Upcoming X-books art teases

[JB]

I think he will take the title of Captain Commander. He was supposed to build a Military Academy or something before X of Swords.

That's what I'm thinking too, and he may be leading the fight against Nimrod (per data page in last Marauders).

[xhx23x]

Hyped, yeah.

[Kingdom X]

He was supposed to build a Military Academy or something before X of Swords.

Anyone else really wanna see this in a book?

[Diammandis]

Inferno #4 cover

Interesting cover for the Inferno finale

[Dthirds3]

20210903_134500.jpg

Storm from deamon days

[jwatson]

Interesting cover for the Inferno finale

Now THIS is a stunning mystique cover.

[andreikes]

Now THIS is a stunning mystique cover.

Mystique covers are the best

[Pumpkin King]

Anyone else really wanna see this in a book?

I'd read that!

[jwatson]

Anyone else really wanna see this in a book?

I would. Xmen: Guardians of Sol.

Solicit: Bishop creates an army!

[Lady Midnight]

Merge Marauders and X-Corp into Hellfire Do NOT let Howard write it.

[Grunty]

I would. Xmen: Guardians of Sol.

Solicit: Bishop creates an army!

Nothing against the idea itself, infact i'd be interested to see how a writer would detail, explain and use the whole idea, but everytime someone mentions a "mutant army" i can't help but think that it would be either a massive logistic nightmare or would highlight a flaw in superiority based mutant ideology.

Because while super hero or villain teams are a relatively easy to coordinate, since they are practically spec-ops or strike teams, which means small tight knit groups in which everyone has their role and the team leader knows how to coordinate them, an actual army would require "regular" troops to fill many of the basic and mundane roles, that a strike team would be too valuable to use for.

Even in fiction where the heros, what ever they are elite soldiers, SWAT, government agents, super heros, bridge crews or rebel leaders, are shown doing everything important themself, the reader/viewer/listener still expect there to be a lot of red shirts or at least nameless supporting figures in the backround.

It seems regardless of suspension of disbelief, viewers/readers/listeners understand that a larger organization, military force or nation can't just be run or filled by a handfull of individuals, but requires a lot of support staff to run it and "red shirts" to guard it.
Also, not to forget that the "red shirts" are necessary to show the hero/villian/monster means business. As nasty as that sounds.

Regardless of fiction or reality, every army requires a basic soldier and every fleet a basic crewmen who can fullfill general duties.

The problem with mutants however is that they are as individuals, primarily defined by their super powers and in the current status quo this is even the foundation of the mutant nations ideology and society. However these powers are entirely random and reach from godly to downright self harming.

Hence why a "mutant army" always sounds like a lot of trouble to me, at least if the roles of all members are defined by their power. Especialy the larger the force is.

Because trying to find a suitable niche for everyone based on their powers alone sounds counter productive to establishing a large standardized main force and like a logistic nightmare.

For example, let's say they organize their basic personal along the roles of "ranged", "melee" and "support".
How does one even qualify for one category or the other? How does one measure the overall "output" of their powers? How does one organize the different forms of their powers suited for these roles? What does one do when one clearly has too many of one and not enough of the others? And many more such questions.

It's of course less of a problem for irregular forces like guerillia groups or militias, where all teams or squads are mostly formed ad-hoc, based on what they have at hand and being required to be flexible. But the X-men and mutants are currently not an irregular group anymore. They are a nation, which claims governance of an entire solar system and that requires regular forces and fixed structures to rely on.

I allready mentioned in the past (and apparently got someone on the forum angry over it), that from a certain point of view, the current nation of Krakoa hinges on a handfull of very powerfull individuals, who lucked out in the super power lottery, for protection, economy and wellfare, while the majority of the mutant population does not serve any purpose but to exist and fill numbers, since everything is automatated via Krakoa's plant tech or done with the powers of these handfull of "gods", while the "normal" mutants are practically discouraged from participating in the nations economy unless they have special powers to help it.
Which makes the achievements of "mutantkind" and the "Nation" ring hollow, since the vast majority of the mutant population was damned not to have any hand in it.

Of the nameless masses of mutants, who only exist to be wallpaper in large group shots, nobody made the tools for the "achievements of mutantkind", nobody made the vehicles for it, nobody worked in the factories for it, worked in mines for it, worked in service jobs for it, worked in hospitals for it, made streets for it, build houses for it, paid taxes for it and so on.

Even if we take the Hellfire Trading Company and X-Corp into account, these could barely make use of maybe one or two hundred people, in the face of over 1 million+ mutants living on Krakoa.

