A.X.E.: JUDGMENT DAY #6 Review/Spoilers

[vitruvian]

I agree.

Considering the powers that mutants have access to, there shouldn't even be any chronic condition or disease anymore that they couldn't cure before the person dies.

They can teleport to the center of creation and mine some super mineral from there, but things like saving someone from cancer, MS or ALS are somehow uncurable to the point that they can only clone and replace the person who suffers from it?

It's the same issue as One More Day where seemingly nobody could safe someone from a simple bullet wound, so the hero needs to make a deal with the devil.

Not to forget the weird logic that the best solution to any physical issue is full blown death and replication via cloning.

Overall that's one of the issues of having a status quo which should be world changing, but still sticking to the rule that super powered people can't lastingly change the world at all.

The willing suspension of disbelief on those things works, when either not enough attention is drawn to it, or when the heros remain "outside" the law, which prevents them from legaly making use of their powers like that.
But neither is the case with this X-men status quo anymore. So it just draws un-needed attention to logical holes.

That's an issue with the entire Marvel universe, not just the X-Men mutant side of things. Wakanda canonically had the cure for cancer for ages and IIRC still hasn't shared it with the rest of the world. Tony Stark had Extremis perfected enough to distribute it as a subscription service app on people's phones, and that stuff can reprogram the body genetically and cure anything permanently if you want it to. Multiple sets of heroes have access to advanced alien technology. And of course it's not just medical stuff, it's the same for clean energy (don't forget, Tony had Shi'ar contractors build a partial Dyson sphere close to the sun to power a massive weapon in Time Runs Out... wonder if he still owes them on that contract in the new post-Secret Wars cosmos), agriculture, transport, everything.

Not to mention the Osborn-led iteration of Hammer/HYDRA cracking the code for duplicating any superhuman's powers, including those that come from the X-gene like Wolverine's healing factor, way back in Bendis' run in the Avengers books, and broad spectrum power nullifiers being introduced in the same storylines - how is Orchis not stealing the nullifier tech, and the U-Men not switching over from gross body part transplants to gene therapy ala those storylines?

[vitruvian]

I cannot help feeling there is a significance in the fact it wouldn’t even speak to Sinister let alone judge him. Especially with the forthcoming Sins of Sinister event.

Overall I mostly enjoyed it. Could have done with less Tony Stark in it and a few of the other Avengers.

Perhaps it was afraid he still had a way to take a Celestial over, as he's done in the past.

On the other hand, earlier in the event didn't it know enough about his machinations that when he tried to kill one of his Moira clones to reset the timeline back before its creation, the weapon he tried to use just refused to work? I guess he's not going to try again now that the Progenitor is kaput, in case things go worse rather than better for him the next time around.

[vitruvian]

I think it’s worth making the point that Sinister’s inclusion is such a bad call that the whys and wherefores shouldn’t be open for discussion on message boards. It should be clearly shown why they had no other choice (which would in itself be a tough sell - you’re telling me that over decades with the thousands of superpowered beings and alien technologies they encountered, they couldn’t find a single alternative that didn’t involve making a Nazi murderer a leader of their nation?). Imagine if this happened in any other franchise. What if Red Skull just turned up as Avengers chairman one issue and no one really questioned it?

To me, characters being tools for the plot rather than the actual characters we know is one of the fundamental issues with the Krakoa era. But even if you accept the justification for Sinister’s involvement from a reader’s perspective, it doesn’t explain why the other X-Men aren’t creating merry hell about it.

Also, you say they knew not to trust him…but where have we seen evidence of that beyond some words and glances? What failsafes have they built? How are they monitoring him? They even let him have his own team.

Honestly, it would be understandable if they were admitting him just to use his resources, but the plan all along was to only let him stick around long enough for Forge and Sage to hack his files and then let him hang himself by provably breaking the Laws so they could put him in the pit or kill him and put him last in the queue for resurrection.

Meantime if he really wanted to do a face turn, but still mess with everyone at the same time, he could easily do something like release a virus that inserts the X-gene into everyone on the planet, making everyone mutants all at once. After all, he has the technology, otherwise he wouldn't be a mutant himself.

[vitruvian]

Even in that case then there’d be huge inequities in terms of who has access, the means, and simply the time to submit an application. Say if the parents are also struggling with malnutrition or whatever issue is plaguing their kids then it’s immediately a huge burden on them. I know it’s a comic book but I really did seem like a handwavey solution that wasn’t super well thought out.

