What do you think of Hickmans X-Men so far, still Interested or Not ??

[Brian B]

Because???

Well, it’s the same problem it’s always been with “The Island That Walks Like a Man,” isn’t it?

If Krakoa is a mutant, it doesn’t seem to be a human mutant, and thus is not “homo superior,” or homo sapien. Thus, not a mutant. I mean, Marvel doesn’t sell books based around animals and plants, excepting Groot, of course. Unless, homo superior aren’t human, which also doesn’t make sense. I think that’s what gonnagiveittoya meant.

Also, the origin or explanation for Krakoa doesn’t really hold water for being a mutant or make sense.

The story in Giant-Size X-Men #1 seems to indicate in Marvel’s parlance that Krakoa is a “mutate,” even though Xavier indicates Krakoa is a mutant, animal-plant-earth-collective-conscious being. Really, its origin — Cold War nuke testing island victim — is not too different than the Hulk’s.

The 2nd Krakoa origin is more problematic, given in the Deadly Genesis mini, which is Brubaker’s worst work and indeed among Marvel’s worst retcons, right up there with Spidey’s “One More Day” or “Sins Past.” Joey Q’s reign was not without its casualties of continuity and common sense. Krakoa is presented as being without anything resembling consciousness, not really as much as even a dog’s. As we’ve seen in the HiXmen, that origin is entirely inconsistent and incongruent with how Krakoa is portrayed these days, even with the caveat that Xavier doesn’t seem to be able to understand Krakoa entirely without Cipher. From the start of “Dawn of X,” Krakoa is portrayed as intelligent, if pretty alien to human understanding.

Then there’s Krakoa’s 3rd origin in X of Swords. Krakoa has been around since, basically, the dawn of history, at least. Apocalypse’s origin is set near the time of writings’ invention. Krakoa is established as knowing Apocalypse in that time frame. Krakoa in the story seems to be some kind of mutant and is even tragically divided in ancient history.

Obviously, Krakoa can’t be a mutant or mutate created by nuclear testing during the Cold War, per its 1st two origins. Krakoa is older than that.

Krakoa’s 2nd origin can’t be correct, because Krakoa is intelligent, though that wouldn’t preclude the 1st origin from being right.

Krakoa’s 3rd origin is entirely different than the 1st two, though.

If Hickman has some reveal or plot twist coming with Krakoa — remember, this is the island that likes to eat mutants and there have been hints Krakoa isn’t as it seems — it may explain these inconsistencies. I’d love it if it turns out that Krakoa is still a baddie.

[yogaflame]

The Krakoa thing has been bothering me the whole time , and the Okkara aspect introduced later did not help one bit. Glad to see someone else bring it up, because every time I do people act like there's nothing there. It doesn't make sense at all.

[gonnagiveittoya]

Because???

Because of the things the characters have said and the way they have acted throughout this entire storyline? They definitely don't consider themselves human in any way anymore.

Depending on the writer it feels like the X-Men never liked humans in the first place, what with how quickly they all dropped their long held beliefs of humans and mutants coexisting. Guess that's what happens when you use massive retcons to crowbar your way to a new status quo

[Brian B]

The Krakoa thing has been bothering me the whole time , and the Okkara aspect introduced later did not help one bit. Glad to see someone else bring it up, because every time I do people act like there's nothing there. It doesn't make sense at all.

It doesn’t make sense. But Hickman’s never been too big into plot twists or reveals. Doctor Doom being behind the Black Swans in Avengers in the lead up to Secret Wars wasn’t that big a surprise. It was almost predictable. I don’t recall a single big reveal in Hickman’s FF.

Hickman’s thing is big, high concept, long, sci-fi stories disguised as super hero fare. Some of the Hixmen has turned out that way. But some of it doesn’t seem finished, like there’s a lot of chapters left.

I’m hoping Hickman’s going someplace with Krakoa, among other plotlines. So much of Hickman’s X tales don’t make much sense to me. It’s not at all like the characters we’ve known. Magneto and the White Queen were bad enough, but Sinister and Shaw, too? Sitting down with Apocalypse? Come on. I don’t see how that’s anything approaching Xavier’s goals from X-Men #1 to this point.

I keep thinking this Xavier is not going to turn out to be the Xavier we know, and Krakoa may play into it.

[Rang10]

Well, it’s the same problem it’s always been with “The Island That Walks Like a Man,” isn’t it?

If Krakoa is a mutant, it doesn’t seem to be a human mutant, and thus is not “homo superior,” or homo sapien. Thus, not a mutant. I mean, Marvel doesn’t sell books based around animals and plants, excepting Groot, of course. Unless, homo superior aren’t human, which also doesn’t make sense. I think that’s what gonnagiveittoya meant.

