Civil War II: X-Men #4 SPOILERS, Review, and Discussion Thread

[butterflykyss]

Black Bolt is responsible for the bomb (and I totally agree that he should be held accountable for that, but the Inhumans will never allow that to happen in a non-Inhuman court), and the Inhumans are responsible for their efforts (or lack thereof) to clean it up.

Again, the Tmist cloud is spanning the entire globe. It has saturated not only the air, but the ground, drinking water. The amount of effort required to perform the cleanup would be massive, and if the Inhumans wanted to do anything they would still need to be granted access to the affected countries before they could perform such a task (unless done covertly of course).

It would be assumed that the Inhumans are responsible, as they are the only party with access to terrigen bombs, and the Inhumans have not denied their involvement. It's not "100% certainty", but you're splitting the thinnest of hairs at this point to justify your position here. As for his intent, it is not material to the discussion, because as evidenced by your own condemnation of Magneto's actions against the Inhumans, intent does not override actions. And to your last point, I have no idea what studies were done in the aftermath of "Son of M", but again, you're making a really bad argument here when harmful effects were seen in *every single exposure" of terrigen to mutants (and most humans) to date.

So again answer my initial question. Is there any proof that would indicate the inhabitants of the earth know that it was 100% Black Bolt who was responsible? We as readers have that privilege; however, there could have been a saboteur or anything, an accident that resulted in the explosion. None of this is known by the general Marvel 616 earth population unless there is evidence to suggest otherwise. To the intent of Blackbolt, all of this is a moot point because none of the Xmen know what he did; it's not common knowledge. The same is not true for Magneto as he knowingly and inconspicuously attacked the New Attilian citizens recklessly and without a care in the world.

Standing by while the actions of your sovereign are leading to the extinction of a species is absolutely an act of war.

See my previous point. The Inhumans are not citizens of the Earth and going into other sovereign territories. Even if they wanted to do something it would have to be approved by those sovereign nations.

Not "may be", are.

Ok so they are morally obligated. They still don't have to do anything.

Only because of sloppy storytelling is this the case. This has been going on for months of in-universe time now, and it's beyond ludicrous that the Inhumans haven't been called to the carpet for this, strictly from a legal standpoint. But we're not speaking from a legal perspective here, but a moral one. Morally speaking, by the actions of Black Bolt in dropping a WMD into the atmosphere, and by the months of complete inaction following that act, the Inhumans have effectively committed an act of war against mutantkind. Whether or not they intended to do so is immaterial at this point, because they are not helping to fix it.

At some point maybe the Inhumans will be called out for what resulted in this t-mist cloud debacle but at this point they have not. And I am speaking from a legal point, which I think has been the issue here. Someone may have the moral obligation to take care of those less fortunate than them; however, there is no law that mandates someone to do so. That has been my whole point. When large oil companies create environmental catastrophes due to oil leaks (unintentional/intentional) they have a legal obligation to correct the spills according to national governing bodies that exist to protect the environment. If these entities were not in place, businesses such as Exxon wouldn't have to necessarily clean a spill. That is why the creation of OSHA came about to ensure that there are regulations that people/businesses can be held accountable in an effort to prevent companies/people from doing nothing. Therefore, the Inhumans may have an obligation (morally) to do something because of optics or whatever, but they are not under any mandate either by a nation or worldwide to address the T-mist cloud situation. Even if they were mandated, they still don't have to comply because they are their own sovereign nation. This is why I think this situation based on everything that everyone knows on 616 earth is more an environmental crisis than an act of war BECAUSE there is no proof that the Inhumans are behind the crisis nor that it was a purposeful assault on the earth populous. So they don't have to do anything they can sit back and watch and enjoy the show unless otherwise authorized or mandated by the sovereign entities on earth. Which after that occurs, if they still do nothing it could then be deemed an act of war.

The point people are trying to make is that if you now know, because that's the whole point of the mutants vs inhumans plot, that they mists are killing people and you aren't doing anything to try to rid the world of that mists so that mutants would stop dying, then that puts you in the wrong.

I agree that what the Inhumans are doing is selfish and does not promote a sense of concern of the mutants plight; however, they don't have to take up this "fight" to do anything for the reasons I mentioned to FuriousGeorge.

1. Who designed, built, and tricked Blackbolt into detonating the Terrigen Bomb?
2. If the President of the United Stated ordered a nuclear strike on an equally armed European country do you think the response would be to just target the White House in retaliation?

1.) I am not sure who did any of those things. I would assume he did it under his own capacities; however, him doing so, I would argue, was more of an act of war on Attilian than the inhabitants of earth.
2.) Of course not, but the thing is your analogy is flawed. You are assuming that Blackbolt's intention was for the mist to adversely affect the inhabitants of Earth. We know what a nuclear strike would do against people. There isn't enough proof that the mist in the form it is in would harm anyone adversely prior to the bombing, there is no proof that anyone (save Blackbolt and any others that may have witnessed his actions) on Earth that it was an inhuman responsible for the T-mist cloud, and at this point there has been no indication that any nation has publicly condemned the acts by the Inhumans and demanded that they do something about the the cloud. Posters here are saying they have to do something about the mist because we, as readers, are fully aware of everything that has occurred but that is not the case for the 616 characters on earth. Moreover, even if they felt the urge to do something, they would have to go through channels or at least do so covertly. At this point, they are not required to do anything about this mist.

