Where is Fantastic Four vs Orchis??

[Chris0013]

Per the retcon, Franklin is an FF property first, so Slott was able to override them. Hickman wanted to use him, but Slott pulled the plug on that. Likely, Slott wanted to isolate Franklin from his people to continue his dumb emo arc.

The thing about Franklin is...Slott did not need to go the the extreme of un-mutanting Franklin. All he had to do was write a story of Franklin realizing Xavier and Magneto were more interested in him as a weapon than as a person. And therefore Franklin leaves Krakoa and never returns.

[JB]

Reed is currently working on a device that can mask the X-gene for the X-Men to evade the Sentinels. Captain America is working to sway the public perception of mutants and is working with Ben Urich to push against the anti-mutant narrative. Quicksilver and Black Widow are helping as well. Dr. Strange just helped Sage and Domino rescue the rest of X-Force and return them from Mikhail's pocket dimension. Spidey has appeared in Astonishing Iceman and this coming week Uncanny Spider-Man. Iron Man has his role in trying to combat Feilong and the Sentinels and Kingpin is so far assisting (as he wants his wife back). Alpha Flight goes without saying. The heroes are helping in a few different ways but Orchis currently has the blessing and support of most governments of the world. If they openly go up against Orchis they could be swiftly labeled as anti-government so they have to tread lightly.

For me this is enough and I want the conclusion, the final fights against Orchis and Dominion/Phalanx/Technarcy/whatever is coming, to be solely handled by our merry mutants.

[Huntsman Spider]

I don't want an X-Men story solved by or involving the F4. Or Avengers.

If Sentinels are patrolling cities and anti mutant hysteria is at an all time high then it’s not just an X-Men story. The FF and Avengers should not so much solve the issue but should be assisting or picking a side.

Does that weird government sanctioned Squadron still exist? It would have been a good storyline if they were sent to capture mutants.

Squadron Supreme of America? They basically fell apart after the Heroes Reborn saga in Jason Aaron's Avengers that had them rewrite the MU's history so the Avengers never formed, which enabled them to assume their place as the premier heroes of America while running roughshod over the rest of the world --- to say nothing of the universe in Doctor Spectrum's case --- in the name of "maintaining and enforcing America's interests." And yes, in their version of the MU, the mutants and their attempts to resist human subjugation were explicitly decimated by the Squadron Supreme of America, with one of the comics set there revolving around what was effectively the mutants' last stand.

[Rift]

The thing about Franklin is...Slott did not need to go the the extreme of un-mutanting Franklin. All he had to do was write a story of Franklin realizing Xavier and Magneto were more interested in him as a weapon than as a person. And therefore Franklin leaves Krakoa and never returns.

Tbh the way it was done makes it even worse because it doesn't even make that much sense. Xavier would still be cordial and caring even if Franklin wasn't a mutant/unpowered - he knows Franklin wasn't lying on purpose, and that Franklin himself has ties to the X-line outside of his mutation. And even if Franklin didn't like Xavier and Mags, he had friends - new and old- all over the island.

But no, Xavier just coldly cut him off for no reason, even though it would cost him nothing to have Franklin on the island, having human allies is awesome in Xavier's eyes, and a potential connection to the Fantastic Four would be great - though they'd still be wary of Reed. The whole thing was such a rush job. So my headcanon is that Sue heard about all the free love on Krakoa, flipped her lid, and forced Xavier to banish him from the island before her horny teenage son came back with a pack of baby Hyperstorms.

It would be cool for the Future Foundation to put their smarts against Orchis'

Yeah, about that...

[BobbysWorld]

Just food for thought:

We know the X-books have been following Hickman's vaunted plans, just with detours, but now they're back on track finishing out his outline. We also know Hickman had definite plans in mind for Franklin.

We also know that Slott's run ended with Franklin in a dimension called Idea Space where imagination can rewrite reality...and Franklin was able to use this dimension to defeat the major Reckoning villain because he had a lifetime of experience using the unfettered power of his imagination to basically do whatever he wanted....which gave him an advantage over pretty much anyone else who came into this dimension and had the potential to rewrite reality on the same scale as him while in it, but lacked that experience Franklin had here. Slott finished out his run with the tease that Franklin while in Idea Space had rewritten his powers BACK into existence, in a way that would last once he left it and returned to the 'real world.' (Such as, y'know, using the reality-warping properties of Idea Space to give himself an x-gene again while there, the same that 'originally' resulted in the powers he had his whole life.....so that once out of Idea Space....he'd still have that x-gene again). He even asked his parents if it would make any difference to them if he had his powers back or not, or if they'd care or think less of him if he'd used that opportunity to give himself his powers back.

