Academy X: New X-Men Appreciation 2022

[9th.]

Happy New Year Everyone!

[Rift]

Here's to another year of hope and faith

[BobbysWorld]

Really hoping this year that SOMEBODY does something to examine the disconnect between the two 'generations' now of Academy X kids. What little we've seen/heard of them shows that they're all allegedly living in the same house in the Akademos habitat, but like, there's got to be so much in the way of growing pains to that now, because of the inherent divide between the experiences of the kids who died and were brought back and the ones who lived through the events of Messiah Complex, Utopia, and all of that.

Like, the last the kids on the bus remember, after a couple years of relative peace and happiness in a thriving school for mutants, they lost their powers in a blink of an eye and were sent home....and then woke up on Krakoa, and even WITH the sliding time scale, at least a couple of YEARS have passed. Classmates who were the same age as them, and even younger than them, have literally lapped them not just in age but in experiences they simply just have no frame of reference for. What a mindfuck it's gotta be for someone like Tag and Wallflower to come back to a much older and more jaded Hellion, Elixir, Surge, Anole, etc.....with the latter having basically become full on warriors who have fought an actual war for survival, been to Limbo, LIVED in Limbo, had to relocate from one 'last refuge' to the next between the mansion and then San Francisco and Utopia and X-Haven and more, who came of age beneath the watchful eye of Sentinel 'bodyguards,' who have been thrown in prison for fighting for their rights under Osborn's regime and captured and turned into weapons by the Leper Queen, served on teams like X-Force, have memories of divergent realities like Age of X and Age of X-Man, some like Hellion have lost limbs, others like Elixir have killed, they've fought their own in the form of Wither and resurrected mutants on Necrosha...

All of this must sound like some kinda weird fucked up nightmare story to the kids whose last memory is just around M-Day, and they're probably constantly wondering what ELSE did we miss that they just don't wanna tell us about because I can't imagine the survivors having been all that eager to TALK about all of this with their resurrected friends.

So to me it seems inevitable it should create a very real sense of disconnect that they should all have to work to navigate past and find a way to relate to each other again, because even if they're all happy now on Krakoa, the very IDEA of it must mean very, VERY different things to them. And for the ones who were around for the last few years and constantly fighting, we're talking inevitable PTSD and the kind of ingrained hyper-vigilance that never totally goes away, or at least not for a long time......meaning even 'in paradise' they're probably still occasionally on edge and looking over their shoulder for the next threat in ways that baffle a lot of their now younger classmates. And I'd love to see them focused on if and when the X-Offices follow up on Bishop's War College idea, because I can easily picture the resurrected mutants like DJ goofing off and not taking it too seriously, only for this to create conflict with the older classmates who come down on them for fooling around and not getting how important this is, and not totally able to explain WHY because like.....they weren't there.

For anyone who's read SWORD lately, a few issues back one of the many Arakkii to challenge Storm over her leadership and seat on the Council was saying he was doing it because 'why should we listen to you? You weren't there [for our war with Amenth], you don't know what it was like, you CAN'T know!'

Which is something I feel the now older classmates might feel towards the ones who died. BUT this is complicated because at the same time, the ones that died could just as likely resent the ones that didn't, to some degree, thinking well at least you GOT to live! At least you're not missing whole years where the world moved on without you, where you blinked and everything was different, at least you had chances to DO things, chances we didn't have because we were DEAD!

I would like to see the X-books to explore that kind of issue between the kids who died and came back and the ones who were around the whole time. They WANT to all just be happy that everyone's alive and well and they're all together and safe again, but there's this GAP in their lived experiences that none of them totally know how to get past.

[K7P5V]

Hoping both of my favorites will have an AWESOME 2022

Trance

• Real Name: Hope Abbott
  
  
• Powers: Astral Projection (In Astral Form - Flight, Blast Power & Intangibility Contact; plus a close bond between her physical & astral forms)

Wind Dancer

• Real Name: Sofía Mantega
  
  
• Powers: Air/Wind Manipulation; Flight; Long-Distance Eavesdropping

[Master of Sound]

Happy New Year Everyone!

Would it niot be awesome to get a series with these kids devided over two teams like shown above? I would so get this book.

[Ambaryerno]

Really hoping this year that SOMEBODY does something to examine the disconnect between the two 'generations' now of Academy X kids. What little we've seen/heard of them shows that they're all allegedly living in the same house in the Akademos habitat, but like, there's got to be so much in the way of growing pains to that now, because of the inherent divide between the experiences of the kids who died and were brought back and the ones who lived through the events of Messiah Complex, Utopia, and all of that.

