Should mutants have more of a presence outside the X-Books?

[Stormultt Divine]

Mutants are finally free from persecution and bondage, that's really all that matters..

Humans will have to just deal with not being allowed on Krakoa and keep to their side of the rest of the 99.9% of the planet =(
Keyword is free. <33

[Zelena]

Mutants are finally free from persecution and bondage, that's really all that matters..

Humans will have to just deal with not being allowed on Krakoa and keep to their side of the rest of the 99.9% of the planet =(
Keyword is free. <33

I never consider Jean as someone particularly afraid of anything… I find Xavier condescending…

And I dislike Jean’s juvenile look here…

[Kaitou D. Kid]

That's not how HoX/PoX frames it at all. The X-Men formed Krakoa not because they "should" but because they have to. Every attempt at coexistence has failed, every time mutants try to rise up, genocide robots come for them. In every single one of Moira Kinross' previous lives, where she tried multiple different approaches (sometimes peaceful, sometimes not), extinction happened.

Minorities asking for a piece of land where they can maintain their own culture and way of life, as a specific response to actual persecution and repeated acts of violence, is not uncommon in the real world, it's why many Native tribes prefer to stay on reservation choosing not to assimilate into the colonizer's culture, and even now there are many oppressed groups whose calls for nationhood in order to stave off persecution is seen as sympathetic across the board, such as say the demands of the Kurdish people for a Kurdistan, since they face repeated massacres and acts of violence across the Middle East and Turkey.

Multiculturalism and so on is definitely the ideal but it can only happen from a position of equality and fairness, not when one side is repeatedly staring down the barrel of a sentinel's palm-gun, and they can't always rely on their celebrity pals to give them attention in between their alcoholic binges, their murder-robot making and wife-beating, their selling marriages to the devil, their hoarding of inventions because one guy thinks the "world's not ready" and so on and so forth.

The way you worded it (“the X-Men are intended to…provide a sense of otherness” and that this is “more primal and basic”) implies a “should”, when ‘otherness’ isn’t a thing that actually exists in nature or that is naturally-arisen. In reality, people’s ‘sense of otherness’ only exists because of propaganda and cognitive distortions (and can therefore be overcome). Tying the X-Men so heavily to nature and things like evolution or natural selection also sounds like a bad idea, as it reinforces the racist narrative of marginalized identities being naturally-arisen (this last point would be true whether or not Krakoa exists in the MU).

As for whether or not Krakoa should exist, I don’t think that is the most important question to this thread. There is obviously some justification for Krakoa in the same way there is some justification for a Kurdistan. More important are the reasons given for something like Krakoa. If it is a place where mutants can seek refuge, I don’t see a problem with that. If however the reasons used to justify it are that they naturally embody ‘a sense of otherness’ (a racist narrative), or that they have to because the rest of humanity will never accept them (a neoliberal narrative which assumes that racism is this magical thing that exists in the brain and the only thing we can do is recognize it on an individual level), you can argue both of those reasons are counterintuitive. It should be noted that ethno-states are at best a short-term solution and not something that would work in the long run if we have any commitment to creating a broad-based egalitarian society. Plenty of activists have pointed this out (i.e. Noam Chomsky). This is also why every ethno-state that currently exists has a lot of internal problems (Israel, Pakistan, etc.).

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The way you worded it (“the X-Men are intended to…provide a sense of otherness” and that this is “more primal and basic”) implies a “should”, as ‘otherness’ isn’t a thing that actually exists in nature or that is naturally-arisen. In reality, people’s ‘sense of otherness’ only exists because of propaganda and cognitive distortions (and can therefore be overcome).

