Should mutants have more of a presence outside the X-Books?

[Stormultt Divine]

Racism doesn't need to be oppressive for something to be considered racist.

Nothing about Krakoa can be coded as anything remotely racist, period.

No argument that any of you have put forward will hold up when compared to the systematic and militaristic oppression of mutantkind, quit it.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Let's be honest.....the books are selling because of Hickman.

Hickman's a major factor, but at the same time, the slew of satellite titles that he has sponsored and built, like Marauders, Excalibur, X-Force have all done well too. This suggests an interest in the X-Men titles itself and the characters and mythos is strong.

And it doesn't look like Feige is giving the X-Men a big push in the MCU right now.

The pandemic being what is is, nothing is getting a big push right now, since the initially proposed delay for restarting production has widened greatly owing to the surge of cases across the board owing to reopening too early. And considering the PR disaster that is going to land on Disney's feet thanks to Disney World opening too early at Florida and no social distancing guidelines practised or enforce in a state with the highest cases in the world...everything is going to be up in the air for days to come.

In fact, it's an open question whether the public will even be in a mood for superhero movies after the pandemic.

So the comics will be all we have for now.

Phase 4 doesn't have anything X-Men related. Most of the rumors are about Doom being introduced (off screen) , possibly in an end credit scene with Black Widow in November. And there have been rumors of about the Fantastic Four with John Kraskinski..he's left some hints that he's interested. All the major stuff had been done with the X-Men. The Dark Phoenix film tanked and it was another poorly conceived version of that arc. Yes, I'm aware that FF had 3 failed films with Fox.....but it was Fox after all.

Let me say, that, assuming that the post-pandemic era augurs well for the genre, I have no issues with Feige and Marvel taking their time with reintroducing the X-Men. Obviously there will be recasting, and so on. At the end of the day X-Men fans have X-Men First Class, Logan, X-Men Days of Future Past, X-Men Fox Animation, X-Men Evolution to fall back to. So I totally can understand Marvel prioritizing getting the Fantastic Four done right for the first time ever over bringing the X-Men back right away. In fact by then Hickman (who indicated that he might be around for five years at most, same time as his FF and Avengers runs) could well have wrapped up with his X-Men run, allowing Feige and others to draw on ideas from across his run. As it is, Hickman's given them the perfect idea of bringing the X-Men into the MCU. Simply making the previous Fox movies into the earlier lives of Moira X, and the latest timeline being the MCU life.

And there are a number of people here expressing the desire to see the X-Men and the rest of the MCU interact again. I would like to see that too. The Zdarsky's X-Men /Fantastic Four mini will conclude this month. Quite frankly I find it surprisingly disappointing esp from him. IMO that mini has not brought the fandom together like it should have and is instead igniting the animosity. And it doesn't have to be that way. He's got a big task to accomplish something positive in this last issue. Easy way out.....blame it all on Doom and everyone is happy

Yeah, I like the art and the interactions between Kitty and Franklin and Valeria, but Zdarsky didn't do his best there. Partly I think is that he never got to write Franklin and Valeria before on Marvel Two-in-One, not extensively at any rate. And also this is his first time with the X-Men, so he can't resist doing his Magneto scene, his Xavier scene and so on, since he writes like this could be his only chance to touch these characters.

[Iron Maiden]

Hickman's a major factor, but at the same time, the slew of satellite titles that he has sponsored and built, like Marauders, Excalibur, X-Force have all done well too. This suggests an interest in the X-Men titles itself and the characters and mythos is strong.

And he did the same with the Fantastic Four only on a smaller scale. He launched the FF title after the death bag issue and for the first time in many a year the Fantastic Four had two ongoing. But it would not last long....when Bendis ended his Avengers run, Marvel editorial played musical chairs and had many titles change writers. Hickman was either given or was chosen to take over (never did find out which) the Avengers . I theorize it was that later because he admitted to having to wind up his FF stories quickly. The Parliament of Doom arc definitely was suppossed be longer and he revealed that in an interview. And he did bring over some of his FF cast into New Avengers and you know how all tha played out. It culminated into Secret Wars, which was his true farewell to the Fantastic Four series IMO.

The X-Titles had the advantage of a writer like Claremont who was giving Marvel tons of IP with the expanding cast in his X-Men run. The Fantastic Four did that in the Lee/Kirby era by having many characters debut in the FF...Silver Surfer, Galactus, Kang, Adam Warlock (if you count his cocoon), the Inhumans, the Kree and the Skrulls. But Claremont had a 16 year run, far longer than any FF writer. The FF had a good run with Byrne on the title but slipped into mediocrity with Steve Englehart and Tom DeFalco, with a brief interlude of Walt Simonson to provide some relief.

