Your Unpopular/Controversial Opinions on the X-Universe

[jwatson]

It's kind of crazy because it's really shifting my thoughts on certain things around. Like even from a fan perspective when your with other fans and their like well they just want to tell a story and we can't dictate things. I guess an example would be the guy who does the God father movies, who i honestly can't even remember his name right now and he was all complaining about how movies are different now and getting butts into seats but like anything else at some point as the demographics change and minds expand the need for something different arises for representation and in a lot of cases these people are being not cancelled but if your telling me this is all you can create, or this is what you do with a "big budget" or your supporters are saying this is his vision, at some point you've shrunk your own potential audience and it's sort of like a sea of sharks. It's not that there is some cancellation on straight white men but rather there is such an over saturation and with similar vision that as the audience changes they are absolutely forced to look elsewhere for what they are looking for an that ends up in a game there can only be so many straight white dudes in so many fields because there is no diversity in the vision. in a lot of cases the story content but the visual is overwhelming similar in casting or characters etc. So honestly a lot of white straight men are experiencing the opposite of what diverse creators are. It's not that you have to give up your seat for a more diverse view, it's your view isn't diverse enough in a changing market to keep your seat. So where there weren't enough seats in the room for diverse people there are too many seats in the room for straight white men. Especially when you see it in the same place like we do comics for example.

It really is a simple case of supply and demand. It was easier in the past to say demand wasn't there to not justify the supply but now it's at a point where everyone can see the demand is there but the supply isn't so of course we look to those who can supply it and if straight white writers are telling us they can't write this or direct this and their fans are saying that's how they visual stories then you have to look to those who can create that content and immediately i would think if this guy says or appears unable to be able to do that, then someone who looks like that must be the one who can. A case of that would be tchalla but i'm really starting to ramble now so i'm out. lol

[jwatson]

Heck looking at an older post so many of the writers identify as bi or they/them as well so then if your part of that community and you still can only produce a certain visual, yeah that's really is saying ALOT. wow. and why those who we think of when we want something supplied will change if those who do supply it don't start feeding the demand. it's simple math.

[gonnagiveittoya]

The resurrection protocols losing the very few limitations they have makes them less interesting. Now mutants are just cannon fodder in basically every story.

Like the clone and precog limits at least had story and character-based resolutions, but now with Red we have someone who literally doesnt have a backup and says he doesnt want to come back who's died and is absolutely going to come back. Even Otherworld is now immune. Sure even when characters like Captain America died theyd eventualyl comeback but before they came back the death actually was ostensibly important, now we have X-Men being literally ripped in half like no big deal. So when they do big dramatic deaths like Magnetos now its not even "oh he'll be back in a year" it's "he'll be back next issue"

[Nicoclaws]

The resurrection protocols losing the very few limitations they have makes them less interesting. Now mutants are just cannon fodder in basically every story.

Like the clone and precog limits at least had story and character-based resolutions, but now with Red we have someone who literally doesnt have a backup and says he doesnt want to come back who's died and is absolutely going to come back. Even Otherworld is now immune. Sure even when characters like Captain America died theyd eventualyl comeback but before they came back the death actually was ostensibly important, now we have X-Men being literally ripped in half like no big deal. So when they do big dramatic deaths like Magnetos now its not even "oh he'll be back in a year" it's "he'll be back next issue"

I disagree because the point of the resurrection protocols WAS to take the importance of death away. Because you absotlutely knew that the stakes were nonsense anyways, Hickman decided to take them off the table and explore what it meant for a hunted minority. TBH I did NOT like the Otherworld limitation and thought it made no sense either conceptually or practically.


But I think tons of people feel like you do.