Also, the origin or explanation for Krakoa doesn’t really hold water for being a mutant or make sense.

The story in Giant-Size X-Men #1 seems to indicate in Marvel’s parlance that Krakoa is a “mutate,” even though Xavier indicates Krakoa is a mutant, animal-plant-earth-collective-conscious being. Really, its origin — Cold War nuke testing island victim — is not too different than the Hulk’s.

The 2nd Krakoa origin is more problematic, given in the Deadly Genesis mini, which is Brubaker’s worst work and indeed among Marvel’s worst retcons, right up there with Spidey’s “One More Day” or “Sins Past.” Joey Q’s reign was not without its casualties of continuity and common sense. Krakoa is presented as being without anything resembling consciousness, not really as much as even a dog’s. As we’ve seen in the HiXmen, that origin is entirely inconsistent and incongruent with how Krakoa is portrayed these days, even with the caveat that Xavier doesn’t seem to be able to understand Krakoa entirely without Cipher. From the start of “Dawn of X,” Krakoa is portrayed as intelligent, if pretty alien to human understanding.

Then there’s Krakoa’s 3rd origin in X of Swords. Krakoa has been around since, basically, the dawn of history, at least. Apocalypse’s origin is set near the time of writings’ invention. Krakoa is established as knowing Apocalypse in that time frame. Krakoa in the story seems to be some kind of mutant and is even tragically divided in ancient history.

Obviously, Krakoa can’t be a mutant or mutate created by nuclear testing during the Cold War, per its 1st two origins. Krakoa is older than that.

Krakoa’s 2nd origin can’t be correct, because Krakoa is intelligent, though that wouldn’t preclude the 1st origin from being right.

Krakoa’s 3rd origin is entirely different than the 1st two, though.

If Hickman has some reveal or plot twist coming with Krakoa — remember, this is the island that likes to eat mutants and there have been hints Krakoa isn’t as it seems — it may explain these inconsistencies. I’d love it if it turns out that Krakoa is still a baddie.

There was a kid Krakoa on Jason AAron run. I don't know his origins but I reember some people theorizing about it when hoxpox hit

It's a lot of retcons and for me the best story is the original.

[Zelena]

Because of the things the characters have said and the way they have acted throughout this entire storyline? They definitely don't consider themselves human in any way anymore.

Depending on the writer it feels like the X-Men never liked humans in the first place, what with how quickly they all dropped their long held beliefs of humans and mutants coexisting. Guess that's what happens when you use massive retcons to crowbar your way to a new status quo

The appreciation of Hickman’s run depends a lot on the capacity to forget or consider not very important all the past runs before him. I suppose that if you like his style and are willing to pay the comics, it helps a lot.

[Brian B]

There was a kid Krakoa on Jason AAron run. I don't know his origins but I reember some people theorizing about it when hoxpox hit

It's a lot of retcons and for me the best story is the original.

Kid Krakoa was from a spore of Krakoa, implying that Krakoa was its own species and also intelligent, since Kid Krakoa is intelligent. Both seemingly contradict Krakoa’s first two origins.

Yes, Giant-Size X-Men #1, and for me, the rest of Claremont’s early years up until the end of the Paul Smith run kick the crap out of Hickman’s run, or anything else published under the X banners since then.

[Brian B]

The appreciation of Hickman’s run depends a lot on the capacity to forget or consider not very important all the past runs before him. I suppose that if you like his style and are willing to pay the comics, it helps a lot.

It really does contradict the whole thing about Xavier’s supposed MLK-like dream. If that’s never really addressed, the Hickman run will be remembered as a bigger piece of garbage than Grant Morrison’s X-Men. I give it 50/50 odds to be better than the Morrison issues.

[Cane_danko]

The appreciation of Hickman’s run depends a lot on the capacity to forget or consider not very important all the past runs before him. I suppose that if you like his style and are willing to pay the comics, it helps a lot.

Big disagree here. Hickman has been pulling out the past like crazy. We are getting all sorts of characters we haven’t seen in decades. I disagree with most the hickman haters on this forum though. It is actually comical at this point. Like, let’s just say whatever we can to start a bandwagon belief on what hickman is doing wrong and people here are going to jump on it.

[gonnagiveittoya]

It really does contradict the whole thing about Xavier’s supposed MLK-like dream. If that’s never really addressed, the Hickman run will be remembered as a bigger piece of garbage than Grant Morrison’s X-Men. I give it 50/50 odds to be better than the Morrison issues.