However this luxury would not translate well to a "mutant army", especialy once if it's supposed to protect the entire solar system. Which ultimately means that to achieve it's role, said army would need to standardize it's troops to basic roles that they fullfill regardless of their super powers. Meaning basic crewmen who pilot and maintain effective space ships and basic infantrymen with armor and personal weapons.

Because while individuals like Storm, Jean Grey, Iceman or Magneto could fight entire "fleets" by themself, they can't be anywhere all the time and the solar system alone is a HUGE place. Especialy when we take the borders of the Sol system all the way to the Oort Cloud Though granted currently the sphere of influence of the mutants is barely Earth and Mars, which is comparably small and leaves a lot of space unused.

And that's before we go into the subject of the potential size of invadig forces. Since we are talking about galactic civilizations here, which means millions of ships and hundred of billion citizen. Which is a good explanation for why Brand is currently playing the Otto von Bismark game, in trying to keep everyone else at each other throat so they can't focus on Sol.

In order to effectively not only protect Sol against regular invasion forces, but also irregular elements like pirates, illegal mining operations, smuggling, etc. they would need a resonanable sized fleet, crew for these ships and soldiers to guard the ships and fight invaders on individual level.
Which effectivly would mean to reduce their mutant citizen soldiers to roles, in which thier powers are merely a bonus or unimportant, while they need to rely on technological equipment, which would make normal humans equal to them in effectivity.

It also carries the problematic implication that the only real "job" normal mutant citizen could still get to help their nation, would be that of soldiers, which leads us back to Doctor Nemesis observation from Way of X, that Krakoa is a dangerously martial focused society, where the worth of an individual is decided by their fighting abilities and worth as "warrior". Since there is no other role to fullfill in Krakoas society.

So yeah. I would be interested to see what Bishop would decide on in this situation. Especialy since he is a mutant who relies much more on training, experience and tools like his firearms than on his powers alone. So he of all would be ideal to realise the logistic and moral issues in the idea of forming an army (that is if we ignore the whole "killed 7 billion people on earth in an alternate future" deal from his time hunting Hope...).

[seccruz]

Merge Marauders and X-Corp into Hellfire Do NOT let Howard write it.

Very that! At this point it's Hellfire Trading and a low-key Emma solo book.

[The tall man]

Nothing against the idea itself, infact i'd be interested to see how a writer would detail, explain and use the whole idea, but everytime someone mentions a "mutant army" i can't help but think that it would be either a massive logistic nightmare or would highlight a flaw in superiority based mutant ideology.

Because while super hero or villain teams are a relatively easy to coordinate, since they are practically spec-ops or strike teams, which means small tight knit groups in which everyone has their role and the team leader knows how to coordinate them, an actual army would require "regular" troops to fill many of the basic and mundane roles, that a strike team would be too valuable to use for.

Even in fiction where the heros, what ever they are elite soldiers, SWAT, government agents, super heros, bridge crews or rebel leaders, are shown doing everything important themself, the reader/viewer/listener still expect there to be a lot of red shirts or at least nameless supporting figures in the backround.

It seems regardless of suspension of disbelief, viewers/readers/listeners understand that a larger organization, military force or nation can't just be run or filled by a handfull of individuals, but requires a lot of support staff to run it and "red shirts" to guard it.
Also, not to forget that the "red shirts" are necessary to show the hero/villian/monster means business. As nasty as that sounds.

Regardless of fiction or reality, every army requires a basic soldier and every fleet a basic crewmen who can fullfill general duties.

The problem with mutants however is that they are as individuals, primarily defined by their super powers and in the current status quo this is even the foundation of the mutant nations ideology and society. However these powers are entirely random and reach from godly to downright self harming.

Hence why a "mutant army" always sounds like a lot of trouble to me, at least if the roles of all members are defined by their power. Especialy the larger the force is.

Because trying to find a suitable niche for everyone based on their powers alone sounds counter productive to establishing a large standardized main force and like a logistic nightmare.

For example, let's say they organize their basic personal along the roles of "ranged", "melee" and "support".
How does one even qualify for one category or the other? How does one measure the overall "output" of their powers? How does one organize the different forms of their powers suited for these roles? What does one do when one clearly has too many of one and not enough of the others? And many more such questions.

It's of course less of a problem for irregular forces like guerillia groups or militias, where all teams or squads are mostly formed ad-hoc, based on what they have at hand and being required to be flexible. But the X-men and mutants are currently not an irregular group anymore. They are a nation, which claims governance of an entire solar system and that requires regular forces and fixed structures to rely on.

I allready mentioned in the past (and apparently got someone on the forum angry over it), that from a certain point of view, the current nation of Krakoa hinges on a handfull of very powerfull individuals, who lucked out in the super power lottery, for protection, economy and wellfare, while the majority of the mutant population does not serve any purpose but to exist and fill numbers, since everything is automatated via Krakoa's plant tech or done with the powers of these handfull of "gods", while the "normal" mutants are practically discouraged from participating in the nations economy unless they have special powers to help it.
Which makes the achievements of "mutantkind" and the "Nation" ring hollow, since the vast majority of the mutant population was damned not to have any hand in it.