[Nicoclaws]

You know looking at a lot of the upcoming stuff i actually was struck with something that to me feels like now an apparent fact. A lot of writers who happen to be male and white catch a lot of flack because when there is a group working in one line you really can't unsee the changes they do to the landscape when it comes to diversity. When i think of the team of Hickman/Leah/Tini/Duggan and see and think of the casts not all had diverse teams but over all there was a diversity there. Now if you compare that to the team of Duggan/Ewing(he does his best)Tini/Gillien you just don't see it, you can just look at the books and see it. and it made me think of people and how they feel like victims when they are catching flack but then it's like do you look at the landscape you created compared to the landscape that was there. It's kind of interesting to me that i've never had that thought before. I mean we all say we need more diverse writers to add diversity which is true but i never really thought about how when so many of one kind get together, their visual is so similar. This also extends to artists. Just a rando thought. lol *ninja vanish*

And according to hickman himself, the sells were there. and when i say diversity i mean women, people of color, lgbtq+ overall.

Leah Williams is bisexual I think. Also her cast was pretty diverse wasn't it ? Like 2 POC + Kyle and 4 LGBT+ on a team of 8 is not that bad !

Also don't say "they identify as they/them". Better say "non binary" or "genderfluid" depending on the person.

[Wiccan]

I disagree because the point of the resurrection protocols WAS to take the importance of death away. Because you absotlutely knew that the stakes were nonsense anyways, Hickman decided to take them off the table and explore what it meant for a hunted minority. TBH I did NOT like the Otherworld limitation and thought it made no sense either conceptually or practically.


But I think tons of people feel like you do.

Yeah. The good thing about the protocols is exactly that any character who dies can just come back instead of having to come up with some convoluted story about how they came back to life or hadn't really died.

[davetvs]

Yeah. The good thing about the protocols is exactly that any character who dies can just come back instead of having to come up with some convoluted story about how they came back to life or hadn't really died.

Exactly. In this case change is good, they always come back anyway.

[davetvs]

RE: Diversity in the line, it could always be better (and I'll always push for more diverse creative teams), but there's a fair bit in the current books. Marauders' main cast has 5 characters of color (Daken, Kwannon, Tempo, Somnus, Bishop), 4 of whom are LGBTQ (with 5 in total including Kitty.) Ewing, who imo is one of the white writers who handles characters of color with the right nuance and respect has Storm and (a properly colored) Sunspot in lead roles. I think Isca is also supposed to be Black? Apocalypse and his family seemed Black to me but their coloring kept changing iirc. New Mutants as always is a pretty diverse book -- Moonstar, Warpath, and Karma are all running around. Duggan's book is the only one that sticks out to me as being pretty homogenous other than Synch, I would've preferred Monet join the team instead of Angelica but it is what it is at this point. I guess Howard's other than Rictor, but Marvel can never seem to figure out whether he's a white Mexican or mestizo.

EDIT: Oh, and LaValle's Sabretooth had a very diverse cast and touched on themes including the prison industrial complex.

[Alan2099]

Yeah. The good thing about the protocols is exactly that any character who dies can just come back instead of having to come up with some convoluted story about how they came back to life or hadn't really died.

That's the opposite of good in my eyes.

Yeah, deep down we all know they aren't going to kill the characters for real, but on the same note, we also know the characters themselves aren't real. You just have to accept the reality of the story you're reading. They said death is a major important thing, so you treat it like it is. Now it's not even as inconvenient as the characters getting their costumes torn up.

I WANT the convoluted stories about how they came back or didn't die because it means their "death" was something that had to be overcome. Now you're basically flipping a switch and the character lives again. There's no stakes and no drama.

Banshee got skinned and worn as a suit and it's barely even been acknowledged.

[Omega Alpha]

Quite the opposite- the fact that they can't die means you remove an artificial and phony way to raise the stakes, and they have to introduce new ones, and means they can actually lose.

For example, the mission in the Vault: before they would make a silly suspense whether they would die, and if they did, they would pretend it was for real this time.

Now, the stakes were still there, but much different: a) Would they be able to leave the Vault with the information or would the mission be pointless (they succeeded) and b) Would all of them remember what they went through and how that changed them? Only Synch does, meaning the love of his life sees him as a stranger, and Laura lost most of her existence all she went through forever.

