X-Men #12 Spoilers/Review Thread

[Gray Lensman]

wow. I completely disagree. Hickman layered characters and built them. Duggan is doing a nice job, but to me, it's not comparable. Duggan's issues feel quick and almost like not much is happening. Things seem spread thin and some characters, sunfire and laura, almost seem irrelevant. Hickman uses every character when he has them

I don't remember Hickman using Scott much at all, and he kept him pretty exclusive until he left. He established a new status quo, gave him an incredibly kickass line right at the start, then had him watch other characters do stuff, then stopped using him at all.

[Grinning Soul]

The callback to Born Again was nice:

(Daredevil#230).

It feels almost sacrilegious to have those pages next to each other, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who caught that. Thanks for sharing. :)

Ben Urich is one of my favourite Marvel characters. And I'm glad he survived this arc without having been character assassinated.

Now, can Duggan stop flirting with DD's world? It's not funny. It's nightmare-inducing.

[Celestialbodies]

I don't remember Hickman using Scott much at all, and he kept him pretty exclusive until he left. He established a new status quo, gave him an incredibly kickass line right at the start, then had him watch other characters do stuff, then stopped using him at all.

What?!

He may not have given him some huge decade long storyline but he definitely used Cyclops consistently throughout his era. Again, he was not moving the narrative but Hickman took every opportunity I feel to use Cyke.

wow. I completely disagree. Hickman layered characters and built them. Duggan is doing a nice job, but to me, it's not comparable. Duggan's issues feel quick and almost like not much is happening. Things seem spread thin and some characters, sunfire and laura, almost seem irrelevant. Hickman uses every character when he has them

After reading his Avengers, and FF, I think Hickman excels at plotting, world building, and execution. HOWEVER, the thing he writing misses is heart, everyone has this same framework of speaking, usually as exposition dumps. He struggles with building onto existing relationships, he's a master at creating relationships, but his focus is primarily on intellectual or moral gray characters. Which can work, but looking at his work on the X-men as a whole, I can honestly say he struggled with characterizations for the majority of the X-men proper. Which again maybe why the totality of his run really only focused on Moira, Xavier, Magneto, Emma, Sinister, Apocalypse, Cypher, Destiny, and Mystique as well as numerous other of his faves, but those characters were ultimately the ones who had the most meaningful developments throughout his run.


I think several other writers do a much better job on interpersonal relationships.

[nx01a]

Scott got lots of play from Hickman in X-Men v5. Scott was a part of the first five issues, then the Brood issues, Vulcan's issue, the issue he and Jean call it quits, and the final issue where they reform the X-Men.

[Lukmendes]

I don't remember Hickman using Scott much at all, and he kept him pretty exclusive until he left. He established a new status quo, gave him an incredibly kickass line right at the start, then had him watch other characters do stuff, then stopped using him at all.

While I didn't read everything from Hickman's run, Cyke was used a decent amount in the early issues at least.

He probably didn't do as much as the likes of Magneto, Xavier and Mystique though, but Cyke was there having some moments here and there.

It feels almost sacrilegious to have those pages next to each other, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who caught that. Thanks for sharing.

Ben Urich is one of my favourite Marvel characters. And I'm glad he survived this arc without having been character assassinated.

Honestly, just the fact he was considering to reveal the fact mutants found a way to solve death felt out of character with how the story was implying he was gonna do it, but then again, that was probably the point, since Synch later on thinks Urich was gonna talk **** about mutants, but instead it was more of a praise.

Now, can Duggan stop flirting with DD's world? It's not funny. It's nightmare-inducing.

Yeah, the deformed art style looks really odd with the one in X-Men#12, and hell, it looked weird in Born Again itself, I know the point is to change colors to demonstrate how fucking terrified Urich is, but the less detailed arc style on his face is just, so weird lol.

And if you don't know what exactly is the callback, it makes it look like it's a flashback to a comic with a real bad art style...

After reading his Avengers, and FF, I think Hickman excels at plotting, world building, and execution. HOWEVER, the thing he writing misses is heart, everyone has this same framework of speaking, usually as exposition dumps.

When Hickman gets real bad at this, it feels like it's just two computers info dumping each other lol.