"Otherness" has different elements to it. Positive and negative. The negative element you refer to is obvious, but there's a positive element to the concept, namely in terms of challenging and interrogating our sense of the normal and our sense of what we take to be normal. Romanticism in the classic era in its empathy for the outsider was all based on the positive concept, and X-Men is very much based on that (Blake, Byron, the 2 Shelleys). And before you point out Romanticism's negative impact and influence, I'll point out that William Blake, Byron and the Shelleys were avant-garde and political radicals and Percy Shelley especially was an inspiration for many revolutionaries and radical thinkers (Marx and Gandhi for instance). While some part of "otherness" in terms of racism and xenophobia definitely is propaganda...the concept of otherness like say, comprehending high level mathematics far beyond the classical model of physics that largely shapes our visual perception, or you know the existential dread we have when we contemplate how random and meaningless existence actually is...that part of otherness is real. The fact is the problem isn't with otherness, the problem is with "normal", because that's always a fiction to some degree or the other. Acceptable only for the value we currently ascribe to it.

Think of Wolverine, a person who has lived for more than a century, has had amnesia, fought multiple world wars...that's something quite remote and alien from a normal person's life. Think of Cyclops, who at the age of 8 was separate from his parents and younger brother, whose father became a Space Pirate, whose mother became a sex slave to a Shiar Emperor. Scott Summers spent the first 8 years of his life as a civilian human citizen of the US, and from the age of 8 his life was shaped by a Galactic Civilization several light-years away. Think of Jean Grey who, even as a mutant, had a normal life until her mid-20s and has spent her adult life in different states of death and undeath. And Hickman has given us Moira Kinross, taking the most seemingly normal human and without giving her obvious extra powers and abilities, making her into the uncanniest mutant of all with her reincarnation and constant treadmill regeneration that has allowed her to live with the lifetimes of many milennia.

Their lives challenge the linear conception of physics, consciousness, history, that most people on this planet (well until the Covid Pandemic at any rate) consider daily life. I mean consider the otherness that combat veterans experience when confronting civilian life again. Calling "otherness" a "cognitive distortion" to be overcome seems quite dubious to me, psychologically speaking. It definitely goes against everything Freud argued (and Freud happily is making a comeback in neuroscience these days). Freud of course wrote the landmark essay on "The Uncanny" which is what gave that adjective the meaning we now ascribe to it, and which is what Uncanny X-Men refers to. For Freud the idea of uncanny isn't about xenophobia or fear of the other, it's about the moments when our sense of normality and understanding of reality is suddenly challenged.

Tying the X-Men so heavily to nature and things like evolution or natural selection also sounds like a bad idea...

In America, people aren't taught evolution in schools, so politically a major franchise basing itself on that premise, is politically quite useful.

On a more serious note,just because there's been misuse about evolution stuff into braindead stuff like social darwininsim and eugenics doesn't mean that everything tied to evolution is icky. Historically, the X-Men comics have always had a left-ward fan base, and a diverse readership. The concept of mutants being the next step of evolution and being preyed on by Homo Sapiens is ultimately a metaphor for how the power-holders will ultimately suck the blood of the children to further their power. This isn't a new thing.

"You cannot wish us away. you cannot ignore us. We — Homo Sapiens Superior — are your children. We are the next generation of humanity. What kind of parent fears his progeny? Tries to murder them? Is this the legacy you wish to leave?"
— From "The Trial of Magneto" (Uncanny X-Men #200 Vol. 1) written by Chris Claremont

Magneto considers mutants to be humanity's children, and humanity will devour its children, torture them, murder them, rather than accept or leave behind a worthy legacy for the next state of evolution. As the Librarian tells Moira in HOUSE OF X #6 - "Look around you, Moira Kinross. See the cage. That's inevitable. Not you being outside of it." Or as the Raputin Chimera says in POX#1 "You've forgotten that machines have no souls...and that humans lost theirs a long time ago."
.

That's not far from the generational anger many Millennials and Zoomers feel towards baby boomers sucking the welfare state dry and poisoning the planet for their own self-satisfied consumerism while their kids and grandkids have to relive the early 20th Century.

There is obviously some justification for Krakoa in the same way there is some justification for a Kurdistan. More important are the reasons given for something like Krakoa. If it is a place where mutants can seek refuge, I don’t see a problem with that. If however the reasons used to justify it are that they naturally embody ‘a sense of otherness’ (a racist narrative), or that they have to because the rest of humanity will never accept them (a neoliberal narrative which assumes that racism is this magical thing that exists in the brain and the only thing we can do is recognize it on an individual level), you can argue both of those reasons are counterintuitive.

