X-Men: Gold #3 SPOILERS

[WhiteQueenEmmaFrost]

It's almost like there's a difference between bigoted political messaging and inclusive political messaging.

Which being which?

Kitty was addressing a bigoted crowd of humans, and Lydia Nance is a bigoted human waging a televised war on mutants.

I get what you're saying, but the context of the story crosses into a bigoted political messaging. If you've read the Xbooks from the 80s until now there have been a LOT of inclusive political messages and some really good speeches, but nothing from Gold is one of the "good" ones.

[DDM]

2) Here's the thing, in "Bloodties", Exodus was stated to be a weaker psi than Xavier. Whether or not he had tech boosting his powers or whathaveyou, he was weaker than Xavier in that story and has ALWAYS been weaker than Xavier. Added to Xavier's raw power advantage was the fact he was also more skilled and experienced than Exodus. In other words, Exodus posing any kind of a threat to a team consisting of Xavier, Storm, Sersi, etc. is patently PIS. Also, his powers were not enhanced in "Bloodties".

3) Rachel manifests her psi armor and psionic blades to break free from Emma's chains, true, but then she comes at Emma with the blades and psi-armor. Emma steals her blades from her and then makes her armor fall off of her body with great ease. Anybody who looks at those scans can see this. Why are you being so dishonest when the scans clearly show what I am saying?

4) Altering people's perceptions so they don't see your hound marks is not a feat at all. I have seen Emma (and other telepaths) alter the perceptions of large crowds so that they and their team are neither seen nor heard by other people in the vicinity.

She altered the DNA when she had a portion of the PF. Also, this is a telekinetic feat. I am saying that Emma is a superior telepath to Rachel when she doesn't have the Phoenix Force. Keep up. When did she levitate an entire city? Which issue? Something tells me you are either getting something wrong here or she had the Phoenix Force. Also, for Emma to connect Scott to every mutant mind on the planet, she would have had the scan the entire planet first to locate those minds and then connect Scott to every single one of them. So, in her case, a global scan was inherently a part of this feat. Not only that, but she literally connected his mind to all of those other psyches that were located at various points on the globe all at once. This is much more impressive than Rachel's scan. You analogy of Emma's feat being like shouting in a library is false. If you just shout in a library, everybody present hears it. In this case, Emma connected him to every mutant mind on Earth so that only mutants could hear what he had to say. Also, post scans of Rachel holding back all of Attilan. Also, when did she communicate across timelines and galaxies? Post the issue number and scans (if you have them). I have a feeling you are either exaggerating or leaving out details.

5) Regarding Storm and telepathic attacks, I've already dealt with that in my last two posts.

2) Exodus wasn't always said to be weaker than Xavier? His upper limits were always mysteriously undefined early on, it was just known that he was incredibly powerful. And Exodus was enhanced way in the past before his first appearance in continuity. Like Sinister, Archangel or Apocalypse himself. He underwent a Celestial process and was changed by it, this was way in the past though and not during Bloodties. And he's thrown around teams since then too, what's actually less consistent is an Alpha mutant like Emma stalemating him. That's actually the more arguable PIS.

3) Because you're inserting a relative ease that isn't visibly there. Rachel is the more aggressive one but Emma doesn't hold back either, she's fighting here. She ultimately outmaneuvers Rachel but doesn't bowl her over or dominate her either, in reality she negates the conflict rather than winning the fight. Probably because she doesn't want the fight in the first place, she sees a lot of herself in Rachel and even remarks on that.

4) I don't think you understand, Rachel altered people's perceptions literally constantly to mask her hound marks. As in her every waking second she was around other people. Even large crowds. Constantly. Including powerful psychics like Xavier, or psi-resistants like Rogue, she was always constantly doing this. Imagine squeezing your hand for 16+ hours and never releasing for a second. And she did this out of shame and guilt, it's really incredibly sad.

