Rare would be the person to actually openly celebrate their destruction, but many would breath a quiet sigh of relief that the threat was no longer on the board, if that makes sense.

As for that final bit, yeah, Morrison's Beast does seem to be the turning point for the character that went from lovable goofball scientist to bitter, mean, dangerous scientist. That said, Beast did spend the latter half of the 90's wrestling with the Legacy Virus(only to lose Moira and Piotr in its actual resolution), and Trish broke up with him because his secondary mutation, so he had some in-universe reasons for the change(not to mention we'd seen AoA's Dark Beast, and then Morrison's Here Comes Tomorrow Beast, so we now know he could be a darker character....). I do think the character is better in the vein of the classical Avengers/Wonder Man buddy model, or the even more perfected X-Men TAS model.

[pkingdom]

Magneto had just been stabbed through by Wolverine essentially the arc before New X-Men, so that's why he was in a wheelchair when the Tri-Sentinel attacked. In Eve of Destruction(which was Lobdell's arc that had Magneto's Genosha reinvigorated after Piotr cured the Legacy Virus and they almost went to war with the whole world), it made it clear that Genosha's main weapon was Magneto's own power, and the powers of all the mutant population, not traditional technological weapons. It's fair to imagine the wild Sentinel was not expected, nor it's outright ferocity in destroying the nation. That said, it did always strike me as odd that not a single other Genoshan besides Magneto(who was targeted immediately) could have rose up against the singular[albeit ginormous] target. 16 million mutants and no one has a good power? I get that Morrison just wanted this overwhelming destruction to set up Cassandra as this monster, but it was definitely a poor showing for Genosha as a whole.

Genosha was granted to Magneto [by the UN] after he held the whole world 'random' by flipping the poles or something, and then there were a mini series or two that showed him actually taking control of the country(which had been in a civil war between the humans and mutates essentially since X-Tinction Agenda in 1990), but overall, no, Genosha as Magneto's mutant homeland was not very well developed/explored before Morrison destroyed it. Lobdell's Eve of Destruction was the most we really saw of it at its prime(the Legacy Virus was ravaging the mutate population just before that arc), but yes, it was presented as having been transformed into this amazing city on a hill sort of society, in broad strokes. Certainly it was not explored as deeply as Krakoa already has, in terms of leadership, laws, commerce/economy, culture, etc.

Genosha was a bit more complicated than that. Before Magneto and the X-men got involved, it already was a 'shining city on a hill' democracy, but only for humans. It was considered a a global superpower, even. But they were that way in large part because they literally enslaved their mutant population, brainwashing and lobotomizing them. The guy in charge of the process, the Genegineer, knew that this was terrible but thought that it was necessary because of how dangerous mutants were. Humans outnumbered mutants on Genosha 100 to 1, and the government was afraid that if mutants were allowed to roam free they'd take over and oppress the humans.

Which is exactly what happens. Magneto, his Acolytes and the X-men all contribute to the destablizing of the country and starting a civil war. The Genoshans were not innocent (I think they tried to mind control Wolverine and Jean when they first arrived in an accident or something), but they did try to get better at one point. Then another X villain showed up and encouraged both sides of the civil war, got the Genegineer killed for trying to stop the slaughter. Finally Magento held the world hostage in exchange for being declared dictator of Genosha (despite humans still living there and having a besieged government) and then kicked the remaining humans out of their country before threatening to go to war with the world.

All that combined is why I'm not 'woe is the mutant paradise of Genosha'

[Lucyinthesky]

Genosha was granted to Magneto [by the UN] after he held the whole world 'random' by flipping the poles or something, and then there were a mini series or two that showed him actually taking control of the country(which had been in a civil war between the humans and mutates essentially since X-Tinction Agenda in 1990), but overall, no, Genosha as Magneto's mutant homeland was not very well developed/explored before Morrison destroyed it. Lobdell's Eve of Destruction was the most we really saw of it at its prime(the Legacy Virus was ravaging the mutate population just before that arc), but yes, it was presented as having been transformed into this amazing city on a hill sort of society, in broad strokes. Certainly it was not explored as deeply as Krakoa already has, in terms of leadership, laws, commerce/economy, culture, etc.

Well Genosha had dark seduction, they had a long and bloody civil war to get the island back from the magistrates, an attack made by Exodus and some very interesting Black Panther issues, Wakanda was Genosha`s neighnour after all, before it was destroyed and by Lobdell`s own admition "Eve of destruction" was his way of protesting marvel making him kill Joseph just to bring villain magneto again, not letting either character get real grow or development, he was like "you want a cartoon villain magneto, have your cartoon villain magneto" and Morrison just ended the work for Genosha and Magneto.

