Way of X 1 Review/spoilers Playing Make Believe

[Harasar]

Arguably the biggest weakness is not the five, but Cerebro.

If we look at the whole process and consider it's part, the Five are actualy relatively unimportant. Since all they do is create exact physical replicas of the dead people's bodies. This is by the standard of the marvel universe nothing truely impressive. Cloning technology is dime a dozen in this fictional universe and it can go from classic machinery to organic "flesh printers". Some beings or factions can even construct exact replica bodies with less

Considering that they have given Proteus "hollow" Xavier bodies for a while before the Five were even used for the first time, it indicates that they had old fashioned cloning tech set up for a while allready.

Nothing the five do is truely groundbreaking, the only important part is that it's "mutant technology", that it's the mutants own little thing, they think nobody else can do like they do. Which can be seen as just throwning the Five into the spotlight as a distraction for the mutant population.
It's all for show. It's the classic magicians trick of showing something flashy or interesting to distract the viewers from the hand movements which do the trick.

Because what is truely important in all of this is Cererbo.

Cerebro stores the memories which make the replicated/cloned body the "original" again. It also somehow transfers the "soul" of the dead person from where ever it goes after death, back into the newly created body.

Without Cerebro all the Five can do is create soulless (lifeless?) husks. Newborn babies with adult bodies. Empty shells, that need to be filled or will beginn to fill by themself into entirely different people.

So the true weakpoint of the Resurection Protocol is not the five, that's just the machines for the bodies, but Cerebro. A piece of old fashioned (alien) technology, which requires a mutant's powers to work, but being apparently absolutely necessary for the mutant to do the important task.

Which means that if we have to pinpoint where the whole "conquered death" rethoric falls appart is that their "immortality" does not come natural to them, it's not from their own powers, it's from an old fashioned piece of technology only certain mutants can use and even fewer can actualy create.

Truely immortal characters in the marvel universe come back by their own power. They don't need machines or foreign help to come back. Can these "common" mutants do that? As far as we can see no. They are utterly mortal without using this technology. So their rethoric reeks of hubris.

The interesting part is that we as readers were never really told how exactly this Cerebro memory storage functions, because Hox/Pox made such a big deal out of the Five. We know all the fine details of how they create the bodies. But Cerebro was quickly glossed over. Which brings us back to the above mentioned magicians trick.

The fact that all five backup cerebros can somehow be attacked at the same time (as seen in Ten of Swords) is quite a red flag to how others, especialy those who know how it works, could switch off all the mutants "immortality" that way too. Leaving them with nothing but hollow clone bodies.

Wasn't this version of Cerebro created/modified by Forge? I remember a scene, probably from HoX/PoX, where Xavier asks Forge to create it. So, while it is a technology, it is still created thanks to mutant power. And maybe Cerebro is also just for show, like the Five, i.e. it is important, but not the key component and only used to mislead people. Maybe there is some hidden mutant with power like super-memory and all "back-ups" are kept in its mind. It is just strange to me that Xavier now always wear Cerebro, such an important part should be well-hidden and kept under tight guard, but he instead publicly wear it, as if he wants people to notice it.

As for the Five, they probably should have several contingency plans in case something happens with any of them. One of the plans could be to use shapeshifters like Copycat, who could copy not just appearance, but also powers. So, she should be able to replace any of the Five in case of need. And it can go even further, if someone like Rogue or Synch use their powers to copy Copycat's power and combine it with Madrox's powers - they then would be able to create five duplicates and transform them into a perfect copy of one of the Five. Speaking of which, such line up could have been used to greatly increase number of resurrections, if several duplicate teams were created and were working simultaneously instead of only the original Five.

[Drexelhand]

I think that is unavoidable, though to me that sounds like another AvX only how it plays out is anyone's guess.

Next year is the 10-year anniversary of AvX, isn't it? I imagine we'll get an AvX II then, although hopefully Jason Aaron will be off the Avengers by then.

[Exodus]

Arguably the biggest weakness is not the five, but Cerebro.

If we look at the whole process and consider it's part, the Five are actualy relatively unimportant. Since all they do is create exact physical replicas of the dead people's bodies. This is by the standard of the marvel universe nothing truely impressive. Cloning technology is dime a dozen in this fictional universe and it can go from classic machinery to organic "flesh printers". Some beings or factions can even construct exact replica bodies with less

Considering that they have given Proteus "hollow" Xavier bodies for a while before the Five were even used for the first time, it indicates that they had old fashioned cloning tech set up for a while allready.

