Your Unpopular/Controversial Opinions on the X-Universe

[Rift]

B: there are so many one-character zealots running around X-Fandom that he's always going to get kicked around if someone feels like he's being used instead of their favorite telepath and/or telekinetic. Because their favorite character should always be at the center of everything, or else.

Love you too, bb

[davetvs]

You're not a zealot, you're a shining light of levity.

[jwatson]

While i enjoyed Bendis X-men run for the most part his overall journey at marvel still fascinates me. In summary he destroyed the avengers, depowered mutants, had the villains take over the entire marvel universe and act as the heroes, then further taint the avengers by having them not react to the stories he wrote ie mutants etc and then for the grand finale jumped onto the x-books and then used that to drag the avengers for things he had them do, left marvel a pretty dark place and then jumped on superman talking about light and hope and building which was actually decent until he sent jon to the future. lol. i want like a documentary. lol

[Sutekh]

While i enjoyed Bendis X-men run for the most part his overall journey at marvel still fascinates me. In summary he destroyed the avengers, depowered mutants, had the villains take over the entire marvel universe and act as the heroes, then further taint the avengers by having them not react to the stories he wrote ie mutants etc and then for the grand finale jumped onto the x-books and then used that to drag the avengers for things he had them do, left marvel a pretty dark place and then jumped on superman talking about light and hope and building which was actually decent until he sent jon to the future. lol. i want like a documentary. lol

Deconstruction. Ideally, a formula for stripping a character down to their most elemental bits and then having them fight their way back up and triumph at the end, because they are big damn heroes. Daredevil had a good deconstructive arc, I hear. When deconstruction sucks is when you have to deal with writers who get bored before the third act and wander off, leaving whatever property they showed up to write floundering in misery porn, everything important to the character stripped away and them at their lowest, *and never bother building them back up again.*

It's like your parents say, "Let's go to Disneyland!" and then halfway through Death Valley kick you out of the car and go to Vegas instead to gamble away your college fund.

It would be wryly amusing if it happened once. A cautionary tale we could laugh about years later, with perspective. But since it happens over and over, it's just perplexing, as if some editors have succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome and fallen in love with their abuser, at this point.

[Rift]

You're not a zealot, you're a shining light of levity.

Oh. Guess I need to try harder then. Leave no survivors

[Steroid]

Oh. Guess I need to try harder then. Leave no survivors

We can't have your or Hellion's attention diverted from ensuring the utter annihilation of Katrina.

[nose norton]

I see Claremont in the same light as Stan Lee. A writer who could create something on the shoulder of great artists (not always) but never did anything worthwhile when paired with lesser talent.

[Ulysian_Thracs]

The way writers keep using and to a degree pushing Quire feels like there is this divide between writers/editors and actual fans/readers of the X-men.

Because from what i see not only are there few people in the fandom who like Quire, there are barely any who hate him either. The character seems to be a massive grey blob of "meh" to a large portion of the fans and reactions to his usage are largely apathy or un-emotional dislike.

And yet writers keep using him, keep presenting him as that "fun" (to like or hate) and powerfull character who absolutely has to be included because of his power and attitude, even though he seems to keep being a dud with most readers. As if he has to be gold because Morrison created him and many people still hold his run in high regard.

Though given he has not been used in any cartoon or other on screen media the way he is used in the comics, we can't judge yet how an actual noticable sized group of fans would react to him. However i doubt the reaction would be much better than the comic version, since he feels predestined to simply not work with the fans ever.

QQ is not liked because he is written to be completely unlikeable. Probably a very unpopular opinion on these boards, but the reason I’ve always thought they push QQ is because he the stereotype of a straight white man to many of the X-writers. QQ has always been a rebel without a clue. A whiny clown clearly and objectively undeserving of his immense power. His most prominent qualities (at least in most of the appearances I’ve read) are his arrogance, attitude, and pettiness. His power and brilliance is constantly talked about, but he is the poster boy for unrealized potential due to his character flaws, including immaturity, self-centeredness, and impulsivity.