[ZNOP]

So, basically your saying that you don't know the history behind the Terrigenesis?

[Arya]

1. Who designed, built, and tricked Blackbolt into detonating the Terrigen Bomb?
2. If the President of the United Stated ordered a nuclear strike on an equally armed European country do you think the response would be to just target the White House in retaliation?

No one did, this was always his and his brother's plan. Blackbolt has been trying to blow up a global or galactic/universal terrigen bomb for years. Blackbolt was deposed and exiled so it's clear that everyone knows.

[ZNOP]

No one did, this was always his and his brother's plan. Blackbolt has been trying to blow up a global or galactic/universal terrigen bomb for years.

Bull$#!t the Shi'ar and the entire Royal family knew what that bomb could do...

[Arya]

I thought the Terrigen Bomb was built by Maximus during the war between the Kree Empire (led by the Inhumans) and the Shi'ar Empire?

That was one bomb, this was a separate bomb. Crystal made the bigger bomb's terrigen inert and then it blew up. Maximus created this bomb and Blackbolt used Thanos as an excuse to blow it up.

[butterflykyss]

So, basically your saying that you don't know the history behind the Terrigenesis?

no. i dont read or know much about the inhumans or their mythos.

[ZNOP]

That was one bomb, this was a separate bomb. Crystal made the bigger bomb's terrigen inert and then it blew up. Maximus created this bomb and Blackbolt used Thanos as an excuse to blow it up.

If you say so... Nevertheless, both bombs were designed to do the same thing mutants being killed in the process notwithstanding.

[CoCoBandz]

I won't be happy with this T-Mist story until BB is in S.W.O.R.D(Or is it alpha flight now?) lock up for life. Or he can just get murked.

[Arya]

I won't be happy with this T-Mist story until BB is in S.W.O.R.D(Or is it alpha flight now?) lock up for life. Or he can just get murked.

Blackbolt deserves death and I won't be satisfied until he suffers a similar fate to Namor.

[Arya]

Bull$#!t the Shi'ar and the entire Royal family knew what that bomb could do...

That was the first bomb the second no one did but Blackbolt and Maximus.

[jackolover]

I didn't like Cullan Bunns writing style in this, and maybe it's all these X stories with multiple teams and so many voices that puts me off. But it feels like all Bunn is doing is explanatory dialogue, and if feels so tedious reading it over and over again. I'm sure this is very meaningful to X fans, but all I get from this series is the tidbits about Ulysses' abilities. The X-stuff is too rambling and you can't get a feeling of a characters motivations much.

I think the Magneto faction were concerned Ulysses was a threat to mutants, so he went to see him. Some other team run by Storm didn't like that, so they tackled Mags' team. It all broke up when Mags left Ulysses alone. The end. They could have done this with a phone call. This and Laura's book both analysed Ulysses usefulness and decided to walk away, and not get involved.

[Phoenix Raptor]

1. Who designed, built, and tricked Blackbolt into detonating the Terrigen Bomb?
2. If the President of the United Stated ordered a nuclear strike on an equally armed European country do you think the response would be to just target the White House in retaliation?

It's rare that I agree with something you've written, but you've got it pretty much spot on with this.

If a nation's government (or in this case, it's Royal Family) released a chemical agent into the atmosphere without being absolutely sure of it's effects then it would be classed as chemical warfare. Black Bolt is a member of that Royal Family and he, along with the rest of them, would be held accountable.

As has been said innumerable times already, the Inhumans are taking no steps to clean up the cloud or remove it from the atmosphere - at absolute best, they're trying to get mutants out of it's path but, as we'll see late this year, the cloud is saturating the planet anyway so it's effects will be felt on an entirely global scale very soon.

Basically, this is called "genocide" and is right up there with Hitler's attempted extermination of the Jews. Because they're not trying to remove the cloud, their actions are effectively saying "We didn't release it as a group, but we're okay that it's out there" and whilst they may be giving a pretence of caring about the effect it has on the mutant population, they blatantly don't care enough to do anything worthwhile about this problem.

Mutants are dying. Whether this is due to the M-Pox or due to being sterilised so no more will be born, they're just dying. And the blame for that can only be lain at the Inhumans' feet. At Black Bolt's feet for releasing the mist in the first place, and at the feet of the rest of the Royal Family for willfully refusing to clean up.

It's honestly that simple.

[Sardorim]

Whatever the case this dies set up a bit for Magneto to power play for Inhumans vs X-men and hopefully Rachel rejoins him when that time comes.

Course the Inhumans vs X-men writing team more than likely.will ignore this and forget Rachel for more Tean.