X-men #19 Review/Spoiler - In the Fire of Each Other

[jwatson]

Didn't X-23's clone status get retconned during the Hunt for Wolverine storyline? Pretty sure it's only Gaby that's the clone, now.

I still stand by my agree to disagree but i'm glad someone else read it and i'm not just crazy.

[Grunty]

The clone thing is basically saying "not Madelyn" since I'm pretty sure Logan would literally fight everyone on the island who said they couldnt bring Laura or Gabby back

No Madelyn, because of obvious reasons (her soul is messed up and Krakoa is depending on Sinister too much).
No alternate universe versions, because they mess up the filing system (i don't think they are forbidden from being present, but they don't get a spot on the cloning list).
No true duplicates, because that would create too much debate about ships of ancient greek heros (and they don't want people to question their own existence as easily replacable artifical beings that pretend to be people who's memories they got implanted).

Basicly it's another system just so people won't pull down the curtain behind this whole utopia, to see all the cracks in the wall. Of course they are going to bend the rules for the same reason, which includes not making the family of angry wrist bladed people mad.
There are a few possible loopholes for Gabby, the only issue would be finding the ones that wouldn't also apply to Madelyn.

[pkingdom]

Forgive me if I missed a reply, but I'm still confused what they actually learned from this. They already knew that the Children wanted to take over the world and kill everyone else, and that they were evolving and changing themselves constantly at an accelerated pace. The layout and defenses of the city is also constantly changing, so any intel on that front was outdated minutes after they left. So they only seemed to accomplish helping out the Children by giving them Darwin to study.

Was this whole thing a Shaggy Dog story?

[Rang10]

Forgive me if I missed a reply, but I'm still confused what they actually learned from this. They already knew that the Children wanted to take over the world and kill everyone else, and that they were evolving and changing themselves constantly at an accelerated pace. The layout and defenses of the city is also constantly changing, so any intel on that front was outdated minutes after they left. So they only seemed to accomplish helping out the Children by giving them Darwin to study.

Was this whole thing a Shaggy Dog story?

Yes, seems like the bad easily outweights the good. They learned too little and gave the COV a new way for the 4th evolution

[Hulkout42]

But mutants were in that place before except they didn't know what the intent of the children of the vault were. While they did gain information in capturing laura and darwin it was stated as an empirical fact that if they did not obtain darwin they would not have been able to evolve beyond stage 3 making them obsolete. Lukcily Darwin is not an omega mutant. So imaqine if there is a mutant with even greater adaptive abilties sent in, lifeguard comes to mind, and they are able to evolve even further. So even in that respect they still learned something. Do not send in adaptive mutants under any circumstances, especially ones that exceed darwin ability to adapt.

If someone can confirm this please do or correct me but i am certain it was established that Darwin was an Omega level mutant.

But regradless of taht, what is the point of learning that lesson if they already screwed up in a major way via Darwin's capture? The Vault got more out of this then the X-men did, again time is on the Vaults side, by the time any plan is made to move against the CotV it would not matter because they have time on their side. 200 years passed in the vault where as perhaps months passed outside, what can of strategy can the X-men truly have with that working against them? The Vault will not be idle during this time, because if it is then i will question what sort of planning went into this run.

[Rev9]

First of all, Magneto didn't even have the Holocaust backstory until well after Claremont re-aged him and created that backstory. Original Magneto had no backstory, he just wanted to take over the world. Secondly, even if Magneto had been created with that origin in mind, 1963 isn't even 20 years after WW2, so if he had been 10 at the start[of the War], he only would have been 35 or so in X-Men #1. Given Hickman's own timetable, it's barely been more than 10 years since '1963' for these characters, so he'd barely be 45 by now even without the deaging storyline. It's kind of hard to consider your opinion on the matter as having any merit when you seem ignorant of these stories to begin with.

"Given Hickman's own timetable, it's barely been more than 10 years since '1963' for these characters, so he'd barely be 45 by now even without the deaging storyline"

Hickman's storyline at a bare minimum starts in 1991. So Magneto is 62 at the lowest in Hickman's time.Why? Because in HoX5 Russia is Russia, not the USSR.

[9th.]

Oh man, Xavier really messed up this time. He sent the wrong mutant in their to do a recon mission, now the enemy has 1 up on them.

Also that last page hit me right in the feels, she don't even remember what they had

[Rev9]

Oh man, Xavier really messed up this time. He sent the wrong mutant in their to do a recon mission, now the enemy has 1 up on them.

Also that last page hit me right in the feels, she don't even remember what they had

That gif tho ,lol. Xavier always thinks he knows better, the guy is a clown and it's strange coz he even admitted that "I cannot stress this enough..the Children of the Vault represent the single greatest existential threat to mutantdom" and then gifts them Darwin.Sometimes we need full council meetings.I remember Exodus expressed caution when Cyclops was being gung ho about going to Otherworld.Looking at this seems to me Xavier didn't fly this by the smart heads on the council.

