X-Men #17 - Review/Spoilers

[Nicoclaws]

What bothers me about the whole Caliban thing, is that it feels emblematic of a general trend in the current status quo and how writers use it, by reducing most mutant characters to functions via their powers.
"Come here! Do that with your powers! Now back into the backround!"

While this could always happen in the past too, it seems to me that having basicly everyone gathered in the same spot and practically having no personal agency or occupation anymore, which might make them unavailable or require explanation for their usage, means that the writers can just draw, use and discard them like Magic the Gathering cards. All while having that convinient explanation of everyone sitting around doing nothing because of their utopic techno-organic island nation.

Anyone who isn't on a team, will most of the time only appear so their powers can be used by the main characters and then they are kicked back to limbo or pointless backround appearances.

Which ironicaly also seems to have been by design of the creator of the current situation, looking at the whole "Mutant Circuit" concept and how it feels like a hint that mutants are on a dark path towards self machination.

And now here Caliban was even further reduced as character and to a degree person. Because there was no need to have him involved personaly anymore, because Forge could just make a machine out of his DNA which fullfilled the same function.

Of course as mentioned above, it's potential intentional, by showcasing a slow decline towards Bene Tleilax type of thinking among the mutants. After all, it's not like normal humans have the monopoly of potentialy becoming "post humans". But if it's not then it just reinforces some troublesome character usage in the current X-office.

That trend started with Fraction's run and the Cyclops's army, though.

But this particular case is clearly an ethical issue within the status quo they're litteraly adressing on page. That was also the point of the new Omega list, making a hierarchy based on powers. That was also why they put Apocalypse in the Council. And obviously, the whole Chimera thing. I think Hickman planned to adress all that. It would make sense that it would take place in SoS, but I admit I'm not sure Gillen is interested in adressing it. We'll see.

[BroHomo]

ugh Let a playa play

Barely. I can’t imagine that after 500 years Monet is even visible in the rear-view mirror. And she honored his memory by dating Guido. Apart from remembering wasting his life dying for her, I’m sure he doesn’t spare a thought.

Guido was a Hell Lord, Laura got dumped by goose feathered 60s Angel after getting beat up by the Blob....Ouch! And Yeah M and Ev are always gonna be my shop lol. Cause we've never seen it go down. GROW A PAIR MARVEL

I'm in the camp of not liking the romance. I only had a little idea of Synch before this, but after that issue he was essentially a completely new character, and Laura did almost nothing afterwards. Not to mention that it felt like her character history was largely ignored; she has a huge problem with being used and seen as a weapon but was literally used as one at several points and had no comment. Not to mention her issues and concerns with clones.

She belongs with Hellion

[Aeon]

The way I understood the Caliban thing:

- Forge and Caliban at the Green Lagoon
- Caliban is somehow knocked-out (He says drinking with Forge is the last thing he remembers)

- Caliban is killed? Or is he just knocked-out heavily and has DNA samples taken?

- Forge weaves Caliban‘s DNA and mind into his artificial suit. (Clone?)
- After the mission, the suit with Caliban (clone?) is destroyed by Forge (burning the evidence?)

- The original Caliban is resurrected in his regular form without any Vault knowledge?


There must have been a reason why Forge didn’t just ask for a sample of genetic material from Caliban, but instead more or less „stole“ it from him. After all, it seems that he Forge had Tempo‘s powers too, without her becoming part of the suit.

[ARkadelphia]

I'm in the camp of not liking the romance. I only had a little idea of Synch before this, but after that issue he was essentially a completely new character, and Laura did almost nothing afterwards. Not to mention that it felt like her character history was largely ignored; she has a huge problem with being used and seen as a weapon but was literally used as one at several points and had no comment. Not to mention her issues and concerns with clones.

Frankly I was more interested in if they would finally confront the ethical problems of their little clone factory and how everyone is just copies of dead people and not actually 'resurrected'. Hell, thinking on it, I almost want to see Laura find out about what just happened with Caliban. Forge copied his DNA without his permission to use him as a disposable weapon, which is super vile the more I think about it. Getting half-informed permission ex poste facto doesn't help his case.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I think due to the nature of the Vault, a Laura has spent significantly more life experience inside it vs outside it. That’s bound to change a person’s character.

[The BaRoN]

I mean... 🥹🥹🥹🥹😭😭😭😭

Finally. A decent issue from Duggan.

These two are fantastic together and I don’t care who hates it.

Thank goodness Joe Q is gone otherwise this wouldn’t be happening, no relationships allowed.

[Nazrel]

Correct me if I’m wrong but I think due to the nature of the Vault, a Laura has spent significantly more life experience inside it vs outside it. That’s bound to change a person’s character.

I think concepts and characters are getting confused and conflated here.

The "resurrected" Laura (Lets call her Beta, since we're calling Vault Laura Alpha) has none of those memories; and is the one who's character and history was being alleged to have been mostly ignored*, post vault Alpha Laura was presumed dead, and technically has no defined characteristics of how those hundreds of years may have changed them outside "Synches love interest", a relationship to which there has been only a one sided summarization, and thus given no real reason for investment.