But I'm forgetting the 500lb gorilla in the mix..... Spider-Man. That title is the most consistent money maker for Marvel over the decades with merchandise, cartoons, appearances on the Electric Company (featuring narration by Morgan Freeman!), etc.

The pandemic being what is is, nothing is getting a big push right now, since the initially proposed delay for restarting production has widened greatly owing to the surge of cases across the board owing to reopening too early. And considering the PR disaster that is going to land on Disney's feet thanks to Disney World opening too early at Florida and no social distancing guidelines practised or enforce in a state with the highest cases in the world...everything is going to be up in the air for days to come.

In fact, it's an open question whether the public will even be in a mood for superhero movies after the pandemic. So the comics will be all we have for now.



Let me say, that, assuming that the post-pandemic era augurs well for the genre, I have no issues with Feige and Marvel taking their time with reintroducing the X-Men. Obviously there will be recasting, and so on. At the end of the day X-Men fans have X-Men First Class, Logan, X-Men Days of Future Past, X-Men Fox Animation, X-Men Evolution to fall back to. So I totally can understand Marvel prioritizing getting the Fantastic Four done right for the first time ever over bringing the X-Men back right away. In fact by then Hickman (who indicated that he might be around for five years at most, same time as his FF and Avengers runs) could well have wrapped up with his X-Men run, allowing Feige and others to draw on ideas from across his run. As it is, Hickman's given them the perfect idea of bringing the X-Men into the MCU. Simply making the previous Fox movies into the earlier lives of Moira X, and the latest timeline being the MCU life.



Yeah, I like the art and the interactions between Kitty and Franklin and Valeria, but Zdarsky didn't do his best there. Partly I think is that he never got to write Franklin and Valeria before on Marvel Two-in-One, not extensively at any rate. And also this is his first time with the X-Men, so he can't resist doing his Magneto scene, his Xavier scene and so on, since he writes like this could be his only chance to touch these characters.

I'm hoping that this long layoff has given him a chance to really think about what he wants to accomplish in this series. It is an obvious call back to Claremont's Fantastic Four vs X-Men mini in which he surprisingly showed favor to the FF over his X-Men. Magneto was brushed aside like a naughty child by Doom and it was Doom and Reed who saved the day. I'm hoping that Franklin and Kitty play a big role in patching things up between the adults in Zdarsky's wrap up to his series.

[Huntsman Spider]

Thanks. Much appreciated.





Okay, but at the same time, we should not use her past continuity actions as a cudgel to deflect criticism from Susan's behavior in Zdarsky's miniseries. Emma Frost hasn't done anything near the same scale of jerkishness since Joss Whedon's run, which is about 2004, so 16 years back, greater than the distance between Fantastic Four #1(1961) and Wolverine's first apperance in Incredible Hulk #180 (1974), for point of comparison. If we are going to use the past, we can use Reed and Sue's too. In terms of doing shady and dubious things, palling around with villains, dubious taste in costumes (remember Malice and the 4-Shaped boob window?), I think you can find everyone evens out at the end.

Hickman does write Susan more compassionately and moderately in HOX#1 by comparison. And have no problems with her in that issue at all. And obviously this is an ongoing story so it's too early to call stuff.



Fair enough. But again the fact is this thread is blatantly a thread devoted to bashing Hickman's X-Men run and made by posters who aren't familiar with the happenings of the run, have a surface knowledge, or are otherwise jealous that after having the thumbs lifted off the scale, X-Men once again prove themselves to be the biggest comics on the market and are vicariously and performatively kvetching about the mutants based on a spurious understanding of the shared universe.




Apparently Krakoa offends humankind simply by virtue of existing.

"Yet here they come to kill us all, Charles. And all we've done to earn it is promise not to kill them. We even made it a law."
-- MAGNETO, X-Men (2019) #4, written by Jonathan Hickman.

Since Krakoa arrived, there have been multiple acts of subterfuge, and attempted assassinations, bad faith, and violation of international norms against Krakoa.

First of all, Magneto has been an anti-hero and hero since the end of Morrison's run and the retcon of the Xornetto and before that in the 80s, he was put on trial and exonerated and then became a mentor to the X-men when Xavier "died". Magneto bear in mind saved the lives of all San Franciscans and likewise gave his life trying to stop the Incursions, defending the universe and existence itself at the cost of his life during one of the Time Runs Out tie-ins.

