X-Men 16 *spoilers*

[yogaflame]

Man, this issue just sort of hammers it home how badly Apocalypse screwed Charles and Erik's vision for Krakoa on the way out the door. "Leaving to have lots of sex now. Here, have a few million mutants, a dozen or so(maybe hundreds of) immortal and / or Omega, all of them violent mutant supremacists bred for war and raised in a literal hell, who make me look soft and cuddly. Y'all wouldn't fight a war against humanity for me? They will. Enjoy!"

Fixed it for you. But yeah, Poccy seized the moment by the balls!

[BroHomo]

Man, this issue just sort of hammers it home how badly Apocalypse screwed Charles and Erik's vision for Krakoa on the way out the door. "Leaving to have lots of sex now. Here, have a few thousand mutants, a dozen or so immortal and / or Omega, all of them violent mutant supremacists bred for war and raised in a literal hell, who make me look soft and cuddly. Y'all wouldn't fight a war against humanity for me? They will. Enjoy!"

Whoa! This is exactly what my Dad said to my Mom before he left for good

[gonnagiveittoya]

Now I'm guessing if there is a World War X type thing, it wouldn be Arakko vs the World and not Krakoa (a prospect I've been dreading as a concept)

[Outburstz]

I can clearly see a conversation like this happening.

Isca - Hey were about to kill all those humans who have been troubling you for years, if you help I think that will go a long way to improving how the rest of Arrako views you.

Cyclops- No we mustn't kill all the humans there are good innocent humans as well they don't deserve to die.

Isca- Did they help you during the many years of oppression and genocide?

Cyclops- No not really, but they helped when the rest of the world was in trouble.

Isca- Then are they really good humans?

[Wolverine12]

With an abstract power like hers, this is where writers will tax their cuteness and talk about how a stalemate isn't losing.
And is getting shot in the head while sleeping considered losing?

I don't think that's losing, it's not really a contest, it's just getting killed.

This thread is interesting with the Isca stuff. It made me think about XoS for a bit. I know that a big turning point in the battle was Isca "changing" but the way I'm starting to see it she lost no matter how you look at it. When she turned there was no official declaration that Krakoa had accepted her as an ally, but you could argue that Krakoa is for all mutants so she is always welcome, however if she was on Krakoa's side wouldn't she have lost when Apocalypse surrendered? He gave up with the annhilation helm but he still went on to speak for Krakoa when he decided that Arrako would be the mutant exchanged after the tournament. I suppose the point is Apocalypse spoke for Amenth/Arrako while he wore the annhilation helm but when it was removed he lost that authority, however the whole point of that was Apocalypse exerting his will over the helm. Maybe I just shouldn't think to hard about it lol.

[Jwyatt]

I'd be amused if Isca lost and the explanation was, "That's like saying you can never die, because you've never been dead your whole life."

If they're going to stick with her powers as stated, it sort of hurts my head to wonder how they discovered it. Is the X-gene her type of midi-chlorian? What is the definition of losing? If she went to school, did she get 100% on every test without studying? Does she have to practice to win?
The first time she picked up a sword, was she an expert, do did she get cheap, accidental wins until she learned to be better. Luck powers are annoying, and this is worse.

(I think I annoyed Kurt Busiek a long time ago asking what made Triathlon only able to be 3.0 times better than whatever standard. If he ate a lot of candy, would he fall off to 2.9?)

[Relugus]

Why would she care? Like legitimately?

Everything we've seen from Isca suggests she couldn't be made to give less of a damn about Earth Mutants and we still don't really know how much she even cares about Arrakii mutants.

I could see Isca having an interesting fight with a "capable of beating anyone" wild card like Death's Head.

Wanda will probably be killed off panel by one of Exodus's kids, it seems pretty clear she's going to be fridged to give the important characters arcs going forward.

[king of hybrids]

I could see Isca having an interesting fight with a "capable of beating anyone" wild card like Death's Head.

Wanda will probably be killed off panel by one of Exodus's kids, it seems pretty clear she's going to be fridged to give the important characters arcs going forward.

I think the pandemic might have screwed that plan due to delaying WandaVision (for all that the comics openly despise having to kowtow to the MCU these days; chopping Wanda into little pieces just after her show sounds like a PR headache).

[ZephyrSurf]

I could see Isca having an interesting fight with a "capable of beating anyone" wild card like Death's Head.

