Originally Posted by
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: