Originally Posted by
Grunty
It's nice to see enthusiam and hope for this developed.
I admit i'm very jaded to this since i've been following these comics for almost two decades now so i've seen a lot of "interesting" concepts brought up or implied become wasted, forgotten, ignored or tossed aside for the old status quo again, that when i see familiar pattern i suspect familiar outcomes. Because while there are also stories of successfull introductions and creations, i don't see their patterns here. Just another rushed introduction of something which would need a ton more work to last.
Which isn't helped by my opinion that the foundation for the Arrakii is very shacky.
First there is the fact that they got retconned into existence with next to no previous implication or hints. It's a whole nation of mutants, heavily tied to Apocalypse, suddently being mentioned out of nowhere and presented as a big freaking deal, but they were never mentioned before. No obscure lines from Claremont era storylines, no forgotten implication that such a group might exist. Just "poof" here they are, your new more alien, more agressive, more united, strong, better, Conan the Barbarian style mutants!
Second, from my understanding, the x-gene based mutants are a very "urban" concept, something which is heavily tied to the changing world of the cosmopolitical landscape many people of the industrial nation experience living in the smaller or larger cities of the modern day world.
Sure the super heros of mutant origin can go on magical or space adventures like everyone else. But the mutants themself are heavily tied to their relationship with the rest of humanity and therefor will always be seen in relation to that.
If you remove a mutant and put them in a magical or space realm they become "normal" (the recent New Mutant storyline actualy reflects that) or downright boring, because they are then just one of many oddities. What makes them special and interesting as fictional ethnicity is the fact that they are tied to a reflection of the real world humanity.
But the Arrakii are by design not an "urban" group of mutants or even a reflection of anything from the real world. They are a fantastic group of pseudo-barbarians with super powers, who come from a bygone fictional depiction of the bronze age and spend the last thosuand years in a magical dimension fighting a demon horde. They are just "out of this world" with just a far away hint of being based on humanity rather than a complete alien species.
How do they reflect anything that normaly makes the mutants so interesting for super hero stories?
After all there is a reason the Morlocks are still around, despite being constant "massacred", while The Neo, Gene Nation and co. faded into obscurity.
And third and this might sound a bit petty. Their introduction storyline was Ten of Swords which wasn't particular popular criticaly or (as far as i saw) sales wise.
But if i'm wrong on this feeling, if they turn out important interesting parts still alive and kicking years from now, i wouldn't mind having been wrong here.
Also i agree that there is some lost potential in not showing them more interacting with the modern world beforehand. Albeit i suspect most of their involvement would have just served to make the currently allied old villian mutant look better in comparision to these more (in at least one case quite literally) vile mutants from the Barbarian Island.
Though judging by the upcomming Wolverine issues, they do seem to still be used in that capacity.