I don`t truly blame Morrison for Genosha but imo Genosha had way more development than what`s remembered, Magneto made sure to have a mixed human/mutant goverment, it had open trade all around the world, Pietro as a former avenger was one of it`s ambassadors to the UN along with Alda Huxley a human woman and Genosha`s own former ambassador who made the deal to get the island for Magneto. It had interesting relations with Wakanda, Latveria and Atlantis. It had great potential to become it`s own thing but it just wasn`t allowed to be the 90`s early 2000`s just were not t a nice time for a story like that to develop but it was interesting while it lasted.

Still I think Morrison story suffered by having the X-men being so cynical and blase about it`s destruction, it really broke the story for me because they are not really the kind of characters to make fun of their enemies destruction, much less so when it means the destruction of a lot more ppl who were not guilty of anything.

I think some writers excel at the sci-fi/plot elements, and some writers excel at the emotional explorations, and rarely do they excel at both. I think Morrison is a more cerebral writer(Hickman too), compared to more emotional writers like Lobdell or let's say, Bendis. I think Claremont is a writer who is(at least in his classical runs) able to do a bit of both, which is why his run is so satisfying(especially as a whole). That said, it is clear from Morrison's run, that the destruction of Genosha was definitely a catalyzing factor for the X-Men, and Xavier in particular. As for the rest of the Marvel heroes, remember, they were ready to go to war with Magneto just a few arcs before(Genosha had been essentially threatening the entire world with war just before...), so it's almost like what if North Korea or Iran got destroyed by a tsunami just after threatening the world with nuclear war. Rare would be the person to actually openly celebrate their destruction, but many would breath a quiet sigh of relief that the threat was no longer on the board, if that makes sense.

I agree, one of the things I hated most about 90`s magneto was how stupid he acted sometimes, there was no nuance to his characterization and it drove me out of the comics for a while until the end of HoM. Still I don`t think the right message to send is that it`s ok to feel relief after the death of 16 million ppl just because you didn`t like their leader. At the very least it makes the X-men and other super heros look like complete assholes so most writers ignoring the issue post fact made sense at the time. North Korea and Iran are not it`s leaders and the life of their population is valuable on itself.

As for that final bit, yeah, Morrison's Beast does seem to be the turning point for the character that went from lovable goofball scientist to bitter, mean, dangerous scientist. That said, Beast did spent the latter half of the 90's wrestling with the Legacy Virus(only to loose Moira and Piotr in its actual resolution), and Trish broke up with him because his secondary mutation, so he had some in-universe reasons for the change(not to mention we'd seen AoA's Dark Beast, and then Morrison's Here Comes Tomorrow Beast, so we now know he could be a darker character....). I do think the character is better in the vein of the classical Avengers/Wonder Man buddy model, or the even more perfected X-Men TAS model.

I find modern Beast interesting, I agree he could not have stayed a goofy character forever but some changes to him I didn`t like, because he, just like Kurt, used to have one of the strongest charecters ethics and now he`s often written like he`s just someone who likes to be seen as a moral person without really being one.

[pkingdom]

Please tell me the 'pretend to be gay to spite his ex' was a one-off joke and not a thing that kept happening. I'm meh on Beast for being so sketchy so often, but that would put me over the edge.

[yogaflame]

Genosha was a bit more complicated than that. Before Magneto and the X-men got involved, it already was a 'shining city on a hill' democracy, but only for humans. It was considered a a global superpower, even. But they were that way in large part because they literally enslaved their mutant population, brainwashing and lobotomizing them. The guy in charge of the process, the Genegineer, knew that this was terrible but thought that it was necessary because of how dangerous mutants were. Humans outnumbered mutants on Genosha 100 to 1, and the government was afraid that if mutants were allowed to roam free they'd take over and oppress the humans.

Which is exactly what happens. Magneto, his Acolytes and the X-men all contribute to the destablizing of the country and starting a civil war. The Genoshans were not innocent (I think they tried to mind control Wolverine and Jean when they first arrived in an accident or something), but they did try to get better at one point. Then another X villain showed up and encouraged both sides of the civil war, got the Genegineer killed for trying to stop the slaughter. Finally Magento held the world hostage in exchange for being declared dictator of Genosha (despite humans still living there and having a besieged government) and then kicked the remaining humans out of their country before threatening to go to war with the world.

