X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #4 Review/Spoilers

[Saithor]

The whataboutism is relevant because it’s clear that Marvel’s writers will treat many characters with kids gloves who have committed acts more horrible than Wanda’s, but any attempt to have Wanda atone gets shot down immediately. She’s trying to repower all the mutants she depowered? Intervention at the last second prevents it from happening. She’s willing to surrender to the x-men for whatever they think is a just response? Emma frost decides to mind control her kids for kicks. She tries to bring back the sixteen million mutants at Genosha, which she wasn’t even involved with and killed way more mutants than she ever could? Instead it makes a zombie apocalypse. Wanda has never atoned because the writer’s don’t want her to atone, they want to kill decimation over and over again while the X-men themselves ally with villains who either threatened to or actually have killed more people than Wanda ever did.

And this idea that Wanda essentially has to enslave herself to the eternal betterment of mutantkind when the Krakoan government has in the past been actively responsible, complicit, or had a hand in things just as bad or worse make it sound like no, you don’t actually care about Wanda as a character, you have an axe to grind over an editorial mandate and you want it taken out on the character by having her become a some kind of mutant Christ like figure helping them out all the time even while having abuse heaped on her.

And no, nobody is living in some fantasy land where the mutants are suddenly going to forgive her. The “fantasy land” I’ve described is that we move on from Decimation and stop treating Wanda like the only story ever involving her was one where she was a plot device instead of a character for a Joe Quesada mandate. And actually, yes, that fantasy land redemption you are talking about? Happens all the time. Hal Jordan killed the entire green lantern until it was revealed to be a space bug of fear. Wally West accidentally killed a bunch of fellow heroes until it was revealed to be Savitar. Magneto tried to exterminate the entire population of New York Humans including by throwing them into ovens, until it was revealed it was someone else on disguise. Hell, we did already have a retcon about how Decimation was due to the manipulations of Dr Doom, but everyone ditched that apparently.

[Outburstz]

The fact that you are still talking about M day as if it isn't the single worst act committed vs mutants shows that you are lost. 198 that was how many mutants were left after 3 words she said. They are not just going to forget that storyline. That's less than a middle school. No amount of whataboutism is going to top that sorry.

Also Wanda has had storylines after M day as I said she had a whole solo series plus her uncanny Avengers stuff. If you want her used more complain to the Avengers office.

As for her serving mutantdom it's the only way for her to be redeem if that is what you honestly want maybe you don't idk. It's the only logical way you are going to show a group of people that honestly want you dead that you are serious about forgiveness and trying to help. Anything less and you get what happened with the zombies. Wanda messing things up getting in mutant business to make herself feel better.

[GenericUsername]

I just want her to steer clear completely. Some things just cannot be undone, even if they are mended. Mutants are able to bring themselves back, but that doesn't undo what happened. Just keep Wanda away. Even this rebooted version. Before some writer gets it in their head to have her do something else that can't be forgiven.

[pkingdom]

Wow, they didn’t even bother to try and retcon that one always and just pretended it didn’t happen? How exactly is she she the public face of the Hellfire Trading Company after that stunt?

After all of that, she went on to mind control the entire planet into no longer seeing mutants at all. People would just ignore mutants when they shoot lasers and the like. Also mind controlled the Avengers into distributing a mutant cure vaccine. This was her last appearance before HoXPoX. Literally, her last appearance was Cyclops smashing the Cerebro copy that was helping her brainwash the planet and making out with Jean while Emma walks away in a huff.

Whataboutism is part and parcel for this entire relaunch. When Sinister and Apocalypse get to call the shots, and even crack jokes over ending civilizations, its wild to see what actually counts as unforgivable crimes and behavior.

With what Wanda did, she didn't kill a huge number of mutants. She took their powers away. Its harder thing to analyze, because while a lot of mutants view their powers like extensions of themselves and integral to their identity, there were also quite a lot who were thrilled not to have them. That poor dude who disintegrates everything he touches was miserable to find out he actually kept his powers, if I remember right. It also doesn't help that before Krakoa, there really wasn't much of a common mutant identity or culture, since the focus was largely on a small group of Americans.

[ExodusCloak]

After all of that, she went on to mind control the entire planet into no longer seeing mutants at all. People would just ignore mutants when they shoot lasers and the like. Also mind controlled the Avengers into distributing a mutant cure vaccine. This was her last appearance before HoXPoX. Literally, her last appearance was Cyclops smashing the Cerebro copy that was helping her brainwash the planet and making out with Jean while Emma walks away in a huff.

