Yes - I'm Hating it
No - I'm Enjoying it
Yes, when Hickman was writing, we had this feeling that things were going somewhere, remember all the theories? When something, a new character, organization or concept was introduced we expected to see how that would play out in the big picture and how good it would be, now we know they will lay around for a while and when it's finally used it will not live to the hype.
The whole Vulcan thing with Petra and Sway was so promising, the mysterious aliens and all that, and let be honest, at the end Vulcan end up just a jobber manipulated and reprenseting 0 risks. I hope they use the White Sword better when he is finally back, he was the only character introduced in X of Swords I really liked.
I can easily see 2023 devoid of BIG crossovers: we already know half of the year's solicits basically and we know from the Summer onwards we'll get Fall of X which has been confirmed as NOT being an event/crossover but rather an umbrella title kicked off by the Hellfire Gala event this year.
I do see smaller crossover continuing throughout the year though, for example I expect Uncanny Avengers and X-Men to have some connectivity due to having the same writer, but I don't think we're getting any big ones like X of Swords until 2024.
Yeah I can see some kinda mini event within the line in winter. That tracks considering there's no major events aside from the Gala as far as we know so far.
One of the things Lauren said during the 60th anniversary panel was that with Fall of X we're going to see a lot of dominoes fall that were set up a long time ago, that we the readers will get to see just how far back things were planned. So hopefully they have some serious weight and good payoff to them. Fingers crossed.
Yeah I think you and Alex are right that we may get some smaller crossovers within the line. It'd be really awesome to enjoy a reprieve from outside events so the mutants can do their own thing for a while.
"To hell with your orders, and to hell with who gives them! I will go home to my world and I will tell your lords: No Captain Britain will turn against her sisters!" - Betsy Braddock
Krakoa, Arakko, and Otherworld forever!
I love the concept of Krakoa and the era gets bonus points from me for FINALLY bringing Synch back to life. That said the execution of the concept has been pretty weak especially since Hickman has left and to be honest I currently have minimal interest in the line other than getting my Synch fix.
Love it. Everyone is together! I have so much fun searching the backgrounds for characters I know. Sure that was always possible but here it comes it's more likely and . . . they just seem so happy!
I suspect it has to end at some point and I'm prepared to see it go. Somewhat reluctantly. Part of me kinda hopes it might stick around in some way. Maybe have it be just where the mutants live and have the books focus more on the teams in the field and slice of life bits in human cities. I mean, they are sufficiently the underdogs of Marvel comics. We don't need to Genosha them again, do we?
It has been getting a bit slow lately. If it was the writers other than Hickman who insisted this era be extended then I hope they take advantage of it and start telling some great stories.
I’m hoping for a much longer run for most titles. Red, X-Men, and Immortal definitely need more time. Red especially since its been interrupted twice now.
I wouldn't say hate it but I am excited for Fall of X to really shake things up in a big way
Yeah, that's why I haven't voted... yet. I don't hate it, I'm just not enjoying it much RN. And I haven't seen anything yet, that makes me think I'm going to anytime soon. I'm only reading Scarlet Witch's solo & Captain Marvel/X-Men @this time, nothing else interests me. 'Cause again, it's all about the characters for me, and nothing else has enough of the ones I like to draw me in. Or is doing enough with them and/or that I like, if they do/are.
I like Krakoa and would like to see more development of it, particularly of Arakko.
OTOH, I also would like to see a few stories about mutants who want nothing to do with Krakoa, and just sort of have their own stuff going on, out in the world. We already know the Morlocks are sitting this Krakoa business out, in a gated community in Arizona, but there are doubtless others. The Chinese mutants of 'China Force' haven't been seen, and are probably still in China. Same with many of the Canadian mutants of Beta/Gamma Flight. Various other nationalist mutants, like Atlantean, Wakandan and Latverian mutants have also not been addressed. There's a ton of potential for X-Men stories involving mutants who *aren't* hanging their cowls on Sentient-Vegetable-What-Eats-Mutants-Island.
(Indeed, I could see Petra and Sway, in particular, not wanting to spend much time on the island, since it killed and ate them in their last lives. Before I knew that they were supposed to be hallucinations of Vulcan's, I actually thought that was why they were drunk in Vulcan's room on the moon, because the thought of living on that island was existentially horrifying to them!)
We could have cake and eat cake. Krakoa could still exist for those of us who aren't bored with it yet *and* there could be X-Men titles involving mutants who operate out of the school, or the old Outback base, or anywhere-but-Krakoa and want nothing to do with it. It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.
As far as I can think of, every mutant who chose to side with their countries are portraid as villains or misguided so far. I'm not reading much of it, but for what I read on this forum, they have Ilyana's evil brother in Russia who is evil, Peter Wisdom was betrayed when he chose nationalism over Krakoa and Gentle pretty much deserted Wakanda. Even Sunfire who used to be a patriot have become more loyal to Krakoa than anything else.
All I’ll say is… keeping or changing the setting won’t make a single bit of creative difference as long as the make-up of that office itself remains the same. Echoing all the bored comments.
Anyway.
Appreciate you guys succinctly nailing most everything that’s been bothering me:
And editors.
100%. And if it weren’t for Leah Williams we wouldn’t even have the baseball. Where’s that vibe in the ongoing titles?
Exactly.
Yep. Also funny how Beast keeps getting singled out as an egregious example of hero turned villain when so many other characters are presented to us as flatly heroic, but haven’t faced any consequences for their inaction that led to the same or worse - well, other than moments of “but I felt really sad about it.” 😢 Zero self-awareness.
This has been an issue from nearly the start, and yet they just gave Duggan an additional team book. (It’s not under X-editorial, though, so hope springs eternal it’s more reminiscent of his last UA run.)
Yup. Especially when it’s been the same five characters popping up in every story, on every cover, for years now. If you judged just by some promo artwork and solicits, you might be tricked into thinking the dividing of panel space between characters is more equitable than it has been all era.
Bloop.
I'm kind of between, I like Krakoa but I'm also ready for new stuff even if it's a large departure from Krakoa. I agree with some of the points made that Krakoa actually has left a lot unexplored about its setting so far. Really what I feel is most important is for things to feel like they're going somewhere.
My current enjoyment of the X-line is kind of piecemeal for where my favorite characters or most interesting ideas are siloed off. For example I'm actually really loving the stuff with Arakko and Mars in X-Men Red. One path I could see is having that setting come more sharply into center stage at some point. I will say in a new status quo I still want Krakoa and Arakko to exist in some form, I'll be disappointed if Orchis gets to straight up glass them both with an ultimate Penta-Sentinel or something
the other part I'm enjoying the most is X-Men, it's threaded the needle of conventional superhero content + mutant plot the best of many recent efforts in my view.
Last edited by Rising7; 03-19-2023 at 08:40 PM.