Another unpopular opinion...I have no idea why anyone is surprised that Flatscans don't like Mutants. Forget the mutant supremacists and terrorists who scare the devil out of everyone who isn’t a supe. That alone would explain why humanity doesn't trust or like mutants. Then you have that even the supposed ‘good guys’ are these gods amongst men who could easily solve all the world’s problems and simply choose not to.

Xavier and Cerebro (perhaps with some other telepaths’ assistance) could easily just erase human hatred of mutants from everyone’s minds. Hell, they could erase all bigotry. Or now that they are on Krakoa, they could just erase humanities’ knowledge that there even are mutants and live in peace. But then we wouldn’t’ have a story, right?

Forge can create any technology with no effort. But he doesn’t create a machine that flashes a light on a person and cures them of cancer or a spine implant that completely reverses quadriplegia. He could probably make a machine that changes deserts to irrigable land and desalinate entire bodies of water in seconds to solve world hunger and clean water access. No, all Forge does is build big guns. He is basically a mutant Destro or the Mutant Merchant of Death.

Storm is a storm god who resided in Africa and just ignored the famines and droughts. What, ‘No rain for you peasants!’ (Sounds like Gorr was right about the MCU gods…)

The list goes on and on about how our mutants could make the world better and largely don’t. They focus on their own problems and save the world from problems in many cases they helped create. (‘Hey, we stopped that Phoenix rampage!’ Then, everyone looks at Jean warily.)

And now everyone finds out they’ve been watching their loved ones die while mutants resurrect time and again? No, I am not surprised humans hate mutants. I am surprised humans don’t think less of Stark and Reed and the other supes who don’t pull their weight, too.

[Zelena]

Storm is a storm god who resided in Africa and just ignored the famines and droughts. What, ‘No rain for you peasants!’ (Sounds like Gorr was right about the MCU gods…)

Storm started as a ”goddess” though, who brought rain to the people who worshipped her in Africa. It’s Xavier who hired her that made her leave Africa, telling she could more good somewhere else.

Not all problems they have been facing along the years were created by them…

[Ulysian_Thracs]

Storm started as a ”goddess” though, who brought rain to the people who worshipped her in Africa. It’s Xavier who hired her that made her leave Africa, telling she could more good somewhere else.

That isn't really my point. Imagine you found out all your worst problems could easily be solved by someone, and it would cost them almost nothing to help you. All they really had to do was spend a few minutes of their time doing something for someone other than themselves to solve your problems, and they refuse to.

-Elixir and Triage can cure any disease.
-Storm just needs to think of a rain storm and drought over, right?
-Cyclops has access to unlimited energy Forge (or some brain like Stark or Reed) could develop a machine to harness like cold fusion to give clean power to the world.
-Charles can wipe bigotry.
-Emma could wipe out mental illness
-Beast and Nightcrawler can start a furries convention...

The examples really are limitless. Mutants (as they are written) just clearly don't give a damn. They never did, but particularly now that they have their own island paradise and resurrection tech. Of course humans are more jealous and hate them more than ever.

Mutants aren't the oppressed minority. They are the drug company that could easily provide everyone with free insulin and still turn a profit, but choose not to.

Not all problems they have been facing along the years were created by them…

Not untrue. And I've always loved the X-Men because they are trying to be heroes for all of humanity despite the crap they take. That's the part of them I loved that really disappeared in the Krakoan Age.

But from the common human's perspective (read collateral damage), one group of (good) mutants fighting another (evil) group of mutants is still a mutant problem. Even when they do save the world from some outside threat, a bunch of supes do cool stuff and they suffer. (Same goes for other groups.)

[Icefanatic]

Deconstruction. Ideally, a formula for stripping a character down to their most elemental bits and then having them fight their way back up and triumph at the end, because they are big damn heroes. Daredevil had a good deconstructive arc, I hear. When deconstruction sucks is when you have to deal with writers who get bored before the third act and wander off, leaving whatever property they showed up to write floundering in misery porn, everything important to the character stripped away and them at their lowest, *and never bother building them back up again.*

It's like your parents say, "Let's go to Disneyland!" and then halfway through Death Valley kick you out of the car and go to Vegas instead to gamble away your college fund.

