X-Men #18 [Into_the_Vault]////Recap/Review////Loading Spoilers.../

[chamber-music]

Not my favorite issue. I'm glad to see Synch back and used again.

I hope we eventually get to a see Generation x reunion with Synch, Skin, Chamber, M, Jubilee and Husk.

[Ambaryerno]

They were there for intel, got caught immediately because of the security systems, and had to respond because the City sent the CotV to wipe them up

They got caught immediately because they made no actual attempt to enter the city anywhere but where the CotV were ALREADY STANDING AROUND. And they KNEW IT because they knew to vacate the elevator ahead of time to set an ambush.

[Ambaryerno]

Gotta disagree here. Especially over the past couple of years Laura has very actively moved away from this mentality. She’ll still cut a b*tch but she’s not jumping up and down to kill people.

Even BEFORE Laura picked up her "No Kill" position and killed more readily she didn't have that mentality. She'd use stealth first.

[Uncanny X-Man]

Well this was... anticlimactic. I think Hickman picked the wrong time to do a two-parter and came out with a very decompressed and boring issue. I will also say, as much as I adore Asrar's pencils, I thought it was ill-suited to this particular story, which would have benefitted from someone a bit more dynamic and kinetik. Chris Bachalo comes to mind, for example, which would have also been appropriate as he's the co-creator of the Children.

[Devaishwarya]

I really enjoyed this issue and looking forward to the next issue to see how it all plays out. And Asrar's art is gorgeous!.

[Grunty]

That's always been the explanation the comics have gone with, and its bugged the hell out of me after spending a lot of time in school studying evolutionary biology. IRL science would say that if one groups subjugates/destroys another by figuring out how to use tools (in this case, robots and tech) then evolution would favor them. There is no 'natural' way. If one wins by outsmarting the other, that's still evolution.

Obviously its a comic book and comic book mad science and rules. But its still a pet peeve.

It doesn't help that the X-gene mutants are a horrible evolutionary concept, since their entire seperation from normal humans is that they have super natural powers or have undergone super natural physical transformations both which often break the laws of physics and are entirely random, which therefor disqualifies the application of logic and rules involved in the concept of natural evolution when it comes to them.

Because the super power lottery of the X-gene means someone could turn into a fish while living in a desert, be unable to breath anything but argon gas or just have a slightly longer little toe, while others become capable of controlling weather in any way, become a psychic gestalt that forms bodies out of rocks or turn reality into play-doh. All by the same one gene that somehow is supposed to be treated under evolutionary logic?

The only part of the whole X-gene Mutant concept that has a remote evolutionary logic to it, is that because the gene is a fix occurence in the humans of the Marvel universe, it will eventualy be present in all humans (or if we go by the theory that it's allready present in every human be active), meaning everyone will eventualy develop these super natural powers or changes.
Basicly the world of My Hero Academia happening.

Though unlike what some characters spout in the X-men comics, this wouldn't actualy mean the end of the classic humans, since the randomness of the X-gene's powers means that there will always be mutants who have powers or changes so insignificant that they are hardly different than the unpowered humans of yore. Not to forget that by what seems to be mendelian inheritance a pair of mutants still has the chance to produce an offpsring which is not a mutant but baseline human.
So when considered from a "natural" perspective normal humans will always have a chance to occur among even in a predominantly mutant population. Which also fits into what has been discussed in another topic, that mutants aren't so much a species different from humans but more a sub-group which has the chance to eventualy become numerical dominant.

Considering that there are natural phenomena which can suppress the powers of a mutant, there is even room in which normal humans or weak powered mutants could still strive, while their high powered fellow mutants would have trouble adjusting or living in.

Oh and mutants are an artifical addition to humanity anyway. As it was the Celestials who introduced the X-gene. Meaning mutants too aren't truely a natural part of human evolution.

But yes, the moment artifical made "tools" come into the picture all pretense of "natural" evolution is gone anyway.

Btw. It's interesting that the Children of Tomorrow also seem to come into play now. Considering that the concept of "mutant technology" seems to be predestined to set the mutants of Krakoa onto the same path that the Children of Tomorrow have gone through, where all these smart people with their focus on making the right tools for the right situation in a hostile environment, eventualy just turned themselves into living tools, born, designed and focused on a specific task that defines who they are.

From the Five, to the teams in SWORD, we see hints of a similar "defined by purpose" mentality growing in the krakoan society and it seems only a matter of time until they start tinkering with those to be born or those being replicated back from the dead.

An human ant hive, like the COT or COTV, a creative dead end and first stage towards a Dominion.

[Thundershot]

For those that brought up the fact that there’s no accent to them.... Hickman doesn’t seem to give any characters accents. Moira, who has always had a thick Scottish accent, talks like anyone else under Hickman. Rahne doesn’t have her accent either. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hickman, but I wish he’d bring characters accents back.

[nandes]

They got caught immediately because they made no actual attempt to enter the city anywhere but where the CotV were ALREADY STANDING AROUND. And they KNEW IT because they knew to vacate the elevator ahead of time to set an ambush.