He struggles with building onto existing relationships, he's a master at creating relationships, but his focus is primarily on intellectual or moral gray characters. Which can work, but looking at his work on the X-men as a whole, I can honestly say he struggled with characterizations for the majority of the X-men proper. Which again maybe why the totality of his run really only focused on Moira, Xavier, Magneto, Emma, Sinister, Apocalypse, Cypher, Destiny, and Mystique as well as numerous other of his faves, but those characters were ultimately the ones who had the most meaningful developments throughout his run.

It's worth pointing out his Avengers run had these issues too, while it's understandable why some Illuminati members got less attention because of other comics, some characters he used like Thanos just, didn't work that well, Thanos lost all of his IQ when he faced Doom in Secret Wars from what I remember lol.

I think several other writers do a much better job on interpersonal relationships.

Yeah, Hickman is more of someone to build worlds, but with characters he may struggle pretty hard.

Another problem he has is the habit of writing current comics to build up for later stories, which, can work by itself, X-Men#6 vol 5 is my favorite from his run, since it develops Mystique plenty while also leaving something cool to happen later, but right before that we had X-Men#5, in which, I couldn't care about what just happened or what would happen afterwards.

A friend of mine perfectly described that as "Intrigue of whether it'll be intriguing", and it's annoying when I have to read the most boring comic in existence that ends with the possibility of something cool happening 50 issues from now, and it's not even a guarantee that the cliffhanger will be used because of the nature of comic books (Meaning, editorial changing minds, or the writer being kicked out of the comic, specific characters becoming unavailable, stuff like that), or that the story from the cliffhanger itself will be cool...

**** like that is why I dropped his run after a while, while I did like HoX, I didn't really care about PoX, and while his X-Men run had fun issues, it also had really boring ones, I don't expect a writer to always make super interesting stories, but this constant shift of quality is just not something I really wanted to put up with.

[Grinning Soul]

Honestly, just the fact he was considering to reveal the fact mutants found a way to solve death felt out of character with how the story was implying he was gonna do it, but then again, that was probably the point, since Synch later on thinks Urich was gonna talk **** about mutants, but instead it was more of a praise.

Oh, I agree. I didn't say he was well-written. I said he was not character assassinated.

I hated he was used as a mouth piece for Duggan to present the mutants in a positive light. While Ben would certainly not fall into blind prejudice, he certainly would not fall into blind acceptance either just because the Treehouse looks cute. I absolutely hate this line: "If the mutants have some grand design to take over the planet, they're doing it with kindness, and we can always use more of that."

I can't!!!

Because of this BS, I was afraid Duggan would have Ben sit on the story to protect the mutants and equate this act with not revealing DD's identity. Or do something worse.

In the end, being mind-wiped and still having a positive perspective? Not so bad. I was expecting much worse.

Yeah, the deformed art style looks really odd with the one in X-Men#12, and hell, it looked weird in Born Again itself, I know the point is to change colors to demonstrate how fucking terrified Urich is, but the less detailed arc style on his face is just, so weird lol.

And if you don't know what exactly is the callback, it makes it look like it's a flashback to a comic with a real bad art style...

That's not what I meant at all! :D

I meant the thought of Duggan writting DD's comic is a nightmare! :D

[Lukmendes]

Oh, I agree. I didn't say he was well-written. I said he was not character assassinated.

I hated he was used as a mouth piece for Duggan to present the mutants in a positive light. While Ben would certainly not fall into blind prejudice, he certainly would not fall into blind acceptance either just because the Treehouse looks cute. I absolutely hate this line: "If the mutants have some grand design to take over the planet, they're doing it with kindness, and we can always use more of that."

I can't!!!

I somehow didn't notice that line, and it's weird lol.

Then again not exactly surprising, the comic has random people treating the X-Men way too nicely, which's just weird, Marvel civilians are assholes even on good days lol.

Because of this BS, I was afraid Duggan would have Ben sit on the story to protect the mutants and equate this act with not revealing DD's identity. Or do something worse.

In the end, being mind-wiped and still having a positive perspective? Not so bad. I was expecting much worse.