Before Krakoa, the mission would just end with them being cannon fodder, X-23 would be resurrected in a convoluted way in a year or two and never mention this story ever again, and the two black guys probably wouldn't any time soon and none of the characters would even remember they existed.

[Icefanatic]

That's the opposite of good in my eyes.

Yeah, deep down we all know they aren't going to kill the characters for real, but on the same note, we also know the characters themselves aren't real. You just have to accept the reality of the story you're reading. They said death is a major important thing, so you treat it like it is. Now it's not even as inconvenient as the characters getting their costumes torn up.

I WANT the convoluted stories about how they came back or didn't die because it means their "death" was something that had to be overcome. Now you're basically flipping a switch and the character lives again. There's no stakes and no drama.

Banshee got skinned and worn as a suit and it's barely even been acknowledged.

Agree 1000%.

They don't even feel like people., they feel like video game characters with 'save points.'

"On no, Wolverine just died!"

"Don't worry, he'll resume from the save point back on level two".

"Is that before or after he got Hellclaws?"

"After, but before the side-mission where he learned the location of Apocalypse's Tomb, so he'll have to do that over again."

I honestly don't know how anyone takes the current comics seriously. I use to be hugely emotionally invested in the X-Men and their daily lives, now I have zero emotional investment in any of it. I can't stand Krakoa, too many of the characters feel fundamentally off in ways both large and small, and their lives are basically video games...

[Omega Alpha]

Agree 1000%.

They don't even feel like people., they feel like video game characters with 'save points.'

"On no, Wolverine just died!"

"Don't worry, he'll resume from the save point back on level two".

"Is that before or after he got Hellclaws?"

"After, but before the side-mission where he learned the location of Apocalypse's Tomb, so he'll have to do that over again."

I honestly don't know how anyone takes the current comics seriously. I use to be hugely emotionally invested in the X-Men and their daily lives, now I have zero emotional investment in any of it. I can't stand Krakoa, too many of the characters feel fundamentally off in ways both large and small, and their lives are basically video games...

Everything you said already happened before. Difference is that the characters are also in on the nonsense so we can explore.what a society without death looks like (and while the Eternals were also, well, eternal, they never saw themselves as human or had fear of death, so it's an entirely different experience)

[Saithor]

Exactly. In this case change is good, they always come back anyway.

See, that’s the problem to begin with. No one stays dead in comics.

[Saithor]

Everything you said already happened before. Difference is that the characters are also in on the nonsense so we can explore.what a society without death looks like (and while the Eternals were also, well, eternal, they never saw themselves as human or had fear of death, so it's an entirely different experience)

If the story wanted to address that societal idea, it would have jumped into the future. It did not. It’ll probably be well into the 2200s before we start getting characters who don’t know a life that didn’t involve free resurrections for all at the current pace, that’s if Krakoa is still around then. Until then it’s going to be following characters who grew up in societies where death matters.

Also, if Marvel wanted to just make the pretenses of death actually mattering go away and stop tricking the readers with it, what the hell is going on with Magneto?

Edit: or heck, Gambit and Excalibur. If the writers were as committed to this as they should be, they’d stop inventing new ways to make death relevant again, then immediately fixing it right after. Show of hands, how many people think Quire is going to be back within a year?

[Sutekh]

Show of hands, how many people think Quire is going to be back within a year?

Think? Or wish? 'Cause the answer is different.

I didn't really mind the Morrison Quire character, barely even an 'alpha' telepath who had to take a power-boosting drug to override other weak telepaths like Slick, not even a little bit telekinetic, and with a tiny hint as to some inner decency (being the one person at Xavier to devote some time and brainpower to finding a life-improving solution for brain-in-a-jar girl, Martha Johanssen). But this omega telepath, telekinetic-shotgun-forming bucket of annoying they've turned him into, yuck.