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Excalibur is interesting and good. I'm a little surprised at -[/x]x[[x]-'s fascination towards magic; was it ever a thing with him before? I can't remember the last time he said or did anything particularly sorcerous. Akkaba is a familiar name, though... I continue to be unimpressed with Krakoan propaganda and how writers have been handling it. "We never had to run from man." You are literally, right now, running from man. At least Rogue and Gambit don't seem to be so completely drunk on the kool-aid.
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Oct 30, 2019 21:12
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I can see what people mean about X-Force. It's definitely just...we're less than one month into the new status quo and already mutant children are being shot in the head. Of course the extenuating caveat here is that they can all come back now, but still. C'mon. Issue number one. And also the the thing where there's apparently maneating monsters roaming Krakoa is like...look, I'm of course of the opinion that this new mutant paradise is more of a crazy sham than anything else, but making it so that they're apparently living on Danger Island just feels like forcing grunge and edginess into a status quo that was supposed to fix that sort of thing. Is Krakoa friendly to mutants or isn't it? It doesn't get to be both. We might as well put the school back in Limbo if that's the case. At least we get some new insight into how the operations are run, and hopefully we'll get more in-depth into the resurrection protocols as well now that baldy's bitten it. It might be as prosaic as "Jean pops him into a new body, the end," but maybe not.
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Nov 7, 2019 06:23
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I don't know what it is, but I quite liked Fallen Angels as well. This whole situation with Betsy and Kwannon and their current states of mind is really interesting for me. There was a time when I fully believed Marvel should just bite the loving bullet and retcon it so that Betsy was always Asian instead of having the embarrassing body-swipe situation, but the way that they've managed to deal with it now -- by fully confronting the implications of the body theft and not shying from dealing with just how problematic and troubling it was for both women, who are now in fact definitively two separate women with their own sets of baggage -- is so vastly preferable and good that I kinda wanna just...savor these stories for how well they're handling this idea. Meanwhile, X-Men #2 just left me kinda cold. Same old gobbledygook-spouting new character/threat who thinks that our heroes are so primitive or whatever, copypasted from every Hickman book I ever read, check. I have no idea what Rachel's personality is supposed to be. Teen Cable is fun-written, but I'm generally finding it really hard to engage with this character who murdered the actual Cable and everyone's just acting like it's fine and dandy or whatever.
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Nov 14, 2019 05:03
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This book. This right here was my first American comic book..
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Nov 17, 2019 06:15
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First exposure to the X-Men? This, baby!
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Nov 18, 2019 21:46
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I think I'm gonna drop X-Men until further notice. This series seems to have all the markings of the worst parts of Hickman's Avengers. 1) Some strange and inexplicable new problem happens! 2) The heroes flail ineffectually at the problem despite blabbing on end about how cool they are! 3) Nothing is solved, heroes are defeated. 4) Repeat for next issue And Krakoa is experiencing the exact. Same. Problem. As every other X-HQ at in every other X-relaunch: enemies can apparently just walk in and kill everyone with minimal effort despite it being established for issues on end that, no for real, this time the mutant homeland is actually impenetrably safe! It just makes the X-Men seem dumb for buying into the snake oil, and I'm not usually super interested in reading about a bunch of dumb people being dumb. Usually. DynamicSloth posted:The only thing that would make Hordeculture better was if they are never referenced again in the X-books.
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Dec 5, 2019 06:23
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Oh please don't misunderstand, I will continue complaining forever. That won't change. 
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Dec 5, 2019 07:53
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X-Force is winning me over, despite the lackluster first issue. Yes, it was dumb that humans could just infiltrate another mutant refuge so easily, but it also feels like it was treated seriously and that the formation of X-Force feels earned, as a direct response to a consequential event. That, along with Beast and Jean's conversations about death and Logan and Quentin's conversations about violence, makes this feel like one of the few books that are seriously addressing the ramifications of Krakoa and all that Hickman has laid out. Which is in ironic contrast to Hickman's own title, where the impenetrable mutant homeland gets penetrated twice in as many weeks and it's more or less treated as a running gag. Why should I take the premise of Krakoa seriously -- the true final mutant homeland, cooler and better and way different than everything else we've ever tried before that will surely never fail because there's just no way -- if the story itself won't?
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Dec 11, 2019 22:39
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Nevvy Z posted:We the readers have already seen it fail and the risk of it failing again is an established part of the longer term plot. Which is why it makes Xavier look incredibly loving dumb when the same old problems arise that don't actually get solved by this awesome great idea. And it also makes the rest of the X-Men look dumb as well when they follow him unthinkingly and then get punk'd over and over again, same as they did before. I'm not interested in reading about dumb people. Skwirl posted:Humans wanting to kill all Mutants has been a staple since before Claremont. Hickman's revival was intended to be a reprieve from that problem and, yes, to be fair we can see that mutants won't die permanently anymore which does alleviate a lot of stuff. Which is why I like that X-Force seems to be treating their situation seriously, as in, yes we've got new safeguards, but those safeguards aren't foolproof either so that just means we need to be even more vigilant, not less. This is in contrast to the main X-Men title, where two huge problems arise in two issues and the story is just kinda acting eh whatever about it.