And we ALSO know that the issue before last of Fantastic Four...when the FF were in an alternate reality where everyone was a dinosaur (yes I'm for real), that universe's Franklin asked if their Franklin had told them 'his secret' yet. This was even brought up again last issue with them wondering what that was about....and then it was stated that well, they'd know one way or another in another month....because that was when the FF's kids were due to return from the future after Reed sent them a year into the future to protect them at the very start of North's run. And the solicit for next issue of FF is the kids finally return.

.....riiiiiight at the same time as the last month of 'Fall of X' when mutants are scattered and at their lowest, right before the beginning of the FotHoX/RotPoX phase where we see mutants finally starting to come back together to fight against Orchis & the Dominion more effectively, whereas throughout Fall of X they've basically just been doing their best to hold on, and largely losing in most books.

SO.

What I'm wondering is.....maybe part of the reason Slott WAS able to make the Franklin retcon, despite his longstanding history as a mutant and Hickman's plans for him and all that....is because of the detour all of the other X-books were making to make the era last longer anyway. And part of the condition of Slott doing his retcon so he could separate Franklin from the X-books and not have the rest of his run intertwined with them....is that upon the end of his run (which they already knew when Slott was due to end it, at the time of the retcon, like Reckoning War was planned for awhile to be his swansong on the FF title)....Slott had to undo his own retcon and include a way for Franklin to be reset back to his pre-retcon status....and so that he could be brought back in to finish off Hickman's outline once the X-books got back to that as well.

Because the timing is very interesting when you think about it. Slott's run ends with a tease and a clear nod to how Franklin could get his powers back, with it even explicitly written into the text 'here is a thing Franklin at the very least THOUGHT about doing, to restore his powers'....and then North's run begins with a plot that writes Franklin and the other FF kids out of the book....until literally the same month as the end of Fall of X. If this plot with the FF's kids hadn't been central to North's run from day one, the tease from the end of Slott's run would have HAD to be resolved one way or another fairly quickly. If Franklin were around and present for the twelve issues between then and now, there's only so long you can put off addressing the question of 'did Franklin get his powers back or not' without it becoming very awkward and inorganic to only twelve issues later finally be like oh yeah, Franklin gave himself back his x-gene and it just didn't come up until now.

And by the same token, if this run had played out differently, and it had been made explicitly clear either at the end of Slott's run or the start of North's run that Franklin DID in fact reset himself back to his pre-retcon self and he was once again an omega level mutant....the question would quickly become, how do you keep Franklin & the FF out of the end of the Krakoan era & Fall of X stuff when he does have a lot of friends still on Krakoa & Orchis Sentinels would target him as a mutant again, particularly an omega level one.

After all, a critical part of the entire premise of Fall of X involved shuffling all the omegas off the board except for Iceman whose solo is predicated on the idea that he's the only omega available to try and keep Orchis busy across the whole planet right now, and he can't hold the line himself. As much as we give the X-books grief for not justifying how the omegas haven't just shoved the Sentinel Forge into the sun before now, they DID put a lot of effort into making sure all the omegas were busy or dealt with and thus unable to save the day during Fall of X.

Storm is occupied w/the Genesis War that Orchis helped instigate, along with the Arakkii omegas. Jean was killed at the Gala, and is currently trying to put herself back together in the WHR. Hope, Elixir, Proteus & Exodus are all in the WHR as well, due to Mother Righteous' manipulations of the gates in pursuit of her own agenda. Legion disappeared presumably to hide from Mother Righteous while he figured out what her deal was and made sure she couldn't use him via her various contracts & magical tricks. Magneto was killed at the end of Judgment Day and refused to be resurrected, Quentin is trapped in Mikhail's pocket dimension, Vulcan was imprisoned under the surface of Arakko & other than Bobby, the only remaining omega running around free & fighting Orchis, that just left Mercator (who stays out of most things & seems mostly concerned w/protecting his province in Otherworld) and Jamie Braddock....who we don't really know what he's doing currently but he's not exactly someone anyone expects to swoop in and save the day.

But with all these other omegas off the board, if Franklin had gotten his powers & omega status back at the end of Slott's run and the FF were just based out of the Baxter Building like normal when all of this went down.....there very much WOULD be the question of why a freshly re-empowered Franklin didn't do anything once FoX began...ESPECIALLY if per Hickman's outline for the end of the Krakoan era, Franklin IS still intended to play some kind of role in the ultimate outcome of things, after Fall of X.