It would be wryly amusing if it happened once. A cautionary tale we could laugh about years later, with perspective. But since it happens over and over, it's just perplexing, as if some editors have succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome and fallen in love with their abuser, at this point.

I've been saying this for so many years. Daredevil is a prime example of a great deconstruction/reconstruction arc. In more recent years you just have character after character being broken and discarded. The worst cases are where you have once-beloved characters depicted as completely unlikable for years and then they just hand-wave all that away with some brief nonsense and expect fans to go back to loving them or they don't even do that much and just expect fans to blindly keep following. I have no idea why Marvel and DC even have as many current readers as they do.

[Zelena]

That isn't really my point. Imagine you found out all your worst problems could easily be solved by someone, and it would cost them almost nothing to help you. All they really had to do was spend a few minutes of their time doing something for someone other than themselves to solve your problems, and they refuse to.

-Elixir and Triage can cure any disease.
-Storm just needs to think of a rain storm and drought over, right?
-Cyclops has access to unlimited energy Forge (or some brain like Stark or Reed) could develop a machine to harness like cold fusion to give clean power to the world.
-Charles can wipe bigotry.
-Emma could wipe out mental illness
-Beast and Nightcrawler can start a furries convention...

The examples really are limitless. Mutants (as they are written) just clearly don't give a damn. They never did, but particularly now that they have their own island paradise and resurrection tech. Of course humans are more jealous and hate them more than ever.

Mutants aren't the oppressed minority. They are the drug company that could easily provide everyone with free insulin and still turn a profit, but choose not to.

But from the common human's perspective (read collateral damage), one group of (good) mutants fighting another (evil) group of mutants is still a mutant problem. Even when they do save the world from some outside threat, a bunch of supes do cool stuff and they suffer. (Same goes for other groups.)

True, true… I never bought a comic of super-powered people taking care of social problems. I remember seeing the Silver-Surfer bringing the rain because of drought and giving bread to hungry people but it was just once. He didn’t make an habit of it. It just isn’t the subject of these stories…

It isn’t probably a good idea to extrapolate too much from comics: mutants and other super-powered beings — like depicting in comics — don’t exist and so much the better. Most of our problems are human-made and it’s up to us to sort them out.

[Sutekh]

True, true… I never bought a comic of super-powered people taking care of social problems. I remember seeing the Silver-Surfer bringing the rain because of drought and giving bread to hungry people but it was just once. He didn’t make an habit of it. It just isn’t the subject of these stories…

It isn’t probably a good idea to extrapolate too much from comics: mutants and other super-powered beings — like depicting in comics — don’t exist and so much the better. Most of our problems are human-made and it’s up to us to sort them out.

Yeah, this same logic could apply to all sorts of comic book figures, not just mutants. Why doesn't Thor eliminate all sorts of weather-related disasters and droughts? Why hasn't Pym used Pym particles, or Reed Richards the negative zone to dispose of 'forever' pollutants like nuclear waste or toxins? Tons of characters can create enough energy to power an entire city. But comics generally hasn't had super-hero sorts try to address *real world* problems, and when they do, as in Watchmen or the Squadron-Supreme-eliminates-crime-with-brainwashing-tech mini that seemed to kick that whole trend off, it all ends in tears, perhaps as a sort of 'explanation' for why superheroes *don't* regularly 'fix the world.'

That said, this whole Krakoa era is explicitly about mutants creating an actual functional thriving society and culture and nation for themselves, so all this sorts of stuff that other heroes aren't allowed to do is kind of the *entire point* of this era, and even if they aren't doing this sort of stuff on Earth, they very much have done, and should continue doing so, on Mars/Arakko.

[davetvs]

The mutants did use their powers to fix the world's problems in AvX. The Avengers attacked them for it.

[gonnagiveittoya]

The mutants did use their powers to fix the world's problems in AvX. The Avengers attacked them for it.

That's a bit of an oversimplification.