Depending on the current scope of Jean's telepathy, perhaps that'll be the means by which they receive 'applications' without grieving parents needing to have access to computers or telecommunications or government offices on an equitable basis. After all, if non-mutant telepath Moondragon was able to mind control an entire planet, why shouldn't Omega-level mutant telepath Jean be able to periodically scan the globe for feelings of intense grief and then initiate voluntary contact with potential prospects?

[vitruvian]

I wonder when the humans will do something for the mutants or anybody other than themselves.

Well, I mean if we're including human Avengers and other superheroes, there are literally dozens of times when they've saved the entire world or universe, and if they hadn't all the mutants would be dead. Or enslaved by Kulan Gath, or whatever.

As for why they don't often seem to intervene when the mutants specifically are under threat from Orchis or Sentinels or whatever, one could speculate as to the in-universe reasons - at the moment, Krakoa seems more than capable of defending itself, except for extreme situations like this very event in which they did help out there, often things happen and are over before they would ever know, busy saving the world somewhere else - but really, it's for the same reason that you don't often see the X-Men helping save the multiverse over in Spiderverse stories, or against Galactus or Abraxas or the Reckoning War in FF stories, or against Mephisto or the Masters of Evil in Avengers stories; it would take focus away from the main characters of the series.

[Grunty]

(...)
Not to mention the Osborn-led iteration of Hammer/HYDRA cracking the code for duplicating any superhuman's powers, including those that come from the X-gene like Wolverine's healing factor, way back in Bendis' run in the Avengers books, and broad spectrum power nullifiers being introduced in the same storylines - how is Orchis not stealing the nullifier tech, and the U-Men not switching over from gross body part transplants to gene therapy ala those storylines?

Fields which could supress mutant powers have existed even before Bendis.
If i recall right Prime Sentinels could allready supress a mutants powers remotly after analyzing them and their technology never became lost (Orchis even has high spec version of them among their ranks).

The High Evolutionary also covered Earth in a field which supressed every mutants powers for weeks back in 1999 and while his tech is generaly a bit more advanced, the fundamentals of this actions are achievable with technologies allready in the hands of human scientist aswell.

Especialy those who somehow can build a secret giant space station around the sun and a high tech factory city on Mercury.

The X-gene is actualy quite easy to disrupt and harm looking back at various stories over the years. So yeah Orchis could have for ages just put a field on Earth depowering all mutants and then bombard Krakoa from Orbit.

Though just like how the mutants should have taken care of Orchis a long time ago because of the powers now at their disposale.

So the "can't do that because the plot needs them in this position" rule is in full effect.

That should be true of several of them. Proteus and Elixir are omegas, and most of the possible replacements like Cosimar and Triage, are not. I think Tempus is also supposed to be a big deal (omega? No idea), and it's possible that Tempo, Timeslip, Kiden Nixon, Sway, the Monroe twins, etc. might not be able to as easily age up bodies from zero to fully-grown (although, if they use Madrox instead of Goldballs, the 'organic base' will be a Madrox dupe, and not need aging up, just reality-manipulation/healing-DNA-splicing to change it from a Jamie-clone to a clone of whomever they are resurrecting, which sounds hard, but *has* to be easier than turning a round golden meat-egg into a fully-developed person of meat and bones).

When one takes a step back and looks at "The Five", it's somewhat hillarious how the creation of the new bodies for the ressurection protocol requires such specific or rare mutants and for them perform complex tasks with their power, while the end result is nothing more unique or better than what could allready be done via machinery, both mechanical and biological, throughout the Marvel Multiverse.

Not only that but compared to the creation of the bodies, the implantation of recorded memories, doesn't seem to require a peak level telepath to be used. So while the creation of the body requires an omega level healer, a full blown reality warper and a time manipulator, the most vital aspect of making the person themself again can be fullfilled by over a dozen different people of various power levels.

So why the hype and the importance of the Five when they aren't actualy that impressive from an objective point of view?

Perhaps it's to maintain an illusion of mutant self reliance.
The idea that mutants when using their super powers combined can achieve functions and benefits, which other people (human or extra terrestial) need to create complex machinery for.

Which while proven in concept by the Five, is also clearly highly inefficient, since it requires mutants with such exceptional powers to perform a function that can allready be achieved by machines, which are also much more easily to reproduce and replace.

And it's not like they are truely self reliant even with the Five since the most important part of the Ressurection Protocol involves a classic piece of machinery, which isn't even made with their homebrewn bio-tech, but foreign technology.

This makes it quite ironic, that they reject the "mechanical" technologies of "humanity", but then go straight for the same type of technology just of a more advanced alien culture, which likely also reached the point following the same developments as humans. Making the rejection appear hypocritical if not delusional.