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Dec 11, 2019 23:45
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X-Force is still towing that fine gentle line between being kinda eye-rollingly edgy and being actually really interesting. It definitely feels like one of the few books that actually paid any attention to the HOXPOX stuff. And I of course appreciate the Jean that's been appearing here much more than the Hickman edition, but on the other hand I don't want to be reading about grim portents Jean all the darn time either. Sigh, if only some sort of thermodynamic equilibrium could be established, Jean-wise.
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Dec 19, 2019 05:04
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But like, over in New Mutants they're literally starving babies to show off how extreme and dangerous the new threat whose name I can't remember is. By comparison Wolverine and Quire getting killed comes across almost quaint. Just like old times y'know. I do agree with Cabbit that the whole "mutants can come back to life now" clause is making writers more prone to gratuitous violence instead of less. So in a lot of these books it feels like we're reading the same old snuff porn that made X-books so annoying for so many years, but now it carries even less weight.
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Dec 19, 2019 23:49
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Other than the New Mutants issue I just mentioned, Pixie and Anole and a buncha other young mutants get killed off in X-Men #2. Technically they just get covered by solid slime and left there for hours, but I'm pretty sure none of them are able to breathe through solid slime, so.
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Dec 20, 2019 02:14
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Just going by what the issue shows. If someone drops Hawkeye in the middle of the ocean, or buries him twelve feet under solid rock, my first ever thought isn’t “ah, so very nonlethal,” it’s “is he going to be rescued before he, y’know, dies?”
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Dec 20, 2019 02:48
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She talks to them with her last breath before her air runs out and she begins to suffocate to death. None of the other encased mutants make any other sound, even as the shots pan over to show them in their final terrified moments. *shrug* Just telling you what the issue shows. I’m sure there’s any number of fictional reasons why that slime might not literally kill people in the exact way that it looks like it’s doing, but none of those reasons were offered in the issue (the fact that it neutralizes powers would make it more dangerous to certain mutants, not less), so I’m not going out of my way to imagine those reasons for the writer much like I don’t think criminals are shooting rubber bullets or blanks or whatever whenever Spider-Man or Captain America are under fire.
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Dec 20, 2019 03:18
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I mean, she'd be resurrected quickly nonetheless so I dunno how her continued existence would prove that she hadn't in fact died in issue 2.Endless Mike posted:I'm shocked to discover BrianWilly doesn't like something Blockhouse asked me a question and I answered it. Take it or leave it, or else have a yet another weird meltdown over it like whatshisname over there. *shrug* Do you.
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Dec 20, 2019 04:31
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If getting dogpiled for no reason is grounds for a probation now then go ahead and slime away. I've done nothing wrong here other than to annoy the wrong crowd, apparently. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 20, 2019 05:24
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Excalibur's in this impossibly weird place where, like, it's being sold as the book about mutants and magic and somehow Britain as well, but zero percent of the mutants in that book are the magical ones, the ones who are there just aren't doing much, and we've got one (1) Brit.
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Dec 27, 2019 04:01
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Both books this week were great. As much fun as business Apocalypse is though, a part of me is nonetheless disappointed that the mutant envoy was so sausagey. Emma couldn't fit it on her schedule? She's part of the reason the recognized-nation thing even happened, after all. Though it does look like she's kinda busy, uh, super flirting with Kate over on Marauders.
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Jan 2, 2020 04:17
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Them's a sexy outfits
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Jan 3, 2020 00:25
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I liked it because it actually makes good on the promise of Xavier and Magneto attempting something new that's never been tried before, and how things are actually going to be different now. Up until now it's honestly just been the same-old-same-old. Resurrection machine? Tired. Capitalist takeover? Wired!!
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Jan 6, 2020 17:10
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Fallen Anglels is absolutely dunkable, but there was at least one pretty great Magneto moment in this latest issue. "But you want justice. You want to be justice. The boy inside of me will always understand that."
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Jan 9, 2020 06:25
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The thing that this reboot has done a good job at emphasizing, though, is that the mutant identity is such a big deal because humans and other races en masse have made it such a big deal for years. The amount of pain and oppression that mutants have gone through for being mutants is barely fathomable. That amount of shared pain, shared trauma, is what's uniting their nation at the moment. Like yeah, it would've been nice if everyone could ascribe to the teachings of one Alex Summers where your mutant identity is just some semi-important factoid in the great wide tapestry of your personhood, but that's not how the world has dealt them their cards. That's why, while I personally don't love the Krakoan master race rhetoric, I find it 100% believable that modern mutants are drawn to it. There's been too much pain and loss for it to be otherwise.
