Wanda's “unforgivable” crime?!

[gurkle]

Have you read HOX/POX bc those were amazing. His ongoing is nowhere near as good and actually starts off a bit disapponting but eventually picks up and its been solid in recent issues.. The best material however isnt in his ongoing as X-Force has done amazing stuff with the current status quo. Hickman's New Mutant issues are still my favorite and Maraurders has been a fun ride. Hicmnan's ongoing primarily exists to build the world and we are seeing those nuggets play out elsewhere and/or being set up for future plotlines

Something that clarified my feelings about Hickman was in an interview he did recently where he talked about how he hates episodic TV shows - i.e. shows where episodes tell a complete story that gets resolved in an hour. I feel like as a writer he is all about the long term and doesn't care that much about telling a satisfying story in the short term. When I pick up one of his comics I usually feel like it's just teasing exciting stuff that may or may not happen toward the end of his run, but I want to have some excitement right now.

However, as de facto co-editor of the X-Men line he's made it more interesting than it has been in a long time by forcing the writers to get away from the usual X-men clichés and finding a status quo that allows them to combine a new direction with old-school character nostalgia. So I can't argue with the decision to put him in charge.

[zinderel]

Just wanted to say that I’m pretty sure the ‘Extinction team’ was so named because it formed in response to mutant kind effectively going extinct thanks to Wanda depowering nearly every mutant who survived the Genosha genocide just weeks before. Oh, and neutering the remaining mutants, too. Oh, also, AND ensuring that no human would ever give birth to a mutant ever again on any level of the multiverse.

Because of her daddy issues.

Oh yeah, and somethingsomething ‘it was Doom’ somethingsomething ‘Life Force’ (that no one had ever heard of before or since and was somehow responsible for a MASSIVE amount of DEATHS) somethingsomething ‘redeemed’...? Anyway, CLEARLY she was redeemed when she helped her former teammates fix the cosmic-scale mistake caused by their arrogance and lack of respect for Earth’s resident experts on the Phoenix...and as a byproduct, she generously allowed mutants to be born again.

But, yeah, even if I’m mistaken on the origin of the ‘extinction team’ name, it’s totally fair that people were ‘scared’ of a bunch of neutered, all but eradicated freaks. I mean...they used a scary word! And that’s MUCH worse than something harmless like ‘giant purple murderbots designed to hunt based on the principles of eugenics’ or ‘clouds of alien religion gas that sterilize and kill mutants while we all hold citywide parties to become Inhumans, which are TOTALLY a different thing than muties!’

And it’s also completely justified that humanity deliberately looked the other way during - when not actively participating in - the several subsequent attempts to completely kill off every last surviving mutant. And it’s way overblown for mutants to be upset about all of that. Like, geeze...get over it, freaks. It was a year or two ago (in universe) at this point...Be happy the REAL heroes let you keep breathing our air, muties...

[gurkle]

Just wanted to say that I’m pretty sure the ‘Extinction team’ was so named because it formed in response to mutant kind effectively going extinct thanks to Wanda depowering nearly everyone who survived the Genosha genocide just weeks before, and neutering the remaining mutants - AND ensuring that no human would ever give birth to a mutant ever again - on every level of the multiverse...because of her daddy issues.

Marvel's writers and editors really, truly didn't care if Wanda could ever be a usable hero again, did they? They made her do one of the worst things ever, for absolutely terrible reasons (hurting millions of innocents to get revenge on her daddy) and then made her responsible for years' worth of horror.

I don't blame X-fans for hating her (unless they expect Wanda's fans to accept she could have done it; obviously we can't, because then her 40+ years of stories before HoM would be lies). I blame Marvel. They're so addicted to sudden shocks that they didn't feel any responsibility to keep a heroic character from being made an unusable genocidal monster.

[Steel Inquisitor]

once again, what autorithy do the avengers have?They aren't shield supported or even competent enough to be asked to help, they aren't the justice league, they aren't universaly respected or prestigious, especially compared to the x-men , and also they never show up to help but aparently always show up when it's time to mess things up for mutants?

