Creation and Stasis were amazing parts of this crossover. Creation got me excited for this whole thing. It was epic and beautiful. The following issues of each series followed that with quests for their swords. It built up that this was a mystical tournament and a fight for their home and lives. Stasis showed us the Arakkii getting their champions and even in those one or two pages, it gave us an indication of who these new mutants were. The parley was interesting and I enjoyed the formalities of all that. But the first fights were out of tone. I wish the fight between CB and Isca lasted a little longer (especially in her own book). The marriage of Bei and Doug was stupid and out of place. I don’t care if a tarot showed Doug with someone else, it’s just stupid and lazy storytelling. Do I care about this? No because they haven’t spent time at all together except for one panel. I don’t get the gag. Magik arm wrestling? Wolverine had the real fights. Obviously Saturnyne is stacking everything against Krakoa. No shock there. But this wasn’t an enjoyable turn for me. At all.
Sorry for anyone that thought Excalibur was a good read week after week, but it’s not. I continue to follow it because I like all the characters in that book and Betsy being my favorite. Tini is not good solo. When she’s with Hickman on the stand-alone issues her input is great, but I have a feeling it’s mostly Hickman in control except for all the tarot and Otherworld world building stuff. She has Redroot yelling “bring me her head” when it was clear that Redroot doesn’t really want to shed anymore blood. That was in an issue where she was a co-writer.
Last edited by Rnap22; 11-12-2020 at 12:21 PM.
i agree this week of x-books make no sense. the story did a nose dive, what the hell is Hickman thinking? i knew something was off when there was only 9 fighters on the Krakoa side. I know the X-men has some more sword fighters. Shaterstar and Nightcrawler are the first two to come to mind. This story feels forced, i was letting it be till the end but i can't this week. First why the fuck is Doug in this?! Why did storm have to steal her sword? Why did Logan have to go to hell to get the sword he already has? Wolverine has been all over the place ;(I mean character wise). He is killing Saturnyne for no reason, Logan would never do something so stupid. i was hoping for a great x-event, but this event is losing me.
The dream is dead, so wake up and fight!
I might discuss more later, but for now all I will say is I just read the guardians of the galaxy team up with Nightcrawler and Gamora in a swordfighting tournament. That one issue had more and better sword fights than this entire event.
They should make fight-only comics. No plot, not characterization, no nothing, just action.
Rob Liefeld must be available for that.
I don't think anyone is asking for fights for the sake of having fights. It's just that these issues didn't work for a lot of us.
Also, did we really get that much plot or characterization? Did we learn anything new when Pogg and Magik armwrestled? Or when Summoner died? I was really looking forward to him dying, but he didn't even get to say a word. Wolverine kills him after a couple of silent panels. It was really anticlimatic. They killed Rockslide for nothing.
The only part I'd argue was interesting and meaningful would be Doug's wedding. I would have liked to understand why Bei went along with it, but it was still interesting to see Doug fascinated by the fact that he couldn't understand her.
I like it. These 3 issues were fun. And totally cool if it wasn't some peoples' cup of tea, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I think expecting any of these matches we saw to be THE satisfying conclusion to any of the things set up so far may not be right to judge it by. Theres still 150+ pages remaining, folks. The event and largely all of Dawn of X has been cheeky and weird, and Hickman is letting other writers and artists have fun with it and has chosen not to rule with an iron fist. The result may not be everyone’s taste of course.
I personally think the grand dramatic potential for "what if xmen had sword duels and fought one duel each issue for a month" was pretty nil to begin with. What we learned this week is that the tournament is not what any of them truly expected and probably Krakoa and any of the Arakko folks that want a fair fight are gonna have to get around Saturnyne's weird games to do that. At that point, maybe we do end up with big payoffs and battles for a few issues where we get to see Storm do her thing with this Wakandan sword, where we get to see Doug have his heroic moment where he shows his heart makes up for his lack of fight experience, where we get to see Magik light some fools up. I'm sure we will get to see an emotional conclusion or climax to Apocalypse's family story. I bet there will be more done with Solem and Wolverine in the future.
I think this week was meant to be the rug-pulling. My response was also WTF, but I was laughing and smiling as I said those three words. Next week will probably be totally different. My prediction is that starting next week the independent efforts of Wolverine, Apocalypse+maybe Genesis, Jean+Scott+Cable/SWORD, and the Hellions leads to the end of Saturnyne's dumb tournament and we may end up with some real action-y sword-related payoff/shenanigans. Krakoa now knows what they suspected: that Saturnyne was jerking them around. I for one don't expect 5 more issues of it. We have just been told this event is not what we thought it was, and I don’t think we can use this moment to judge the whole thing. This is no HoXPoX but I mean 5 issues from the end of House of X and no one had any idea where it was going, people were still all caught up thinking it was going to be an alternate universe reset at the end, or that these weren’t OUR x-men. In a few weeks, we will know!
These OG Horsemen were supposed to be the baddest of the bad asses but Famine's busy running Dryador, Pestilence's trying on new bandages or some sh*t, War's having a bad week and Death is simping over Storm.
Give X-Men to Nick Spencer.
"Cable was right!"
I keep telling folks that Hickman OCs aint all that, and I keep getting proved right even though folks like to pretend otherwise.
I wonder what Deaths' connection to the scarab beetle is? He was offended when it was served as a dish, and the waiter paid the ultimate price with the death stare. You even saw the beetle imprinted on the back of Deaths' head. It threw me off because I thought that was a DC thing w/blue beetle.
They are "All that".
We don't have a problem with the OC's, it's how certain writers, not HiX-Man, seem to be writing them for this event.
As irrelevant and time-wasting as X-Men 13 and 14 were, HiX-Man wrote o--[A]--o and Genesis quite well.
Lord Ewing *Praise His name! Uplift Him in song!* Your divine works will be remembered and glorified in worship for all eternity. Amen!