Which brings brings us to the complaint of the story telling reducing her to a prop, because in this relationship she is given no perspective, in no way are we granted a sense of her agency, she is a device existing to further along Synches story, an object to be desired; for Alpha anyway, for Beta it's a 500+ guy projecting a centuries long relationship onto a 20 year old version of her who did not share it and will probably never become that person.

While in premise, there is nothing wrong with an Alpha/Synches relationship, the writing of it, as of this point, at least from the Laura side of the equation, has much to be desired; a Beta/Synch relationship would have just been messed up.

*I mean, also Alpha in that she's had this decades long character trajectory in adapting a no killing policy, then suddenly had no problem just slaughtering the Children of the Vault the moment she enters, despite it being a group she has more in common with then mutants and would have had great empathy for.

[Jackraow21]

Finally. A decent issue from Duggan.

These two are fantastic together and I don’t care who hates it.

Thank goodness Joe Q is gone otherwise this wouldn’t be happening, no relationships allowed.

Kind of in the same boat here. Loved this issue and really dig these two as a couple.

[Devaishwarya]

How much agency can Hickman give Alpha in one issue when the story itself is not centred around that 500+ years relationship? Sure you could argue that Hickman could have given Alpha L. a "voice" in X-Men 19 as well, but he decided to stick with Synch as the POV. Considering it was about how they survived and what they had learnt in all that time and he was the one to leave because of his power and she was the one who chose to sacrifice herself so that he could escape (which is defining her "agency", in a sense) if I'm remembering correctly.

Keep in mind Synch only started to have an attraction to Alpha L. just prior to going into the vault. Then shit went full sideways inside. That's a lot to pack in just two issues (not a six issue arc)

Maybe now that Alpha Laura is back, Duggan might expound on the vault relationship and give her that much needed agency and voice. And we'll learn her side of the story. Maybe.

[ZephyrSurf]

I don't like the Laura Synch relationship for the reasons already stated earlier, but that's Hickman's baggage, Duggan's just carrying it.

Whether the framing of that changes is another story entirely, but I will give Duggan kudos on the other aspects of this narrative that I do enjoy, which is everything having to do with Forge and Darwin.

[Thievery]

I really liked this issue. It might be my favorite issue of this volume of X-Men.

Forge was great. A good example of how to tell a good story featuring a hero doing morally questionable things. I'd like to see more of Forge and Caliban working together in future issues.

I know that this seems like an incredibly controversial issue, but I really like the idea of the Synch and Laura pairing. I think it has a lot of potential. I know that a lot of readers think that Laura is only being used as a prop for Synch and I understand why, but the romance is just starting from the readers perspective. The romance has only been going on for like 3 or 4 issues. there is still plenty of time to tell the story from Laura's point of view.

I know that Synch/Laura has only been going for 2 or 3 issues, but I already like it more than both Laura/Teen Angel and Laura/Hellion. And I think that time has already passed Monet/Synch good buy.

I do think that the Alpha version of Laura could be a plant that The Children always planned to send back to the X-Men.

[Jackraow21]

How much agency can Hickman give Alpha in one issue when the story itself is not centred around that 500+ years relationship? Sure you could argue that Hickman could have given Alpha L. a "voice" in X-Men 19 as well, but he decided to stick with Synch as the POV. Considering it was about how they survived and what they had learnt in all that time and he was the one to leave because of his power and she was the one who chose to sacrifice herself so that he could escape (which is defining her "agency", in a sense) if I'm remembering correctly.

Keep in mind Synch only started to have an attraction to Alpha L. just prior to going into the vault. Then shit went full sideways inside. That's a lot to pack in just two issues (not a six issue arc)

Maybe now that Alpha Laura is back, Duggan might expound on the vault relationship and give her that much needed agency and voice. And we'll learn her side of the story. Maybe.

Are you suggesting that she’s in love with Synch against her will simply because the story hasn’t been told through her POV? The whole concept of “agency” when it comes to fictional characters is kind of murky. Because, well, they’re not real. So they don’t have agency at all. The writer controls what they feel, think and do. Just not sure the complaint of lack of agency is applicable at all to comic characters.

[Ulysian_Thracs]

Hickman's Vault story is already in the past. So is this issue by the time it is released/read.

So is it just me or does anyone else feel like this was a complete waste of time and effort? What was even the point of this i ask because i can't see it.

The whole Children of the Vault story-line existed to create a romance between Synch and Laura that we didn't get to see any of. There might have been a great love story in there, though I don't think you can do these two particular characters 'in character' and have them fall for each other, nor do I think they are the OTP for either. But there is potential to tell a great story--that wasn't shown on panel in any way shape or form. We just got a few panels of Synch pining after her in possibly the worst violation of 'show, don't tell' ever. That's a big part of our objection I think. We didn't get to see it unfold. We were told it happened and expected (forced) to buy into it.