Like, the last the kids on the bus remember, after a couple years of relative peace and happiness in a thriving school for mutants, they lost their powers in a blink of an eye and were sent home....and then woke up on Krakoa, and even WITH the sliding time scale, at least a couple of YEARS have passed. Classmates who were the same age as them, and even younger than them, have literally lapped them not just in age but in experiences they simply just have no frame of reference for. What a mindfuck it's gotta be for someone like Tag and Wallflower to come back to a much older and more jaded Hellion, Elixir, Surge, Anole, etc.....with the latter having basically become full on warriors who have fought an actual war for survival, been to Limbo, LIVED in Limbo, had to relocate from one 'last refuge' to the next between the mansion and then San Francisco and Utopia and X-Haven and more, who came of age beneath the watchful eye of Sentinel 'bodyguards,' who have been thrown in prison for fighting for their rights under Osborn's regime and captured and turned into weapons by the Leper Queen, served on teams like X-Force, have memories of divergent realities like Age of X and Age of X-Man, some like Hellion have lost limbs, others like Elixir have killed, they've fought their own in the form of Wither and resurrected mutants on Necrosha...

All of this must sound like some kinda weird fucked up nightmare story to the kids whose last memory is just around M-Day, and they're probably constantly wondering what ELSE did we miss that they just don't wanna tell us about because I can't imagine the survivors having been all that eager to TALK about all of this with their resurrected friends.

So to me it seems inevitable it should create a very real sense of disconnect that they should all have to work to navigate past and find a way to relate to each other again, because even if they're all happy now on Krakoa, the very IDEA of it must mean very, VERY different things to them. And for the ones who were around for the last few years and constantly fighting, we're talking inevitable PTSD and the kind of ingrained hyper-vigilance that never totally goes away, or at least not for a long time......meaning even 'in paradise' they're probably still occasionally on edge and looking over their shoulder for the next threat in ways that baffle a lot of their now younger classmates. And I'd love to see them focused on if and when the X-Offices follow up on Bishop's War College idea, because I can easily picture the resurrected mutants like DJ goofing off and not taking it too seriously, only for this to create conflict with the older classmates who come down on them for fooling around and not getting how important this is, and not totally able to explain WHY because like.....they weren't there.

For anyone who's read SWORD lately, a few issues back one of the many Arakkii to challenge Storm over her leadership and seat on the Council was saying he was doing it because 'why should we listen to you? You weren't there [for our war with Amenth], you don't know what it was like, you CAN'T know!'

Which is something I feel the now older classmates might feel towards the ones who died. BUT this is complicated because at the same time, the ones that died could just as likely resent the ones that didn't, to some degree, thinking well at least you GOT to live! At least you're not missing whole years where the world moved on without you, where you blinked and everything was different, at least you had chances to DO things, chances we didn't have because we were DEAD!

I would like to see the X-books to explore that kind of issue between the kids who died and came back and the ones who were around the whole time. They WANT to all just be happy that everyone's alive and well and they're all together and safe again, but there's this GAP in their lived experiences that none of them totally know how to get past.

No one is going to do anything with it. Undoing the depowerings and rez'ing the dead serves one purpose: To sweep all the trauma of the Academy X generation under the table.

I know some people never liked the dark direction the book took once KYost took over, but for good or ill, Decimation and Childhood's End are what set the NXM apart from the preceding generations and gave them their own identity. However it ALSO sets up to make the franchise Sacred Cows look bad. You can't talk about the NXM's experiences without also acknowledging how Cyclops, Emma, etc. SCREWED UP and failed to protect them.

Marvel doesn't want that. It especially doesn't suit the Krakoa narrative that most of the NMX would probably tell Xavier and the Quiet Council to go **** themselves.

The erasure of the NXM's trauma, combined with Jordan White and the rest of Editorial's refusal to let them grow up and graduate, shows what Marvel REALLY thinks of them: They just want them to be part of the amorphous, generic, student Wallpaper. It's a discredit and disservice to a great group of characters.

[Kingdom X]

Really hoping this year that SOMEBODY does something to examine the disconnect between the two 'generations' now of Academy X kids. What little we've seen/heard of them shows that they're all allegedly living in the same house in the Akademos habitat, but like, there's got to be so much in the way of growing pains to that now, because of the inherent divide between the experiences of the kids who died and were brought back and the ones who lived through the events of Messiah Complex, Utopia, and all of that.