That's never stopped the X-men before, why would it stop the Avengers? They are the Marvel Justice League. They've been working with SHIELD for years, even during Bendis run. They have more acclaim in universe than the X-men ever did, and Krakoa who knows? The books don't get into how they're viewed that much by other countries or groups. Like when ever Kang shows up the X-men are nowhere to be found? That's the same reason they don't appear in X-men books to solve their problems.

And money speaks louder, we will see what happens to krakoa, i wish non x-men books weren't put into consideration for an x-men story, wich only cements how much I hate this shared universe cage.

If its about money out of universe Avengers is the top super-hero team, not the X-men. But it's not about money, it's about Hickman and editorial - Hickman's not been shy about planting seeds that Krakoa has a time limit. "Mutants lose."

[zinderel]

Marvel's writers and editors really, truly didn't care if Wanda could ever be a usable hero again, did they? They made her do one of the worst things ever, for absolutely terrible reasons (hurting millions of innocents to get revenge on her daddy) and then made her responsible for years' worth of horror.

I don't blame X-fans for hating her (unless they expect Wanda's fans to accept she could have done it; obviously we can't, because then her 40+ years of stories before HoM would be lies). I blame Marvel. They're so addicted to sudden shocks that they didn't feel any responsibility to keep a heroic character from being made an unusable genocidal monster.

Yeah. I mean, like I said before. I don’t hate Wanda. I hate what editorial and Bendis made her do.

But she DID it.

And all the weak ‘justifications’ like Doom or the Life Force were just putting bandaids on a tumor. They were excuses, not her owning what she did. When Dark Phoenix ate a Star and killed off a race of sentient broccoli aliens, it was horrifying. When Jean came back to herself and felt the weight of what she had done, she was horrified. HORRIFIED. And when she saw her loved ones fighting to save her, risking their lives for...HER...when she felt that darkness rising again, she did what she had to do and ended the threat with a selfless sacrifice.

THAT is heroism. That is redemption. She had paid the ultimate price for her crimes, and when she was reborn, she didn’t have that baggage weighing her down anymore, except in quiet moments of self reflection, or verbal jabs from an enemy.

I’m NOT saying Wanda should die for M Day. But she DOES need to own it and make TRUE amends for it. Not be flippant and dismissive, like in Uncanny Avengers. Not be handed excuse after excuse for her actions, like in Children’s Crusade. Hickman is the first writer to show her GENUINELY bothered by her actions. And I’m pretty sure he has a plan for moving towards a real redemption for her. One that will let everyone, in and out of universe, finally move forward.

And it’s about damn time.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Yeah. I mean, like I said before. I don’t hate Wanda. I hate what editorial and Bendis made her do.

But she DID it. And all the weak ‘justifications’ like Doom or the Life Force were just putting bandaids on a tumor. They were excuses, not her owning what she did. When Dark Phoenix are a Star and killed off sentient broccoli aliens, it was horrifying. When Jean came back to herself and felt the weight of what she had done, she was horrified. HORRIFIED. And when she saw her loved ones fighting to save her, risking their lives for...HER...when she felt that darkness rising again, she did what she had to do and ended the threat with a selfless sacrifice.

I’m NOT saying Wanda should die for M Day. But she DOES need to own it and make TRUE amends for it. Not be flippant and dismissive, like in Uncanny Avengers. Not be handed excuse after excuse for her actions, like in Children’s Crusade. Hickman is the first writer to show her GENUINELY bothered by her actions. And I’m pretty sure he has a plan for moving towards a real redemption for her. One that will let everyone, in and out of universe, finally move forward.

And it’s about damn time.

That's like blaming Jean Grey herself for the Dark Phoenix. She's a character who's been traumatised by events that she mental health issues, and made horrendous mistakes when put into high risk situations because the writers wanted her to do something bad. The official reason she did the things she did prior to House of M, in Bendis' Avengers, was due to her having a mental break down. She's not making up the Life Force or Doom, if she was we'd have proof of it in comics and it'd be wildly out of character for her do it.