Whataboutism is part and parcel for this entire relaunch. When Sinister and Apocalypse get to call the shots, and even crack jokes over ending civilizations, its wild to see what actually counts as unforgivable crimes and behavior.

With what Wanda did, she didn't kill a huge number of mutants. She took their powers away. Its harder thing to analyze, because while a lot of mutants view their powers like extensions of themselves and integral to their identity, there were also quite a lot who were thrilled not to have them. That poor dude who disintegrates everything he touches was miserable to find out he actually kept his powers, if I remember right. It also doesn't help that before Krakoa, there really wasn't much of a common mutant identity or culture, since the focus was largely on a small group of Americans.

She killed a staggering amount of mutants. Wanda put the nation of Krakoa in harms way twice after the nation was established thus even if they wiped her slate clean she would have caused harm not once but twice.

[ExodusCloak]

Maybe lol, although they would be the ones who would get hurt if she broke under pressure.



Yeah, a second chance.I never said QC gave them one, I said they got one.

Well she's saved the planet multiple times as well so I think they would pardon her.Also can you specify the twice when she attacked them?

Not to mention human governments themselves want to attacks them so I doubt they'd have a problem w/ her in the first place

I said tried to atone, not be successful.

The problem is re-treading the same story again and again.Move on





I'd rather they not do anything until they know Wanda is stable.Seriously they all know what she did when she broke down, they really dumped decades of trauma on her and luckily it resulted in big Kaiju monsters and not her reality warping them out of existence....

It's not about Wanda but what happens to the people nearby and even Krakoa if she looses her mind again.

Well that point is moot. If it's happening behind the QCs knowledge when they're found they'll be thrown back into the pit. So I don't see how that is a second chance when they're running on borrowed time.

She caused a Zombie wave to attack them in Empyre and the Kuja to attack them this issue. Two violations. Even if they had to bite their tongue and forgive her the later just means some people will never change. And thats why Magma was perfectly right

[carmoc1234]

Well that point is moot. If it's happening behind the QCs knowledge when they're found they'll be thrown back into the pit. So I don't see how that is a second chance when they're running on borrowed time.

She caused a Zombie wave to attack them in Empyre and the Kuja to attack them this issue. Two violations. Even if they had to bite their tongue and forgive her the later just means some people will never change. And thats why Magma was perfectly right

its a stretch to say she caused the zombies to attack them. sure she created the zombies, but at least she got strange's help to both contain it and get rid of them, it just took a month for it to work. it only became a problem if some one went there, which they didn't for almost the entire month except for like the last hour or two of the spell because the gate stopped working. also if the zombies weren't there the cotati would have have a much larger invasion force in wakanda, probably would have won and killed everyone on the planet, krakoa included.

[Rev9]

You are not wrong and it took me a couple of re-reads to understand.

Wanda resurrected herself. It's apparently a nexus being thing. Which I guess they were teasing with the panels of her talking while supposedly dead. There was no cerebro.

Yes I know she didn't need Cerebro but resurrecting herself without memory is better explained by the plot point I made ,that old Wanda 'killed' present Wanda's memories, then with Cerebro those memories are returned to make Wanda make a holistic choice to forgive herself or whatever. At this point the story is so contrived with so much left to fill in the plot holes that it's ridiculous. Like why would Wanda resurrect herself without memories? It's weird.

[CoCoBandz]

its a stretch to say she caused the zombies to attack them. sure she created the zombies, but at least she got strange's help to both contain it and get rid of them, it just took a month for it to work. it only became a problem if some one went there, which they didn't for almost the entire month except for like the last hour or two of the spell because the gate stopped working. also if the zombies weren't there the cotati would have have a much larger invasion force in wakanda, probably would have won and killed everyone on the planet, krakoa included.

Damage control 101. Reach for the moon.

[Lucyinthesky]

The whataboutism is relevant because it’s clear that Marvel’s writers will treat many characters with kids gloves who have committed acts more horrible than Wanda’s, but any attempt to have Wanda atone gets shot down immediately. She’s trying to repower all the mutants she depowered? Intervention at the last second prevents it from happening. She’s willing to surrender to the x-men for whatever they think is a just response? Emma frost decides to mind control her kids for kicks. She tries to bring back the sixteen million mutants at Genosha, which she wasn’t even involved with and killed way more mutants than she ever could? Instead it makes a zombie apocalypse. Wanda has never atoned because the writer’s don’t want her to atone, they want to kill decimation over and over again while the X-men themselves ally with villains who either threatened to or actually have killed more people than Wanda ever did.