Of the nameless masses of mutants, who only exist to be wallpaper in large group shots, nobody made the tools for the "achievements of mutantkind", nobody made the vehicles for it, nobody worked in the factories for it, worked in mines for it, worked in service jobs for it, worked in hospitals for it, made streets for it, build houses for it, paid taxes for it and so on.

Even if we take the Hellfire Trading Company and X-Corp into account, these could barely make use of maybe one or two hundred people, in the face of over 1 million+ mutants living on Krakoa.

However this luxury would not translate well to a "mutant army", especialy once if it's supposed to protect the entire solar system. Which ultimately means that to achieve it's role, said army would need to standardize it's troops to basic roles that they fullfill regardless of their super powers. Meaning basic crewmen who pilot and maintain effective space ships and basic infantrymen with armor and personal weapons.

Because while individuals like Storm, Jean Grey, Iceman or Magneto could fight entire "fleets" by themself, they can't be anywhere all the time and the solar system alone is a HUGE place. Especialy when we take the borders of the Sol system all the way to the Oort Cloud Though granted currently the sphere of influence of the mutants is barely Earth and Mars, which is comparably small and leaves a lot of space unused.

And that's before we go into the subject of the potential size of invadig forces. Since we are talking about galactic civilizations here, which means millions of ships and hundred of billion citizen. Which is a good explanation for why Brand is currently playing the Otto von Bismark game, in trying to keep everyone else at each other throat so they can't focus on Sol.

In order to effectively not only protect Sol against regular invasion forces, but also irregular elements like pirates, illegal mining operations, smuggling, etc. they would need a resonanable sized fleet, crew for these ships and soldiers to guard the ships and fight invaders on individual level.
Which effectivly would mean to reduce their mutant citizen soldiers to roles, in which thier powers are merely a bonus or unimportant, while they need to rely on technological equipment, which would make normal humans equal to them in effectivity.

It also carries the problematic implication that the only real "job" normal mutant citizen could still get to help their nation, would be that of soldiers, which leads us back to Doctor Nemesis observation from Way of X, that Krakoa is a dangerously martial focused society, where the worth of an individual is decided by their fighting abilities and worth as "warrior". Since there is no other role to fullfill in Krakoas society.

So yeah. I would be interested to see what Bishop would decide on in this situation. Especialy since he is a mutant who relies much more on training, experience and tools like his firearms than on his powers alone. So he of all would be ideal to realise the logistic and moral issues in the idea of forming an army (that is if we ignore the whole "killed 7 billion people on earth in an alternate future" deal from his time hunting Hope...).

Excellent well reasoned post. Also would this be a voluntary mutant army or would there be a mandatory draft. Would every mutant be expected to contribute and do their part, no conscientious objectors. The vast majority of mutants are not soldiers or have the mindset and abilities (offensive/defensive) that lend themselves to the battlefield. Now if Bishop was to recruit from among the Akkarro population, and they were receptive to the idea then maybe you have something. But they are a big uncontrollable wildcard.

[jwatson]

Nothing against the idea itself, infact i'd be interested to see how a writer would detail, explain and use the whole idea, but everytime someone mentions a "mutant army" i can't help but think that it would be either a massive logistic nightmare or would highlight a flaw in superiority based mutant ideology.

Because while super hero or villain teams are a relatively easy to coordinate, since they are practically spec-ops or strike teams, which means small tight knit groups in which everyone has their role and the team leader knows how to coordinate them, an actual army would require "regular" troops to fill many of the basic and mundane roles, that a strike team would be too valuable to use for.

Even in fiction where the heros, what ever they are elite soldiers, SWAT, government agents, super heros, bridge crews or rebel leaders, are shown doing everything important themself, the reader/viewer/listener still expect there to be a lot of red shirts or at least nameless supporting figures in the backround.

It seems regardless of suspension of disbelief, viewers/readers/listeners understand that a larger organization, military force or nation can't just be run or filled by a handfull of individuals, but requires a lot of support staff to run it and "red shirts" to guard it.
Also, not to forget that the "red shirts" are necessary to show the hero/villian/monster means business. As nasty as that sounds.

Regardless of fiction or reality, every army requires a basic soldier and every fleet a basic crewmen who can fullfill general duties.

The problem with mutants however is that they are as individuals, primarily defined by their super powers and in the current status quo this is even the foundation of the mutant nations ideology and society. However these powers are entirely random and reach from godly to downright self harming.

