X-Factor [04] : Swords of X chapter 2 review *spoilers*

[Killerbee911]

I also love that Hickman and company stomp on the thought process that they can't create tension in set up, They put death back on the table but in creative way.

[Rnap22]

Oh God. What if that old HOXPOX promo art was hinting at this? it had different versions of certain characters like Storm and Havok..

That could possibly just have represented Moira’s different lives and the different versions of the characters.

[Rnap22]

At this point it is canon that dying in other world creates an amaglam of a resurrected mutant. At this point nothing suprises me. I'm just more shocked how many in story mechanisms hickman has created to basically reboot the x-universe at anytime without it ever actually having to be a reboot. Stunned really. First settings and now individual characters and in such a simplistic way.

Mutants have not only mastered resurrection they have mastered reincarnation. I could easily see a mutant wanting to die on otherworld and wanting to be reborn anew to start over.

I wonder if this amalgam of the different possible variations of the character will create a “new” character or will it create a character that has memories of all those different possibilities? This new Rockslide asked “who’s santos?” So it could be anyone that had those powers?

This raises the stakes that not only do the champions of Krakoa must win for Krakoa, but they must win for themselves or be lost forever.

[pkingdom]

I agree that Doug is most likely to die. He's not an important character, per say. He's been reduced to a plot device, much like the 5. So his death would have the biggest impact.

Jury is still out if they're clones or have souls, because it really seems like the reason death matters for now is just straight up magic. That's why I still don't feel like there's much tension, because it feels almost nonsensical that there's a problem.

[loke13]

I agree that Doug is most likely to die. He's not an important character, per say. He's been reduced to a plot device, much like the 5. So his death would have the biggest impact.

Jury is still out if they're clones or have souls, because it really seems like the reason death matters for now is just straight up magic. That's why I still don't feel like there's much tension, because it feels almost nonsensical that there's a problem.

No it's not you just refuse to believe that the author is telling you. The Ressurection process makes souless clone bodies of the original and Xavier put their souls back via cerebro.

[Sutekh]

I feel sorry for Rockslide but at the same time I think this new Rockslide, which is our Rockslide and at the same time it is not, may be interesting. For a moment it is evident that he recognizes Xavier so something of him remains inside.

It sounds like this is going to be a reset option for several characters, if they want, to amalgamize their current version with past or alternate versions, as they have with various other characters (Jean, for instance, having the minds of Maddy, Teen Jean, Phoenix-pretending-to-be-Jean, etc. downloaded into her brain, so that she more or less 'is' those characters as well).

A new Rockslide that is a bit more mature (and perhaps has a developed mastery of his powers?), incorporating some more experienced and growed-up versions of himself from across the omniverse, sounds interesting.

[Sutekh]

For someone who keeps going on about how she loves monet and would love writer her, leah williams sure seem to not fully grab the opportunity whenever Monet does land in writing hands (first empyre now x-factor #4).

I feel like now that Emma just turns into Penance and goes nonverbal and slashy-slashy whenever stuff gets real has pretty much robbed her of any real volition as a character. I like her better in more of a Rogue role, a sassy flying invulnerable character.

The X-Men *hardly* need another surly slasher. That's what Wolverine/X-23/Sabertooth/Jimmy/Old Man Logan/Scout/Gabby/Wild Child/ad nauseum are for.

[loke13]

I feel like now that Emma just turns into Penance and goes nonverbal and slashy-slashy whenever stuff gets real has pretty much robbed her of any real volition as a character. I like her better in more of a Rogue role, a sassy flying invulnerable character.

The X-Men *hardly* need another surly slasher. That's what Wolverine/X-23/Sabertooth/Jimmy/Old Man Logan/Scout/Gabby/Wild Child/ad nauseum are for.

Monet can still talk in her Penance form she quips at the Orchis guards in HoX right before she proceeds to rip them apart.

[cranger]

No it's not you just refuse to believe that the author is telling you. The Ressurection process makes souless clone bodies of the original and Xavier put their souls back via cerebro.

The only where that is written is via Magneto, even then that would be an interpretation of his statement and he says a lot of things we can't take as gospel.

Also, Cerebro is not capturing souls, it is backing up memories. Those memories exist as backups while those people still have their 'souls'. The problem is Hickman wrote everything down like an engineering manual. Maybe this is all hocus pocus based on recreating a vessel as close as to the one the soul left in order to attract the soul back to life. I don't know, it just feels like if you follow Hickman's recipe, you have a clone with memory tampering, much like Maddie was.