I was expecting him to basically become a JJ for mutants, which wouldn't work at all with him lol.

That's not what I meant at all!

I meant the thought of Duggan writting DD's comic is a nightmare!

Well, can't speak for his writing style in general, since from him, I only really saw this X-Men run, which's okay, and X-Men Green, which's basically a shitpost made into a comic, so I don't really have much of a grasp of him as a writer, not sure if I should have nightmares if he ever ends up as a DD writer, but if it happens, boy I'd hope he doesn't pull a Daredevil Green lol.

[Grinning Soul]

I somehow didn't notice that line, and it's weird lol.

That was from a data page in X-Men #1.

As if I needed more reason to hate those data pages. :P

Then again not exactly surprising, the comic has random people treating the X-Men way too nicely, which's just weird, Marvel civilians are assholes even on good days lol.

Yeah. I think it's great that some humans are shown as not hating the X-Men or even liking them. If the 616 is like Earth, there are almost 8 billion humans and you'd expect most of them *not* to be hateful biggots.

But that doesn't mean there should be nothing in between: "I hate them, I want them all dead" and "I love them, they can take over the world for all I care".

I was expecting him to basically become a JJ for mutants, which wouldn't work at all with him lol.

Considering his position back in X-Men #1 that never occurred to me. But you're right: it would be awful as well.

Well, can't speak for his writing style in general, since from him, I only really saw this X-Men run, which's okay, and X-Men Green, which's basically a shitpost made into a comic, so I don't really have much of a grasp of him as a writer, not sure if I should have nightmares if he ever ends up as a DD writer, but if it happens, boy I'd hope he doesn't pull a Daredevil Green lol.

I think the less I talk about it, the better. Let's just say I wouldn't like Duggan to write DD and leave it at that, okay? :)

[Lukmendes]

That was from a data page in X-Men #1.

As if I needed more reason to hate those data pages. :P

Ah, those, I sometimes turn my brain off when reading data pages, I'm not a fan of info dumps, dedicated info dump pages? Eh, even worse...

At the very least I can use those pages to torment a friend of mine who dislikes 'em even more lol.

Yeah. I think it's great that some humans are shown as not hating the X-Men or even liking them. If the 616 is like Earth, there are almost 8 billion humans and you'd expect most of them *not* to be hateful biggots.

But that doesn't mean there should be nothing in between: "I hate them, I want them all dead" and "I love them, they can take over the world for all I care".

Unfortunately Marvel can struggle with the in-betweens, it's either one or the other lol.

Considering his position back in X-Men #1 that never occurred to me. But you're right: it would be awful as well.

Back in X-Men#1 he seemed too curious about dead mutants coming back to life, which, considering that even before Krakoa we had random resurrections within X-Men comics, or even a case of "he was only mostly dead", and those happens as well with the other supers, it's a weird thing to be suspicious of, that gave me the impression he wanted to find out what's going to make 'em look bad.

But again, that was likely intentional, Synth also had that impression and was wrong.

[Grinning Soul]

Ah, those, I sometimes turn my brain off when reading data pages, I'm not a fan of info dumps, dedicated info dump pages? Eh, even worse...

At the very least I can use those pages to torment a friend of mine who dislikes 'em even more lol.

I particularly loooooooove when they are redacted.



What's the point of that sh**?

Unfortunately Marvel can struggle with the in-betweens, it's either one or the other lol.

Oh, yeah.

Back in X-Men#1 he seemed too curious about dead mutants coming back to life, which, considering that even before Krakoa we had random resurrections within X-Men comics, or even a case of "he was only mostly dead", and those happens as well with the other supers, it's a weird thing to be suspicious of, that gave me the impression he wanted to find out what's going to make 'em look bad.

But again, that was likely intentional, Synth also had that impression and was wrong.

That whole plot didn't make much sense...

Don't get me wrong: I think a writer could have made it work, but it would require them to explore a little bit more why would *Ben* consider it to be news-worthy. For instance: Duggan framed Ben's curiosity/interest being sparked by Carnation being alive. Okay, that could have been a starting point, but one person coming back to life is not that rare of an event in the MU. So I think you'd have to establish that Ben was collecting more data than that, making a list of sightings of mutants who were known to be have died and who suddenly reappeared *after* the Krakoa nation was formed. And maybe add more data like the estimated size of the mutant population etc...