Nothing the five do is truely groundbreaking, the only important part is that it's "mutant technology", that it's the mutants own little thing, they think nobody else can do like they do. Which can be seen as just throwning the Five into the spotlight as a distraction for the mutant population.
It's all for show. It's the classic magicians trick of showing something flashy or interesting to distract the viewers from the hand movements which do the trick.

Because what is truely important in all of this is Cererbo.

Cerebro stores the memories which make the replicated/cloned body the "original" again. It also somehow transfers the "soul" of the dead person from where ever it goes after death, back into the newly created body.

Without Cerebro all the Five can do is create soulless (lifeless?) husks. Newborn babies with adult bodies. Empty shells, that need to be filled or will beginn to fill by themself into entirely different people.

So the true weakpoint of the Resurection Protocol is not the five, that's just the machines for the bodies, but Cerebro. A piece of old fashioned (alien) technology, which requires a mutant's powers to work, but being apparently absolutely necessary for the mutant to do the important task.

Which means that if we have to pinpoint where the whole "conquered death" rethoric falls appart is that their "immortality" does not come natural to them, it's not from their own powers, it's from an old fashioned piece of technology only certain mutants can use and even fewer can actualy create.

Truely immortal characters in the marvel universe come back by their own power. They don't need machines or foreign help to come back. Can these "common" mutants do that? As far as we can see no. They are utterly mortal without using this technology. So their rethoric reeks of hubris.

The interesting part is that we as readers were never really told how exactly this Cerebro memory storage functions, because Hox/Pox made such a big deal out of the Five. We know all the fine details of how they create the bodies. But Cerebro was quickly glossed over. Which brings us back to the above mentioned magicians trick.

The fact that all five backup cerebros can somehow be attacked at the same time (as seen in Ten of Swords) is quite a red flag to how others, especialy those who know how it works, could switch off all the mutants "immortality" that way too. Leaving them with nothing but hollow clone bodies.

great post. Thank you!

Would make a great storyline where this is addressed. What does it mean that the mutants are so dependent on technology while at the same time fighting—and downright obliterating—technologically advanced beings or new A.I. life forms? Isn't Xavier basically a cyborg himself at this point absolutely dependent on Cerebro helmet/unit? Where lies the difference between a human Prime sentinel and Xavier's relationship with Cerebro? Is Xavier still a mutant or is he becoming already meta-human?

I would like to see a storyline where Cerebro is becoming obsolete (or corrupted again by a cyborg threat/children of the vault) and mutant technology will have to take over Cerebro's function. What about making The Stepford Cuckoos the new "biological" Cerebro unit? Maybe they could merge with Sage or Forge and become together a new version of Cerebro storing and replicating mutant minds. The tragic plot could be that they have to abandon their humanity and single individual minds for the greater good of mutantkind and become something entirely new only operating as a mind replicating machinery.

[BroHomo]

great post. Thank you!

Would make a great storyline where this is addressed. What does it mean that the mutants are so dependent on technology while at the same time fighting—and downright obliterating—technologically advanced beings or new A.I. life forms? Isn't Xavier basically a cyborg himself at this point absolutely dependent on Cerebro helmet/unit? Where lies the difference between a human Prime sentinel and Xavier's relationship with Cerebro? Is Xavier still a mutant or is he becoming already meta-human?

I would like to see a storyline where Cerebro is becoming obsolete (or corrupted again by a cyborg threat/children of the vault) and mutant technology will have to take over Cerebro's function. What about making The Stepford Cuckoos the new "biological" Cerebro unit? Maybe they could merge with Sage or Forge and become together a new version of Cerebro storing and replicating mutant minds. The tragic plot could be that they have to abandon their humanity and single individual minds for the greater good of mutantkind and become something entirely new only operating as a mind replicating machinery.

Errr aren't they tryna to avoid that? lol

[Sutekh]

How? He's the only one of the Five they don't have a back-up for. There is no Five without him unless Synch or Rogue can manage to copy him just before he dies.

At least some mutants don't need to be around him to copy his powers, and any reality manipulator like Proteus or Mad James should be able to just turn a random rock into an egg anyway. He's literally the least necessary part of it. They can skip the egg crap completely and just grow clones the old-fashioned way, using tech that at least three people on the island can do, and did do, long before 'the Five'.