Hence why a "mutant army" always sounds like a lot of trouble to me, at least if the roles of all members are defined by their power. Especialy the larger the force is.

Because trying to find a suitable niche for everyone based on their powers alone sounds counter productive to establishing a large standardized main force and like a logistic nightmare.

For example, let's say they organize their basic personal along the roles of "ranged", "melee" and "support".
How does one even qualify for one category or the other? How does one measure the overall "output" of their powers? How does one organize the different forms of their powers suited for these roles? What does one do when one clearly has too many of one and not enough of the others? And many more such questions.

It's of course less of a problem for irregular forces like guerillia groups or militias, where all teams or squads are mostly formed ad-hoc, based on what they have at hand and being required to be flexible. But the X-men and mutants are currently not an irregular group anymore. They are a nation, which claims governance of an entire solar system and that requires regular forces and fixed structures to rely on.

I allready mentioned in the past (and apparently got someone on the forum angry over it), that from a certain point of view, the current nation of Krakoa hinges on a handfull of very powerfull individuals, who lucked out in the super power lottery, for protection, economy and wellfare, while the majority of the mutant population does not serve any purpose but to exist and fill numbers, since everything is automatated via Krakoa's plant tech or done with the powers of these handfull of "gods", while the "normal" mutants are practically discouraged from participating in the nations economy unless they have special powers to help it.
Which makes the achievements of "mutantkind" and the "Nation" ring hollow, since the vast majority of the mutant population was damned not to have any hand in it.

Of the nameless masses of mutants, who only exist to be wallpaper in large group shots, nobody made the tools for the "achievements of mutantkind", nobody made the vehicles for it, nobody worked in the factories for it, worked in mines for it, worked in service jobs for it, worked in hospitals for it, made streets for it, build houses for it, paid taxes for it and so on.

Even if we take the Hellfire Trading Company and X-Corp into account, these could barely make use of maybe one or two hundred people, in the face of over 1 million+ mutants living on Krakoa.

However this luxury would not translate well to a "mutant army", especialy once if it's supposed to protect the entire solar system. Which ultimately means that to achieve it's role, said army would need to standardize it's troops to basic roles that they fullfill regardless of their super powers. Meaning basic crewmen who pilot and maintain effective space ships and basic infantrymen with armor and personal weapons.

Because while individuals like Storm, Jean Grey, Iceman or Magneto could fight entire "fleets" by themself, they can't be anywhere all the time and the solar system alone is a HUGE place. Especialy when we take the borders of the Sol system all the way to the Oort Cloud Though granted currently the sphere of influence of the mutants is barely Earth and Mars, which is comparably small and leaves a lot of space unused.

And that's before we go into the subject of the potential size of invadig forces. Since we are talking about galactic civilizations here, which means millions of ships and hundred of billion citizen. Which is a good explanation for why Brand is currently playing the Otto von Bismark game, in trying to keep everyone else at each other throat so they can't focus on Sol.

In order to effectively not only protect Sol against regular invasion forces, but also irregular elements like pirates, illegal mining operations, smuggling, etc. they would need a resonanable sized fleet, crew for these ships and soldiers to guard the ships and fight invaders on individual level.
Which effectivly would mean to reduce their mutant citizen soldiers to roles, in which thier powers are merely a bonus or unimportant, while they need to rely on technological equipment, which would make normal humans equal to them in effectivity.

It also carries the problematic implication that the only real "job" normal mutant citizen could still get to help their nation, would be that of soldiers, which leads us back to Doctor Nemesis observation from Way of X, that Krakoa is a dangerously martial focused society, where the worth of an individual is decided by their fighting abilities and worth as "warrior". Since there is no other role to fullfill in Krakoas society.

So yeah. I would be interested to see what Bishop would decide on in this situation. Especialy since he is a mutant who relies much more on training, experience and tools like his firearms than on his powers alone. So he of all would be ideal to realise the logistic and moral issues in the idea of forming an army (that is if we ignore the whole "killed 7 billion people on earth in an alternate future" deal from his time hunting Hope...).

I definitely see what your saying and i more meant in like the vein of Sword 2.0 which is what i was actually going to post but then i thought Arrako, Krakoa, Inhumans, Humans etc and so i was thinking it would be cool to have bishop control and staff sword station two as the primary protector of Earth and Arrako while Sword #1 is the more exploratory book so i guess Sword 2 would be like Star fleet home command and more reacted to threats on the home front. So more Star fleet than army i didn't really think too much about the details though to be honest like the system itself.

[gonnagiveittoya]

I think he will take the title of Captain Commander. He was supposed to build a Military Academy or something before X of Swords.

Well there are still two seats open, unless they plan on destroying the council before they even fill the seats