But because we didn't have that 1 panel showing his notice board with all these clues, the story feels forced.

I don't know how many times I've said it before, but that's why establishing well the motivations for the characters is essential, it's not a perk.

[Lukmendes]

I particularly loooooooove when they are redacted.



What's the point of that sh**?

Ah man, this reminds me of the game Control I played months ago, so many files, so many of them having random [redacted], at some point I didn't even bother speed reading 'em and just collected and moved on without reading, 'cause that **** was like a joke that got old real fast and was repeated over 100 times lol.

I think the point of doing that is to give the readers an idea that something important is there, but honestly, it's just a waste of space in already dedicated info dump pages.

I remember finding it pretty silly how Moira's diary in PoX#6 had blanked out entries, why the **** bother doing that when the diary by itself already skipped entries? Sheesh...

That whole plot didn't make much sense...

Don't get me wrong: I think a writer could have made it work, but it would require them to explore a little bit more why would *Ben* consider it to be news-worthy. For instance: Duggan framed Ben's curiosity/interest being sparked by Carnation being alive. Okay, that could have been a starting point, but one person coming back to life is not that rare of an event in the MU. So I think you'd have to establish that Ben was collecting more data than that, making a list of sightings of mutants who were known to be have died and who suddenly reappeared *after* the Krakoa nation was formed. And maybe add more data like the estimated size of the mutant population etc...

But because we didn't have that 1 panel showing his notice board with all these clues, the story feels forced.

I don't know how many times I've said it before, but that's why establishing well the motivations for the characters is essential, it's not a perk.

Good point, him being suspicious over just one resurrection will always be odd, it'd work better if this was, say, Ultimate Universe where resurrections are less common, but in 616, yeah... As is, all he did was make a guess and not much else.

[Grinning Soul]

Ah man, this reminds me of the game Control I played months ago, so many files, so many of them having random [redacted], at some point I didn't even bother speed reading 'em and just collected and moved on without reading, 'cause that **** was like a joke that got old real fast and was repeated over 100 times lol.

I think the point of doing that is to give the readers an idea that something important is there, but honestly, it's just a waste of space in already dedicated info dump pages.

I remember finding it pretty silly how Moira's diary in PoX#6 had blanked out entries, why the **** bother doing that when the diary by itself already skipped entries? Sheesh...

I had this conversation with a friend on another thread last year.

Borrowing from games, I'd say data pages - that big block of white in between colourful panels which transport me to a different world - always break my immersion, so I dislike them before I even read them.

That being said, sometimes they are interesting and they add information that would be either difficult to add on the regular panels or it take too many of them. So I can accept them in these cases as a necessary evil.

But a redacted data page makes my blood boil. If I can't have the info, don't effing break my immersion. Same for silly pages. If, as a writer, you can't help yourself to tease or make a silly entry, fine. But place that stuff either in the very beginning or after everything else. Only break my immersion if it's absolutely necessary to do so in a data page and at the exact moment in the story.

For instance, Scott's Kaiju protocols was probably the best piece of characterization of his we had in this Krakoa era (I know... let's not comment any further...), but it still broke my immersion. Because before we got to it, there was a previous data page with a silly QC dialogue!!!

Skip the useless catty chit-chat, keep the conversation about the actual plan *on panel* and add the protocol page at the very end.

Good point, him being suspicious over just one resurrection will always be odd, it'd work better if this was, say, Ultimate Universe where resurrections are less common, but in 616, yeah... As is, all he did was make a guess and not much else.

Yeah, and once that doesn't make much sense, everything else about how he's going about the investigation and how he feels about the story becomes too thin for us to grasp. It's a recipe to make your reader have a "meh" reaction to the plot.

Like I said: establishing character motivation well is *not* a perk.

[Lukmendes]

I had this conversation with a friend on another thread last year.

Borrowing from games, I'd say data pages - that big block of white in between colourful panels which transport me to a different world - always break my immersion, so I dislike them before I even read them.

