X-Men #21 Spoilers and Review Thread

[JB]

This discourse is so fun and it's what Nightmare wanted.

[Phoenixx9]

Duggan is probably trying to do his own Dark Phoenix Saga.

Maybe....

But the Jean Grey of today is 10X more Powerful, Skilled and in control of her Powers more than the Jean that became Phoenix.

Today, Jean is Omega in both TP and TK. They could just have Jean unleash all of that power.

While they may want Jean become Phoenix to face a Cosmic Threat, it would have to be massive in scale and power, because Jean beat the Progenitor Celestial all on her own.

In addition, even if Jean did become Phoenix again, she would not become DP due to her increased training, skill and experience as well as being used to having mega-power all her own and also not having Emma and Mastermind tampering with her mind.

[pkingdom]

Finally got around to this This is one of those weird sci-fi cases they have this race of almost Always Chaotic Evil races like the Borg, and the 'reasonable' ones are the wild exceptions to the rule. But in comparison to some of those Always Evil races, the Brood have always felt more like wild animals to me. The queens have some intelligence, but its pretty basic. They're just parasites.

But its super disturbing to see so many people just leap onto 'well, guess we have to genocide them all!'. Jean rightfully points out that its a lot of the same arguments that others use when talking about mutants, but it doesn't appear that they'll examine that too far at the moment.

But on the other hand, its just as fucked up to me that the 'reasonable' solution here is enslavement. Like, its not even really a euphemism. Just enslavement of a portion of the Brood by a member of the X-men, and have them point the monsters at people he thinks don't deserve to live. Is that even really morally better than killing them all?

Like, here's a potential solution. The brood have to kill people to survive, because they're insectoid parasites and that's how they reproduce. Well, the X-men currently have access to multiple types of mass cloning. Of even just make a copy of Multiple Man and boom, hundreds of 'blank' bodies for them. They're already showing signs of ruthlessly using clones for their powers here.

And that's the last thing; Cyclops clearly isn't thinking straight, but someone needs to point out the implications if they somehow just instantly genocide the Brood here. Yeah a lot of people would celebrate at first, but then tons of people all over the universe would realize the terrifying implications of this one tiny race of people having the power to just genocide a species at the drop of a hat.

[lefthanded]

This issue was… excellent! Easily the best of the entire 21 issue Duggan run. Flawed characters under stress are going to make decisions that are emotion-driven rather than logic-driven sometimes. I thought this issue did a great job at showing this effect across multiple people with nobody being 100% in the right or wrong.

Unlike many here, I don’t really have strong favorite X-characters and I certainly don’t expect perfection from any ones I do Tend to favor. So seeing these thought provoking discussions and actions was a plus to me even when I didn’t “approve” of the paths that some went down.

Overstepping boundaries, arrogance, and righteous indignation made this a compelling read for me. While some characters came across badly, given the events and the stakes, I never really felt that the various character reactions were over the top unrealistic at all. I live for the gray (not Grey) and this issue had it in spades.

Like you, I don't need to see favorite characters get screentime (I always roll my eyes at complaints that so-and-so barely got any screentime in a story). I also don't care if characters are consistent with their historical portrayal, as long as it makes sense for the current story (Mutant Moira is interesting; slightly villanous Moira is even more interesting; but cartoon Moira is bad stuff).

Unlike you, I found this issue (and overall arc) terrible, and it has to do with the storytelling.

1. The genocide debate: Prior issues used absolute statements by Cyclops saying genocide is right, meaning he already had that conclusion. This issue shows finally shows a debate about whether it is right or wrong, but only so they can have an immediate fracture. That is essentially a backwards way of storytelling, since we already get shown the conclusion before the process. There is the faintest outline of the idea that Cyclops seeing these atrocities leads him to the conclusion of genocide, but the prior issues already put out absolute statements that Cyclops (and Iceaman) want genocide already.


2. The connected storylines:
The Forge/Monet C-story ultimately ignores most of their storyline in favor of scenes where they just essentially say "glad it worked out" without showing them going through struggles. The ultimate payoff is ... a random base for people to use.
Cyclops' A-story shows him already being in favor of genocide, as opposed to slowly arriving at that position.