Edit: Wanda recently risked her life trying to undo M-Day by resurrected the mutants on Genosha. She's not allowed to fix things because editorial won't let her, doing anything will in fact make it worse because she has no agency of her own in comics.

[GenericUsername]

Yeah. I mean, like I said before. I don’t hate Wanda. I hate what editorial and Bendis made her do.

But she DID it.

And all the weak ‘justifications’ like Doom or the Life Force were just putting bandaids on a tumor. They were excuses, not her owning what she did. When Dark Phoenix ate a Star and killed off a race of sentient broccoli aliens, it was horrifying. When Jean came back to herself and felt the weight of what she had done, she was horrified. HORRIFIED. And when she saw her loved ones fighting to save her, risking their lives for...HER...when she felt that darkness rising again, she did what she had to do and ended the threat with a selfless sacrifice.

THAT is heroism. That is redemption. She had paid the ultimate price for her crimes, and when she was reborn, she didn’t have that baggage weighing her down anymore, except in quiet moments of self reflection, or verbal jabs from an enemy.

I’m NOT saying Wanda should die for M Day. But she DOES need to own it and make TRUE amends for it. Not be flippant and dismissive, like in Uncanny Avengers. Not be handed excuse after excuse for her actions, like in Children’s Crusade. Hickman is the first writer to show her GENUINELY bothered by her actions. And I’m pretty sure he has a plan for moving towards a real redemption for her. One that will let everyone, in and out of universe, finally move forward.

And it’s about damn time.

I don't think she's the focus at all for his story. She has barely even appeared. Nor should she be. Because the focus in the x-books should be on x-characters. Wanda's redemption should have came years ago, in something of her own. It'd be too late at this point for it to feel satisfying.

[gurkle]

Yeah. I mean, like I said before. I don’t hate Wanda. I hate what editorial and Bendis made her do.

But she DID it.

And all the weak ‘justifications’ like Doom or the Life Force were just putting bandaids on a tumor. They were excuses, not her owning what she did. When Dark Phoenix ate a Star and killed off a race of sentient broccoli aliens, it was horrifying. When Jean came back to herself and felt the weight of what she had done, she was horrified. HORRIFIED. And when she saw her loved ones fighting to save her, risking their lives for...HER...when she felt that darkness rising again, she did what she had to do and ended the threat with a selfless sacrifice.

THAT is heroism. That is redemption. She had paid the ultimate price for her crimes, and when she was reborn, she didn’t have that baggage weighing her down anymore, except in quiet moments of self reflection, or verbal jabs from an enemy.

I’m NOT saying Wanda should die for M Day. But she DOES need to own it and make TRUE amends for it. Not be flippant and dismissive, like in Uncanny Avengers. Not be handed excuse after excuse for her actions, like in Children’s Crusade. Hickman is the first writer to show her GENUINELY bothered by her actions. And I’m pretty sure he has a plan for moving towards a real redemption for her. One that will let everyone, in and out of universe, finally move forward.

And it’s about damn time.

As I've said, I wish Wanda had gotten the treatment Jean did, which made it very clear that she was always a hero. This isn't what Wanda got because I think the writers and editors were not sure if they even wanted her to remain a hero. I think Bendis's concept of her was someone who was always destined to go bad because she was Magneto's daughter. From the way Hickman wrote her in the Empyre minseries I suspect he has a similar view of the character, that she's not really cut out to be a hero.

I'm not optimistic that whatever Hickman has planned will be good for the character. Maybe he'll redeem her in the eyes of some X-Men readers, but for fans of the Scarlet Witch as a character, we're seeing that 15 years later she still is being defined by an action that has nothing to do with who she is as a character, and whenever it's brought up, it's to make her look incompetent and stupid at best.

I'm just tired of it all. I want her to mostly stay away from the X-Men comics and have stories that are about moving her forward and connecting her with the characters she hasn't even been allowed to talk to in years. I don't trust Hickman, who never wrote her during his Avengers run and seems to have contempt for the classic Avengers, to do anything with her but humiliate her and maybe kill her off to "redeem" her for something she couldn't possibly have done.