Rachel altered DNA both with and without the Phoenix. With was when she rebuilt Cyclops and the Invisible Woman from their genome on up to erase their hound conditioning in Days of Future Present. Without was during Reload, when feedback from a Saurian psi brainwashed Rachel into thinking she was also a Saurian and she began unconsciously rewriting her own DNA to that effect. She wasn't even trying to do it in fact!

Rachel levitated an entire city in the Burt Offerings arc of Cable Deadpool. Without the Phoenix. She psychically held all the Inhumans in Attilan during the X-Men's Civil War II mini so Magneto could question Homer or whatever his name was. Without the Phoenix. She communicated across the timestream to Cable in the late 90s, that's how he found and rescued her from Gaunt at the End of Time. Without the Phoenix. She actually did essentially the same thing in her first appearnce, sending Kate Pryde's mind cross time into our Kitty's body to try and stop DOFP. And again without the Phoenix. Trust me, between the two of us I'm pretty obviously not the one who's clearly ignorant of Rachel's abilities. That's not a feeling you're having, it's just your seething bias acting up again.

As for Emma's projection, she didn't link all minds on the planet in DOX and nowhere does it say she did. She projected Scott's message outward, like a broadcast (ie: a literal wave) eminating outward and she had the Cuckoos helping her boost the projection even. Meanwhile when Rachel scanned minds (ie: actually entering minds, shifting through memories, actively investigating lobe by lobe) over the entire globe looking for her students she was doing this for hours, reaching hundreds of thousands of minds at a time, while telekinetically floating thousands of feet above Manhattan. Even Storm warned her it was dangerous and she was pushing herself too hard. But sure, totally an easier feat. Right.

5) Yes, she has static in her brain. If you stick a lightbulb in her ear I bet it'd glow.

[rutog98]

2) Exodus wasn't always said to be weaker than Xavier? His upper limits were always mysteriously undefined early on, it was just known that he was incredibly powerful. And Exodus was enhanced way in the past before his first appearance in continuity. Like Sinister, Archangel or Apocalypse himself. He underwent a Celestial process and was changed by it, this was way in the past though and not during Bloodties. And he's thrown around teams since then too, what's actually less consistent is an Alpha mutant like Emma stalemating him. That's actually the more arguable PIS.

3) Because you're inserting a relative ease that isn't visibly there. Rachel is the more aggressive one but Emma doesn't hold back either, she's fighting here. She ultimately outmaneuvers Rachel but doesn't bowl her over or dominate her either, in reality she negates the conflict rather than winning the fight. Probably because she doesn't want the fight in the first place, she sees a lot of herself in Rachel and even remarks on that.

4) I don't think you understand, Rachel altered people's perceptions literally constantly to mask her hound marks. As in her every waking second she was around other people. Even large crowds. Constantly. Including powerful psychics like Xavier, or psi-resistants like Rogue, she was always constantly doing this. Imagine squeezing your hand for 16+ hours and never releasing for a second. And she did this out of shame and guilt, it's really incredibly sad.

Rachel altered DNA both with and without the Phoenix. With was when she rebuilt Cyclops and the Invisible Woman from their genome on up to erase their hound conditioning in Days of Future Present. Without was during Reload, when feedback from a Saurian psi brainwashed Rachel into thinking she was also a Saurian and she began unconsciously rewriting her own DNA to that effect. She wasn't even trying to do it in fact!

Rachel levitated an entire city in the Burt Offerings arc of Cable Deadpool. Without the Phoenix. She psychically held all the Inhumans in Attilan during the X-Men's Civil War II mini so Magneto could question Homer or whatever his name was. Without the Phoenix. She communicated across the timestream to Cable in the late 90s, that's how he found and rescued her from Gaunt at the End of Time. Without the Phoenix. She actually did essentially the same thing in her first appearnce, sending Kate Pryde's mind cross time into our Kitty's body to try and stop DOFP. And again without the Phoenix. Trust me, between the two of us I'm pretty obviously not the one who's clearly ignorant of Rachel's abilities. That's not a feeling you're having, it's just your seething bias acting up again.