And this idea that Wanda essentially has to enslave herself to the eternal betterment of mutantkind when the Krakoan government has in the past been actively responsible, complicit, or had a hand in things just as bad or worse make it sound like no, you don’t actually care about Wanda as a character, you have an axe to grind over an editorial mandate and you want it taken out on the character by having her become a some kind of mutant Christ like figure helping them out all the time even while having abuse heaped on her.

And no, nobody is living in some fantasy land where the mutants are suddenly going to forgive her. The “fantasy land” I’ve described is that we move on from Decimation and stop treating Wanda like the only story ever involving her was one where she was a plot device instead of a character for a Joe Quesada mandate. And actually, yes, that fantasy land redemption you are talking about? Happens all the time. Hal Jordan killed the entire green lantern until it was revealed to be a space bug of fear. Wally West accidentally killed a bunch of fellow heroes until it was revealed to be Savitar. Magneto tried to exterminate the entire population of New York Humans including by throwing them into ovens, until it was revealed it was someone else on disguise. Hell, we did already have a retcon about how Decimation was due to the manipulations of Dr Doom, but everyone ditched that apparently.

To be fair that was just character assesination on Magneto by Morrison and even he admited he wanted to destroy the character, hence why he doesn´t work for marvel anymore.

In the case of Wanda I see it this way:

- Bendis used Wanda as a plot device to destroy the old Avengers team and eliminate the new mutants Morrison created to give way to a more modern version of the Avengers while leaving mutants dealing with decimation.

- Despite this fact, we can´t really call Wanda or Pietro from HoM actual villains because they were reacting to the Avengers and Emma and Wolverine wanting to kill off Wanda, they were more tragic characters than anything else on that storyline.

- But M-day still happened and instead of doing a story or a retcon to fix Wanda´s character so she could keep having more stories at marvel she was send to limbo for 7 years. Pietro was luckier than her, having PAD actually fix his character.

- Then marvel decides to bring her back with two big crossover stories Avengers: Children´s Crusade and AvX but chooses to paint the mutants and X-men in both stories as uncaring villains who want to punish Wanda for nothing and Dr Doom as the real villain behind decimation, even if he was in literal hell when all the HoM mess happened and unable to do anything about decimation, which doesn´t help Wanda´s case either because now you have X-men fans angry at a story in which the victim is blamed and disgruntled Dr Doom fans because he didn´t really had anything to do with it.

- Then marvel goes even harder in blaming the X-men with the end of AvX and even has Wanda criticize them for not knowing what "Charles dream" is about and considering she has never been an X-man in her life and actually had a kind of protection for anti-mutant stories for being an Avenger, this was just tone deaf, as well as something Wanda would definitely never say for pure common sense.

- Then Hickman comes and it´s supposed to be a new time for mutants and it´s but now we have mutants calling Wanda the pretender when they apparently were kind of over it or too busy to think about it the last few years and pretender doesn´t really makes sense as an insult either given she didn´t pretend anythind, she thought she was a mutant and now she´s not one anymore.

So I believe it´s just a big mess no woth the effort trying to fix because it would mean Marvel admiting they made a very big mess which I don´t think will happen soon so, as mediocre as Trial of Magneto has been, I am ready for it to become the final nail on the decimation and HoM coffin and allows to advance all the characters past this point, I don´t have hope marvel has better material planned but it´s been 15 years and it´s time to move on. imo.

[rcaguy]

The whataboutism is relevant because it’s clear that Marvel’s writers will treat many characters with kids gloves who have committed acts more horrible than Wanda’s, but any attempt to have Wanda atone gets shot down immediately. She’s trying to repower all the mutants she depowered? Intervention at the last second prevents it from happening. She’s willing to surrender to the x-men for whatever they think is a just response? Emma frost decides to mind control her kids for kicks. She tries to bring back the sixteen million mutants at Genosha, which she wasn’t even involved with and killed way more mutants than she ever could? Instead it makes a zombie apocalypse. Wanda has never atoned because the writer’s don’t want her to atone, they want to kill decimation over and over again while the X-men themselves ally with villains who either threatened to or actually have killed more people than Wanda ever did.

