X-Men #22 - Review/Spoilers

[Daedra]

Exactatiously. At this point my bags are packed and I'm ready to go visit 2024. Because the rest of 2023 is going to be dumb AF. It's been three years (Duggan's time) and they still have no fucking clue about their enemies. Or anything.

I hate to be that fan but...Claremont would have his X-Men meeting, confronting and defeating Orchis in 6 issues (issue two would have the X-Men playing baseball) And it would be crazy AF but his characters would be smart, and it would still make some sense and be entertaining. This perpetual incompetence is/has been...tiresome, to say the least.

That’s why I resigned to not discuss the plot any longer, the holes in it are so astronomically large I’m forced to play dumb or complain all day and risk ruining everybody experience

[Hulkout42]

Don't Orchis still have a Kurt Korpse after he died protecting Arakko?

If they do then it gets worse because they have a Sinister there to tinker with the corpse.

[Wolverine12]

I thought this issue was really good. Felt like Hickman wrote it tbh more than Duggan. Krakoa sent a bunch of Wolverines to Orchis and now it’s come back to bite them. The part with the guy killing himself was really intense for an X-book, gave off horror movie vibes imo. That juxtaposed with Nimrod just chilling in the air scooter was really fun lol. I really want to see Logan’s reaction to Orchis using his old skeleton, he hates that stuff and it always ends up with all the bad guys dead. A+ for this issue.

P.S. can’t say enough good things about Cassara’s art. Keep this dude forever.

[Huntsman Spider]

So after Orchis takes care of the mutants they going after the Avengers and every other superpowered hero

That was basically the premise of Days of Future Past, and there have been plenty of anti-superpower laws recently so it should be expected. If ORCHIS comes out of FoX in any shape then it makes them a shared villain to connect the X-Men to the broader MU.

Pretty much this. Hell, the Superhuman Registration Act that provoked the original superhero Civil War was an expansion of the Mutant Registration Act to everyone with powers, not only mutants. With Orchis's endgame now clear, to wipe out the only other possible opposition to its true leaders' endgame, it brings to mind Martin Niemoller's poem about how those staying silent because they weren't the ones immediately targeted by the Nazis in the Holocaust ultimately found themselves being targeted with no one left to speak up for them or anyone else.

[Kingdom X]

Exactatiously. At this point my bags are packed and I'm ready to go visit 2024. Because the rest of 2023 is going to be dumb AF. It's been three years (Duggan's time) and they still have no fucking clue about their enemies. Or anything.

I hate to be that fan but...Claremont would have his X-Men meeting, confronting and defeating Orchis in 6 issues (issue two would have the X-Men playing baseball) And it would be crazy AF but his characters would be smart, and it would still make some sense and be entertaining. This perpetual incompetence is/has been...tiresome, to say the least.

I think the books desperately needed a reason as to why the mutants wouldn’t launch a full strike on Orchis before this. Post -Judgement Day Orchis got some good PR, but before that the public wasn’t even aware of them. If Orchis had a very public cover as a philanthropic organization I could maybe see the logic, but as it is the mutants only threw a fraction of their resources at the Orchis problem and basically waited for them to take Krakoa down.

[Dream Boy]

Nice to see Angelica get a moment to really cut loose. I was hoping Duggan remembered she was a powerhouse.

[Micabe]

Exactatiously. At this point my bags are packed and I'm ready to go visit 2024. Because the rest of 2023 is going to be dumb AF. It's been three years (Duggan's time) and they still have no fucking clue about their enemies. Or anything.

I hate to be that fan but...Claremont would have his X-Men meeting, confronting and defeating Orchis in 6 issues (issue two would have the X-Men playing baseball) And it would be crazy AF but his characters would be smart, and it would still make some sense and be entertaining. This perpetual incompetence is/has been...tiresome, to say the least.

Makes me wish the X-Men still had the Neo and the CoTV to contend with at least you knew where they stood...