SO.

My thought:

What if Slott's retcon was only allowed with the caveat it get undone before the end of the Krakoan era....and when North took over the FF book, due to the specific timing of everything, part of his initial pitch for the book had to include the parameters that he find someway to delay the reveal of Franklin's returned powers, or at least find a way for him not to be around and available to intervene during Fall of X?

Hence....North began his run w/a premise that jumped directly from the end of Slott's run to a status quo where Franklin & the other FF kids were out of the picture for an entire year, w/nobody in a position to know what precisely was going on with them - or what FRANKLIN'S new status quo was, post-Slott....

UNTIL....Fall of X wrapped up and the X-books transitioned into their actual final phase of Hickman's era, the last rallying of mutants against Orchis & the machine/Sinister Dominions....at which point, Franklin was ALWAYS expected to be present and accounted for once the Earth omegas were once again united in purpose.

Because notice....for as much as the omegas are all scattered to the winds right now.....there's a clock on that:

[BobbysWorld]

Genesis War ends next month, and will immediately be followed by Storm seeking to resurrect Magneto....that's Storm and Magneto back on the table.

Vulcan was just released from his prison beneath Arakko last issue....Vulcan's back on the table.

Bobby's solo wraps up next issue and barring some permanent death for him in the final issue, which seems counter-intuitive to the whole mini's premise about him rebuilding towards being able to survive/exist without relying on Romeo as a crutch....Bobby's still on the table.

Jean's the focus of X-Men Forever and something is going on in the White Hot Room, but the resolution of it will likely resolve the question of her status quo at the same time as it resolves the fate of the mutants in the WHR or sees them released from it.....which would likely put Jean, Hope, Exodus, Elixir & Proteus all back on the table at the same time.

Mikhail was just killed & all of X-Force escaped from his dimension last issue of X-Force.....Quentin's back on the table.

Uncanny Spider-Man seems to be strongly hinting that the Ghost Bamf is directly connected to Legion, and its not shy about pushing Kurt to be directly aware of that, which to me suggests that either the end of USM or some still un-announced book to follow Fall of X will include Kurt seeking out Legion or returning him from wherever he is....which would put Legion back on the table.

And Betsy hasn't been seen all Fall of X so we don't really know what's going on with her, but we DO know that Foxe is doing something yet to come with her, and that its been said she will still have a big role to play before the end of the Krakoan era.....and given her brother's been directly connected to her storylines all era, Betsy's return will most likely also involve him to at least some degree.....which brings Jamie Braddock back to the table.

And given that Betsy's directly connected to all things Otherworld, if ANYONE'S story would intertwine with Mercator's one last time before the end of the era, it would be hers.....which could mean Absolom Mercator will be back on the table.

And then, after a very conveniently timed year away from everything happening on Earth right here and now in the present, at the PRECISE moment when all of these other omegas start coming back into the picture......Franklin Richards, current mutant status & state of powers unknown but VERY much a subject of speculation given the end of Slott's run.....is only just NOW, as of next month, the final month of Fall of X.....back on the table.

Which would for the very first time this ENTIRE era, showcase all of Earth's omegas in FULL solidarity, instead of the almost or not-quite full roster assortments of them we had at key moments earlier throughout this era.

I'm just saying. The timing is veeeeeeery interesting to me, and I would not at all be surprised if the Fantastic Four in general - and Franklin in specific - still have one last role to play before the curtain falls on this era.

[ARkadelphia]

Tbh the way it was done makes it even worse because it doesn't even make that much sense. Xavier would still be cordial and caring even if Franklin wasn't a mutant/unpowered - he knows Franklin wasn't lying on purpose, and that Franklin himself has ties to the X-line outside of his mutation. And even if Franklin didn't like Xavier and Mags, he had friends - new and old- all over the island.

But no, Xavier just coldly cut him off for no reason, even though it would cost him nothing to have Franklin on the island, having human allies is awesome in Xavier's eyes, and a potential connection to the Fantastic Four would be great - though they'd still be wary of Reed. The whole thing was such a rush job. So my headcanon is that Sue heard about all the free love on Krakoa, flipped her lid, and forced Xavier to banish him from the island before her horny teenage son came back with a pack of baby Hyperstorms.


Yeah, about that...

How much do you know about Xavier?

[ARkadelphia]

Just food for thought:

We know the X-books have been following Hickman's vaunted plans, just with detours, but now they're back on track finishing out his outline. We also know Hickman had definite plans in mind for Franklin.

