Inferno #4 Review/Spoilers

[Jackraow21]

A lot of characters are being written with completely different personalities. Beast, Colossus and Professor X are a few examples. It is annoying and makes potentially good stories bad. Also look at Cable in Sword.

Adult Cable or Kid Cable? The latter, sure. He was a hot mess of a character in a number of ways. But the former has been written in character since he got back IMO.

[Username taken]

I mean, it definitely should be pointed out in story that if Moira's intention all along was to cure mutants en masse, AND she already had the cure that she'd developed in her previous life, why didn't she just do it when mutants' numbers had been reduced to the 198 after House of M instead of waiting until after she'd helped Xavier and Magneto not only build a nation of mutants but multiply their numbers exponentially.

Exactly my thinking.

It doesn't make sense. Xavier/Magneto's plan was to build up mutant-kind into an uber-powerful civilization the likes of the world have never seen.

How does she want to enact her plan when mutants are at the strongest point in their existence?

She could and should have done whatever it is she planned when she was at their weakest.

[xhx23x]

I mean, it definitely should be pointed out in story that if Moira's intention all along was to cure mutants en masse, AND she already had the cure that she'd developed in her previous life, why didn't she just do it when mutants' numbers had been reduced to the 198 after House of M instead of waiting until after she'd helped Xavier and Magneto not only build a nation of mutants but multiply their numbers exponentially.

I think that until we get that Moira story in the context of the retcon (which judging from the ending here we will at some point), we need to assume that she went for a more surgical strike here because of Destiny's threat from her previous life. If she tried something so overt she likely could've been caught and stopped before she could do much of anything. Not to mention, in one of her life's the Phoenix Five happened, so House of M likely took place in some form there too, so maybe she tried that before and it didn't take like how she wanted.

[Username taken]

I am really mad at what Hickman did with Moira, the character always has been a loyal ally and caring person, so hopefully another writer may come and fix her story.

Agreed 100%.

Moira has always been a good friend of the X-men for a very long time.

[loke13]

Yeah not liking what Hickman did with Moira here.

[Mercury]

I have a lot of thoughts still percolating on all of this, but this issue served to heighten my feelings that Hickman's usual weakness of interpersonal dynamics....that definitely continues to be the Achilles Heel of all this.

Because its treated as irrelevant that like.....Moira has HUMAN, EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONS with many, MANY characters in the X-universe, with her completely glossing over any impact any of her actions or choices will have on them. Her son Proteus is one of the Five, one of the most revered mutants in this new mutant nation she helped build....because of his power over death. Her adoptive daughter Rahne is one of Doug's oldest friends. She has a grandson in Tier, who Rahne finally has a chance to get back now with the changes in ToM.

And all of that could matter so much here. Doug's motivations could have been easily given so much more power by just dropping in there.....like, I don't like this person any more than you guys do at this point, but she's also the mother of one of my best friends and I'm not just going to stand by and watch you kill her when I have the power to stop it. You all on the QC sold us on this idea of this nation being our chance to be better, to do things different, and here you are same as ever.....don't get mad at me if I decide to make use of the fact that you all CHOSE to make me integral to all your nation-building here and I've decided to actually HOLD you to all the promises you made to us your people, all the grandiose claims you made for what Krakoa could be and what our society should be like.

I'm very much hoping that no future writers DO decide to send Moira to join Orchis because that would be beyond the pale.....because then she'd not just be down to take away her own children's natures and identities, she'd be game to throw in with bigots who want them out and out dead to boot? Why is nobody acting aware of the fact that Moira's not just some OC but a long-established ally of the X-Men inextricably woven into their network of interpersonal relationships? Like, I'm not going to pretend I've been so invested in her in the past that I'm like Hickman completely destroyed her with the retcon, I found the retcon and her past lives interesting, I think it was a worthwhile story direction, but the sheer obliviousness to all the intricate emotional connections she has to these people whose lives she's playing God with is just a mess.

Frankly, he's been oblivious to most of the "intricate emotional connections" between characters. Then again, he has admitted that the characters were supposed to feel off. I think he was going to reveal some nefarious manipulation of all mutants by either Krakoa or Xavier at some point.

[Saithor]

Frankly, he's been oblivious to most of the "intricate emotional connections" between characters. Then again, he has admitted that the characters were supposed to feel off. I think he was going to reveal some nefarious manipulation of all mutants by either Krakoa or Xavier at some point.

Pretty much. Like, I joke about the Krakoan weed conspiracy but there is setup for something like that having been happening all along.

[NewMutant]

Agreed 100%.

Moira has always been a good friend of the X-men for a very long time.

I agree. And the human ally is actually very important and underused. However Moira was dead and hadnt been used in ages. Its fitting she is human now, but sad to she her an enemy.

It's a brave new world darling, best get used to it.

[jwatson]

Please! is it too much to hope the information from inferno shocks peter out of what mikhal is doing to him because if mikhal gets all this info because of Peter, oy vey.