In the case of Apocalypse, well obviously Krakoa wants to make sure they have all the power they can on their own side and stave off any attempts by bad guys to play mutants against one another. Apocalypse also has a past as a hero (which Hickman introduced in his series), so let's see where it goes. Despite all the crazy stuff he's done, Thor gives Loki numerous chances, Black Bolt same with Maximus, and so on and so forth.

I don't see how having those two is somehow "time to sharpen the nukes". It makes no sense nor is it especially unprecedented.



No, the point is there are going to be consequences for constant neglect, abuse, murder, genocide, discrimination, and indifference. That's what people seem to be upset about because it's so rare for fiction to invite the idea of consequence.

Xavier says it very clearly (emphasis added by me)

"Humans of the planet Earth... I am the mutant Charles Xavier, and I bring you a message of hope. In the coming days, you will learn of several far-reaching pharmaceutical breakthroughs that have been discovered by mutant scientists. These drugs will extend human life, heal diseases of the mind and will prevent—or cure—most common maladies. Influenza, Alzheimer's, ALS, many cancers...gone. Overnight. These drugs will make life on this planet...better...In the past, they would have been a gift. Something freely given by me—to you—because I believed it would create harmony between our two peoples. That was my dream—harmony—but you have taught me a harsh lesson: That dream was a lie. You see, all I ever wanted was peace between mutants and humans. All I ever wanted was to love you and for you to love us. We wanted to save you—and we did, many times—but in return, all you did was stand by while evil men killed our children. Over 16 million of them.
So there will be no gift...for you have not earned it.... In return for making our lives better, we will do the same for you. And if you find yourself asking, who are these mutants to think they can dictate terms to us? We are the future. An evolutionary inevitability. The Earth's true inheritors. You closed your eyes last night believing this world would be yours forever. That was your dream. And like mine...it was a lie. Here is the new truth: While you slept, the world changed."
— Professor X, House of X #6, written by Jonathan Hickman.

Humanity needs to start earning it.

This. All of this, especially now when there's a growing reckoning in real life with how years, decades, even centuries of unthinking acceptance and/or willful ignorance of the systematic oppression faced by various minorities and other vulnerable groups in society has led to a possible breaking point for that society. Krakoa may be an extreme response in-universe and in real life, but when it comes to a people that were explicitly threatened with and targeted for state-sanctioned genocide while those called heroes otherwise did nothing to stop it, extreme is more necessary than some people might (want to) think.

[Alan2099]

all you did was stand by while evil men killed our children. Over 16 million of them.

Wait. The ONLY time I can think of when that many mutants were killed (other than the Age of Apocalypse where a mutant did it) was Cassandra Nova.

Is Xavier blaming All humans for something his weird psychic alien evil twin sister did? She wasn't even a human (I don't think) and mutants didn't exactly do anything to stop her either. Why do humans keep getting blamed for that?

Yes, sentinels did the killing and humans made the sentinels but if you want to play that game, mutants funded the sentinels. Those particular sentinels were also decommissioned, falling apart, and left abandoned in a jungle. Humans had already torn them up and thrown them away. What were they supposed to do? Stop using sentinels? They weren't using them.

We are the future. An evolutionary inevitability. The Earth's true inheritors. You closed your eyes last night believing this world would be yours forever. That was your dream. And like mine...it was a lie. Here is the new truth: While you slept, the world changed."

That's just straight up supervillain talk.

[Stormultt Divine]

That's just straight up supervillain talk.

Seems like a group of people realizing their potential to me. *shrugs*
Also Magneto was talking to a bunch of spies and people who came hostile to HIM...sooo yeah.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Ill take this statement seriously when krakoa starts oppeessing humankind.

The fact it won't let non-humans on the island and that if any were there it wanted them monitored with a mutant minder speaks for itself. And the X-men just went along with it.

Seems like a group of people realizing their potential to me. *shrugs*
Also Magneto was talking to a bunch of spies and people who came hostile to HIM...sooo yeah.

That's like a speech Magneto writes, how often do you agree with speeches he makes? Those were humans the Krakoa government invited, and of course humans would be hostile to him he's a known mass murderer and terrorist who is responsible for killing numerous humans, and mutants. Xavier's "absence" was a middle finger to humanity, Magneto was sending a message and they got it loud and clear.

Nothing about Krakoa can be coded as anything remotely racist, period.

No argument that any of you have put forward will hold up when compared to the systematic and militaristic oppression of mutantkind, quit it.

Sure it is.

Where do the mutants who were oppressing mutant kind fit into this? Their leaders have been given seats on the Council.

Also, one of the Council members oppressed humanity for millennia by destroying countries whenever they got to a certain level, and Selene tried to genocide Rome for a spell in the ancient past.

