Did the Krakoa era unwittin give humans a legit excuse to hate and fear mutants?

[Rift]

Actually, the X-Men in the Krakoa era operated more like the Mafia than you think. In fact there are direct comparisons. The origins of the Mafia consist of group of Sicilians who formed groups to protect themselves from persecutions and hostility. They then formed their own system of Justice and Retribution and often carried out both in secret. Eventually, this same group would use their power to take advantage of others and commit crimes.

This ignores that mutants policed themselves since the inception of Krakoa and the nation's morality only really improved over time. Literally one of their biggest, and only laws put human lives at the forefront. Any groups that threw their weight around and got into genuinely immoral activity were outliers and treated as such. The biggest exception being Beast, who got away with things and had his work largely go unnoticed, solely because some editors were afraid to stop Percy and just let him play in the corner, away from everyone else. But even then, the other characters called him out and he was basically one bad actor that they eventually had to put a stop to.

You know sorta like how the X-Men just decided that Mutants didn't have to follow anyone else's laws. Sorta how they kept criminals buried under their clubhouse in some weird limbo. Sorta how individual members just decided who gets to live and who gets to die, without trials or due process.

The diplomatic immunity was to help counteract how all the other countries and laws were rigged against them, and it still didn't just grant them carte blanche to crap over everything. We know that the X-Men weren't going to let mutants take too much advantage over this, and we even saw Cable and Cyclops handle Arakki who were haranguing humans at a bar.

The Pit is an interesting example because it was meant for unrepentant mutants like Exile, who can't be let out anywhere else because they'd harm more innocents. (And let's be real, Sabretooth deserves the Pit. He literally can't be redeemed and would go out of his way to rape, pillage and kill the second he found himself anywhere else.) Yes, individuals decided who lives and who dies, just like how countries have judges and juries. People DID have trials, except for a few who Mags and Xavier Pitted in secret.

But most of all, the Pit was something that was meant to be examined and criticized. Xavier had good intentions with it, and in theory only the worst of the worst who refused every chance at doing good would be tossed in there. But the fact was that it could be inhumane, and that most of the prisoners had complex situations around their imprisonment that meant the Pit itself was an unjust punishment. Exposing the truth lead to people on the island protesting and fighting back against it... at least that was the plan, until the Krakoa era started dying and people IRL had to start start wrapping up their plans.

The whole living on an island and keeping secrets speaks for itself.

You know that keeping secrets isn't necessarily a bad thing, right? Nearly all heroes keep secrets, usually for the safety of those around them. Resurrection is probably the best example of this: once humans learned about it, Orchis lobbied for laws protecting those who kill mutants. Companies and countries tried to blackmail Krakoa into putting their heads in the queue. Probably unintentional, but Xavier, Magneto and Moira telling the Council the truth about Magneto directly lead to Terminator Moira and the Moira Engine/Sins of Sinister.

Living on an island also isn't a bad thing. Unless you think those heathens in the Azores are secretly conspiring to rebuild the Portuguese empire and conquer the Western world. If you're talking about the society being isolationist, that it because it's a proven fact that the mutants need their own safe space, away from humans. And even then, portals allow mutants to connect with people all over the world and still have access to an escape. Select human family members were allowed on the island, and people could come and go as they please.

It's not an outdated ideal. The idea that it is outdated is excuse to wipe away what is going on. A Hero by definition is "a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities." . What exactly is noble about threating your friends of kidnapping their son? About killing your enemies when you really don't have to? About running and hiding in Space or on some orgy island? All questions are rhetorical here but the X-Men during this era have very little I would be willing to recommend of imitating.

You should forget your definition for a sec. Not all superheroes fit that mold, even before Krakoa. Just because you have an idealized image of what a hero is in your mind, doesn't mean that all other images are wrong.