That being said, sometimes they are interesting and they add information that would be either difficult to add on the regular panels or it take too many of them. So I can accept them in these cases as a necessary evil.

Yeah, Inferno vol 2 has a case of "necessary evil", since it talks about 16 attempts that Krakoa tried to destroy Orchis' sun base, so that one works better to give that information, and is skippable in case you don't care about this detail.

But a redacted data page makes my blood boil. If I can't have the info, don't effing break my immersion. Same for silly pages. If, as a writer, you can't help yourself to tease or make a silly entry, fine. But place that stuff either in the very beginning or after everything else. Only break my immersion if it's absolutely necessary to do so in a data page and at the exact moment in the story.

Stuff like that is why I'm not a fan of recap pages too, I prefer characters thinking about it.

For instance, Scott's Kaiju protocols was probably the best piece of characterization of his we had in this Krakoa era (I know... let's not comment any further...), but it still broke my immersion. Because before we got to it, there was a previous data page with a silly QC dialogue!!!

Skip the useless catty chit-chat, keep the conversation about the actual plan *on panel* and add the protocol page at the very end.

Info dump page that has characters talking has me rolling my eyes everytime, and that bit from Immortal X-Men#2 is no exception lol.

This is a comic book, a visual medium, use the fucking visuals and let conversations happen within panels, sheesh...

This talk reminds me of this masterpiece:



Pretty sure it's from HunterxHunter, dunno what chapter though if so.

[Grinning Soul]

Yeah, Inferno vol 2 has a case of "necessary evil", since it talks about 16 attempts that Krakoa tried to destroy Orchis' sun base, so that one works better to give that information, and is skippable in case you don't care about this detail.

Please, don't make me talk about that data page. It didn't just kill characters off panel. It killed physics too [or, depending on how you see it, the intellect of characters who were supposed to be intelligent]. :P

I can't!!!

Stuff like that is why I'm not a fan of recap pages too, I prefer characters thinking about it.

The more I think about it, the more I ask myself if data pages don't represent a certain... carelessness or lack of love (for lack of better term - I'm not a native speaker and I'm not a morning person) for the medium.

I know the analogy isn't a good one, but it's somewhat equivalent to stop a movie in the middle and introduce the footage of an academic lecture, with a power point presentation that explains something about the plot (and not as breaking the 4th wall joke, but as a serious thing). This would be unthinkable for a movie, right? Viewers would be angry, there would be never-ending mockery about it. You just don't do that. If you need that kind of exposition, you find a way to incorporate it in the story, using the actual characters and other elements within the narrative.

Yet... data pages are still a thing. And I'm not sure what it actually means, but it feels to me it's a mixture of laziness, lack of appreciation for the medium, lack of pride as a writer to try to make exposition - which is always tricky - somewhat work... I really don't know...

EDITED: as for the recap pages, I think it's similar to "previously on" for series. It doesn't bother me much because its placement doesn't break the flow of the story and there is no new information being added there. You can skip them if you want. But some of those effing data pages actually have important or, at least, relevant info on them.

Info dump page that has characters talking has me rolling my eyes everytime, and that bit from Immortal X-Men#2 is no exception lol.

This is a comic book, a visual medium, use the fucking visuals and let conversations happen within panels, sheesh...

This talk reminds me of this masterpiece:



Pretty sure it's from HunterxHunter, dunno what chapter though if so.

I don't read manga (yet), but I'll guess this is from a black and white one. And at least they tried to put the text inside panels. Visually speaking? Better than data pages! :P

But, yeah, it's really bad too! :D

[johnnysv75]

But a redacted data page makes my blood boil. If I can't have the info, don't effing break my immersion. Same for silly pages. If, as a writer, you can't help yourself to tease or make a silly entry, fine. But place that stuff either in the very beginning or after everything else. Only break my immersion if it's absolutely necessary to do so in a data page and at the exact moment in the story.

I dislike the data pages immensely, but I still read them since I am afraid there is some info I need.
I am with you: don’t break my immersion. A data page in the wrong place just effs up my reading experience. Data pages at the beginning and/or end of a story would be fine (but maybe not after an emotional finale scene where I want to stay in that emotion for a while).