All that combined is why I'm not 'woe is the mutant paradise of Genosha'

It's even more complicated than that. I've read the original Genosha stories(from the Aussie era) and I am well aware of what happened. Furthermore, in the post AoA 90's, it was revealed that Sugar Man actually informed the gengineering process in secret when he(like Dark Beast, who was credited with manipulating the Morlocks into their gross forms under New York, and developing Emma's psi-tech) was cast into the 616 earth 20 years ago(circa Xavier/Magneto's time in Israel with Legion's mother, Gabriella). I would say it was Storm's team's initial coup of Genosha that destabilized the country the most(when they went in to get Maddie, Logan, and Rogue), followed by X-Tinction Agenda, which left the country in a civil war for most of the 90's. That said, that Genosha got what it deserved. I liked the parallels with South Africa(and for the more adventurous, the USA), in that this 'great shining city on a hill' was actually built on slavery. It was too bad Magneto's take over of the country wasn't better explored, but I think it's fair to say that the writing just wasn't sophisticated enough at the time to do it justice.

[yogaflame]

Please tell me the 'pretend to be gay to spite his ex' was a one-off joke and not a thing that kept happening. I'm meh on Beast for being so sketchy so often, but that would put me over the edge.

It was a thing, but not a huge thing. Morrison was the only one to play with the idea, and it wasn't in more than an issue or two.

[yogaflame]

I agree, one of the things I hated most about 90`s magneto was how stupid he acted sometimes, there was no nuance to his characterization and it drove me out of the comics for a while until the end of HoM. Still I don`t think the right message to send is that it`s ok to feel relief after the death of 16 million ppl just because you didn`t like their leader. At the very least it makes the X-men and other super heros look like complete assholes so most writers ignoring the issue post fact made sense at the time. North Korea and Iran are not it`s leaders and the life of their population is valuable on itself.

The main difference between Magneto's Genosha and more real world 'rogue nations' would be that in Genosha, the threat was the population. Their army was the citizenry, their weapons their own bodies' powers. In Korea or Iran, it's a matter of who is using what currency or central banking institution, or who is going to launch nukes or whatever armaments. In Genosha, their might was their empowered mutant population. A real world correlation doesn't exactly exist.

[Lucyinthesky]

I am not seeking a real world correlation, I am saying it`s wrong to send the message of feeling relief by the death of 16 million ppl, that`s all, it`s a narrative problem that wasn`t really taken care of was left alone for years. Also Genosha`s wasn`t made full of mutants it had a population of former mutants slaves, ex- magistrates(human) and normal citizens who were both human and mutant. Genosha`s main threat in the eyes of the Avengers and the X-men was Magneto and his acolytes but after eve of destruction magneto was out of comission, in a way they were way less dangerous and more open to the human world than Krakoa is actually. I am not saying marvel should bring back Genosha but it`s concept was interesting and the consequences of it`s destruction should be felt imo I am gland Hickman is finally taking note of the effects something like that can cause, along with all the events of decimation, and how that can affect the X-men pov.

[yogaflame]

Genosha did have some humans left in it after Magneto's take over, but not many(most had fled to mainland Africa), and I think by Morrison's arc, the 16 million population was almost exclusively mutants(in that Magneto had invited mutants into the country, and that immigrant population had overtaken whatever humans and mutates were there to begin with, something like how Palestine was taken over by Ashkenazi Jews when Israel was created by the UN after WW2), otherwise Cerebra wouldn't have recorded the plummeting mutant population, and Hickman's Resurrection Protocols wouldn't be interested in resurrecting 16 million mutants.

[Lucyinthesky]

It depends on the writer because Claremont had Kitty`s father going to live on Genosha as a way of showing solidarity to her mutant identity of course he also died during the sentinel attack while he was trying to save some ppl, this suggest Genosha still had free transit for both mutants and humans. But what you said is true as well, there`s a possibility Genosha had more population than 16 million ppl but cerebro only detected the mutant population.

[spirit2011]

I am not seeking a real world correlation, I am saying it`s wrong to send the message of feeling relief by the death of 16 million ppl, that`s all, it`s a narrative problem that wasn`t really taken care of was left alone for years. Also Genosha`s wasn`t made full of mutants it had a population of former mutants slaves, ex- magistrates(human) and normal citizens who were both human and mutant. Genosha`s main threat in the eyes of the Avengers and the X-men was Magneto and his acolytes but after eve of destruction magneto was out of comission, in a way they were way less dangerous and more open to the human world than Krakoa is actually. I am not saying marvel should bring back Genosha but it`s concept was interesting and the consequences of it`s destruction should be felt imo I am gland Hickman is finally taking note of the effects something like that can cause, along with all the events of decimation, and how that can affect the X-men pov.

Not all mutants have viable power, many have just weird mutations.

Losing Genosha should have been a bigger event than it was, should have huge marvel universe repercussions