Like, the last the kids on the bus remember, after a couple years of relative peace and happiness in a thriving school for mutants, they lost their powers in a blink of an eye and were sent home....and then woke up on Krakoa, and even WITH the sliding time scale, at least a couple of YEARS have passed. Classmates who were the same age as them, and even younger than them, have literally lapped them not just in age but in experiences they simply just have no frame of reference for. What a mindfuck it's gotta be for someone like Tag and Wallflower to come back to a much older and more jaded Hellion, Elixir, Surge, Anole, etc.....with the latter having basically become full on warriors who have fought an actual war for survival, been to Limbo, LIVED in Limbo, had to relocate from one 'last refuge' to the next between the mansion and then San Francisco and Utopia and X-Haven and more, who came of age beneath the watchful eye of Sentinel 'bodyguards,' who have been thrown in prison for fighting for their rights under Osborn's regime and captured and turned into weapons by the Leper Queen, served on teams like X-Force, have memories of divergent realities like Age of X and Age of X-Man, some like Hellion have lost limbs, others like Elixir have killed, they've fought their own in the form of Wither and resurrected mutants on Necrosha...

All of this must sound like some kinda weird fucked up nightmare story to the kids whose last memory is just around M-Day, and they're probably constantly wondering what ELSE did we miss that they just don't wanna tell us about because I can't imagine the survivors having been all that eager to TALK about all of this with their resurrected friends.

So to me it seems inevitable it should create a very real sense of disconnect that they should all have to work to navigate past and find a way to relate to each other again, because even if they're all happy now on Krakoa, the very IDEA of it must mean very, VERY different things to them. And for the ones who were around for the last few years and constantly fighting, we're talking inevitable PTSD and the kind of ingrained hyper-vigilance that never totally goes away, or at least not for a long time......meaning even 'in paradise' they're probably still occasionally on edge and looking over their shoulder for the next threat in ways that baffle a lot of their now younger classmates. And I'd love to see them focused on if and when the X-Offices follow up on Bishop's War College idea, because I can easily picture the resurrected mutants like DJ goofing off and not taking it too seriously, only for this to create conflict with the older classmates who come down on them for fooling around and not getting how important this is, and not totally able to explain WHY because like.....they weren't there.

For anyone who's read SWORD lately, a few issues back one of the many Arakkii to challenge Storm over her leadership and seat on the Council was saying he was doing it because 'why should we listen to you? You weren't there [for our war with Amenth], you don't know what it was like, you CAN'T know!'

Which is something I feel the now older classmates might feel towards the ones who died. BUT this is complicated because at the same time, the ones that died could just as likely resent the ones that didn't, to some degree, thinking well at least you GOT to live! At least you're not missing whole years where the world moved on without you, where you blinked and everything was different, at least you had chances to DO things, chances we didn't have because we were DEAD!

I would like to see the X-books to explore that kind of issue between the kids who died and came back and the ones who were around the whole time. They WANT to all just be happy that everyone's alive and well and they're all together and safe again, but there's this GAP in their lived experiences that none of them totally know how to get past.

Very good pitch for a relaunch with these characters. Using Bishop’s War College as the launching point also firmly plants it into the Krakoa Era.

[Fokken]

Feng Shui Queen.

Give this girl more panel time.

[CGAR]

No one is going to do anything with it. Undoing the depowerings and rez'ing the dead serves one purpose: To sweep all the trauma of the Academy X generation under the table.

I know some people never liked the dark direction the book took once KYost took over, but for good or ill, Decimation and Childhood's End are what set the NXM apart from the preceding generations and gave them their own identity. However it ALSO sets up to make the franchise Sacred Cows look bad. You can't talk about the NXM's experiences without also acknowledging how Cyclops, Emma, etc. SCREWED UP and failed to protect them.

Marvel doesn't want that. It especially doesn't suit the Krakoa narrative that most of the NMX would probably tell Xavier and the Quiet Council to go **** themselves.

The erasure of the NXM's trauma, combined with Jordan White and the rest of Editorial's refusal to let them grow up and graduate, shows what Marvel REALLY thinks of them: They just want them to be part of the amorphous, generic, student Wallpaper. It's a discredit and disservice to a great group of characters.

Disagree. Trauma doesnt just go away. Everything that happened to them is still there. We just need an interested writer to give us a story.

[scourge]

Disagree. Trauma doesnt just go away. Everything that happened to them is still there. We just need an interested writer to give us a story.

Problem is, we get interested writers plenty of times...its editorial that shuts down anyone actually using the characters properly.