Wanda will probably be killed off panel by one of Exodus's kids, it seems pretty clear she's going to be fridged to give the important characters arcs going forward.

Important characters arcs... and Exodus' kids are pretty badly defined cross paths.

And if Wanda's dying (Super unlikely given the fucking torrent that is her popularity in mainstream) it's not gonna be from some nobodies like Exodus' kids. Hell, Exodus is barely scrapping on noteworthy now.

[Rev9]

I can clearly see a conversation like this happening.

Isca - Hey were about to kill all those humans who have been troubling you for years, if you help I think that will go a long way to improving how the rest of Arrako views you.

Cyclops- No we mustn't kill all the humans there are good innocent humans as well they don't deserve to die.

Isca- Did they help you during the many years of oppression and genocide?

Cyclops- No not really, but they helped when the rest of the world was in trouble.

Isca- Then are they really good humans?

Beautiful logic, but I think Isca doesn't even need to reason with Scott, we know Scott is pretty impulsive and less of a strategist.Isca if she is 'guided' by probability is more like a quantum computer, she always picks the best eventuality, all her 'probabilities' are accounted for and she knows what Moira knows , the mutants lose,but perhaps the only way they don't is if they exterminate humanity sooner rather than later.

[Grunty]

This thread is interesting with the Isca stuff. It made me think about XoS for a bit. I know that a big turning point in the battle was Isca "changing" but the way I'm starting to see it she lost no matter how you look at it. When she turned there was no official declaration that Krakoa had accepted her as an ally, but you could argue that Krakoa is for all mutants so she is always welcome, however if she was on Krakoa's side wouldn't she have lost when Apocalypse surrendered? He gave up with the annhilation helm but he still went on to speak for Krakoa when he decided that Arrako would be the mutant exchanged after the tournament. I suppose the point is Apocalypse spoke for Amenth/Arrako while he wore the annhilation helm but when it was removed he lost that authority, however the whole point of that was Apocalypse exerting his will over the helm. Maybe I just shouldn't think to hard about it lol.

Reading this i had to remember the saying "Win the battle, lose the war.". Which made me rething the specifics of her name and what it might say about the extend of her powers.

Her name is Isca the Unbeaten, not Isca the Victorious or Isca the Winner". While i might likely think far too much about this detail than it deserves (i mentioned before that i find her powers to sound like something a bratty child would come up with and that it's likely the doom of her character in the long run), the "unbeaten" part makes it sound like it's more focused on her personal survival, rather than her overall effect on her surrounding to win.

Think about a warrior who fights in a thousand battles and each time who ever they challenge or who challenges them during it can't defeat them.
However this does not mean that who ever has said warrior on their side will win. Since there are only so many enemies the warrior can beat, while around them the battle goes on with everyone else fighting.
By the end of the battle, the warrior might then stand unbeaten or victorious on a personal level, but their side might have also lost each and every time, as their personal victory did not extend to the victory of their side.

Likewise they might have fought thousands of enemies who could never beat then, but they might have not won against all of them. If a battle ends in a draw it's not a defeat. If the opponent flees it's not a personal defeat. If the opponent does not fight, it's also not a defeat.

So thinking about the power of "never losing" it might be entirely centered around her and her personal victory in challenge but not having any effect on the things which do not affect her personal defeat or lack therof.

For all we know her powers might be a manifestation of the "Phyrric Victory". She can never be defeated personal when challenged directly, but everything around her can still fall and be defeated.

Unbeaten on the battlefield, but never winning the war.

[Glio]

Edit: Ok, my bad, her power is "Cannot lose".

[Grunty]

Edit: Ok, my bad, her power is "Cannot lose".

Thanks for posting this conformation. I might be wrong, thinking too much about her name and the description of her power, but this does seem to leave quite a loophole on how much she and the side she is on can "win" as compared to how she cannot lose personaly.

[Outburstz]

I can't be just about here because her niece and nephew during the last issue of X of Swords once they saw her power switch they knew that they could no longer win the war. If it was just about her personal survival than they wouldn't have had the reaction of "oh no it's over"

[Glio]

I can't be just about here because her niece and nephew during the last issue of X of Swords once they saw her power switch they knew that they could no longer win the war. If it was just about her personal survival than they wouldn't have had the reaction of "oh no it's over"

You can use her as a canary in a coal mine