Jean's B-story hamfistedly resolves itself by having her essentially tell Nightmare she has to go join the A-story (She literally say "....you haven't told me a lie. So I must leave and go join the fight." The resolution to her story is ... Nightmare is not lying, so buh-bye. If she really needed to urgently join Cyclop's team, she would not have time to say of these things. And along the way, she stops to pick up the C-story.

Ultimately, the idea for this storyline seems to be "Jean and Scott have a schism over what to do with the Brood." The supporting beats for that idea is to "have Forge be able to do something to support Jean's position" and "have X-men experience things that make them side with Scott." That is a pretty good story. And frankly, having Jean and Scott at odds is interesting, and their positions makes sense (Scott being pragmatic; Jean being compassionate and scarred by the deaths she caused while being the dark phoenix).

But the way it was told just didn't work for me, as there was a lot of yada-yadaing of developments just to put characters in position for the grand finale.

[Saithor]

Okay, ignoring the moral dilemma of the brood and how human is apparently an insult on the same level as hitler: How does the cloning Wanda plan even work? Seriously, how? Do they have a spare life force they're going to shove into their Wanda clone? The only reason that Wanda was able to pull off the No More Mutant spell was that she got empowered by the Life Force.

[pkingdom]

The fact that just cloning Wanda and putting a telepath in her body to magic away an entire species is even a option, presented and supported by several 'heroes' is a pretty big red flag that probably needs more examination in-story than its going to get

[Agent Grayson]

Like you, I don't need to see favorite characters get screentime (I always roll my eyes at complaints that so-and-so barely got any screentime in a story). I also don't care if characters are consistent with their historical portrayal, as long as it makes sense for the current story (Mutant Moira is interesting; slightly villanous Moira is even more interesting; but cartoon Moira is bad stuff).

Unlike you, I found this issue (and overall arc) terrible, and it has to do with the storytelling.

1. The genocide debate: Prior issues used absolute statements by Cyclops saying genocide is right, meaning he already had that conclusion. This issue shows finally shows a debate about whether it is right or wrong, but only so they can have an immediate fracture. That is essentially a backwards way of storytelling, since we already get shown the conclusion before the process. There is the faintest outline of the idea that Cyclops seeing these atrocities leads him to the conclusion of genocide, but the prior issues already put out absolute statements that Cyclops (and Iceaman) want genocide already.


2. The connected storylines:
The Forge/Monet C-story ultimately ignores most of their storyline in favor of scenes where they just essentially say "glad it worked out" without showing them going through struggles. The ultimate payoff is ... a random base for people to use.
Cyclops' A-story shows him already being in favor of genocide, as opposed to slowly arriving at that position.

Jean's B-story hamfistedly resolves itself by having her essentially tell Nightmare she has to go join the A-story (She literally say "....you haven't told me a lie. So I must leave and go join the fight." The resolution to her story is ... Nightmare is not lying, so buh-bye. If she really needed to urgently join Cyclop's team, she would not have time to say of these things. And along the way, she stops to pick up the C-story.

Ultimately, the idea for this storyline seems to be "Jean and Scott have a schism over what to do with the Brood." The supporting beats for that idea is to "have Forge be able to do something to support Jean's position" and "have X-men experience things that make them side with Scott." That is a pretty good story. And frankly, having Jean and Scott at odds is interesting, and their positions makes sense (Scott being pragmatic; Jean being compassionate and scarred by the deaths she caused while being the dark phoenix).

But the way it was told just didn't work for me, as there was a lot of yada-yadaing of developments just to put characters in position for the grand finale.

Great summary. I agree with your points.

Duggan should at least be credited with creating the most divisive data page so far...

[Del torro]

Stupid Issue. I hate it

[Agent Grayson]

The main problem with the genocidal options is that the characters aren’t being presented as considering them as a necessary evil or a last resort - Cyclops, in particular, seems to be relishing the idea of it and apparently has been even before the Brood attacked. Why would we root for a character that enjoys the idea of wiping out an entire species and spends his spare time thinking about creative ways to do it?

[JB]

Finally got around to this This is one of those weird sci-fi cases they have this race of almost Always Chaotic Evil races like the Borg, and the 'reasonable' ones are the wild exceptions to the rule. But in comparison to some of those Always Evil races, the Brood have always felt more like wild animals to me. The queens have some intelligence, but its pretty basic. They're just parasites.