[Stormultt Divine]

The fact it won't let non-humans on the island and that if any were there it wanted them monitored with a mutant minder speaks for itself. And the X-men just went along with it.



That's like a speech Magneto writes, how often do you agree with speeches he makes? Those were humans the Krakoa government invited, and of course humans would be hostile to him he's a known mass murderer and terrorist who is responsible for killing numerous humans, and mutants. Xavier's "absence" was a middle finger to humanity, Magneto was sending a message and they got it loud and clear.



Sure it is.

Stop saying that like its fact, Krakoa does let non-mutant families and spouses onto the island who have connections to the Mutants, so let's just KILL this fable that you all have going around right now.

Those humans would have been hostile toward him or any other mutant showcasing Krakoa to them, they were thinking on PANEL of ways Krakoa could use their gateways for war, they came armed and ready before they even knew Magneto would be their tour guide so yeah...stop.

And it really isn't, Humanity reached a point where they were the majority and anything that threatened their little pride and way of thinking and life was deemed evil.
Mutants, especially the ones that did not look at all human are/were at risk for imprisonment, experiments or worse, did Earth's mightiest heroes ever really step in to help the normalization of mutants? no, sweetheart...they didn't.

So why keep in-fighting and dividing themselves?
why not come together and create something for people shunned across the globe JUST for them?!
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that and like someone else stated in this thread, it is only human ENTITLEMENT that wants to be on that island.
Feeling entitled to everything because of being used to gaining access to everything around them....well not this time.
Human privilege and entitlement holds no weight on Krakoa and it's going to rightfully stay that way.

[Alan2099]

Do you really feel that gif adds anything to this conversation?

[Stormultt Divine]

If me using a gif distracts you from anything else that I said ..then sir that is a very personal issue I'm going to let you deal with on your own.

[Chris0013]

Stop saying that like its fact, Krakoa does let non-mutant families and spouses onto the island who have connections to the Mutants, so let's just KILL this fable that you all have going around right now.

Those humans would have been hostile toward him or any other mutant showcasing Krakoa to them, they were thinking on PANEL of ways Krakoa could use their gateways for war, they came armed and ready before they even knew Magneto would be their tour guide so yeah...stop.

And it really isn't, Humanity reached a point where they were the majority and anything that threatened their little pride and way of thinking and life was deemed evil.
Mutants, especially the ones that did not look at all human are/were at risk for imprisonment, experiments or worse, did Earth's mightiest heroes ever really step in to help the normalization of mutants? no, sweetheart...they didn't.

So why keep in-fighting and dividing themselves?
why not come together and create something for people shunned across the globe JUST for them?!
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that and like someone else stated in this thread, it is only humans ENTITLEMENT that wants to be on that island.
Feeling entitled to everything because of being used to gaining access to everything around them....well not this time.
Human privilege and entitlement holds no weight on Krakoa and it's going to rightfully stay that way.

The reason you do not see non-mutants heroes defending and speaking out for mutants is an out of universe thing...it is a writer and editor choice to focus on their stories....hence my belief that mutants should have more of a presence outside the X-Books and to have the issue come up that those teams have to comment on or engage with. If the Avengers were in the mansion in NYC and not a giant space alien corpse in the arctic...and there were mutants on the team...and there was an anti-mutant protest and Cap gave comments to the press...then it would be addressed.

As far as mutants coming together...evil is evil...Apocalypse is evil, Sinister is evil, Shaw is evil....you do ally yourself with evil because then you are complicit in it.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

And he did the same with the Fantastic Four only on a smaller scale. He launched the FF title after the death bag issue and for the first time in many a year the Fantastic Four had two ongoing.

Yeah, but Hickman wrote both Fantastic Four and Future Foundation. In the case of HoX/PoX and DoX, Hickman writes the main title and a few one-shots and special arcs but everything else is written by young writers like Gerry Duggan, Benjamin Percy, Tini Howard, and those young writers are also doing well in their spinoff titles.

The X-Titles had the advantage of a writer like Claremont who was giving Marvel tons of IP with the expanding cast in his X-Men run. The Fantastic Four did that in the Lee/Kirby era by having many characters debut in the FF...Silver Surfer, Galactus, Kang, Adam Warlock (if you count his cocoon), the Inhumans, the Kree and the Skrulls. But Claremont had a 16 year run, far longer than any FF writer. The FF had a good run with Byrne on the title but slipped into mediocrity with Steve Englehart and Tom DeFalco, with a brief interlude of Walt Simonson to provide some relief.

