X-Men #11 - showing the hand *spoilers*

[Havok83]

So, like everyone else in the western world? lol


Jean confirmed as an anti-capitalist queen should soften the blow. I love reading Duggan's Synch, he's becoming one of my favorite characters.

No, most people arent going to a foreign country, buying a dress and in the same breath commenting on it being built on slave labor and if they do, then look just as bad as she did. Lorna came across ditzy and out of touch. Im sure Duggan didnt think of the optics of this especially coming from a white woman. It was a cringeworthy moment

[davetvs]

No, most people arent going to a foreign country, buying a dress and in the same breath commenting on it being built on slave labor and if they do, then look just as bad as she did. Lorna came across ditzy and out of touch. Im sure Duggan didnt think of the optics of this especially coming from a white woman. It was a cringeworthy moment

Do you hold your own purchases to the same ethical standards you hold Lorna's to?

[HomoSuperior]

No, most people arent going to a foreign country, buying a dress and in the same breath commenting on it being built on slave labor and if they do, then look just as bad as she did. Lorna came across ditzy and out of touch. Im sure Duggan didnt think of the optics of this especially coming from a white woman. It was a cringeworthy moment

It was cringe. It called to mind walking through Vegas casino hallways and seeing the long lines to get into the over-the-top luxury shops. All those luxury goods, from jewelry to clothing, have an unfortunate backstory.

Do you hold your own purchases to the same ethical standards you hold Lorna's to?

All goods have an unfortunate backstory. Perhaps the difference is "want" and "need." We all need clothing. Nobody needs the luxury bling. That's a "want" that has consequence.

[Tank]

I said it in the Jean thread but I’ll say it here. The Jean moment would have been nice but it just fell a little flat and felt unearned and insincere to me.

So she regressed herself to the Marvel Girl identity and just randomly decides to ditch it and go by her name again which she had already been going by for years before Krakoa? No rhyme or reason behind these choices makes it feel arbitrary and ultimately meaningless.

If there had been some trauma/trial/challenge for her to go back to Marvel Girl in the first place and then she overcame that trauma/challenge/whatever to no longer regress herself it would make sense. Here it doesn’t and feels empty.

[UncannyLZ]

Jean Grey didn’t change her name. “ I was Marvel girl but now I’m Jean Grey” meant she was being nice but now she took the gloves off. Her codename is still “Marvel Girl”.

I get the complaint with Lorna buying a dress she from a place built on slave labor but I don’t think it’s that deep. Duggan gave her a fun moment with a new dress while trying to drive home that gameworld is “bad”. The next issue will probably be the girls liberating gameworld before heading back to earth for Judgement Day.

[Exodus]

Maybe it is just me but I find the reveal that Jean Grey is so explicitly anti-capitalist very meaningful.

I always loved X-Men:Red for the bold idea that we need an entire new system without borders (it never got really deeper than that and explained to us what Jean revolutionary new plan to save the world would have been, sadly). Maybe here lies another reason why Jean developed such a strong oppositional opinion with the Quiet Council?! They just reproduced on many level the system that is already in place without a lot of vision for a revolutionary change.

I really wished Duggan would let Jean voice her opinion about where her plan from X-Men: Red and Krakoa as a nation would have differed!! I know U.S. superhero comics mainly want to be fun. But I want at least a few authors to dive a little deeper what an utopian new nation could look like beyond reproducing global power structures which are already in place.

Jean looks me like the persona—after X-Men:Red and X-Men 11—who wants to break the "wheel". They (capitalist) global system is violent and broken. Can we please have more heroes like Jean to voice her opinion more unapologetically?

[Havok83]

Do you hold your own purchases to the same ethical standards you hold Lorna's to?

Yes I do. 10char

[dragon1440]

Do you hold your own purchases to the same ethical standards you hold Lorna's to?

Some of us in the world do hold our purchases to high ethical standards. Its called "voting with your money" among some circles. So yes some people do.

[dragon1440]

Actually we dont NEED clothing, its just that soceitly norms require clothing. But no its not a need, unless your in drastic weather conditions clothing is not going to keep you alive in the wild.

[dragon1440]

Jean Grey didn’t change her name. “ I was Marvel girl but now I’m Jean Grey” meant she was being nice but now she took the gloves off. Her codename is still “Marvel Girl”.

I get the complaint with Lorna buying a dress she from a place built on slave labor but I don’t think it’s that deep. Duggan gave her a fun moment with a new dress while trying to drive home that gameworld is “bad”. The next issue will probably be the girls liberating gameworld before heading back to earth for Judgement Day.

Fun moments for one person are cringy moments for another. What was funny ten years ago is no longer funny when we understand the stpries behind it. This is 2022, its not 2010, we know better as a soceity now adays. Some people just dont realize it and still tries to fit "jokes or fun moments" into nodern day not realizing how harmful it can be. After all these are only fictional characters (last line is sarcastic)

[Mercury]

I will comment more later—I've decided to reread the 11 issues of this run released so far—but I wanted to respond to this assumption/observation:

Jean Grey didn’t change her name. “ I was Marvel girl but now I’m Jean Grey” meant she was being nice but now she took the gloves off. Her codename is still “Marvel Girl”.