But its super disturbing to see so many people just leap onto 'well, guess we have to genocide them all!'. Jean rightfully points out that its a lot of the same arguments that others use when talking about mutants, but it doesn't appear that they'll examine that too far at the moment.

But on the other hand, its just as fucked up to me that the 'reasonable' solution here is enslavement. Like, its not even really a euphemism. Just enslavement of a portion of the Brood by a member of the X-men, and have them point the monsters at people he thinks don't deserve to live. Is that even really morally better than killing them all?

Like, here's a potential solution. The brood have to kill people to survive, because they're insectoid parasites and that's how they reproduce. Well, the X-men currently have access to multiple types of mass cloning. Of even just make a copy of Multiple Man and boom, hundreds of 'blank' bodies for them. They're already showing signs of ruthlessly using clones for their powers here.

And that's the last thing; Cyclops clearly isn't thinking straight, but someone needs to point out the implications if they somehow just instantly genocide the Brood here. Yeah a lot of people would celebrate at first, but then tons of people all over the universe would realize the terrifying implications of this one tiny race of people having the power to just genocide a species at the drop of a hat.

Nah, the intelligence of the queens is beyond basic. They're evolving as Rogue described in Captain Marvel. "They're no longer satisfied with with simply gestating their young in super-powered people to create a single brood with powers. They want an infinite army of brood with super-powers." Note the technology they utilize to study her.

[Winter_fury]

Cyclops is always right jean can come talk when she has gone trough the decimation, second coming and avx.

84531BAC-3183-4450-A3BA-0D673384B010.jpg

[Saithor]

The fact that just cloning Wanda and putting a telepath in her body to magic away an entire species is even a option, presented and supported by several 'heroes' is a pretty big red flag that probably needs more examination in-story than its going to get

Well that too, but I'm more focused on the fact that they are idiots first before I set a toe into the broiling grease fire of X-men morality.

[Celestialbodies]

One of the things that rankled me in this issue that I haven't seen discussed too much is Jean's use of the word 'human' as an insult. How did others feel about this? Even if you disregard the fact that it smacks of the supremacist undertones that popped up during the early days of Krakoa, it seems wildly out of character for Jean specifically. If it came from Emma or Magneto, it would make more sense, but Jean has never been like that - she has human family that she loves and she led the creation of the Phoenix Foundation. Hell, her compassion is shown to be so great that in that moment she's defending the Brood. It was so off.

Not quite as bad as the data page, which I've since realised was a hit on Cyclops' character as well because he seemingly voted in favour of Bishop's ridiculous Wanda plan. Just really poor stuff.

I thought she was simply pointing out his hypocrisy, isn't his reasoning similar to the reasoning many humans have used in the Marvel universe. Mutants are an existential threats that needs addressing, so let's wipe them out?

Cyclops is always right jean can come talk when she has gone trough the decimation, second coming and avx.

84531BAC-3183-4450-A3BA-0D673384B010.jpg

Seems cult-ish...

[pkingdom]

Nah, the intelligence of the queens is beyond basic. They're evolving as Rogue described in Captain Marvel. "They're no longer satisfied with with simply gestating their young in super-powered people to create a single brood with powers. They want an infinite army of brood with super-powers." Note the technology they utilize to study her.

Gotcha. I haven't been keeping up with the Captain Marvel side of things and I didn't quite remember how this whole thing has been going. I still stand by that they can just give them cloned bodies to use though.

[JB]

Cyclops is always right jean can come talk when she has gone trough the decimation, second coming and avx.

84531BAC-3183-4450-A3BA-0D673384B010.jpg

While I understand people saying he’s being impulsive and emotional, I don’t think it should be forgotten that he’s a strategist with excellent instincts. He’s not saying what he’s saying only because of a personal vendetta.

I mean, what is he going to say when he meets up with Carol’s group and finds out what Rogue learned? We’re talking about morality here so what does it mean for them to know that the brood intend to raise an army of super-powered brood to rampage across space? They have to act in some capacity. Carol herself is two seconds away from destroying every one of them in sight after what they did this past issue.

Gotcha. I haven't been keeping up with the Captain Marvel side of things and I didn't quite remember how this whole thing has been going. I still stand by that they can just give them cloned bodies to use though.

I'm onboard with the cloning thing too. They'll also have to monitor Broo 24/7 to make sure he doesn't lose control. The scary part is that he wasn't aware some of them got loose, he was just kicking back in a hammock.