[king of hybrids]

Since it sounds like Stasis is currently subverting/steering Orchis’ agenda to refocus on his designated area of study; it occurs that Omega’s reliance on Devo as a sockpuppet and isolating Nimrod from any prospect of Gregor stirring an ember of Mendel within him is going to backfire on the Machines

[Agent Grayson]

This issue was okay, but it felt like it was treading water a little bit. There is, as has been pointed out, a lot of plot-induced stupidity, but none more egregious than anything we've already seen in this era so it didn't bother me that much. I enjoyed seeing more of Orchis' plans and Firestar getting a chance to shine was fun. I also liked the visual and concept of the Logan skeleton Sentinel. We'd better see Logan face one himself before Fall of X is done!

I was hoping we'd get to see the Scott/Jean 'schism' play out here. I'm ready for it to be over unless the writing and characterisation take a significant upward turn.

[Panagiotis1]

I liked the issue but I am still trying to understand why Cyclops will change his costume between issue #22 and #24… any guesses?

[Braxxer]

I liked the issue but I am still trying to understand why Cyclops will change his costume between issue #22 and #24… any guesses?

We don’t know. When people asked Cassara about that when he showed fcbd preview he only said editors and Duggan gave him a blessing to do it.

[lefthanded]

I think the books desperately needed a reason as to why the mutants wouldn’t launch a full strike on Orchis before this. Post -Judgement Day Orchis got some good PR, but before that the public wasn’t even aware of them. If Orchis had a very public cover as a philanthropic organization I could maybe see the logic, but as it is the mutants only threw a fraction of their resources at the Orchis problem and basically waited for them to take Krakoa down.

The exact reason was the law "Murder No Man", which seemingly meant that Krakoa lets Orchis do whatever they want in the hopes that diplomacy wins out.
But with the failure of books like X-Corps and the limited nature of the Hellfire Gala, readers have not seen any of the diplomacy in action. The only real public image thing was the Cyclops death/resurrection secret.

As such, it just seems like Krakoa has done nothing the past 3 years, while Orchis continues to fester.

[pkingdom]

I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated this. Just super hated this.

We've had literal years of the X-men doing super sketchy and sometimes downright evil stuff. Beast is still off in the Artic assassinating anybody who says anything bad about Krakoa, and Nature Girl is engaging in mass terrorism while members of the Council still don't want to punish her. But the big downfall of Krakoa is..... evil humans doing the exact same kind of stuff they've been doing since the 80s.

Its just the laziest, cheapest and most basic way to tell this story. And its something X books have done time and time again. Mutants do something wrong or cause a big problem by accident, and all reasonable reactions and complaints last for maybe an issue before its all giant robots again. And usually the underlying problem just gets swept under the rug. Its just awful writing. Hell, here we have a problem with the medicine, which was hinted at waaaaaaaaaay back when Hickman was still writing this and Orchis was barely a thing. Nope, its all Orchis' fault.

It doesn't help that Orchis has never had a solid identity to itself in its entire run. They've never not felt like any of the other many, many generic anti-mutant groups over the years. And they've largely been a joke with basic crazy racist goons. Nightcrawler solo'd Moira and Nimrod back in AXE! Its just so basic its infuriating.

[Diammandis]

I liked the issue but I am still trying to understand why Cyclops will change his costume between issue #22 and #24… any guesses?

There probably isnt any reason other than Cassara just wanted to use the outfit, they arent bound by only one costume anymore.

[Mungho]

I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated this. Just super hated this.

We've had literal years of the X-men doing super sketchy and sometimes downright evil stuff. Beast is still off in the Artic assassinating anybody who says anything bad about Krakoa, and Nature Girl is engaging in mass terrorism while members of the Council still don't want to punish her.

Oh? Didn't you read the synopsis for X-Force #40? Beast is now the most evil creature that has ever lived, and is sending evil clones of himself throughout the timelines, so that he can become a 'god-beast' intelligence. Seriously.

And I thought it had been revealed that Nature Girl was being controlled?