As for Emma's projection, she didn't link all minds on the planet in DOX and nowhere does it say she did. She projected Scott's message outward, like a broadcast (ie: a literal wave) eminating outward and she had the Cuckoos helping her boost the projection even. Meanwhile when Rachel scanned minds (ie: actually entering minds, shifting through memories, actively investigating lobe by lobe) over the entire globe looking for her students she was doing this for hours, reaching hundreds of thousands of minds at a time, while telekinetically floating thousands of feet above Manhattan. Even Storm warned her it was dangerous and she was pushing herself too hard. But sure, totally an easier feat. Right.

5) Yes, she has static in her brain. If you stick a lightbulb in her ear I bet it'd glow.

2) Exodus was stated to be weaker than Xavier from day 1. In "Bloodties" Xavier was stated to be the most powerful psi on the planet. Period. In the 2000's, a weakened Xavier bested a fully powered Exodus in psychic combat. As far as it being PIS for Emma to stalemate Exodus, I beg to differ. The "Bloodties" story where Exodus battled the X-Men and Avengers at the same time was PIS and thus doesn't count when talking about him throwing around teams. Storm has been able to best psis of greater power than Exodus and she was present. Xavier was also present and he was stated to be a more powerful psi than Exodus in that same story. Sersi was also present as she brings more telepathic power over to the heroes side which she could've added to Xavier's psi, which already surpassed Exodus's. On top of that, Sersi has a plethora of other Eternal powers she could have brought into play in that story, namely her transmutation powers. Then there was an Avengers story after this that established War Machine could have beaten Exodus by himself in that story, but only lost because the writer claimed he allowed Exodus's taunts to get to him and undermine his battle acumen. (That was not the case in the story clearly if you actually read it, but obviously this writer did not agree with the author of "Bloodties" writing Exodus giving all of those heroes a fight like that). It is believable that when PIS is not being used to weaken heroes, Emma could stalemate Exodus. I mean, just look at how easily she bested Rachel. She didn't even break a sweat while Rachel was going for broke against her.

3) Emma does win her bout with Rachel effortlessly. She doesn't even bother to armor up against a ticked off Rachel coming at her with full battle armor and weaponry.

4) That's nice how Rachel altered people's perceptions constantly. That said, where did you get that Xavier and other telepaths were affected by this? If she did affect people like Xavier, then they would have been written down for Rachel as she was consistently shown as being an inferior telepath to Selene on three different occassions at this time up until she got the Phoenix Force.

Rachel feats from Days of the Future Past don't count. Rachel would have been far more developed in her psi powers in the future at that time than she would be in the present as her younger self. Also, how do we know she didn't have the Phoenix Force in DOTFP? I don't know anything about Days of the Future Present and not feeling confident to concede that point to you given how you are taking future and alternate timeline versions of the character and applying those feats to present Rachel.

Okay, now I realize what you are saying with that Inhuman feat. She could only do that for a little while and she wasn't affecting every Inhuman mind in Attilan, IIRC. You are completely overblowing this feat. Emma, on the other hand, can literally mentally enslave an entire city. Rachel didn't do anything close to that in IvX.

Regarding Rachel holding up a city, I just did a google search on "Burnt Offering". The story was written in 2004, correct? Rachel had the Phoenix Force at that time. That's around the time Emma beat her in psi combat and she did the blackhole and everything. She had a portion of the PF.

Emma had to link Scott's mind to all of the mutants on the planet. Only the mutants were able to hear his message, IIRC. Normal humans could not. If she merely psychic shouted it out, then everyone, including humans would have heard it too. Oh, yeah, in order for a telepath to send another person a message, they have to insert that message directly in your brain unless you are a fellow psychic. Regarding Rachel scanning the globe, she doesn't have to enter a person's mind and scan through their psyche's to do a global scan. She's merely scanning for a unique brainwave as everybody has a unique signature. That's all. Once she finds that brainwave, then she can try and enter that mind to sift through it and all.

You have awakened the Emma fan within me. I haven't liked Emma ever since Morrison came along and ruined her personality, yet, here I am once more defending Emma. Its been a long time since I've done that, lol!