She should just be allowed to be a character again, and that means accepting that "No More Mutants" was a big moment for the X-Men franchise but has nothing to do with Wanda Maximoff, any more than a story that tried to make the case that Jean Grey was actually a mass murdering psychopath.

[Havok83]

That's like blaming Jean Grey herself for the Dark Phoenix. She's a character who's been traumatised by events that she mental health issues, and made horrendous mistakes when put into high risk situations because the writers wanted her to do something bad. The official reason she did the things she did prior to House of M, in Bendis' Avengers, was due to her having a mental break down. She's not making up the Life Force or Doom, if she was we'd have proof of it in comics and it'd be wildly out of character for her do it.

Edit: Wanda recently risked her life trying to undo M-Day by resurrected the mutants on Genosha. She's not allowed to fix things because editorial won't let her, doing anything will in fact make it worse because she has no agency of her own in comics.

Jean Grey blames herself and to this day takes full ownership of what she did even though it technically wasnt her. She doesnt blame Emma Frost, Mastermind, the Phoenix Force or any mental breakdown. She owes her sh-t

No, Wanda did not try to undo M-Day. The mutants on Genosha had nothing to do with M-Day. Those mutants were dead before M-Day happened and therefore were not impacted by her actions when they were alive. Her actions in Empyre were stupid and made no sense. The problem she created in HOM would have still remained even if her spell worked and the Genoshans didnt return as zombies

[Alan2099]

Stopping the Phoenix and restarting mutant kind wasn't enough when she did it in AvsX and she offered to help restore mutants powers before that like she did with Rictor, but the X-men refused her help.

On the flipside of that, the X-men have already completely forgiven genocidal madmen like Mr. Sinister and Apocalypse who haven't even do some much as promise not to try to kill everybody anymore.

At this point the X-men are just hating her so they can point to somebody and blame them for how much everything sucks for them.

[gurkle]

No, Wanda did not try to undo M-Day. The mutants on Genosha had nothing to do with M-Day. Those mutants were dead before M-Day happened and therefore were not impacted by her actions when they were alive. Her actions in Empyre were stupid and made no sense. The problem she created in HOM would have still remained even if her spell worked and the Genoshans didnt return as zombies

Yeah, that's why I say Hickman seems to accept Bendis's premise that Wanda isn't really a hero. He had her do something that was not only stupid but completely selfish - she wanted to revive the Genoshan mutants because that would be a good deed big enough to make up for her bad deed, and it doesn't work that way.

I know people get tired of Wanda fans dismissing every other story she is in as "bad writing so it doesn't count" (but then, she hasn't been in many stories in the last 15 years, and most of those few are badly written), but I don't see this Hickman story taking her in a good direction. At best it'll just confirm the idea that she deserves to be defined by HoM and kept out of her own stories until she's "atoned" for it.

Stopping the Phoenix and restarting mutant kind wasn't enough when she did it in AvsX and she offered to help restore mutants powers before that like she did with Rictor, but the X-men refused her help.

On the flipside of that, the X-men have already completely forgiven genocidal madmen like Mr. Sinister and Apocalypse who haven't even do some much as promise not to try to kill everybody anymore.

At this point the X-men are just hating her so they can point to somebody and blame them for how much everything sucks for them.

To be fair we haven't seen most of the X-Men actually refusing to forgive her, they're just not talking about her, except Exodus, who isn't supposed to clearly be right in his vendetta against her.

The problem as always is not the X-Men hating her but the Avengers side, her home, refusing to use her.

[XPac]

Jean Grey blames herself and to this day takes full ownership of what she did even though it technically wasnt her. She doesnt blame Emma Frost, Mastermind, the Phoenix Force or any mental breakdown. She owes her sh-t

No, Wanda did not try to undo M-Day. The mutants on Genosha had nothing to do with M-Day. Those mutants were dead before M-Day happened and therefore were not impacted by her actions when they were alive. Her actions in Empyre were stupid and made no sense. The problem she created in HOM would have still remained even if her spell worked and the Genoshans didnt return as zombies

She tried undoing M Day in Childens Cruasade, but the X-Men didn't seem interested. Which is fine... ultimately the X writer don't want M Day reveresed, so anything Wanda would try would just fail anyways. So any more attempts would just be a waist of time.