[king of hybrids]

Oh man, Xavier really messed up this time. He sent the wrong mutant in their to do a recon mission, now the enemy has 1 up on them.

Also that last page hit me right in the feels, she don't even remember what they had

It’s a bit of a running theme at this point that Xavier and Magneto’s plans to disrupt the creation of Novissima have had short term wins, long term downsides

It’s almost like keeping massive amounts of information from Scott, the council and the Captains has downsides

[Rev9]

If someone can confirm this please do or correct me but i am certain it was established that Darwin was an Omega level mutant.

But regradless of taht, what is the point of learning that lesson if they already screwed up in a major way via Darwin's capture? The Vault got more out of this then the X-men did, again time is on the Vaults side, by the time any plan is made to move against the CotV it would not matter because they have time on their side. 200 years passed in the vault where as perhaps months passed outside, what can of strategy can the X-men truly have with that working against them? The Vault will not be idle during this time, because if it is then i will question what sort of planning went into this run.

Agreed, the CoV have time on their side, plus this was less a breach than a gift to the vault.Not only was Darwin captured, he could well be repurposed at atomic level to evolve along CoV templates making him a new Child of the Vault.Putting aside the issue of whether he is or is not an omega(I think he is) do we really presume out of 3000 children there is not a single omega? We already know how powerful the children are as per 'Supernovas' or 'Collission' arcs ,now we know how advanced their city/vault is.Them having omegas is a foregone conclusion to me.If they inexplicably don't have an omega, then Synch,Laura and Darwin being incarcerated and studied at length means it's only a matter of time before a chimera 'child' of the 3 mutations is ready.

This being the X-Men, I trust the X-Men will prevail ultimately ,but the casualties and toll of facing the CoV now will be massive.The CoV are apex predators here, no doubts in my mind

[Grunty]

But regradless of taht, what is the point of learning that lesson if they already screwed up in a major way via Darwin's capture? The Vault got more out of this then the X-men did, again time is on the Vaults side, by the time any plan is made to move against the CotV it would not matter because they have time on their side. 200 years passed in the vault where as perhaps months passed outside, what can of strategy can the X-men truly have with that working against them? The Vault will not be idle during this time, because if it is then i will question what sort of planning went into this run.

Forgive me if I missed a reply, but I'm still confused what they actually learned from this. They already knew that the Children wanted to take over the world and kill everyone else, and that they were evolving and changing themselves constantly at an accelerated pace. The layout and defenses of the city is also constantly changing, so any intel on that front was outdated minutes after they left. So they only seemed to accomplish helping out the Children by giving them Darwin to study.

I assume they gained vital informations on where the weakpoints in the structure of Children's organization might be. Plus weren't they supposed to also bring back DNA samples once they escaped (which of course didn't happen)? So perhaps the intention was to present the outcome as something similar to that of Rogue One.

So while the X-men might soon have a major assault comming their way, in the form of even faster evolved Children of the Vault, thanks to having gained access to Darwin, the X-men also potentialy got the narrative "I-win" button from Synch's information. By knowing who is calling the shots in the Vault and how the children are actualy created.

Meaning once the story shifts back to them and the Children will attack Krakoa and likely have a constant roll against anything the X-men throw at them, the whole situation will then be resolved in the last one or two issue by the heros miraculously finding a way to kill the leader of the Children, destroy the system that creates them and perhaps even triggering something in the centre of the Vault that will just pull it into a black hole, or create a sun in it. Defeating them for good (though with a bunch of X-men characters likely "dying"). All thanks to the information Synch brought back.

Though this very likely outcome shows a major weakness in the narrative of any villain faction which is comming from "progressing rapidly outside normal time". Because all that evolution and developing seems to lead to nothing when the heros will just defeat them in the tail end of their stories. In this story they couldn't even defeat 3 heros in 100 years. How are a thousand more going to make them more capable?
One good examples for this problem, because of how compact it can be read, is Gene Nation. Mutants who have spend their entire life fighting other mutants in a hellish environment for daily survival over generations and only the strongest of them were even allowed to become members of Gene Nation. But they got defeated in 3 issues, the members shown were laughable weak, they never displayed any real danger to the heros and then Storm just conquers them all by flying up a mountain and beats down their leader.

The Children of the Vault, Orchis, Arrako, Weapon Plus. All big deals because they developed so rapidly in time accelerated pocket dimensions. But at the end of the day, they fill fall like Gene Nation did to the hands of heros who just do their normal fights against various enemies regulary, while still finding time to enjoy life, party and play baseball.
All while other villain factions that just spend their time developing as slowly as the heros do, will often end up still much more impressive and dangerous.