But I'm forgetting the 500lb gorilla in the mix..... Spider-Man. That title is the most consistent money maker for Marvel over the decades with merchandise, cartoons, appearances on the Electric Company (featuring narration by Morgan Freeman!), etc.

Spider-Man is always #1 overall, but in terms of comics, Claremont's X-Men outsold Spider-Man in the 80s (which was a very high-selling period for Spidey). Todd MacFarlane briefly held the spot for best-selling comic of all time and then Jim Lee's X-Men #1 came along, and that became the best selling issue ever.

And the 80s was the period when X-titles started branching off. First was New Mutants, then you had minis with Wolverine (which became an ongoing), and then one-shots like Magik, Dazzler, Longshot. Claremont wrote most of them even then, with X-Factor (i.e. the reunion of the 05 which tangentially and unintentionally resulted in Jean's resurrection) being the first to step out of his shadow. Hickman has proven more collaborative in his first year alone.

This. All of this, especially now when there's a growing reckoning in real life with how years, decades, even centuries of unthinking acceptance and/or willful ignorance of the systematic oppression faced by various minorities and other vulnerable groups in society has led to a possible breaking point for that society. Krakoa may be an extreme response in-universe and in real life, but when it comes to a people that were explicitly threatened with and targeted for state-sanctioned genocide while those called heroes otherwise did nothing to stop it, extreme is more necessary than some people might (want to) think.

I agree.

When the Fantastic Four and others get on their high horses about Krakoa, what they actually come across is this:

Comedian Meme.jpg

[Stormultt Divine]

As far as mutants coming together...evil is evil...Apocalypse is evil, Sinister is evil, Shaw is evil....you do ally yourself with evil because then you are complicit in it.

Debatable.

Survival of the fittest is a natural method that even humans acknowledge when documenting and studying nature....
No?

[Alan2099]

If me using a gif distracts you from anything else that I said ..then sir that is a very personal issue I'm going to let you deal with on your own.

I was simply wondering why you felt the need to include it at all.

It feels somewhat disrespectful. I'm not sure if that was your intention or not but if you are trying to make a point, having a gif where people are applauding your statement is quite distracting.

Debatable.

Survival of the fittest is a natural form of survival that even humans acknowledge when documenting and studying nature....
No?

And murdering innocents is pretty much a big NO regardless of what culture you're in.

[Lucyinthesky]

Let's be honest.....the books are selling because of Hickman. Once he leaves, there's no guarantees that it will continue on this renaissance. Same thing happened to the Fantastic Four, which had been long in the doldrums. Now with Slott, it's tanking. The Doctor Doom Solo outsold it back in March. And it doesn't look like Feige is giving the X-Men a big push in the MCU right now. Phase 4 doesn't have anything X-Men related. Most of the rumors are about Doom being introduced (off screen) , possibly in an end credit scene with Black Widow in November. And there have been rumors of about the Fantastic Four with John Kraskinski..he's left some hints that he's interested. All the major stuff had been done with the X-Men. The Dark Phoenix film tanked and it was another poorly conceived version of that arc. Yes, I'm aware that FF had 3 failed films with Fox.....but it was Fox after all.

Hickman is a big name indeed but the X-men usually sell well and when they have big names they even sell great it was just the direction of the franchise that needed work because they were in circle of pure decimation stories, Days of Future Past was good on itself because it planted an interesting future situatuation but when all the stories are like that it erodes the creativity and potential that made the X-men a succeful franchise in the first place.

I belive Kevin Feige will do with the X-men what he did with the Avengers, made them show up on different movies before doing the MCU version of the X-men while at the same time developing the Fantastic Four and Dr Doom, I heard some really good rumors about Doom possibly being on the Dr Strange movie along with Wanda, of Storm appearing on the Black Panther movie, Rouge with Ms Marvel, Xavier and Reed possibly as iluminati frineds of Strange, Wolverine on the Hulk or Falcon and the Winter soldier series so I believe the X-men are in very good hands with Feige, I think he has made a great work with most marvel characters and he will do the same with the X-men and the Fantastic Four.

And there are a number of people here expressing the desire to see the X-Men and the rest of the MCU interact again. I would like to see that too. The Zdarsky's X-Men /Fantastic Four mini will conclude this month. Quite frankly I find it surprisingly disappointing esp from him. IMO that mini has not brought the fandom together like it should have and is instead igniting the animosity. And it doesn't have to be that way. He's got a big task to accomplish something positive in this last issue. Easy way out.....blame it all on Doom and everyone is happy

I think that will be the case, lest just let Doom do his thing I agree that it would be nice if he made the adults part on a positive note to close up the series.