Your Unpopular/Controversial Opinions on the X-Universe

[Brian B]

My probably unpopular, but likely not very controversial, opinion on the X titles is they dang well need to go get Hickman back to fix what he has wrought. By leaving his story unfinished, things are a continuity mess within the X titles.

[sunofdarkchild]

I don't see how the continuity problems Hickman created could be resolved even if he did his story exactly as originally intended. The problems with Moira suddenly being a mutant who was plotting this all along with Xavier and Magneto can't be handwaved away without ruining Hickman's story. Any new retcons to try to fix the first retcons would only compound the problem and would only work if Hickman's ideas and stories were just forgotten and resigned to the dustbin of history. That's happened to certain retcons before, but to do that to the Hickman era and regard the entire thing as a blip to be ignored is not the answer.

In retrospect, Magneto shouldn't have been in on the plan for so long given his constant back and forth between hero and villain. Xavier and Moira could have gone to him before confronting Scott during AvX, entrusting his oldest friend with his biggest secret in the hopes Magneto would lead Krakoa in his stead in the event he was killed confronting Cyclops. Or he could have gone to Magneto any time since his return to life. There's no reason Magneto had to have been in on it all along. Since his 'I come not to bury Caesar but to praise him' speech Magneto has been much more consistent in straddling the line between hero and anti-hero, and this is the period it would make the most sense to have him learn about the plan for Krakoa.

[Grunty]

Say what you want but his death was bad azz. Facing 100 Arrako warriors solo

He died fighting 100 practically identical looking generic henchmen, who look like a bunch of extras from a 1950's swords and sandals movie, with no display of any impressive or intersting powers what so ever and very stiff art for the fight itself.
To me nothing about this felt particular impressive, given what else i have seen in X-men comics in the past, nor did i feel it was a great death moment for this character, with both the story itself and the art being to blame here.

As mentioned there is the presentation of the 100 Champions, a supposed elite force of Arrako, a mutant nation that has fought a demon horde for thousand of years, yet not only do the champions all look like generic guys with minimum effort armor designs if they wear any (again i draw comparison to 1950's hollywood "close enough to what people will think look egyptan/greek/roman" props that got recycled between movies), but they also present no real display of mutant powers.

Even with the reasonable excuse that it's difficult to draw 100 different looking fighters, they should have been given a visual striking and impressive uniform design, preferably based on White Sword himself, in order to actualy feel like being on par or just one step below him. Something which was actualy implied or came close enough under other artists presenting them in previous parts of the X of Swords and it's prelude.
By their description one would assume them to look like the Black Knights from Dark Souls or similar "worn down mighty champions of old" figures as they appear in various stories.

And then there is the fact that they don't even display any powers or even tactics, they just stupidly charge Gorgon like any horde type enemy.

It's like Wolverine going down permanently to a bunch of Hydra, AIM or Ultimatum henchmen swarming him. Or Luffy from One Piece getting defeated by a dozen generic marines, which also still tend to regulary look more unique than White Sword's mutant champions.

Even his act of "saving" the X-men by balancing out their score only comes more from the whole event going into "wacky rigged games" beforehand so to force a big minus number on them, just so this guy could somehow get them out in one go.

It's all a contrived mess to me, which is supposed to make Gorgon look impressive, but just falls flat because Noto failed to make the Champions look impressive, couldn't deliver dynamic fighting art and the writing was laser focused on Gorgon dying "awesomely" but didn't even bother to show a reasonable path towards it.

Though considering i have virtualy no respect for the character (he feels like the prototypical early 2000's Mark Millar "super cool edgy villain" creation, i'm still supprised people genuinely love the character), it didn't bother me as much, as it just felt like another forgetable moment in an allready awkwardly desgined event.

[king of hybrids]

Say what you want but his death was bad azz. Facing 100 Arrako warriors solo

If the best you can do is die the same way a thousand baseline humans have managed for a thousand years, your not all that superior are you?

[Writerblog]

If the best you can do is die the same way a thousand baseline humans have managed for a thousand years, your not all that superior are you?

Maybe Elektra or Shang Chi could do better

[Sutekh]

Controversial opinion: The only redemption arc done well in this era was Greycrow.

Yeah. I feel it more than Cortez's breakdown, or even Shadow King's (although that one was also better than average, IMO).

Although it was not even close to a 'redemption arc,' but I sure do have a new fondess for Nanny! (Who is darn near the *last* person I ever thought I'd give two hoots for! She's was like, a notch above Sugar Man on my list of 'characters I don't mind never seeing or being mentioned again'!)

[Havok83]

Controversial opinion: The only redemption arc done well in this era was Greycrow.

Outside of Apocalypse and Farouk, I dont think there was many redemption arcs. Villians are now allied with the X-men, but the overall narrative hasn't been about redeeming them

[Saithor]

Outside of Apocalypse and Farouk, I dont think there was many redemption arcs. Villians are now allied with the X-men, but the overall narrative hasn't been about redeeming them

Fabian Cortez. Gorgon. Dakken. Malice. Quire? Although it's been a long time since he's been Morrison's school shooter I guess.

[Havok83]

Fabian Cortez. Gorgon. Dakken. Malice. Quire? Although it's been a long time since he's been Morrison's school shooter I guess.

I stopped reading SWORD a few issues after the Gala and Cortez was still a d--k. I will concede that they may have redeemed him since

Daken - he's been an anti-hero for a large portion of his history. I wouldnt say they redeemed him this era as the last time we saw him, he was an X-men member in Blue, but he is rarely consistent anyway

Quire was redeemed years ago. He hasnt been a villian since the Morrison era.