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Jan 16, 2020 08:35
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The starkest moment of the last issue was probably Xavier's "one month" remark. It took a single month for the humans to be back on their death squad bullshit. And that, apparently, is simply the world that humankind and mutantkind have to live in. Like...it didn't have to be this way! Humans didn't have to send soldiers to mutant homes every other month, they didn't have to drag mutant children from their beds to be lynched on the reg. But they did do those things, and they show no inclination to stop doing those things, so here we are, and now they have to deal with the response.
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Jan 16, 2020 22:43
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I mean...Hungary is what...central Europe? Eastern? I don't know exact regional sociopolitics over there, but I kinda doubt they have a spotless history in regards to racial/religious persecution. Honestly, where on the planet will you find a place that doesn't oppress the Other? That being said though...let's not forget that the actual "mutant response" so far has been pretty darn benign. So if you're that hypothetical random nowheresville village who's genuinely oppression-free and genuinely pro-equality for all, well great, all you have to do is keep on doing that, except now you'll get the bonus of extra awesome mutant medicine. It's win-win!
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Jan 17, 2020 06:54
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There are so many young mutants already around just twiddling their thumbs waiting to be placed into books that I can't get excited about new characters right now, however decent they might be. Hell, wasn't there a "no new characters" edict from Hickman, or did I dream that?
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Jan 17, 2020 22:24
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I mean, technically he still hasn't broken a law. They never made murdering other mutants into a law, after all. v vEven when Kate returns, she won't actually know that it was Shaw who killed her unless Xavier had made a replica of her brain the literal minute it started to happen.
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Jan 28, 2020 23:54
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I don't know why the characters think someone's humanity has anything to do at all with using the gates. Humans can enter the gates and do so all the time. Skwirl posted:She might not know but she'll have a pretty good loving idea.
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Jan 29, 2020 00:21
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Aphrodite posted:Humans need to be cleared. Mutants just works. BrianWilly fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jan 29, 2020 |
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Jan 29, 2020 00:26
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Nothing certain one way or another. All we know is that Xavier knew he had to die in order to truly finalize the Krakoan nation's resolve, and he in fact hoped that he would. But the narration also made it seem like he didn't actually know when and how he would die, so it's still a bit of a stretch to imagine that he literally hired people to kill himself. X-Force is definitely an interesting book. It's really not the normal sort of series I'd be reading but it just kinda finds a way to make itself work. Yeah, Beast is such a dipshit...but it works. (He also describes an orchestra like someone who has no idea how an orchestra actually plays, but hey it still...works?) Percy's take on Jean is also kinda keeping me on the book. She's not as...friendly?...as Jean usually is, but that's actually workable as well because not only do these situations warrant that, it's also 100% preferable to Hickman's bizarro greenhorn Jean. Like yes, Jean would absolutely call people out on patronizing her, and she can and will literally disintegrate a fucker just by thinking about it. She should absolutely have a bit of a temper, even unreasonably. So I do like that these things happen here...but I also wish, because I'm a spoiled X-fan, that I could also see Jean in other situations and books where she's allowed her actual range. But not in a wrong way, because then I'm gonna complain about that too. 
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Jan 30, 2020 01:55
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The Serfina character was in issue one of Hickman's current run, I think. She was some kind of project Orchis was working on? But she teleported away?
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Jan 30, 2020 03:41
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Every month I waver back and forth on how much I buy into the Krakoan propaganda regime. Last issue I was honestly pretty for it, what with its bold new world ideology with the actual means and will to enforce that ideology. It was the first time since the reboot that I thought, okay yeah, this actually does feel like something new, something that hadn't been tried before, instead of just saying so ad nauseum. Go on with your bad selves, Charles/Erik. Your dicks are huge and you're using them to great effect. This issue, though? I'm reminded deeply of Ursula Le Guin's short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." And this week I'm fully behind team Mystique and her very deserved incentive to burn it all down to the loving ground. You go, Raven. Leave none standing. Next issue?...who knows how I'll feel! 
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Feb 13, 2020 06:01
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jng2058 posted:The thing I'm wondering is how likely it is that Chuck hasn't already read her mind, either recently or over the years, and discovered Destiny's warning? Or I'm thinking of someone else.