[XPac]

Marvel's writers and editors really, truly didn't care if Wanda could ever be a usable hero again, did they? They made her do one of the worst things ever, for absolutely terrible reasons (hurting millions of innocents to get revenge on her daddy) and then made her responsible for years' worth of horror.

I don't blame X-fans for hating her (unless they expect Wanda's fans to accept she could have done it; obviously we can't, because then her 40+ years of stories before HoM would be lies). I blame Marvel. They're so addicted to sudden shocks that they didn't feel any responsibility to keep a heroic character from being made an unusable genocidal monster.

Clearly Wanda has been used as a hero again, so it's not really an issue. She was an active Hero in Uncanny Avengers, No Road Home, the Aveners Empyre tie in and her own book. She's entirely usable.

Really, the only books where this is even still an issue is in the X books. Everyone else has pretty much moved on. If she can't be a hero in the X-Men books, that's not a huge deal since she's not really an X-Men anyways.

[XPac]

Yeah. I mean, like I said before. I don’t hate Wanda. I hate what editorial and Bendis made her do.

But she DID it.

And all the weak ‘justifications’ like Doom or the Life Force were just putting bandaids on a tumor. They were excuses, not her owning what she did. When Dark Phoenix ate a Star and killed off a race of sentient broccoli aliens, it was horrifying. When Jean came back to herself and felt the weight of what she had done, she was horrified. HORRIFIED. And when she saw her loved ones fighting to save her, risking their lives for...HER...when she felt that darkness rising again, she did what she had to do and ended the threat with a selfless sacrifice.

THAT is heroism. That is redemption. She had paid the ultimate price for her crimes, and when she was reborn, she didn’t have that baggage weighing her down anymore, except in quiet moments of self reflection, or verbal jabs from an enemy.

I’m NOT saying Wanda should die for M Day. But she DOES need to own it and make TRUE amends for it. Not be flippant and dismissive, like in Uncanny Avengers. Not be handed excuse after excuse for her actions, like in Children’s Crusade. Hickman is the first writer to show her GENUINELY bothered by her actions. And I’m pretty sure he has a plan for moving towards a real redemption for her. One that will let everyone, in and out of universe, finally move forward.

And it’s about damn time.

She was bothered by her actions in Childrens Cruasade, and was attempting to correct it. So that's checked off the list.

[MaximoffTrash]

Yeah. I mean, like I said before. I don’t hate Wanda. I hate what editorial and Bendis made her do.

But she DID it.

And all the weak ‘justifications’ like Doom or the Life Force were just putting bandaids on a tumor. They were excuses, not her owning what she did. When Dark Phoenix ate a Star and killed off a race of sentient broccoli aliens, it was horrifying. When Jean came back to herself and felt the weight of what she had done, she was horrified. HORRIFIED. And when she saw her loved ones fighting to save her, risking their lives for...HER...when she felt that darkness rising again, she did what she had to do and ended the threat with a selfless sacrifice.

THAT is heroism. That is redemption. She had paid the ultimate price for her crimes, and when she was reborn, she didn’t have that baggage weighing her down anymore, except in quiet moments of self reflection, or verbal jabs from an enemy.

I’m NOT saying Wanda should die for M Day. But she DOES need to own it and make TRUE amends for it. Not be flippant and dismissive, like in Uncanny Avengers. Not be handed excuse after excuse for her actions, like in Children’s Crusade. Hickman is the first writer to show her GENUINELY bothered by her actions. And I’m pretty sure he has a plan for moving towards a real redemption for her. One that will let everyone, in and out of universe, finally move forward.

And it’s about damn time.

Ahhhj, very touching but nope, 15 years and we got half-assed redemptions. Why should she get dragged down even furthur? All this touchy speech about her owning up ultimately means acknowledging the butchering of her character is legit.
Also she is more of a plot device anyway, she never got the focus so why should I care.