I definitely think that, even if the writing were exactly the same, if the name on the covers wasn't Hickman people would be much harsher on this run where the X-Men abandon unity with humanity, become confrontational with almost all their human allies, but totally forgiving their dangerous enemies and most notorious genocidal maniacs with get out of jail free cards, putting said maniacs at the head of their government, and becoming immortal ubermensch pod people who may or may not all be clones.

At least I definitely I know I only went along with it because I know Hickmans a good writer.

[Zelena]

I definitely think that, even if the writing were exactly the same, if the name on the covers wasn't Hickman people would be much harsher on this run where the X-Men abandon unity with humanity, become confrontational with almost all their human allies, but totally forgiving their dangerous enemies and most notorious genocidal maniacs with get out of jail free cards, putting said maniacs at the head of their government, and becoming immortal ubermensch pod people who may or may not all be clones.

I think it has more to do with the gratitude fans feel towards Hickman to have stopped with the cycles of repression / escape. He has made the mutants strong, powerful… Fans can identify again with the X-men proudly.

In front of that, inconsistencies, personality changes, losses of ideal… don’t seem to matter much.

[Devaishwarya]

Big disagree here. Hickman has been pulling out the past like crazy. We are getting all sorts of characters we haven’t seen in decades. I disagree with most the hickman haters on this forum though. It is actually comical at this point. Like, let’s just say whatever we can to start a bandwagon belief on what hickman is doing wrong and people here are going to jump on it.

Same.
Does HiX-Man's Krakoa Origin retcon Claremont's?...yes.
Is it more interesting than Claremont's?...yesyesYESOMGFYESSSS!!!!

[Big Joe]

I think it has more to do with the gratitude fans feel towards Hickman to have stopped with the cycles of repression / escape. He has made the mutants strong, powerful… Fans can identify again with the X-men proudly.

In front of that, inconsistencies, personality changes, losses of ideal… don’t seem to matter much.

I get what you mean with that cycle, it was becoming (I should say had become) repetitive and, at times, tedious. His story has made mutants relevant in the Marvel universe again, after they were pushed backwards by the attempted big sell of the Inhumans.

The issues some, including myself, have could well be part of the overarching theme of the story. It's not just small inconsistencies, or changes to personalities. They're huge changes in some cases. That doesn't mean to say I'm not enjoying a lot of what's being produced, I really am. Hellions is great, SWORD is excellent, the whole vote thing is a great idea and the profile of the line has been raised. Currently, though, it is at the expense of almost 60 years of characterisation for some of the people involved. As I say we may find that it is deliberate and a big part of the story, and I expect that will be part of the final explanation.

The one thing I have absolutely no chance of moving past is that scene when Colossus was brought back to the island and Banshee ran away from Wolverine. Not in any world, ever, would that happen. Of course Banshee has suffered for decades, not just now, but you'd imagine when a whole reimagining of the ethos of the X-Men is based around the love of his life he might merit more than the very occasional pathetic cameos he's had. There's Xavier, there's Beast, Rogue, Gambit and others all so far away from their original (or accepted, I suppose) personalities that it seems it has to be to do with the story and somebody's going to wake up.

The whole medium is about the suspension of disbelief anyway, and I'm more than prepared to carry on reading, as long as I'm still enjoying the stories - which I really am, in the expectation that things will change again. I love the concept, I think there's years of exploration to do and overall it's going rather well. I mean John Greycrow and Nanny, who would ever have thought they'd be two of the absolute breakout characters in any comic, ever!

[Brian B]

Same.
Does HiX-Man's Krakoa Origin retcon Claremont's?...yes.
Is it more interesting than Claremont's?...yesyesYESOMGFYESSSS!!!!

I’m going full comics nerd on you here. It’s not Claremont’s Krakoa origin. It’s Len Wein’s. :-)

The 2nd origin from Deadly Genesis is Brubaker’s. In some ways, I appreciate that Hickman seems to be ignoring this version of Krakoa, because it made less sense than any of the three.

Is the 3rd origin more interesting? Maybe? I don’t feel like we know what the complete origin is, yet. But if there’s more to it, and I hope there will be more under Hickman, then yes it is more interesting. If there’s not more coming, then it’s a bunch of garbage, with no explanation, non sequiturs going nowhere and more holes blown in Marvel’s continuity.

[king of hybrids]

I guess you could make the argument that Inhumans and the like are closer to Mutates than a competing species?

While they’ve picked up a fair bit of sapien in their mix, the Inhumans derive from Neanderthal. They are a more legit separate species than mutants are from baseline humans