[DDM]

2) Exodus was stated to be weaker than Xavier from day 1. In "Bloodties" Xavier was stated to be the most powerful psi on the planet. Period. In the 2000's, a weakened Xavier bested a fully powered Exodus in psychic combat. As far as it being PIS for Emma to stalemate Exodus, I beg to differ. The "Bloodties" story where Exodus battled the X-Men and Avengers at the same time was PIS and thus doesn't count when talking about him throwing around teams. Storm has been able to best psis of greater power than Exodus and she was present. Xavier was also present and he was stated to be a more powerful psi than Exodus in that same story. Sersi was also present as she brings more telepathic power over to the heroes side which she could've added to Xavier's psi, which already surpassed Exodus's. On top of that, Sersi has a plethora of other Eternal powers she could have brought into play in that story, namely her transmutation powers. Then there was an Avengers story after this that established War Machine could have beaten Exodus by himself in that story, but only lost because the writer claimed he allowed Exodus's taunts to get to him and undermine his battle acumen. (That was not the case in the story clearly if you actually read it, but obviously this writer did not agree with the author of "Bloodties" writing Exodus giving all of those heroes a fight like that). It is believable that when PIS is not being used to weaken heroes, Emma could stalemate Exodus. I mean, just look at how easily she bested Rachel. She didn't even break a sweat while Rachel was going for broke against her.

3) Emma does win her bout with Rachel effortlessly. She doesn't even bother to armor up against a ticked off Rachel coming at her with full battle armor and weaponry.

4) That's nice how Rachel altered people's perceptions constantly. That said, where did you get that Xavier and other telepaths were affected by this? If she did affect people like Xavier, then they would have been written down for Rachel as she was consistently shown as being an inferior telepath to Selene on three different occassions at this time up until she got the Phoenix Force.

Rachel feats from Days of the Future Past don't count. Rachel would have been far more developed in her psi powers in the future at that time than she would be in the present as her younger self. Also, how do we know she didn't have the Phoenix Force in DOTFP? I don't know anything about Days of the Future Present and not feeling confident to concede that point to you given how you are taking future and alternate timeline versions of the character and applying those feats to present Rachel.

Okay, now I realize what you are saying with that Inhuman feat. She could only do that for a little while and she wasn't affecting every Inhuman mind in Attilan, IIRC. You are completely overblowing this feat. Emma, on the other hand, can literally mentally enslave an entire city. Rachel didn't do anything close to that in IvX.

Regarding Rachel holding up a city, I just did a google search on "Burnt Offering". The story was written in 2004, correct? Rachel had the Phoenix Force at that time. That's around the time Emma beat her in psi combat and she did the blackhole and everything. She had a portion of the PF.

Emma had to link Scott's mind to all of the mutants on the planet. Only the mutants were able to hear his message, IIRC. Normal humans could not. If she merely psychic shouted it out, then everyone, including humans would have heard it too. Oh, yeah, in order for a telepath to send another person a message, they have to insert that message directly in your brain unless you are a fellow psychic. Regarding Rachel scanning the globe, she doesn't have to enter a person's mind and scan through their psyche's to do a global scan. She's merely scanning for a unique brainwave as everybody has a unique signature. That's all. Once she finds that brainwave, then she can try and enter that mind to sift through it and all.

You have awakened the Emma fan within me. I haven't liked Emma ever since Morrison came along and ruined her personality, yet, here I am once more defending Emma. Its been a long time since I've done that, lol!

2) Where is it definitively stated Xavier was more powerful than Exodus during Bloodties? I certainly don't remember that and didn't see it when skimming the crossover yesterday? His power's always been a bit nebulous and ill-defined, but this was one of his early establishing appearances and he threw the whole team around, which he's done multiple times since. In Messiah Complex he totally jobbed to Emma, although no biggie as more powerful telepaths often do with her. You're still mischaracterising the Legacy conflict too, Xavier was fighting as hard as he could (enough to fry minds according to Emma) while Exodus wasn't actually fighting at all.