And this idea that Wanda essentially has to enslave herself to the eternal betterment of mutantkind when the Krakoan government has in the past been actively responsible, complicit, or had a hand in things just as bad or worse make it sound like no, you don’t actually care about Wanda as a character, you have an axe to grind over an editorial mandate and you want it taken out on the character by having her become a some kind of mutant Christ like figure helping them out all the time even while having abuse heaped on her.

And no, nobody is living in some fantasy land where the mutants are suddenly going to forgive her. The “fantasy land” I’ve described is that we move on from Decimation and stop treating Wanda like the only story ever involving her was one where she was a plot device instead of a character for a Joe Quesada mandate. And actually, yes, that fantasy land redemption you are talking about? Happens all the time. Hal Jordan killed the entire green lantern until it was revealed to be a space bug of fear. Wally West accidentally killed a bunch of fellow heroes until it was revealed to be Savitar. Magneto tried to exterminate the entire population of New York Humans including by throwing them into ovens, until it was revealed it was someone else on disguise. Hell, we did already have a retcon about how Decimation was due to the manipulations of Dr Doom, but everyone ditched that apparently.

Damn right they ditched the idea Doom was behind it, since it was so stupid that pretty much nobody took it seriously..

[GenericUsername]

Yes I know she didn't need Cerebro but resurrecting herself without memory is better explained by the plot point I made ,that old Wanda 'killed' present Wanda's memories, then with Cerebro those memories are returned to make Wanda make a holistic choice to forgive herself or whatever. At this point the story is so contrived with so much left to fill in the plot holes that it's ridiculous. Like why would Wanda resurrect herself without memories? It's weird.

I get you. It is incredibly frustrating. The plot holes are just too many. But I don't think editors really cared. It's obvious that Marvel is trying to force Wanda's characterization into some plan for the future.

Watch them do all of this nonsense to put her in line with the MCU version, then still shelve her, lol. *sigh*

[GenericUsername]

Well that point is moot. If it's happening behind the QCs knowledge when they're found they'll be thrown back into the pit. So I don't see how that is a second chance when they're running on borrowed time.

She caused a Zombie wave to attack them in Empyre and the Kuja to attack them this issue. Two violations. Even if they had to bite their tongue and forgive her the later just means some people will never change. And thats why Magma was perfectly right

I'm starting to feel like Marvel just isn't aware of how unforgivable some things are and how they messed up the character. Because with how they write things it seems like they felt the zombies and the kaiju were some path to forgiveness. And those situations don't make sense because they'll have Wanda know a lot about magic and be in control. Then have her as some magic novice and weeping child the next. Does someone at the top just not know how grown women experienced in their field should be written? Do they not understand that you can't have them both know things one second and not the next? That major stuff like this is not a path to forgiveness?

Because there seems to be a major disconnect in what they are trying to do with the character and what they actually do.

Even with how far they've put her back with this reborn version, it was post-Agatha training to control her powers.

[pkingdom]

She didn't send the zombies too attack them. It was an accident, and she and Strange contained it until it went away. Or at least it was about to wear out before outside interference. And these kaiju are a magic byproduct of trauma she's experiencing after BEING MURDERED WHEN SHE WAS AN INVITED GUEST! If anything, the kaiju are a reason why the lynch mob at the end is a terrible idea, because it shows that even if they do kill her she's so powerful her powers can cause chaos even when she's dead, and dumping more guilt and angst on her is a recipe for disaster.

To add to the whataboutism, Apocalypse's machinations resulted in a war in the Otherworld that caused casualties among mutants that actually couldn't be revived properly, and he got to leave scott free. Plenty of mutants have done horrific things post-Krakoa and faced no consequences.

[Lady Midnight]

That and shoving every traumatic event and breakdown she's experienced from the last thirty years into her head at once and telling her that it's her greatest hits. I know it's not going to happen, but if somehow in issue #5 it turns out Jean was purposely trying to make Wanda break down again, I would not be suprised.

They’ve been taking notes from Professor X about ethical use of telepathy. Also maybe petty revenge for the M-day thing?

For me, I'm tired of the X-Men and other mutants being torn down to build up Wanda and the Avengers. Keep her and them away from the X-Line.