The FF/X-Men mini should be ignored. I know it sounds like I'm moving the goalposts here, and I hate to be "URRM NO THIS DOESN'T COUNT BECAUSE I SAID SO." But it really is a special case. The mini was poorly-written and contradicted past continuity and lore to make everyone on both sides into caricatures and start drama, solely because they wanted to make this a mini. Because if this awful tome remembered that Franklin's family would totally be allowed on the island, that the X-Men were still at least cordial with the FF last time they met, and that Frankin could still live at home and just show up on Krakoa whenever it was cool with them (which was the outcome of the mini anyway,) none of this would have happened. It's like how AvX and IvX made no sense and required people to act like villains to make a story happen. At best, it's an exception that proves the rule.

During the Krakoa era there is very little difference between the X-Men and the people that they were fighting. As an organization they have become what they oppose. Sure they have their reasons and I am not even saying that those reasons are ill intent. But how they operate and conduct themselves they are also the bad guys. The X-Men, during the Krakoa era, are no different that the Suicided Squad.

I don't remember seeing the X-Men rounding humans into camps or trying to force them into changing species during the Krakoa era. I don't see them going around, kidnapping and dismembering humans. I didn't see them threatening to genocide all of humanity with poisoned medicine, then lead a disinformation campaign to frame their enemies for it. Your whole reasoning seems to be based around them killing people sometimes, without any respect for the context or how wildly, wildly different the situations and reasonings are.

You can disapprove of them killing, but to say that keeping secrets, being jerks sometimes, and killing others in self defense/to protect innocent human and mutants lives, makes them as bad as Orchis?

[jmc247]

No argument there. I would say it was their first step in become more villainess. If death no longer matters to you then soon after life no longer matters to you. Then other's lives do not matter to you. Therefore killing in mass means nothings.

What I just wrote is the logic of several recorded psychopaths and serial killers.

" I don't make the news. I just report it."

Krakoa represented a nation with a government not a super hero team.

The X-Men were supposed to be a team of heroes representing the nation to mankind. The only thematic error in Fall of X in terms of the attack was the characters acting in the name of the X-Men and not acting as Krakoans or members of their armed forces.

[Saithor]

Ignoring the person trying to troll the discussion, I think others have already pointed out the number of things that from an uninformed view across the marvel earth is going to look sketchy at best, outright hostile at worse. Making Apoclaypse diplomat to the UN is probably the worse and something that would not fly if it wasn’t for Krakoa forcing the issue. He tried to cull what was it, 99% of the world population in public? Now he’s your diplomat to the UN? It would be the equivalent of a still alive Adolf Hitler being made German ambassador to the UN right after World War 2.

[marhawkman]

Ignoring the person trying to troll the discussion, I think others have already pointed out the number of things that from an uninformed view across the marvel earth is going to look sketchy at best, outright hostile at worse. Making Apoclaypse diplomat to the UN is probably the worse and something that would not fly if it wasn’t for Krakoa forcing the issue. He tried to cull what was it, 99% of the world population in public? Now he’s your diplomat to the UN? It would be the equivalent of a still alive Adolf Hitler being made German ambassador to the UN right after World War 2.

IIRC it was less than 99%... somewhere around 75 to 90% though.

[lefthanded]

This is simply not true. The outback era exists, cyclops fake revolutionary era exists. How long do you think the mutants should always be so passive?

Trauma accumulates. They aren't trying to take over the world or starve the families of orchis members. They are willfully killing people that want to wipe them out. It's not pearl clutching it's basic survival and judgement. They just had their nation ethnically cleansed exiled to another dimension that was actively trying to kill them or shipped to arakko during a civil war or scattered across the multiverse with furies hunting them in otherworld. I don't know if people understand the scope of this threat and why the x-men have chosen to kill like they did in the past.

"Heroes don't kill" is a commonly accepted idea in comics (and other media). This happens everywhere, despite the 'accumulating trauma' you are referencing. Peter Parker has as much trauma, if not more trauma than mutants (his whole deal is being traumatized), and yet 'accumulating trauma' is not an excuse for him to suddenly start killing. The point of this is to show how much better the hero is than the villain(s) (especially if the writer is going for the 'two sides of the same coin' trope).