Gorgon....its hard to tell as they barely did anything with him. He was largely just there and then died

Malice was given a chance at a fresh start, but I wouldnt say she got a redemption arc as we havent seen her since she got that to know if she's changed much. I can give you her though

[Saithor]

I stopped reading SWORD a few issues after the Gala and Cortez was still a d--k. I will concede that they may have redeemed him since

Daken - he's been an anti-hero for a large portion of his history. I wouldnt say they redeemed him this era as the last time we saw him, he was an X-men member in Blue, but he is rarely consistent anyway

Quire was redeemed years ago. He hasnt been a villian since the Morrison era.

Gorgon....its hard to tell as they barely did anything with him. He was largely just there and then died

Malice was given a chance at a fresh start, but I wouldnt say she got a redemption arc as we havent seen her since she got that to know if she's changed much.

The Dakken one just pisses me off because they retconned his power so what used to be rapes was just him uh "Using what was already there". Which I'm not sure on if that still counts as violating consent or is just a really stupid way of saying it was the victim's fault. Either way, ew.

[Ambaryerno]

I stopped reading SWORD a few issues after the Gala and Cortez was still a d--k. I will concede that they may have redeemed him since

Daken - he's been an anti-hero for a large portion of his history. I wouldnt say they redeemed him this era as the last time we saw him, he was an X-men member in Blue, but he is rarely consistent anyway

Quire was redeemed years ago. He hasnt been a villian since the Morrison era.

Gorgon....its hard to tell as they barely did anything with him. He was largely just there and then died

Malice was given a chance at a fresh start, but I wouldnt say she got a redemption arc as we havent seen her since she got that to know if she's changed much. I can give you her though

I would say it's more accurate to say that Daken was an anti-villain for most of his history. His main redemptive moments didn't really arrive until around the time of The Logan Legacy and Wolverines, when he started some self-reflection after Logan's death, the writers began to reinforce that he does have a genuine connection with Laura. Then later showing that she's probably the one person who can get him to do the right thing just because it's right (IE stopping the virus ravaging Roosevelt Island) rather than because there's something in it for him. So Daken becoming an anti-hero is much more recent.

[Writerblog]

The Dakken one just pisses me off because they retconned his power so what used to be rapes was just him uh "Using what was already there". Which I'm not sure on if that still counts as violating consent or is just a really stupid way of saying it was the victim's fault. Either way, ew.

i think it got worse, attraction isn't the same as consent. The powers are still rapey and he uses them often. Jessica Drew has the same powers and avoid ever using them, because they are bad

[king of hybrids]

The Dakken one just pisses me off because they retconned his power so what used to be rapes was just him uh "Using what was already there". Which I'm not sure on if that still counts as violating consent or is just a really stupid way of saying it was the victim's fault. Either way, ew.

But he’s a mutant so it’s all okay.

/s

[Havok83]

I would say it's more accurate to say that Daken was an anti-villain for most of his history. His main redemptive moments didn't really arrive until around the time of The Logan Legacy and Wolverines, when he started some self-reflection after Logan's death, the writers began to reinforce that he does have a genuine connection with Laura. Then later showing that she's probably the one person who can get him to do the right thing just because it's right (IE stopping the virus ravaging Roosevelt Island) rather than because there's something in it for him. So Daken becoming an anti-hero is much more recent.

I mean that still happened before Krakoa, so the point remains

[Grunty]

Outside of Apocalypse and Farouk, I dont think there was many redemption arcs. Villians are now allied with the X-men, but the overall narrative hasn't been about redeeming them

I really don't see Apocalypse or Farouk being redeemed either. The former is still a mass murdering megalomaniac who killed countless people for an insane ideology over thousands of years and shows not an ounce of remorse for it (he is still proud of it infact), only now he has some new addition to his origin and the later merely turned out to be heavily damaged by his long connection to shadowking, which is more a case of explaining the reason for his new own crimes.

Overall when it comes to the mutant villains many of the current writers seem to more go with trying to excuse, ignore or downplay their past crimes and actions, semingly to justify having the heros stand shoulder to shoulder with them or having them on hero teams.

Now i admit, there is the reasonable argument to be had that they are merely using these villains for good and keeping them away from the rest of humanity by using Krakoa and freedom from jail or worse as bargain, but it still looks troublesome that some of the worst super powered people in the world are enjoying a permanent 5+ star vacation for free, seemingly giving them the impression their past crimes and actions got validated and that the heros are apperently untroubled by working with them and having them around.

Which reminds me. This was one reason i didn't vote for Marrow in last years X-men vote. I feel she is 20 years behind in getting a proper redemption and seeking penance for her past crimes, which makes her unsuited to be thrown directly on a public hero team like that. She is generaly not as bad anymore as she was when Storm performed an "improvised first half heart transplantation" on her, but since she dissapeared from the X-men no writer has given her signs of regret anymore. Instead validating her temper and bloodlust as being fine or even to laugh at.
Spec ops team? Sure. Ad hoc formed squad? Sure. Emergency team where the heros can't be picky? Could be worse.
But as part of a team which is supposed to be the public face of mutants? Definetly not. Rogue she is not.

And at least she had a visible change of heart when she was on the X-men (albeit one wasted by a weird fixation on her self image issues), so there is a bit of a basis to welcome her back to a hero team (especialy if we ignore Weapon X...), but many of the villains now added to teams don't even get that.