This part is fair, in terms of misgivings people have towards Krakoa in Hickman's run.

Let me say the following. By embodying a sense of otherness I mean that the concept of Krakoa, a society by mutants, for mutants, and of mutants, is going to look different from a non-mutant society in every way, in terms of property, religion, social codes, family structure, norms about monogamy and polygamy, justice and so on. This isn't any different from how LGBTQ people have created communities that look so different from heteronormative societies. The great cultural products we have seen that came from this movement, have presented and challenged and given the world entirely new kinds of fashion, language, music, and identities.

[Chris0013]

You can achieve said complexity by creating an exclusive universe for the x-books where the writers have control over both sides to truly command the dynamic betwen the two.
because as of now the majority of the "human" sand box is shared amongst a bunch of other offices and writers.

you don't need the avengers, or the fantastic four or whatever, they aren't necessary to tell the story you want to tell, in fact they probably are part of the reason why It doesnt happen, because their mission is to maintain a status quo that is inheritly agaist mutants, but aren't allowed to be called out or seen in a negative light.
If x-men books were in their own universe, they could also have control over the hypotitical human superheroes filling this new earth, showcassing a variety of levels of antagonism or alliances or conections, it would become a part of the franchise and it's mythos.

But on this shared universe we are unfortunatly stuck into, any crossover has proven time and time again as non benefitial to the x-men side, to an almost parisitic level.

Again...it doesn't have to be a cross over where X-Characters show up in other books. Just put mutants outside the X-Book and show their lives.

The mutant from the She Hulk story that I posted above shows up in Avengers...not as a hero but as a waitress or barista. An anti mutant group is protesting the restaurant / coffee shop she is working at and Jen and Steve show up as customers and make a comment in support of her to the news....and you see a bunch of people basically tell the protestors to shove off. And we get a little interaction with her and Jen since Jen promised to keep an eye on her.

Or between story arcs in FF a Prime Sentinel that somehow got missed when Operation: Zero Tolerance got shut down activates and attacks Franklin...and after the FF defeat it Reed is able to deprogram the mutant hunting protocols or even reverse the Prime Sentinel tech.

editing to add: Or a story involving Ultra Girl and her 'mutant kree' identification from the sentinel that attacked her. Either the FF or Avengers considering Vance's connections to both...but we find out that the pink kree have been abducting human mutants throughout the 20th century with either active or latent x-genes and using them in a breeding program. Whichever group is involved saves dozens of mutants from them and brings them home.

Mutant related stories that neither involve or tarnish the X-Men.

I never consider Jean as someone particularly afraid of anything… I find Xavier condescending…

And I dislike Jean’s juvenile look here…

Considering Xavier's previous creepiness.....maybe he dropped a few years when she was cloned.

[Huntsman Spider]

Again...it doesn't have to be a cross over where X-Characters show up in other books. Just put mutants outside the X-Book and show their lives.

The mutant from the She Hulk story that I posted above shows up in Avengers...not as a hero but as a waitress or barista. An anti mutant group is protesting the restaurant / coffee shop she is working at and Jen and Steve show up as customers and make a comment in support of her to the news....and you see a bunch of people basically tell the protestors to shove off. And we get a little interaction with her and Jen since Jen promised to keep an eye on her.

Or between story arcs in FF a Prime Sentinel that somehow got missed when Operation: Zero Tolerance got shut down activates and attacks Franklin...and after the FF defeat it Reed is able to deprogram the mutant hunting protocols or even reverse the Prime Sentinel tech.

editing to add: Or a story involving Ultra Girl and her 'mutant kree' identification from the sentinel that attacked her. Either the FF or Avengers considering Vance's connections to both...but we find out that the pink kree have been abducting human mutants throughout the 20th century with either active or latent x-genes and using them in a breeding program. Whichever group is involved saves dozens of mutants from them and brings them home.

Mutant related stories that neither involve or tarnish the X-Men.