Even worse, they wasted a potentially good opponent for mutants with a 300 year story we didn't see AND a lackluster, boring, and OOC ending. (Second time in two stories the good guy simply asked the bad guy nicely not to be bad and the bad guy shrugged and let the good guy go.)

He himself wasn't treated inhumanely. Forge used his DNA and that of others to create a suit. Granted...he didn't outright ask him face to face if it was okies to do so but it's not as though Caliban himself was hurt emotionally, mentally or physically because of the suit.

My reading of the Caliban suit was that it had sentience. it could think and reason and talk to Forge. That makes it close enough to alive that Forge was pulling some Island of Dr. Moreau-level mad science and morality.

Still not current Beast level, but this is villain kinda stuff, people.

What bothers me about the whole Caliban thing, is that it feels emblematic of a general trend in the current status quo and how writers use it, by reducing most mutant characters to functions via their powers.
"Come here! Do that with your powers! Now back into the backround!"

While this could always happen in the past too, it seems to me that having basicly everyone gathered in the same spot and practically having no personal agency or occupation anymore, which might make them unavailable or require explanation for their usage, means that the writers can just draw, use and discard them like Magic the Gathering cards. All while having that convinient explanation of everyone sitting around doing nothing because of their utopic techno-organic island nation.

Anyone who isn't on a team, will most of the time only appear so their powers can be used by the main characters and then they are kicked back to limbo or pointless backround appearances.

Which ironicaly also seems to have been by design of the creator of the current situation, looking at the whole "Mutant Circuit" concept and how it feels like a hint that mutants are on a dark path towards self machination.

And now here Caliban was even further reduced as character and to a degree person. Because there was no need to have him involved personaly anymore, because Forge could just make a machine out of his DNA which fullfilled the same function.

Of course as mentioned above, it's potential intentional, by showcasing a slow decline towards Bene Tleilax type of thinking among the mutants. After all, it's not like normal humans have the monopoly of potentialy becoming "post humans". But if it's not then it just reinforces some troublesome character usage in the current X-office.

This has been my complaint about everything since resurrection.

1. This is cloning, not resurrection.
2. Mutants are no longer treated as 'people', but power sets.
3. Very smart mutants are too stupid to see how they are being used and discarded.

And loved the Dune reference!

Are you suggesting that she’s in love with Synch against her will simply because the story hasn’t been told through her POV? The whole concept of “agency” when it comes to fictional characters is kind of murky. Because, well, they’re not real. So they don’t have agency at all. The writer controls what they feel, think and do. Just not sure the complaint of lack of agency is applicable at all to comic characters.

I think we have unreliable narrators in both post-vault Synch and post-vault Laura. X-writers almost certainly won't go this way, both either or both of them could be sleepers. And I personally would find that kind of twist, or literally any kind of twist, preferable to what to me was a very predictable and pollyanna-ish ending.

And personally, I see the better twist as Synch being the sleeper agent. The Children screwed with his memories and allowed him to escape because they have a trigger that will flip him to their side when they finally attack. That's a much better reason for Seraphina to let Forge take Laura, who also God only knows been subjected to physically and mentally by CoV. It's all setting up their hand with two sleepers. Synch's newfound power isn't from resurrection in this scenario. The Children made him their doomsday weapon that can steal all the mutants powers and wipe them out

[Devaishwarya]

Are you suggesting that she’s in love with Synch against her will simply because the story hasn’t been told through her POV? The whole concept of “agency” when it comes to fictional characters is kind of murky. Because, well, they’re not real. So they don’t have agency at all. The writer controls what they feel, think and do. Just not sure the complaint of lack of agency is applicable at all to comic characters.

Oh Goddess! No!. Not at all. (That would be utterly daft of me to think such a ludicrous thing).

We know from the story that it wasn't easy for her and that Synch was in love with her far longer than she ever came around to it/him. But eventually she did, and on her own terms.

I am not really much of an advocate for "agency" where it comes to fictional characters (hence the quotation marks) as writers will write the story they want to tell, however they want to tell it...And I trust in that ''bigger picture" approach where it's not always about the individual character...plus, these writers are not Claremont. (Thank the Goddess)

[Rift]

I think, regardless of how you feel about Synch x Laura, the romance would be made 100 times better if they also dated Hellion. That would have really cemented the romance's popularity and made it an instant fan favorite.

[pkingdom]

Sync being a sleeper agent would be cool, and certainly more interesting than this for me.

It really does come down to a lot of 'show, don't tell' for this entire storyline. The Children have been clowned in every one of their actual fights and confrontations, to the point that all of them are in Lotus Eater machine pods largely offscreen. And the romance was told to use as part of a montage-like single issue and has consumed the entire character of Sync.

The character keep talking about the Children like they're almost Thanos-level threats ("send word to the Avengers if we fail!") but they haven't actually done anything, in addition to losing all of their fights. And this plot only comes up twice a year of publishing time, so it doesn't seem that big a deal even in universe.