Likewise the entire nation is economical and financialy depending on machinery created from the techno-organic material the island provides. Without it they would no longer be the "post scarcity" society which allowed writers to put superiority rethoric into the mouths of x-men characters.

Overall. The Five are basicly to cloning machines what the Mentats from Dune were to computers. They fullfill the same function, but only because social/religios taboos make them prefered over the easier allready established solution, not because they are more efficient.

[vitruvian]

Technically, the machines see no difference between humans and mutants, as both have misused, abused, and exploited machines, only to casually dispatch and dispose of those machines whenever they start getting "ideas above their station." Hell, the Progenitor's line about how (some) mutants cheer for human death the way (some) humans have cheered for mutant death over the years hits especially hard in that regard, reminding us that the line between humans and mutants, at least morally speaking, isn't nearly so clear and distinct as a number of fans or readers would like to believe. That said, I do appreciate the good work Jean Grey's Phoenix Foundation could do for humanity, and I especially appreciate that it will at least work to head off one of the major critiques of transhumanism in real life --- that it'll turn into another way for the elite of human society to put themselves over everyone else.

Some of them hate humans mutant and non-mutant alike, some want to assimilate them... or is the latter more a deal for the true Phalanx when they arrive in some of the futures?

I keep wanting to see if, for example, Ultron is assimilated into any of these future machine intelligence hiveminds. Not like he hasn't taken over some before.

[gonnagiveittoya]

I wonder when the humans will do something for the mutants or anybody other than themselves.

You mean any time they've saved the earth? Including the time they saved the earth from the mutants?

[JB]

Honestly, it would be understandable if they were admitting him just to use his resources, but the plan all along was to only let him stick around long enough for Forge and Sage to hack his files and then let him hang himself by provably breaking the Laws so they could put him in the pit or kill him and put him last in the queue for resurrection.

Meantime if he really wanted to do a face turn, but still mess with everyone at the same time, he could easily do something like release a virus that inserts the X-gene into everyone on the planet, making everyone mutants all at once. After all, he has the technology, otherwise he wouldn't be a mutant himself.

Thanks for the reminder on this.

[ARkadelphia]

That's correct, they'll be donating 5% of their usual efforts/work to the Phoenix Foundation.

Would have been nice if Jean, you know, checked in with the 5 first, before committing their time and energy to non-mutants.

[Saithor]

Would have been nice if Jean, you know, checked in with the 5 first, before committing their time and energy to non-mutants.

Look, the government of Krakoa is, was, and shall remain an utter joke.

[mugiwara]

Would have been nice if Jean, you know, checked in with the 5 first, before committing their time and energy to non-mutants.

It's ok, they have more time now that Quire is dead, and maybe somebody will tell like Pixie or DJ to stop dying on purpose during missions, too.

[lefthanded]

You mean any time they've saved the earth? Including the time they saved the earth from the mutants?

Agreed. The level of hate for the Avengers here is mind boggling.

You get people saying they don’t help mutants, and then people also complaining that the Avengers helping is stealing the spotlight from their favorite mutant.

It is entirely editorial why heroes that arent part of the comic line don’t help each other.
Why doesn't Cyclops help out Spiderman more, now that it is established that his team is based in New York?

The answer is… because it makes no sense for a Spiderman story to keep having X-men show up unless it is an event/crossover.

I for one am looking forward to a Spider-man vs X-men event created by editorial, to get people here hating on Spiderman.

[gonnagiveittoya]

I really don't think the Mutants have any ground to lecture about Genosha if they're fine with Cassandra Nova of all people

[Saithor]

Agreed. The level of hate for the Avengers here is mind boggling.

You get people saying they don’t help mutants, and then people also complaining that the Avengers helping is stealing the spotlight from their favorite mutant.

It is entirely editorial why heroes that arent part of the comic line don’t help each other.
Why doesn't Cyclops help out Spiderman more, now that it is established that his team is based in New York?

The answer is… because it makes no sense for a Spiderman story to keep having X-men show up unless it is an event/crossover.

I for one am looking forward to a Spider-man vs X-men event created by editorial, to get people here hating on Spiderman.

The answer is that people will accept doylist reasoning even if the watsonian makes no sense if it helps their pre-conceived notion, but not if it disagrees. Doylist wise there are a lot of reasons you don’t see these crossovers, but Watsonian there is not and people who want to hate the Avengers will leap on that disconnect every time to claim the Avengers are cops, they hate mutants, Cap secretly killed Avalaunche, etc.