Not sure where did you get that from. They had to take the elevator down to the city. Synch's narration describes that the Dome is at the heart the city, and that's where Serafina is at the start when she's being inspected. The CotV receive a call from the City to destroy the invaders, and there's a page where they're moving inside the city to get to the elevator. Darwin, Synch and Laura never got into the Dome, they were ambushed right after entering the Vault

[Frobisher]

For those that brought up the fact that there’s no accent to them.... Hickman doesn’t seem to give any characters accents. Moira, who has always had a thick Scottish accent, talks like anyone else under Hickman. Rahne doesn’t have her accent either. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hickman, but I wish he’d bring characters accents back.

My biggest gripe with Hickman's writing is that he has these little turns of phrase that he likes, so it's often like the characters are speaking with his voice. A few Hickman-isms I spotted in this issue:

"As we expect things to go south."
"Hard not to learn a hard lesson."
"So back into the pot we go."
"A little kiss of creation."

He has people saying "go south" and things about little kisses quite bit. Of course, this is nowhere near our Lord-and-Master's levels of pathological phrase re-use.

[PrezValentine]

Gotta disagree here. Especially over the past couple of years Laura has very actively moved away from this mentality. She’ll still cut a b*tch but she’s not jumping up and down to kill people.

Yeah, but it seems people are expecting Laura to just pack up and run from an enemy whose full capabilities she straight up doesn't know during a attack. The point of the mission it to gather information on the CotV's threat level and capabilities. They didn't know WHEN they'd be ambushed, so that's the point of the Synch-Darwin combo, have to prepare a reaction to the worst outcomes. Fuego straight up goes for the kill, so they have to neutralize their enemies quickly, and that's what Laura and Synch do. Shame that they died, but the CotV are only interested in wiping out everything that is not them. The FORCE protocol being used is just because they aren't indeed humans, and considering the situation Laura was, and the fact that the "no killing humans" principle will bring Nimrod into the world, what she did was mostly right in context.

[Starfish]

An interesting twist would be if studying and adapting to the trio's powers is what allows the City to upgrade its Children to a far more advanced stage.

[Ambaryerno]

The FORCE protocol being used is just because they aren't indeed humans, and considering the situation Laura was, and the fact that the "no killing humans" principle will bring Nimrod into the world, what she did was mostly right in context.

Except they ARE humans. Engineered and conditioned humans, but humans nonetheless. The fact that someone on the X-Men actually TOLD LAURA not to think of them as people is not only incredibly tone deaf in-universe (as has been pointed out REPEATEDLY, half her life was spent being tortured with the justification "she's not a person, just a weapon," and it's been a recurring plot point in nearly all of her solo books that she really, REALLY doesn't like it when people callously dismiss others in this fashion) but makes me question whether anyone at Marvel involved in this plot has ever ACTUALLY read her backstory.

It's hamfisted, ramrodded, railroaded, and forced, with a cheap and lazy handwave done after the fact via out-of-story info dump (we SHOULD have had a scene of the team being told this, especially because it would have allowed to us to SEE the reactions to the order) to justify it. It's just plain BAD WRITING and piss-poor characterization and continuity.

[Vishop]

Except they ARE humans.

I think Prez was trying tell is that the consequences of "not killing humans" principle will bring Nimrod as a threat to Krakoa.

[PrezValentine]

Writing in caps doesn't make it true, man. Just makes it sound like you're shouting at my face, which I don't like in principle.

They aren't baseline humans. The Vault has been evolving them or their predecessors so much that they are basically not the same thing as a regular human. They're not like Captain America who's enhanced, they're even referred to as post human. And even if you don't buy that, it's still a fact that getting too stuck on the law is what will bring Nimrod to the world. Xavier and Magneto already saw that and it was even brought up in HoX #6 that exceptions would eventually appear. If anything is the issue, it would be, indeed, that we didn't get to see the character's reaction to the idea, but not every story can address everything, sadly.

[Rang10]

They got caught immediately because they made no actual attempt to enter the city anywhere but where the CotV were ALREADY STANDING AROUND. And they KNEW IT because they knew to vacate the elevator ahead of time to set an ambush.

It was a murder mission, there was zero stealth from the x-men

Writing in caps doesn't make it true, man. Just makes it sound like you're shouting at my face, which I don't like in principle.

They aren't baseline humans. The Vault has been evolving them or their predecessors so much that they are basically not the same thing as a regular human. They're not like Captain America who's enhanced, they're even referred to as post human. And even if you don't buy that, it's still a fact that getting too stuck on the law is what will bring Nimrod to the world. Xavier and Magneto already saw that and it was even brought up in HoX #6 that exceptions would eventually appear. If anything is the issue, it would be, indeed, that we didn't get to see the character's reaction to the idea, but not every story can address everything, sadly.

So if they aren't human it is ok murder them?

really ignorant coming from X-men that now thinks tey aren't human