They could even do something wonky like have *Madrox* fill in for him. "Okay, there's a body. Masque can change it to look like her old body. Hope can tweak the X-gene so that it's a [whatever the hell she was] and not a duplicator. Xavier can download her memories into it (and erase any of mine). Proteus and Tempus can have a beer. We don't need them."

[Proxy]

At least some mutants don't need to be around him to copy his powers, and any reality manipulator like Proteus or Mad James should be able to just turn a random rock into an egg anyway. He's literally the least necessary part of it. They can skip the egg crap completely and just grow clones the old-fashioned way, using tech that at least three people on the island can do, and did do, long before 'the Five'.

They could even do something wonky like have *Madrox* fill in for him. "Okay, there's a body. Masque can change it to look like her old body. Hope can tweak the X-gene so that it's a [whatever the hell she was] and not a duplicator. Xavier can download her memories into it (and erase any of mine). Proteus and Tempus can have a beer. We don't need them."

That sounds like an awful lot of effort to make something that resembles the former self. When is a person still a person and not an avatar.

[Starfish]

Arguably the biggest weakness is not the five, but Cerebro.

If we look at the whole process and consider it's part, the Five are actualy relatively unimportant. Since all they do is create exact physical replicas of the dead people's bodies. This is by the standard of the marvel universe nothing truely impressive. Cloning technology is dime a dozen in this fictional universe and it can go from classic machinery to organic "flesh printers". Some beings or factions can even construct exact replica bodies with less

Considering that they have given Proteus "hollow" Xavier bodies for a while before the Five were even used for the first time, it indicates that they had old fashioned cloning tech set up for a while allready.

Nothing the five do is truely groundbreaking, the only important part is that it's "mutant technology", that it's the mutants own little thing, they think nobody else can do like they do. Which can be seen as just throwning the Five into the spotlight as a distraction for the mutant population.
It's all for show. It's the classic magicians trick of showing something flashy or interesting to distract the viewers from the hand movements which do the trick.

Because what is truely important in all of this is Cererbo.

Cerebro stores the memories which make the replicated/cloned body the "original" again. It also somehow transfers the "soul" of the dead person from where ever it goes after death, back into the newly created body.

Without Cerebro all the Five can do is create soulless (lifeless?) husks. Newborn babies with adult bodies. Empty shells, that need to be filled or will beginn to fill by themself into entirely different people.

So the true weakpoint of the Resurection Protocol is not the five, that's just the machines for the bodies, but Cerebro. A piece of old fashioned (alien) technology, which requires a mutant's powers to work, but being apparently absolutely necessary for the mutant to do the important task.

Which means that if we have to pinpoint where the whole "conquered death" rethoric falls appart is that their "immortality" does not come natural to them, it's not from their own powers, it's from an old fashioned piece of technology only certain mutants can use and even fewer can actualy create.

Truely immortal characters in the marvel universe come back by their own power. They don't need machines or foreign help to come back. Can these "common" mutants do that? As far as we can see no. They are utterly mortal without using this technology. So their rethoric reeks of hubris.

The interesting part is that we as readers were never really told how exactly this Cerebro memory storage functions, because Hox/Pox made such a big deal out of the Five. We know all the fine details of how they create the bodies. But Cerebro was quickly glossed over. Which brings us back to the above mentioned magicians trick.

The fact that all five backup cerebros can somehow be attacked at the same time (as seen in Ten of Swords) is quite a red flag to how others, especialy those who know how it works, could switch off all the mutants "immortality" that way too. Leaving them with nothing but hollow clone bodies.

The backups certainly seem like the most vulnerable aspect of the process. I reckon the greatest threat to them would be an undetected virus causing widespread file corruption before its noticed. For example, what would happen if a mind altered by Omega Sentinel nano-tech were to be backed up (for example, by Orchis infecting a captive mutant)? The dormant Sentinel programming remained hidden in Karima the whole time, so there's a definite chance such subtle alterations to a backup would go unnoticed and might end up spreading across all servers, resulting in every mutant brought back as a sleeper-Sentinel.

Wasn't this version of Cerebro created/modified by Forge? I remember a scene, probably from HoX/PoX, where Xavier asks Forge to create it. So, while it is a technology, it is still created thanks to mutant power. And maybe Cerebro is also just for show, like the Five, i.e. it is important, but not the key component and only used to mislead people. Maybe there is some hidden mutant with power like super-memory and all "back-ups" are kept in its mind. It is just strange to me that Xavier now always wear Cerebro, such an important part should be well-hidden and kept under tight guard, but he instead publicly wear it, as if he wants people to notice it.