Just crying PIS is a stupid, lazy reasoning anyway. If you don't agree with a depiction then you should try to come up with a better way to rationalize events. I don't think it's even unreasonable for Emma to have defeated Exodus, there's a ton of ways to explain it even if it conflicts with their defined power levels.

3) She doesn't even actually win, lol. She just convinces Rachel to stop. Then she mothers her.

Also, has Emma ever armored up in psi-battle? We've seen Xavier, Farouk, Betsy, Jean, Rachel, Exodus... I think Nate Grey... but ever Emma?

4) EVERYONE was effected by it. That's why she was drawn without the Hound marks until she started using her powers for other things. Kitty remarked on it all the time early on. And you need to stop with the "writing down" garbage, Rachel was literally an abused teenage refuge at this time. She had total psd, threw crazy tantrums, cried at the drop of a hat, was crazier than Rogue, she was a hot mess. She was super young but also surprisingly powerful and capable (throwing psi-bolts on level with Xavier for example) which is probably why she was fast tracked to the X-Men rather than the New Mutants. To put this in context she was about as young as Jean was when she first joined the team.

I'm not sure if you've read Days of Future Past either but Rachel was even younger there, that was her past BEFORE she came to 616. Before the Phoenix too then. Days of Future Present was much later on when she was Phoenix and already with Excalibur.

In CW2 Rachel does a wide range psychic sweep over Attilan, basically misdirecting the residents (putting them to sleep, making herself and Magnus invisible, etc) while Magneto goes to speak with Ulysses and warns him it takes some effort so he's got 15 minutes tops. She also communicates telepathically with Magneto through his helmet interestingly, which I didn't think was possible. She gave him cover from the entire city though, including presumably some of the Royal family who are psi-resistant.

Also, Rachel wasn't Phoenix in 2004. She wasn't Phoenix from her return in Cable in 1998 until she got that Blue Echo in Brubaker's Uncanny run in 2007. She lost that shard shortly after in Yost's Starjammers mini in 2009 and hasn't been Phoenix since. Quite literally every feat I've mentioned except the one from Days of Future Present (rebuilding Scott and Sue by the DNA up) was done by Rachel with her own power only. No Phoenix. Black holes, interstellar astral projection, crosstime communication, constant illusions, lifting a city, blocking a city, rewriting dna, global mind scanning... all just Rachel herself.

You need to reread DOX. The message went out to EVERYBODY, mutants and humans and inhumans alike. And Scott was already dead, Emma was faking him already, not linking him to anyone. And she needed the Cuckoos to even get the message out. And no, anyone can hear a psychic talking to them telepathically without a mindlink. If Emma mindlinked with everyone on the planet it'd probably drive her insane.

Rachel also wasn't scanning brainwaves, she was literally reading minds and searching memories, by the thousands at a time. Storm even told her it was unethical (lol) to try and stop her but she was more worried because this was such a dangerously taxing feat and she was concerned for Rachel's wellbeing. There's probably less than 10 telepaths in the X-Verse who at their peak could manage something like this, and half of them are Greys (lol).

Also you *should* love Emma. She's great.

[protege]

Seeing rockslide and armor made me nostalgic for the young xmen; what do they have to do to get some love? Otherwise, this issue felt formulaic to me. I hope there's a follow up to whatever happened to magma.

[Stormrocks]

This thread got off topic real quick. Like others I found the book to be completely predictable. I could handle that if it was an enjoyable read. It wasn't. I could fall asleep reading this; that's how boring it was. Don't see myself spending much more on this book unless something changes quickly.

[Sardorim]

Good to see that I didn't need to step in and that other knowledgeable fans were able to explain just how powerful Rachel really is and deserves her Omega status even without the Phoenix.

[darewithpeace]

i actually liked gold 3 !, loved this pannel, is in spanish by the way, lol

mutant.jpg

[anyajenkins]

Storm looks like skeleton there... a little harsh on the shading a guess...