In actuality, we don't know what Jean's declaration means or whether it will result in her dropping her old moniker. It's a seemingly throwaway moment that calls to mind the moment in issue #4 in which, during Jean's nightmare, Emma says to her about the Marvel Girl uniform, "It's not for me...or you." I remember instantly thinking that Duggan was using Emma to represent Jean's subconscious—it has long been theorized that, to some extent, the people that populate our dreams represent various aspects of our psyche—while alluding to her uniform change. However, others were adamant that it was simply a dig at Jean. In the end, while it was certainly a tongue-in-cheek moment that referenced Jean and Emma's rivalry of yore, as I had suspected, it was also a reference to how she was feeling and her subsequent uniform change.

That being said, you bring up an interesting possibility that would both substantiate what some have suspected—i.e., that Jean reverted back to her old uniform and codename, whether consciously or unconsciously, to subdue the more fiery aspects of her personality (pun intended)—and introduce an interesting facet of her current psychology. If, in fact, she is making the conscious decision to go by both Marvel Girl and Jean Grey to underscore her levels of assertion and aggression, depending on the circumstances, then she is certainly subduing or, at the very least, compartmentalizing the bolder, more forceful side of herself. This could have several implications and speaks volumes of where she is at, emotionally speaking.

Ultimately, Duggan's work with Jean, while not voluminous, has been incrementally progressive, assured, and affirmative. Another adjective that comes to mind to describe both his writing of Jean and how she is actually being portrayed is elegant. He has been gradually reestablishing and underscoring aspects of her character—her history, formidableness, strength as a mentor and leader, and a certain mysterious, je ne sais quoi quality about her—that I have missed and by which I am delightfully surprised and intrigued. Couple this with the fact that very recently (within the last two weeks) two X-writers—verified and certified, mind you—have privately shared with me that Jean has "a lot of exciting" changes and developments lined up for the next couple of years (it's important to note that in neither instance did I ask for this information; it was simply offered during conversations about other matters) and I think we're just beginning to see the first glimmers of the changes Jean is about to undergo.

I, for one, am thrilled.

[Devaishwarya]

Another great issue.
I loved that everyone (except Rogue) got a moment. And I'm really looking forward to see how Duggan wraps up this 12-months long arc(s). I hope it will be more Gamesworld heavy, though, than this issue...not complaining...which was quite balanced between the girls and the boys. But I want to see the Girls Blow. Shyt. Up!

The Stasis/Sinister (Fock he. I not callin' he "Dr.") reveal could follow through into the next year...from issue 13, with the new team. So issue 12 could mostly be the Ladies really destroying GW and sauteeing Cordy in some garlic butter and EVOO.

[salarta]

Cross-posting to here.

I posted my thoughts about the dress on my Tumblr. Going to copy and paste them here.

I'll be honest, I think a little more could be done with this look. It feels like it's missing something around the shoulders and head. BUT - this is an important but - this is a massive improvement compared to the Hellfire Gala dress from last year.

It maintains the green as her primary color while adding gold - which serves three valuable character-related points.

One, it's a visual callback to her very first costume.

Two, gold fits well with her powers being tied to metal and all.

Three, gold is one of those colors historically associated with royalty, which also fits her status as a mutant princess via Genosha very well.

She's also utilizing her powers here which is a massive booster for the look. Both with the little green and gold bits under her skirt, and with the other multicolored pieces (not sure exactly what they are) at the bottom. Since she has control over the electromagnetic spectrum, she has access to all visible colors in addition to non-visible wavelengths.

All in all, I'm happy to see that Marvel was willing to give a new dress a shot. I thought for sure they wouldn't do something like this based on what I've seen in the past about Marvel, and it means a lot that they were willing to do this. I hope they continue in that vein. And that this isn't just a means of assuaging fans before doing something bad with Lorna in the near future, which is another thing they often do.

And then saying something else after I read post from below.

I get the complaint with Lorna buying a dress she from a place built on slave labor but I don’t think it’s that deep. Duggan gave her a fun moment with a new dress while trying to drive home that gameworld is “bad”. The next issue will probably be the girls liberating gameworld before heading back to earth for Judgement Day.

Frankly speaking, most clothes we have in the West could be considered as from slave labor. Payment for workers in countries that make most clothes is minuscule.

But that's not the argument I'm "going with." Their purpose is scouting and intel. Lorna buying the dress advances that goal, same as the girls being there at all and putting up Mysterium. If Lorna's done something wrong by buying the dress, then the entire team is at fault for buying in, most especially whoever came up with the plan. But back to scouting and intel, playing along goes further toward gathering information than not. You can look to Hercules Mulligan for a historical example of how it pays off. As a tailor, he learned vital strategic information for the revolution by working on the clothes of British officers rather than refusing service.

And I would say this all fits for Lorna. She's a veteran, she knows sometimes you have to at least temporarily go along with bad things to reach good outcomes. Especially with this being a To Be Continued, we'd have to see what the next issue does.

[WallStreeter]

I said it in the Jean thread but I’ll say it here. The Jean moment would have been nice but it just fell a little flat and felt unearned and insincere to me.

So she regressed herself to the Marvel Girl identity and just randomly decides to ditch it and go by her name again which she had already been going by for years before Krakoa? No rhyme or reason behind these choices makes it feel arbitrary and ultimately meaningless.

If there had been some trauma/trial/challenge for her to go back to Marvel Girl in the first place and then she overcame that trauma/challenge/whatever to no longer regress herself it would make sense. Here it doesn’t and feels empty.

Could simply be she can’t stay a girl forever.

[The BaRoN]

The ONLY marvel book I’m reading and buying right now.

If we lose any of these members with the gala vote coming then I’ll be pissed because this is the best xmen team book in decades.