We also know that Slott's run ended with Franklin in a dimension called Idea Space where imagination can rewrite reality...and Franklin was able to use this dimension to defeat the major Reckoning villain because he had a lifetime of experience using the unfettered power of his imagination to basically do whatever he wanted....which gave him an advantage over pretty much anyone else who came into this dimension and had the potential to rewrite reality on the same scale as him while in it, but lacked that experience Franklin had here. Slott finished out his run with the tease that Franklin while in Idea Space had rewritten his powers BACK into existence, in a way that would last once he left it and returned to the 'real world.' (Such as, y'know, using the reality-warping properties of Idea Space to give himself an x-gene again while there, the same that 'originally' resulted in the powers he had his whole life.....so that once out of Idea Space....he'd still have that x-gene again). He even asked his parents if it would make any difference to them if he had his powers back or not, or if they'd care or think less of him if he'd used that opportunity to give himself his powers back.

And we ALSO know that the issue before last of Fantastic Four...when the FF were in an alternate reality where everyone was a dinosaur (yes I'm for real), that universe's Franklin asked if their Franklin had told them 'his secret' yet. This was even brought up again last issue with them wondering what that was about....and then it was stated that well, they'd know one way or another in another month....because that was when the FF's kids were due to return from the future after Reed sent them a year into the future to protect them at the very start of North's run. And the solicit for next issue of FF is the kids finally return.

.....riiiiiight at the same time as the last month of 'Fall of X' when mutants are scattered and at their lowest, right before the beginning of the FotHoX/RotPoX phase where we see mutants finally starting to come back together to fight against Orchis & the Dominion more effectively, whereas throughout Fall of X they've basically just been doing their best to hold on, and largely losing in most books.

SO.

What I'm wondering is.....maybe part of the reason Slott WAS able to make the Franklin retcon, despite his longstanding history as a mutant and Hickman's plans for him and all that....is because of the detour all of the other X-books were making to make the era last longer anyway. And part of the condition of Slott doing his retcon so he could separate Franklin from the X-books and not have the rest of his run intertwined with them....is that upon the end of his run (which they already knew when Slott was due to end it, at the time of the retcon, like Reckoning War was planned for awhile to be his swansong on the FF title)....Slott had to undo his own retcon and include a way for Franklin to be reset back to his pre-retcon status....and so that he could be brought back in to finish off Hickman's outline once the X-books got back to that as well.

Because the timing is very interesting when you think about it. Slott's run ends with a tease and a clear nod to how Franklin could get his powers back, with it even explicitly written into the text 'here is a thing Franklin at the very least THOUGHT about doing, to restore his powers'....and then North's run begins with a plot that writes Franklin and the other FF kids out of the book....until literally the same month as the end of Fall of X. If this plot with the FF's kids hadn't been central to North's run from day one, the tease from the end of Slott's run would have HAD to be resolved one way or another fairly quickly. If Franklin were around and present for the twelve issues between then and now, there's only so long you can put off addressing the question of 'did Franklin get his powers back or not' without it becoming very awkward and inorganic to only twelve issues later finally be like oh yeah, Franklin gave himself back his x-gene and it just didn't come up until now.

And by the same token, if this run had played out differently, and it had been made explicitly clear either at the end of Slott's run or the start of North's run that Franklin DID in fact reset himself back to his pre-retcon self and he was once again an omega level mutant....the question would quickly become, how do you keep Franklin & the FF out of the end of the Krakoan era & Fall of X stuff when he does have a lot of friends still on Krakoa & Orchis Sentinels would target him as a mutant again, particularly an omega level one.

After all, a critical part of the entire premise of Fall of X involved shuffling all the omegas off the board except for Iceman whose solo is predicated on the idea that he's the only omega available to try and keep Orchis busy across the whole planet right now, and he can't hold the line himself. As much as we give the X-books grief for not justifying how the omegas haven't just shoved the Sentinel Forge into the sun before now, they DID put a lot of effort into making sure all the omegas were busy or dealt with and thus unable to save the day during Fall of X.

Storm is occupied w/the Genesis War that Orchis helped instigate, along with the Arakkii omegas. Jean was killed at the Gala, and is currently trying to put herself back together in the WHR. Hope, Elixir, Proteus & Exodus are all in the WHR as well, due to Mother Righteous' manipulations of the gates in pursuit of her own agenda. Legion disappeared presumably to hide from Mother Righteous while he figured out what her deal was and made sure she couldn't use him via her various contracts & magical tricks. Magneto was killed at the end of Judgment Day and refused to be resurrected, Quentin is trapped in Mikhail's pocket dimension, Vulcan was imprisoned under the surface of Arakko & other than Bobby, the only remaining omega running around free & fighting Orchis, that just left Mercator (who stays out of most things & seems mostly concerned w/protecting his province in Otherworld) and Jamie Braddock....who we don't really know what he's doing currently but he's not exactly someone anyone expects to swoop in and save the day.