[jwatson]

It is always so entertaining reading the debates about the souls when no one ever has seen one, touched one, felt one, but somehow there is some engraved almost canonical life rule to souls. lol

[yogaflame]

It is always so entertaining reading the debates about the souls when no one ever has seen one, touched one, felt one, but somehow there is some engraved almost canonical life rule to souls. lol

Well, in Marvel there certainly are souls, and aliens, magics, demons, and gods. I think the soul question remains relevant in Hickman's run. Telepaths definitely do have access to interaction with souls. We have seen both Xavier and Jean have near death experiences when in communion with people who were dying; they almost died with them. We know telepaths can hop bodies; escaping true death by occupying a new body, or waiting until their own body can be repaired/resuscitated. Maddie in particular was a perfect clone of Jean but was inert until the Phoenix fragment of Jean's soul was freed from it's body on the moon. So, telepaths interacting with souls checks out.

The tricky part of the matter is Cerebro, can it interact with souls? Xavier's original, probably not, as it seems to work more like an electrical magnifying and recording device, essentially like an EEG machine or polygraph and radio telescope combined but we then have to consider Forge and the Shi'Ar tech. Forge can make anything he can think of, and he's also a mystic who knows how to transmute souls into manipulable energy. Shi'Ar tech can capture spiritual and emotional energy into crystals, like the gift Lilandra gave to Jean's parents, and their tech in general seems to be conscious or sentient. Given all these factors, it is reasonable to assume Hickman isn't tricking everyone as far as this cloning/resurrection thing is concerned, and within the metrics of this universe, these 'are' the 'real' thing(but I do concede he could be hiding a twist for his ending).

[gonnagiveittoya]

Having not read the issue yet: wouldn't the whole "where you die affects your resurrection" thing mean it's definitely more than just copy-pasting someone's memories onto a body, right?

[cranger]

Having not read the issue yet: wouldn't the whole "where you die affects your resurrection" thing mean it's definitely more than just copy-pasting someone's memories onto a body, right?

The explanation is sloppy and sort of still being guessed at by The Five. That is, they 'confirm' something to be true but I doubt they actually confirmed it in any way even loosely scientifically. Nothing about it rules out the memories just being corrupted for some reason.

[Dante Milton]

Anyone want to hear a wildly speculative theory that almost certainly won't happen? Too bad, I'm gonna tell you anyway.

So I've been thinking about the Warlock prophecy:

Friend-self, friends lost. Out of one comes many, into many comes one.

Warlock is a given as he was listed as one of the swords, and Cypher would be the obvious choice for his swordbearer, and we've seen plenty of covers and promo featuring Cypher. But there isn't really anything in the prophecy that suggests Cypher, and he says himself that he doesn't know what the second half means. The second part could just refer to the viral reproductive nature of the transmode virus/technarch being. But then there is the "friends lost" bit, and none of the New Mutants or Warlock's friends are "lost" or dead, at least not yet. Perhaps Cypher will die before ever even getting to Otherworld, and the second part of the prophecy refers to the swordbearer that will take Warlock to battle. "Out of one comes many, into many comes one," I think this might refer to Multiple Man, with many dupes possessing a self replicated Warlock. The problem being, there isn't really much of a connection between MM and Warlock. Jamie acted as host to Warlock in the Rosencanny run, but that's about it. Anyway, probably not going to happen, but it's a thought I had.

[jwatson]

Well, in Marvel there certainly are souls, and aliens, magics, demons, and gods. I think the soul question remains relevant in Hickman's run. Telepaths definitely do have access to interaction with souls. We have seen both Xavier and Jean have near death experiences when in communion with people who were dying; they almost died with them. We know telepaths can hop bodies; escaping true death by occupying a new body, or waiting until their own body can be repaired/resuscitated. Maddie in particular was a perfect clone of Jean but was inert until the Phoenix fragment of Jean's soul was freed from it's body on the moon. So, telepaths interacting with souls checks out.

The tricky part of the matter is Cerebro, can it interact with souls? Xavier's original, probably not, as it seems to work more like an electrical magnifying and recording device, essentially like an EEG machine or polygraph and radio telescope combined but we then have to consider Forge and the Shi'Ar tech. Forge can make anything he can think of, and he's also a mystic who knows how to transmute souls into manipulable energy. Shi'Ar tech can capture spiritual and emotional energy into crystals, like the gift Lilandra gave to Jean's parents, and their tech in general seems to be conscious or sentient. Given all these factors, it is reasonable to assume Hickman isn't tricking everyone as far as this cloning/resurrection thing is concerned, and within the metrics of this universe, these 'are' the 'real' thing(but I do concede he could be hiding a twist for his ending).

All true but all of which has been addressed by Marvel and the canon of the universe. And yet somehow it's still something that no one has ever really seen but somehow this isn't it.

Valkeyrie addressed that death was no longer receiving mutant souls.
This issue addressed the fact that if the id in cebrero is "corrupted" by a mutant dying in otherworld they are "reincarnated" and no one knows what comes out of the "birthing" cycle.

Yet with those two things and many more that have been explain in universe somehow a soul is suppose to be this tangible idea. It's fascinatingly entertaining to me in a lot of ways.