[Lucyinthesky]

I mean, it definitely should be pointed out in story that if Moira's intention all along was to cure mutants en masse, AND she already had the cure that she'd developed in her previous life, why didn't she just do it when mutants' numbers had been reduced to the 198 after House of M instead of waiting until after she'd helped Xavier and Magneto not only build a nation of mutants but multiply their numbers exponentially.

Yes it doesn´t make much sense unless her end game was to convince mutants so they would willingly become human and even so, why would they?

[jwatson]

haha lowkey i just had the funny thought that one of hickmans biggest complaints was that none of the mutants ever age and therefore don't grow but the entire council just gained thousands of years of intel so like Synch they all have been aged in a sense. lol

[pkingdom]

Sound a fury, signifying nothing.

4 issues to change almost nothing. An entire relaunch has just been endlessly spinning its wheels. I suppose I should be grateful they didn't just fridge Moira. And has Destiny been even remotely useful since she's been brought back? Endless "the future possibilities are too vast!". We were told she was like some kind of uber dangerous demon with vast future sight in HoXPoX, and now she didn't even see Doug coming.

Just a colossal waste of time. At no point in their entire history did Xavier try to peak at what Moira really wants? One of the most paranoid and controlling figures in Marvel, second only to Reed Richards, maybe?

[pkingdom]

haha lowkey i just had the funny thought that one of hickmans biggest complaints was that none of the mutants ever age and therefore don't grow but the entire council just gained thousands of years of intel so like Synch they all have been aged in a sense. lol

The best kind of character development: offscreen and literally implanted into their heads.

[Habis]

OK. I have read this thing again, to see if I have missed something... and it doesn't make any f***ing sense...

Moira has built Krakoa together with Magneto and Xavier. She has worked on it for decades. She even had a child as part of the plan... Why would she do that, if her plan is to re-create her cure? How does creating Krakoa advances her plan to create a cure without getting killed? And if she has changed her mind... why? WHY?! Mutants are doing better than ever, the only hiccup in the Krakoa plan is that they can't kill Nimrod, but that could be solved by having Magik teleport Magneto, Polaris, Exodus, Iceman, Legion, Vulcan and both Xorns (instead of X-Force or the Brood), and blowing the Orchis Forge to cinders from within...

I thought that maybe they were speaking about the cure she developed during her third life, but if so, why calling her a liar and traitor to her own kind? She has been helping mutankind during seven lives and more than 1,200 years afterwards, she has redeemed herself a million times since she created that cure...

Nope, she must be creating her cure now... but if so... WHAT'S THE POINT OF KRAKOA?!

All I can think is, Hickman is pissed because his plans were hijacked and warped by others, and he crapped a shitty, senseless end for the story arc because he thinks Marvel neither can appreciate nor deserves better from him...

[BobbysWorld]

I know people are big on the theory that there was some insidious reveal being planned for why Krakoans are the way they are, in terms of the aspects people don't like about their characterizations or the things they go along with.....but I would honestly be shocked if that were true. For it all to be some kind of manipulation of the average mutant by Xavier or someone else would undermine the entire point and pathos of a lot of the ideas and themes Hickman built up. There's no weight, no conflict to a story about moral ambiguity or conflict between races if the majority of the choices being made are actually just being driven by a singular party or influence without most of the players having real agency in building up that ambiguity or conflict.

Personally I think Occam's Razor is the answer here. Hickman's just not good at the finer points of characterization because he prioritizes big picture ideas and has no problem adjusting motivations to enable his plots rather than using characterization to drive his plots. He's the kind of writer who views characters as being tools meant to be drafted in service to a story, rather than stories being tools to be drafted in service to the characters. Its a choice of priorities and one I feel he makes with clear intent.

I know that interview had him talking about how he wanted the resurrection concept to hammer home the idea that there's something inherently unrelatable about mutant society, something that breaks up the reader instinct to side with mutants and forces us to make a tangible choice as to whether we WANT to side with them in this story versus innately viewing them as our gateway POV to the story and thus just meant to side with them by default. I think people have built that statement of his up to mean more than it actually does though, when they use it to try and explain away parts of the story and character choices they simply don't agree with. I didn't get the impression that was what he was saying when he talked about wanting resurrection to make Krakoan society somewhat unrelatable. Nowhere in that interview did he say that he wanted the resurrection concept or anything else to make Krakoan society seem SKETCHY to readers or UNLIKABLE.....simply to express that Krakoan society had aspects that made it outside the realm of human relatability. Something that made it so readers couldn't take it for granted that Krakoans would react to things the same way readers would.....because there were things within Krakoan lived experiences that are fundamentally outside of any readers' lived experiences.

(Tbh, its part of the gripe I mentioned having with his overall approach to Krakoa earlier in the thread. I think stuff like that was done deliberately by Hickman not to layer in hints that something insidious lurks at the heart of Krakoa, but rather just to move the story he was trying to tell about a race of superhuman beings away from the default X-books setting of an allegory to real life marginalized societies. I think Hickman deliberately set out to craft a story that wasn't meant to be allegorical but rather just high concept sci-fi......which is where I think he fundamentally missed the mark with a lot of readers, because for a lot of us there IS no setting aside the allegory that we see as baked into the X-Men on a conceptual level).