But with all these other omegas off the board, if Franklin had gotten his powers & omega status back at the end of Slott's run and the FF were just based out of the Baxter Building like normal when all of this went down.....there very much WOULD be the question of why a freshly re-empowered Franklin didn't do anything once FoX began...ESPECIALLY if per Hickman's outline for the end of the Krakoan era, Franklin IS still intended to play some kind of role in the ultimate outcome of things, after Fall of X.

SO.

My thought:

What if Slott's retcon was only allowed with the caveat it get undone before the end of the Krakoan era....and when North took over the FF book, due to the specific timing of everything, part of his initial pitch for the book had to include the parameters that he find someway to delay the reveal of Franklin's returned powers, or at least find a way for him not to be around and available to intervene during Fall of X?

Hence....North began his run w/a premise that jumped directly from the end of Slott's run to a status quo where Franklin & the other FF kids were out of the picture for an entire year, w/nobody in a position to know what precisely was going on with them - or what FRANKLIN'S new status quo was, post-Slott....

UNTIL....Fall of X wrapped up and the X-books transitioned into their actual final phase of Hickman's era, the last rallying of mutants against Orchis & the machine/Sinister Dominions....at which point, Franklin was ALWAYS expected to be present and accounted for once the Earth omegas were once again united in purpose.

Because notice....for as much as the omegas are all scattered to the winds right now.....there's a clock on that:

Sometimes a coincidence is just that

[BobbysWorld]

Sometimes a coincidence is just that

Bah. Coincidences are for the weak. Conspiracies are where its at.

2wxmbd.jpg

[Rift]

How much do you know about Xavier?

Enough to know he can inconsistently be a dick for no resson. But this time, it goes against his kind side AND his manipulative side. It was a rush-job that didn't give any real insight into Xavier's decision, so it comes off as him being stupid for plot.

[Micabe]

The so-called official leader of mutantdom is what... Hiding in self-imposed exile while his first chosen student is dead and Orchis and Sentinals are kicking a$$ and carving names?

[Rift]

The so-called official leader of mutantdom is what... Hiding in self-imposed exile while Orchis and company is kicking a$$ and carving names?

We know how Xavier got to that point because time was dedicated to showing his long descent into despair, and how his actions hurt the people he loves. Plus we know he's not fully off the board and still working against Orchis in a limited capacity.

[Micabe]

We know how Xavier got to that point because time was dedicated to showing his long descent into despair, and how his actions hurt the people he loves. Plus we know he's not fully off the board and still working against Orchis in a limited capacity.

I can only hope because Charles is currently coming off as a coward and hypocrite who has seemingly learned his lesson...

[danielsan52]

The thing about Franklin is...Slott did not need to go the the extreme of un-mutanting Franklin. All he had to do was write a story of Franklin realizing Xavier and Magneto were more interested in him as a weapon than as a person. And therefore Franklin leaves Krakoa and never returns.

^^^THIS^^^

I enjoyed Slott's run (more so than the current) except for him unmutanting Franks.

Taking Franklin out of the equation though, The FF should still have some involvement. I'd love to see Sue infiltrate Orchis.

[Digifiend]

Squadron Supreme of America? They basically fell apart after the Heroes Reborn saga in Jason Aaron's Avengers that had them rewrite the MU's history so the Avengers never formed, which enabled them to assume their place as the premier heroes of America while running roughshod over the rest of the world --- to say nothing of the universe in Doctor Spectrum's case --- in the name of "maintaining and enforcing America's interests." And yes, in their version of the MU, the mutants and their attempts to resist human subjugation were explicitly decimated by the Squadron Supreme of America, with one of the comics set there revolving around what was effectively the mutants' last stand.

Yeah, Nighthawk's the only one still active as a superhero, he ended up joining the Avengers for Aaron's final year (he replaced Black Panther, who rejoined when the current run started). The others are either dead, jailed, or fugitive.

This is a very good point. The FF have a reason to stay out of it, but the Avengers don't. Scarlet Witch should've gotten the main team involved in the fight against Orchis. The Champions should've been called in by Ms. Marvel too.