"(Most) heroes don't kill except in extreme circumstances" is something writers like visiting from time to time. Hence, like I said, you have characters arguing about killing an Apocalypse child. Some heroes face those extreme circumstances and still don't kill (Deadpool), while others do (Fantomex). The point of this is to show how different characters react when put to the brink, and that the killing has a purpose in and of itself (prevent Apocalypse from causing more harm).

The problem with Fall of X and Duggan is that "(Most) heroes don't kill except in extreme circumstances" becomes "(Most) heroes kill".
The 'extreme circumstance' of extinction (which like I said, has been present throughout much of X-men's history) is being used as a crutch to allow random killings. It is not like the mutants are killing Gregor or an Orchis leader; they are instead killing random grunts. There is no purpose/goal to the killing aside from a general idea of fighting Orchis. They aren't killing to end the war; they are killing just to complete an objective.


In a vacuum, I don't have a problem with X-men killing, using the rationale you're suggesting of this being war and the mutants are facing extinction. What I take issue with is the poor writing that doesn't support the level of killing that is being shown. Duggan has Emma Frost kill random Orchis grunts on the street while joking about being fabulous. Magik is killing Orchis troops to get a cure (okay I will accept that), but then Kitty randomly shows up because she happened to be killing Orchis in the same base and joins in on the killing spree. That is not the mutants fighting a war for survival, but just accomplishing random side quests.

This whole 'trauma accumulates' angle is not being supported by the writing.

[Saithor]

Honestly Duggan just has his characters kill for little to no reason despite any prior characterization and it just comes off as a homogenization and also him trying to be edgy.

[marhawkman]

Honestly Duggan just has his characters kill for little to no reason despite any prior characterization and it just comes off as a homogenization and also him trying to be edgy.

Yeah this. And in this context of looking bad on the world stage... murdering a bunch of mooks who work for the bad guys... is actually generally seen as an EVIL act since their only guilt was by association, and hadn't personally done anything yet.

A third party would be reasonable to see them as murder-hoboes.

[jmc247]

Honestly Duggan just has his characters kill for little to no reason despite any prior characterization and it just comes off as a homogenization and also him trying to be edgy.

For Nightcrawler sure.

For Colossus? He has been an Acolyte and killed before. He has punched with intent to kill many times over the years.

For Lorna? LOL. I will just say it’s been a part of her character from the start.

[marhawkman]

For Nightcrawler sure.

For Colossus? He has been an Acolyte and killed before. He has punched with intent to kill many times over the years.

For Lorna? LOL. I will just say it’s been a part of her character from the start.

Yeah, but it's not a simple yes or no. Punisher gets used as a poster boy here. But while he's happy to kill people he thinks need killed... he's very picky about WHO needs killed.

[Gray Lensman]

To get back to the initial question....it doesn't matter in the slightest. Bigots will invent reasons where none exist. They will twist facts, create false equivalencies, make mountains out of molehills, or just create their own "truth" if the facts do not support them. The real world has people who insist politicians they don't like are running a child sex ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor THAT HAS NO BASEMENT.

So whether or not Krakoa has created a legitimate reason or not doesn't matter, the "Kill all mutants for th crime of being born" crowd would have invented a reason if there wasn't one they could twist towards their own ends.

[marhawkman]

To get back to the initial question....it doesn't matter in the slightest. Bigots will invent reasons where none exist. They will twist facts, create false equivalencies, make mountains out of molehills, or just create their own "truth" if the facts do not support them. The real world has people who insist politicians they don't like are running a child sex ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor THAT HAS NO BASEMENT.

So whether or not Krakoa has created a legitimate reason or not doesn't matter, the "Kill all mutants for th crime of being born" crowd would have invented a reason if there wasn't one they could twist towards their own ends.

Yeah, but... is it ONLY the people who already wanted to kill all Mutants who currently have a problem with Krakoa?