Fall of X

[The tall man]

Just look at Sins of Sinister. Mutants get influenced by Sinister, lose their morals, give into their worst impulses and you have mutantkind defeating other super human beings, overthrowing the government and effectively taking over the planet without hardly any opposition. Then they've gone on to conquer the wider galaxy, so how can anyone claim mutants are underdogs given what we've seen. And if the argument is well only a handful of mutants are powerful and the majority are not, well only a handful was able to conquer the galaxy. Unless of course X-fans are willing to say the MU was jobbed hard for mutants to achieve what they did. I think we're long past the point of seeing mutants as underdogs, that ship as sailed. SOS as proven that if mutants break bad they conquer all.

[JB]

Why do they have to be underdogs?

Beat me to the question

Reposting because I'm curious about this as well. I'm not sure where it was said mutants have to be underdogs.

[gonnagiveittoya]

I'm not saying they need to be, but the actual books certainly act like they still are

[gonnagiveittoya]

The nation and the QC may be rich as a whole but I tend to doubt that the majority of the Krakoan population have access to the money.

We still see people buy things on the rare occasions where characters leave the island for any extended period of time not on a mission, so they do have access to money

[gonnagiveittoya]

The entire country doesnt attend. It by invite only. The venue cant even host everyone

Invite only for the humans. The mutants were allowed to come regardless of invitation. That's why there were a bunch of randos at both galas, including on Arakko

[Grunty]

I mean if mutants are permanently immortal super gods, ruling a nation with dominion over the entire planet and solar system, forever, there's literally no threat in any story that could actually matter. Like even the Asgardians aren't that OP, and there's way more major mutants than important Asgardians. How can Fall of X matter if they're just going to immediately be fine later.

That has been one of my problems with what HOX/POX set up.

Hickman basicly snapped them a magic super island into existence with zero build up or previous indication of such a thing being possible, which provides the mutants and heros with endless amounts of clean energy and resources, super advanced technological and makes them entirely autark from the rest of the world, which the characters and narrative also frequently hit the reader over the head with in the most blunt way possible, to the point of snobbish posturing (including from characters where it doesn't make sense that they would talk that way).

He also gave them nearly every named mutant at their disposale, including some with powers which are basicly deus ex machinas plus the blank check to have new mutants appear out of nowhere who can have any power the plot needs to be resolved at last minute.

And finaly they have an in universe established cheap respawn system to the point where characters who managed to survive just fine through countless battles can now be killed in the most trivial ways possible.

They have many readily usable tools to resolve their issues before they even started, but since the usual super hero comic plotlines still needs to happen they can't use these straight away. Which means that the writers actualy have to make the heros intentional less capable or smart than they should be, in order to pretend like their enemies are even still supposed to be a danger to them.

Which in turn is also the reason i can't take Orchis serious. The plot bends and breaks to present them as being too powerfull and protected to be taken out by the heros and their nation. But when attempts are actualy shown they appear comical inept or non-sensical, while writers willingly ignoring the massive amount of alternatee solutions the heros have their disposable.

Imagine the heros watching a season of The Expanse and figuring out they can just bombard the Orchis base with asteroids, fire railgun slugs at them from the other side of the Sol system, create a wormhole into the sun, etc. All things the heros could do with ease under any other circumstance or enemies.

They can terraform Mars and rub it into everyone's face, but they can't stop a bunch of normal human scientist and a SINGLE slightly advanced Sentinel from orbiting around the sun unaffected and turn Mercury into a Sentinel factory??

Sins of Sinister only makes it worse, because the story makes a big display out how powerfull the mutants would be if their leaders are not held back by moral standards and inhibition, so from Nick Fury to Thanos all would fall at their might. But this in turn highlights what they could still do with their morals intact to destroy Orchis. So why are they not using that? Because the plot needs to hold them up as "valid" opposition to the X-men even if it's inconsistent with the rest of what is displayed.

So i can understand the sentiment that Hickman simply made the mutants too powerfull to be the underdogs or that their enemies are a valid opposition anymore. Which removes a sense of stakes and danger to their adventures and fights.

[Havok83]

Invite only for the humans. The mutants were allowed to come regardless of invitation. That's why there were a bunch of randos at both galas, including on Arakko

Not true. Again, everyone cant even fit in the venue. It doesnt even make sense that the entire country attends based on that alone. Its invite only even for those on Krakoa. That was a plotpoint of the Hellions issue of the 2021 Gala

[Omega Alpha]

Not true. Again, everyone cant even fit in the venue. It doesnt even make sense that the entire country attends based on that alone. Its invite only even for those on Krakoa. That was a plotpoint of the Hellions issue of the 2021 Gala

Yep. Also, saying "now they can leave Earth at any time" isn't really that strong of an argument because this is Marvel, every superhero can, and usually does. Spider-Man can go to space, just ask the F4 for one. Outside Krakoa, they can still be persecuted and murdered in most places, etc.

[cranger]

Not true. Again, everyone cant even fit in the venue. It doesnt even make sense that the entire country attends based on that alone. Its invite only even for those on Krakoa. That was a plotpoint of the Hellions issue of the 2021 Gala

Different books gave different impressions. Which is pretty much the summary of this era and the problem with most of these discussions.

[Nicoclaws]

Reposting because I'm curious about this as well. I'm not sure where it was said mutants have to be underdogs.

What's funny is I think it's been a really long time that the X-men have been seen as "underdogs". Everybody know they're very powerful, even their foes.
Maybe I don't exactly understand "underdog" ? For me it means the odds are against them because they're weak, but you root for them ? Are oppressed minorities necessarily "underdogs" ?

[gonnagiveittoya]

Not true. Again, everyone cant even fit in the venue. It doesnt even make sense that the entire country attends based on that alone. Its invite only even for those on Krakoa. That was a plotpoint of the Hellions issue of the 2021 Gala

Hellions was an outlier. In the other books it was anyone mutant could show up. That's why Gimmick could go even though she was such a recent mutant she didn't even know what her actual powers were and had failed going through gates not long prior.

[Havok83]

Hellions was an outlier. In the other books it was anyone mutant could show up. That's why Gimmick could go even though she was such a recent mutant she didn't even know what her actual powers were and had failed going through gates not long prior.

Again not true. Gimmick got to go bc she was invited personally by Storm as her guest



I think you keep ignoring the big fact that the venue that holds the Gala cant accomodate 200K+ mutants. Not only does everyone on Krakoa not attend it; they physically cant. Even during the vote, we saw Jean mind-linking with some mutants that weren't at the Gala.

[cranger]

Gimmick was not living on Krakoa and did not even know if she wanted to go there. Anyway, Storm literally says "The gala is open to all mutants".

Can it hold them all? Does anyone care? Probably not anyone in the X-Slack.

[Factor]

Personally I could do without writers treating resurrection as a cheat to just casually kill off characters and then just bring them back (not that naked people aren't fun) when I can count on one hand the amount of writers who have done anything actually interesting with the concept or explored it in-depth.

Though I'd have just as rather see the Quiet Council get sacked, but I guess Krakoa's dysfunctional and ineffectual government is as much the stars of this saga as the X-Men and Mutant population are.

I couldn't agree more. They've just banalized death. Now everybody dies all the time and there's zero emotional impact.
Plus they've really missed the opportunity to explore the emotional repercussions of long-dead characters returning. They just popped out of the eggs and we saw no reunions, no character exploration etc. Only Thunderbird got a bit of that, but we missed huge emotional moments like Synch reuniting with Gen X for the first time, Icarus reuniting with the Guthries, Proteus and Moira and so on.

Sadly I think it's a reflex of how little Hickman focuses on character work, but it's a shame the entire line followed suit.

[Omega Alpha]

I couldn't agree more. They've just banalized death. Now everybody dies all the time and there's zero emotional impact.
Plus they've really missed the opportunity to explore the emotional repercussions of long-dead characters returning. They just popped out of the eggs and we saw no reunions, no character exploration etc. Only Thunderbird got a bit of that, but we missed huge emotional moments like Synch reuniting with Gen X for the first time, Icarus reuniting with the Guthries, Proteus and Moira and so on.

Sadly I think it's a reflex of how little Hickman focuses on character work, but it's a shame the entire line followed suit.

You're pretending there was emotional impact and no gratuitous deaths before. No one took death in comics seriously for a long time. Now, writers can't use death as a mere shock tactic and don't have to create contrived stories justifying the return of the characters they want to use