I know all villain factions will lose at the end of their day. Because that's how these stories go and it's the fun of seeing the heros overcome them that makes these stories enjoyable. So i'm not trying to complain about it in general. But the concept of "hyper evolved" villains from places were time runs faster, always fall flat in these super hero comics, because the story will continue after their defeat and much less impressive sounding villains will outpace them without being "hyper evolved".

Besides that the story seems to have two narrative purposes.
1. Re-establish the Children of the Vault to readers who haven't been aware of Mike Carey's X-men run and showcase why they are such a big deal.
2. Alter Synch's personality and priorities in life and expand the extend his powers, so he can serve another purpose down the road. Especialy since Hickman's run is big on synergizing the powers of mutants and make them operate like machinery for specific purposes. So having a mutant with an aura that allows him to copy powers (even of none-mutants now), means he will likely become a major cog in an important machine. Perhaps saving mutants and Earth or being part of their doom. Either way. He is now set up for something major.

It’s a bit of a running theme at this point that Xavier and Magneto’s plans to disrupt the creation of Novissima have had short term wins, long term downsides

It’s almost like keeping massive amounts of information from Scott, the council and the Captains has downsides

The moment in Hox/Pox were Magneto and Xavier were starting to ignore Moira X's advice and going "we are better now", i thought "oh boy this can only go well *sarcasm*", because two characters notorious for their hubris are saying classic words of hubris.

Though for me the big question is now if giving the Children access to data and DNA which can help them develop even more rapidly was a failure on Xavier's part or actualy part of his plan? Since without really knowing what his endgame is, we are left to guess how much he predicts in advance thanks to Moira X's information and how much is his usual hubris leading to more problems?

[jwatson]

That gif tho ,lol. Xavier always thinks he knows better, the guy is a clown and it's strange coz he even admitted that "I cannot stress this enough..the Children of the Vault represent the single greatest existential threat to mutantdom" and then gifts them Darwin.Sometimes we need full council meetings.I remember Exodus expressed caution when Cyclops was being gung ho about going to Otherworld.Looking at this seems to me Xavier didn't fly this by the smart heads on the council.

Right! That gif got me ready to watch the movie. Damn cuba was good once upon a time. shizzz.

[Rakurai]

Now that some time has passed I guess it will be easier to get onto this issue.

The story was great, kind of poetic, I know why many of the X-Men fans cheer this as one of the best X-Men issue. Art was amazing Asrar nails it, I wish he was regular for X-Men comics.
If you look at X-Men 19 as fan of X-Men, not really as a particular characters but as a whole it is astonishing. Hickman did amazing things there, made Synch a star, which no doubt he deserves to be.
It get more... confusing turn if you are a fan of Darwin or Laura Kinney.

Darwin was there mostly used as a prop. A third wheel and then an asset for CotV to use. He ends up upping the villains and with no memory of it.
I won't hide that I'm in X-Men comics mostly for Laura. So reading this issue I knew what was going to happen, best outcome we could get without changing something significant about established character.
But, while I get all of this, there is one concern, like seriously, this is why I haven't had seen my favorite character in over a year? So she could be there and then no outcome for her at all.

As it comes to Wolverine/Synch ship I did like it. While I’m totally Lesbian Laura stan, I admit, there was something adorable, finding love in such (hopeless) place.
What gets me mad are the fans, that write everywhere that Xavier should have downloaded Synch memories into Laura so they could have their romance back. Not only it doesn’t work that way but is disgusting, treating Wolverine like an object to gain, and I’m sure no one in comics would think this was a good idea. They can talk, maybe try to achieve what they lost, but it still won’t be the same.

It’s not that I’m disappointed, but there is something unsettling about it. I hope after this Laura will get some comics time that would be valuable for her.

[PetPigeon]

Loved this, but damn eyes hurt from all the rolling they've been doing over some of ya'lls pathetically skewed opinions. This mission was clearly a bust and the wrong team was sent, which I said from the beginning. These guys are LAME. I did LOVE the story though and it was good to see Synch get some love. Wish they would have kept X-23 alive in the vault she wasn't stinkin' up other stories but....

[jwatson]

Loved this, but damn eyes hurt from all the rolling they've been doing over some of ya'lls pathetically skewed opinions. This mission was clearly a bust and the wrong team was sent, which I said from the beginning. These guys are LAME. I did LOVE the story though and it was good to see Synch get some love. Wish they would have kept X-23 alive in the vault she wasn't stinkin' up other stories but....

That got me too. Some Laura fans are weird. She was hurting herself on purpose when she was with Angel. Julian and her were a thing but he wasn't always the nicest and nor was she and wasn't her history also being a prostitute or sex slave at some point but a nice guy just looking at her and people lost their minds.