I've been wondering if that's where Danger comes in. It would help explain why Xavier kept her existence a secret in the past.

[Zelena]

What does it mean that the mutants are so dependent on technology while at the same time fighting—and downright obliterating—technologically advanced beings or new A.I. life forms?

The mutants are not really dependent on technology: nothing forces them to “come back from the dead”… It’s like saying we are dependent on oil: our way of living is dependent on oil, we don’t know how to live anymore without it but it’s not a physiological need.

[Malachi]

Finally a issue where the characters and ideas are explored with a certain level of depth. A issue that suggests, tears and pulls.

For so long I took that brittish sensibiiltiy for granted when reading comics. Now it's refreshing to see it sprinkled in this issue.

This Krakoa from it's most interesting angles. This is mutant society being explored. This is what I wanted and felt the line needed much earlier.

I have allways liked Kurt enough. Not a favorite but I have after all read many issues with him over the years. Here he is a great POV. A good character to explore the meaning of a soul and what the value of people are without the constructs that guide them. I don't see it as just a evolution of morals in a post mortality society. It's also about the identity of being a mutant. But without the fear of death can they truly see their actions in the past, present or future as they are? I think the museum of hate was a good way to start that debate. Are mutants evolving to a society to cut off from the world to live in it? A good spin of godhood and the comlications that can bring focused through the selfish shortsightedness of teenagers.

Other then that good useage of characters. Even if Dr Nemesis can be a point of division. Very much a favorite of the creater and if the readers don't feel the same he can quickly overstay his welcome. I though he was a good angle and a fun element.

There seems to be a clear plan and trajectory for the characters being used. None just there to fill space.

[Su_Whisterfield]

Long, near two hour Si Spurrier interview. He gives great interview.
Quite a lot of spoilers for forthcoming Way Of X
https://youtu.be/sN1EK4tQ1Es

spoilers:

Two upcoming characters, Dazzler and Stacy X. Doctor Nemesis hates her music, I’d take that as a good thing, if I was her. The Gala Issue starts with three pages of Kurt getting drunk and making an ass of himself. (Not sure how I feel about that, I’m all for tearing characters down then rebuilding them, but that the third issue and Si’s still pulling him down. There’d better be a good pay off) There is also the young island dwellers being hung over and horny... This is the Make More Mutants issue and one would guess Stacy X? He threw some doubt on us assuming Legion being the Patchwork Man.

end of spoilers

Also lots of discussion about his previous X-Men work. Well worth listening to.

[mugiwara]

Long, near two hour Si Spurrier interview. He gives great interview.
Quite a lot of spoilers for forthcoming Way Of X
https://youtu.be/sN1EK4tQ1Es

spoilers:

Two upcoming characters, Dazzler and Stacy X. Doctor Nemesis hates her music, I’d take that as a good thing, if I was her. The Gala Issue starts with three pages of Kurt getting drunk and making an ass of himself. (Not sure how I feel about that, I’m all for tearing characters down then rebuilding them, but that the third issue and Si’s still pulling him down. There’d better be a good pay off) There is also the young island dwellers being hung over and horny... This is the Make More Mutants issue and one would guess Stacy X? He threw some doubt on us assuming Legion being the Patchwork Man.

end of spoilers

Also lots of discussion about his previous X-Men work. Well worth listening to.

Dr Nemesis is not only smarter than all those clowns, he's also the only one with taste.

[Sutekh]

The interesting part is that we as readers were never really told how exactly this Cerebro memory storage functions, because Hox/Pox made such a big deal out of the Five. We know all the fine details of how they create the bodies. But Cerebro was quickly glossed over. Which brings us back to the above mentioned magicians trick.

The fact that all five backup cerebros can somehow be attacked at the same time (as seen in Ten of Swords) is quite a red flag to how others, especialy those who know how it works, could switch off all the mutants "immortality" that way too. Leaving them with nothing but hollow clone bodies.

Great food for thought!

Also, this Cerebro memory backup thing is pretty new information (much like Krakoa's new not-the-result-of-nuclear-tests-in-the-60s origin story is a huge retcon). Originally, Cerebro merely boosted the Professors range and 'processing power' while he used his telepathy to detect something anomalous in common about mutant brainwaves. It surely did not make a recording of a persons *entire mind* in the process, any more than checking my blood pressure somehow records *every heartbeat for my entire life* in the cuff.