[Ambaryerno]

Disagree. Trauma doesnt just go away. Everything that happened to them is still there. We just need an interested writer to give us a story.

And yet the last time Surge actually had dialogue she was a good little obedient Xavier and O5 devotee. She's not the same character who told Xavier off "We already know how to die," because that attitude was based on her trauma.

So yes, the trauma DOES go away when writers don't bother to maintain the continuity. There was no healing process, as was the case with X-23. The writers simply stopped using it.

[Rift]

Damn, BobbysWorld. Marvel needs to hire you ASAP. That was so good.

Ambaryerno, I'm mixed. On the one hand, I can see them being the first people to join Krakoa, since the promise of reviving their friends and not having to worry about death and pain would be a dream for them. Even if they've been sold spiels from the X-Men before, and been let down by them constantly, they don't have a lot of options and even many adults just went along with Krakoa for the hopium. The revival of their friends alone would be a huge selling point for most of them. But at the same time, Krakoa would be fucked up for many of them. People like Hellion and Surge can't leave because they have no homes to return to. Everything about the Quiet Council proves Surge right. From what we've seen, there's very little support for the resurrected or traumatized outside of just leaving them with their friends. So I think they'd jump on Krakoa, but many of them would notice the cracks right away once they were there. At any rate, they'd make their voices known, if the writers and editors would let them.

[CGAR]

And yet the last time Surge actually had dialogue she was a good little obedient Xavier and O5 devotee. She's not the same character who told Xavier off "We already know how to die," because that attitude was based on her trauma.

So yes, the trauma DOES go away when writers don't bother to maintain the continuity. There was no healing process, as was the case with X-23. The writers simply stopped using it.

Hard disagree. Just because what you want written isnt being written doesnt make what happened to these characters not real. Its canon its there.

Editorial and writers are not exploring it. Thats two different things.

Also characters are allowed to grow and change.

But I'll never view any of them as devotees to Xavier. That's an exaggeration.

[Fokken]

RE: Addressing Trauma of the Kiddos.
C.B. Cebulski, David Lafuente and Christina Strain did a story featuring Dani trying to help Surge process her anger/grief/guilt/pain in the Divided We Stand.
Hopefully these scans work...




Its not perfect. Its not definitive. And these are only 3 pages of a greater whole, but credit where credit is due: Someone gave it consideration.

EDIT: There is a page between the 2nd and 3rd I posted if that reads odd or jittery.

[BobbysWorld]

I mean, my stance is there's no denying that the current editorial and writing staff don't seem to have any interest in acknowledging the Academy X kids' trauma or giving much focus to them, but we never know when writer shakeups will happen or editorial turnover will occur, and there's not some unnatural geas preventing these kids or their trauma from ever being touched again, it literally just comes down to what specific editors and writers want to happen and are interested in exploring. So the fact that there's no interest there now doesn't mean anything about what the future will hold, and like, I'm in my thirties, and I've been an X-fan since the 90s. My perspective here is based on the long game....everything old eventually becomes new again. Someday people who grew up reading Academy X and for whom those kids are 'THEIR' X-Men will be in a position to swing the spotlight back to some of them. If nothing else, the Krakoan era and the resurrection protocols are proof positive that even the most minor or overlooked characters can be brought back into focus and given more depth and exploration.

Like, Gen-X was the young X-kids book when I was a teenager. Synch died a LONG fucking time ago, and I honestly never thought he'd ever get the focus or development I felt his character still had the potential for. But he's back now, despite all odds, and yeah I don't think he's gotten that focus or development yet now either, lmao, but that's just because he's in Duggan's hands and I think Duggan sucks at both those things. But the point is he's BACK and his profile is rising again even after being all but forgotten by most people for over two decades, and that means there's once again every chance for someone after Duggan to take on his character and give the focus I'd love to see paid to HIS unexamined trauma from how he died and what it was like to suddenly find himself alive again after years spent dead.

And if it happened for him, I think it can easily happen for any Academy X kid, and I'm not planning on quitting being interested in the X-Men mythos or attached to their character potential any time soon, so I still have plenty of thoughts about them in the meanwhile, same as I do with any other character I like and feel more could be done with. I have as little control over any of that happening with even major characters like Iceman as I do with the Academy X kids, so its literally all the same to me even if Iceman's actually being used and given focus in various books now. I'm just a random fan spitballing thoughts, feelings and ideas about all the characters I like, the major and the obscure.

It literally only means as much as any other fan reading my thoughts wants it to mean, and that's basically all any of this boils down to for me.