Considering Xavier's previous creepiness.....maybe he dropped a few years when she was cloned.

Like that Spider-Man story from the 90s when one of Peter's classmates at Empire State University during his postgraduate studies was a mutant who went by the name Robin Vega (not her real name, but that was never revealed) who was harassed by ESU's local chapter of the Friends of Humanity and Peter --- with Mary Jane's help --- defended her from them as himself and/or as Spider-Man? Yeah, I could see something like that.

[Chris0013]

Like that Spider-Man story from the 90s when one of Peter's classmates at Empire State University during his postgraduate studies was a mutant who went by the name Robin Vega (not her real name, but that was never revealed) who was harassed by ESU's local chapter of the Friends of Humanity and Peter --- with Mary Jane's help --- defended her from them as himself and/or as Spider-Man? Yeah, I could see something like that.

Yes...like that.

So she is kinda like Mercury or a T-1000??

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Robin_Vega_(Earth-616)

[Huntsman Spider]

Yes...like that.

So she is kinda like Mercury or a T-1000??

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Robin_Vega_(Earth-616)

Little of both, actually. Technically, she transforms into organic steel, somewhat like Colossus, but yeah, I can see the T-1000 (or T-1001 from The Sarah Connor Chronicles) comparison, too.

[Iron Maiden]

In America, people aren't taught evolution in schools, so politically a major franchise basing itself on that premise, is politically quite useful.

Whoa.....that is not true. The Butler Act or Monkey Law was finally repealed in 1967 in Tennessee the site of the famous Scopes Trial. Shortly afterward, similar laws were also found to be unconstitutional and were repealed in Arkansas and Mississippi. You have to remember that in the U.S every state does things differently in the schools so that it is a sort of patchwork quilt of laws. But there are still many states that are trying to require the teaching of "evolution alternatives" like biblical creationism along side the science of evolution.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Krakoa has superpowers and alien alies, they have 0 necessity for humans, every bit of shiar tech surpasses anything humans can provide and they are more trustworthy , you have no garantee any human that is "alligned" with krakoa isnt actually a spy or a new type of anti mutant weapon, it be an immensly stupid move.

Except those alien allies aren't in Krakoa, they're discriminated against just like other non-humans. They have to be in space to be tolerated by Krakoa. Reed Richards built a machine to go to Heaven and convinced the One Above All to resurrect Ben Grimm, and a device which stops the x-gene being detected by Sentinels.

https://screenrant.com/fantastic-fou...marvel-comics/

This is about non-mutants, "humanity" by itself isn't being kept out of Krakoa, that's why Namor is allowed but Atlanteans aren't. Multiculturalism is good for countries to have and they will fill in any gaps which mutants left behind and they have many, many gaps. Their borders are so unprotected Hordeculture can get in undetected. They don't have connections to other nation's security services so they can't identify threats globally via Five Eyes and their portal system customs is a joke. As Sinister has shown what's to stop the Red Skull implanting the x-gene in himself and HYDRA to use the portals?

Weeding out spies is supposed be something the government does, all countries do this. That's no excuse not to allow foreigners when trust is based on what genes they have rather than anything else. The mutant super-villains have shown they're not all trustworthy and they're certainly bigger risks which have gotten citizens murdered. There's no guarantee with the super-villians, they're just given complete trust because they have a gene and even that is overlooked with Sinister.

Mutants can easly even completly leave earth once their population is self sufficient, mars and the shiar empire are much better alternatives than earth and humanity, it has been proven time and time again.

They won't, Moira X's game plan to stop the Man-Machine Ascendency which needs to happen on Earth mutants only go to other worlds in other time lines far into the future. If Xavier wanted to do that he'd have gotten the technology from the Shi'ar to ship all mutants off-world but he hasn't. The Shi'ar empire has their own problems since they are en empire, who do imperialist things and they're not allowed in Krakoa, either.

Hell it even seems krakoa manages to get along with the kree-skrull alliance.

They get along with allies of races they dislike, like with the cartels, and none of those races are in Krakoa. They'd have to make laws to protect from harm, like they did with humans.