Given that their mutants that directly interact with the souls of the dead (like Wicked) or have funky connections to the actual afterlife (Dani Moonstar, Ilyanna, possibly Darwin, Siryn and Strong Guy, depending on how their respective stories have played out), it's always been weird to me that the mutants of Krakoa have kind of gone, 'Eh. Soul, schmoul. Who needs 'em?' and re-invented the wheel (the cloning techniques used by Sinister, Apocalypse, the Shiar, etc.) with the Five (by also utterly redefining Goldballs power, from ejecting hard metallic balls at velocity, theoretically as useful in a fight as Cyclops zaps someday, to pumping out balls of organic meat, which is, I guess useful for feeding people?, and definitely more gross. [Whap!] "The hell was that? Gross! Dude, do you shoot off your man-boobs at people or what?").

[Sutekh]

That sounds like an awful lot of effort to make something that resembles the former self. When is a person still a person and not an avatar.

It's literally *less* than what they are already doing. (Did you notice that while I added Maque and Madrox, I replaced *three* of the Five? That's 20% less 'effort!') And as for the avatar bit, being made from an 'empty' Madrox meat-puppet or grown from an 'egg' spat out by Goldballs, reshaped into a person by Proteus, given an X-gene by Hope, aged up to an adult by Tempus, and filled with copies of your memories is no more or less an avatar.

Either way, the 'meat' your body is made of is *even less* 'you' than if you were cloned from your own cells in Sinny's lab.

But anywho, the thing is, everyone's replaceable. Even Goldballs.

People like Sinister and Apocalypse (and Dark Beast and possibly Dr. Nemesis, and definitely the Shiar) have been cloning for ages without this whole mutant technology thing, and if Forge wanted to build a cloning machine, his mutant power is literally to invent stuff, so he could do it in a snap!

The Five seems like a whiz-bang bit of 'mutant technology,' but also a way to get mutants invested in their own powers as a solution to their lives problems and get the whole notion of a 'mutant economy' seeded into people's minds, so that they could eventually progress to the step of finding ways to apply their gifts towards changing the world for the better. (Like with Masque, former face-twisting misanthrope, now restorative surgeon for little kids with cleft palettes and burn victims and stuff. Literally life-changing for those people, *and* for him! If I had to pick one change from the Age of Krakoa to carry down into whatever comes next, it would be that. It's really a big deal, in a tiny detail about a side-character nobody cares about.)

[Lucyinthesky]

Great food for thought!

Also, this Cerebro memory backup thing is pretty new information (much like Krakoa's new not-the-result-of-nuclear-tests-in-the-60s origin story is a huge retcon). Originally, Cerebro merely boosted the Professors range and 'processing power' while he used his telepathy to detect something anomalous in common about mutant brainwaves. It surely did not make a recording of a persons *entire mind* in the process, any more than checking my blood pressure somehow records *every heartbeat for my entire life* in the cuff.

Given that their mutants that directly interact with the souls of the dead (like Wicked) or have funky connections to the actual afterlife (Dani Moonstar, Ilyanna, possibly Darwin, Siryn and Strong Guy, depending on how their respective stories have played out), it's always been weird to me that the mutants of Krakoa have kind of gone, 'Eh. Soul, schmoul. Who needs 'em?' and re-invented the wheel (the cloning techniques used by Sinister, Apocalypse, the Shiar, etc.) with the Five (by also utterly redefining Goldballs power, from ejecting hard metallic balls at velocity, theoretically as useful in a fight as Cyclops zaps someday, to pumping out balls of organic meat, which is, I guess useful for feeding people?, and definitely more gross. [Whap!] "The hell was that? Gross! Dude, do you shoot off your man-boobs at people or what?").

Agreed Nightcrawler was send to heaven and came back, Magneto could see the ghosts of Genosha and even taped their final thoughts and saw their electromagnetic signal so I would like to see this adressed in Way of X with Dani, who still works as a Valkyrie or Wicked, whose main in power is the hability to bring back the spirits of the dead. The mind and memories are not souls one example of this is Maddelyne Pryor, yes she had Jean memories but her behavoir and personality was different from Jean.

[Lady Midnight]

Where for art thou Wicked?

And where did the baby on the June cover come from?