[Steel Inquisitor]

You can achieve said complexity by creating an exclusive universe for the x-books where the writers have control over both sides to truly command the dynamic betwen the two.
because as of now the majority of the "human" sand box is shared amongst a bunch of other offices and writers.

you don't need the avengers, or the fantastic four or whatever, they aren't necessary to tell the story you want to tell, in fact they probably are part of the reason why It doesnt happen, because their mission is to maintain a status quo that is inheritly agaist mutants, but aren't allowed to be called out or seen in a negative light.
If x-men books were in their own universe, they could also have control over the hypotitical human superheroes filling this new earth, showcassing a variety of levels of antagonism or alliances or conections, it would become a part of the franchise and it's mythos.

But on this shared universe we are unfortunatly stuck into, any crossover has proven time and time again as non benefitial to the x-men side, to an almost parisitic level.

Many of the complaints about Krakoa won't stop by taking them out of Marvel, all that'd do is put them in a universe with less non-human/humanity focus so we're left more with what Krakoa tells us about the universe which would quickly become propaganda since mutants don't have anywhere near the complaints they should have in how they're governed like they're doing. Complexity requires nuance and Krakoa has problems within itself. Krakoa aren't in the business of "controlling," whatever that means, non-mutant super-heroes unless you're speaking about the company who owns the property, which would be Marvel and they'd have some who disagree with Krakoa or are hostile to it anyway except they wouldn't get their own titles so they'd be easier for Krakoa to make straw men out of their position, like any nation outside of Krakoa since they aren't the protagonists.

Krakoa still maintains the status quo, X-men/mutants are still hated and feared they're just on an island rather than a mansion.

Read more crossovers, super-heroes being antagonistic to each other is as old as the X-men themselves, with just as many of super-heroes being allies and friends.

It's pointless to think about this since Marvel has shown no interest in doing this. The best option would have been a tv show or cartoon, like they did with X-men: The Gift, but that ship's sales with Disney making the MCU and Fiege consolidating the tv division under his umbrella.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Whoa.....that is not true. The Butler Act or Monkey Law was finally repealed in 1967 in Tennessee the site of the famous Scopes Trial. Shortly afterward, similar laws were also found to be unconstitutional and were repealed in Arkansas and Mississippi. You have to remember that in the U.S every state does things differently in the schools so that it is a sort of patchwork quilt of laws. But there are still many states that are trying to require the teaching of "evolution alternatives" like biblical creationism along side the science of evolution.

Touche I suppose.

I don't know what practical difference there is between not teaching evolution and teaching evolution and creationism side-by-side and pretending it's on parity and kids can simply choose.

[Zelena]

The way you worded it (“the X-Men are intended to…provide a sense of otherness” and that this is “more primal and basic”) implies a “should”, when ‘otherness’ isn’t a thing that actually exists in nature or that is naturally-arisen. In reality, people’s ‘sense of otherness’ only exists because of propaganda and cognitive distortions (and can therefore be overcome). Tying the X-Men so heavily to nature and things like evolution or natural selection also sounds like a bad idea, as it reinforces the racist narrative of marginalized identities being naturally-arisen (this last point would be true whether or not Krakoa exists in the MU).

For the mutants, the  “otherness” is the humans…
Besides, they are so different from each other that they are all ‘other’ ; only ideology and “human persecution” linked them. I find the result rather artificial: all identities are multiple and only mutilation of a part of what you are enables you to pick just one.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Mutants are finally free from persecution and bondage, that's really all that matters..

Humans will have to just deal with not being allowed on Krakoa and keep to their side of the rest of the 99.9% of the planet =(
Keyword is free. <33

That's the propaganda, the real Krakoa the Quiet Council don't want outsiders to see is this:





Mutants will never be safe with psychopaths walking around with no restraints and living in a dictatorship.

[Ferro]

kitty said the n word so its about time she got a refreshment, shaw did nothing wrong and she'll be back anyways, and then it will be shaw's turn to go trough the ressurection carrousel.
maybe ths time kitty comes out the egg less anoying.
#kittyprydeiscancelled