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Feb 14, 2020 01:53
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I think... I think we're going to start to need some line-wide ironclad rules and settings for what goes and doesn't go in Krakoa or else we're gonna start having Civil War levels of inter-series contradictions soon. Sue accuses Cyclops of caring more about Franklin than Valeria because Val's not a mutant. Now...that's objectively correct on multiple levels. There's some problematic-as-hell racial extremism going down on X-Island and the denizens see it as a feature instead of a bug. So there's a bajillion reasons why completely forward-thinking, non-racist humans would still not want their children exposed to this naked suicide cult. That said though...there...are humans on Krakoa. Humans are allowed to go there. If they made a case for it, there's absolutely no reason why Franklin's family wouldn't be allowed there, even on the long-term, as long as they don't act like discourteous guests. Right? Am I reading this wrong? They're going to be the outliers of course, and they're not going to be catered to by the society at large, but...no one asked you to be there anyway if you don't like it? It's first and foremost a home for mutants made by mutants, so Sue (and Reed, on a different degree) going off about how humans are being reversed-racism'd at just smacks of going into someone else's house and complaining about the contents of the fridge. Do all lives really matter here, Sue? Really? I don't think the Four are in the wrong, really, as much as there's just no high ground for anyone to begin with. I can absolutely see both sides here staring across the moat at the other thinking, really? What the heck are you thinking? In regards to X-Men #7...the writing is just gorgeous. This may be the most impressive issue of the main series yet, in terms of content and execution. Hickman managed to craft a really drat interesting way for them to deal with the...unique problem that they encounter here. It just...it really doesn't alleviate the ongoing impression that this...all this, the whole Krakoa experiment...is this weird monkey's paw of a half-baked idea and the X-Men are just...kinda dupe-ish for just going along with it without much of a fuss. And it's understandable that they've been burned out by all the pain and death that went on in the old days, and here comes Professor X with his shiny dream of mutant paradise...who wouldn't be enticed? Who wouldn't be inclined to ignore the fine print, to not look too deep into what it all means? But it's just...wow, they really just had no idea what they were getting into, did they? They didn't give it a thought at all, what all of this would actually entail. It's very understandable. Drench yourself in that Kool-Aid, 'cuz the alternative's a fair bit worse. But I just don't love the impression of all these X-Men and all these mutants being so...complacent with all this. You guys are all in deep. You're all in some deep shenanigans and this issue, which is all above questioning these shenanigans, just kinda answers it all by going "ay yo these sure are some tough questions and we sure are conflicted by them,, eh? Aiight peace out til next month!"
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Feb 27, 2020 15:43
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Saw a remark on Twitter to the effect of "Sue in this miniseries has been written like she wants to speak to the manager of Krakoa" and I found that fairly apt v Guess you just snuck into someone's house for nothing! But mutants are creeps so it's okay to be creeps at them, right?I'm a little bit more surprised at Reed's reaction to everything tbh. Back in AvX -- which Hickman also wrote, but I don't blame anyone for trying to forget of course -- Reed had the remarkable mindset that he'd been waiting for...not the mutant takeover exactly, but this sociopolitical forward-shift in society for a while now. It was one of the interesting parts of AvX, that he actually didn't like the rotten society they'd lived in and would welcome someone dragging it kicking and screaming to the future. But now he's like, oh no the mutants are selling medicine! Bich!...do you give out your poo poo for free? I think not!  danbanana posted:I think all of the things you point out here are intentional. The nitpick for me here is that acknowledgment only goes so far. I was under the impression, maybe wrongly, that this issue would finally address the weirdness of the mind transferring into cloned bodies and how that doesn't mean you're the person that you were...and it does address it, but only insofar that it has a character go "Yes, this sure is weird right?" and then set it aside to be addressed (or not!) another day. Whenever. Particularly since, like, we'd been waiting a long time to get some insight into the thoughts and opinions of someone on the Council who's not...y'know, Mr. Sinister or Apocalypse or Sebastian Shaw. Someone who's a bona fide X-Man with a bona fide, functional moral compass. And now we get to hear Kurt's thoughts and it's just...well, he sure is conflicted, I guess. And then the end, issue done. I understand that's just how Hickman does things. Drops a buncha highbrow concepts on the table, goes "Have fun with it, bye now," then just has it simmer forever, and sometimes it really works well for his narrative. But it makes his characters feel like...like they literally don't exist when they're not on the page, which obviously they don't 'cuz they're fictional characters, but I'm not sure how else to explain it. but anyway
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Feb 28, 2020 02:20
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One other thing I do like about X-Men #7 is how Apocalypse and Exodus make it clear -- or, at least, they want to give the impression and are in fact giving it very successfully -- that all mutants are honored, valued citizens of Krakoa, not just the powerful ones. All mutations are an important part of the individual and of their culture, no matter how seemingly-insignificant they may be. Now, flying is not an insignificant power exactly, but in this world of reality shapers and mutants who can move the stars, it's not gonna land you on any lists. But the leaders of this island treat it significantly, they respect the loss that Melody experienced, they treat her violation as seriously as any crime committed against any of their more powerful or esteemed omegas. Coming from a culture formed out of oppression, it's important that any wrong done against even the least of them is treated as if it it had been done to them all. That's interesting, and good. It also alleviates a lot of rightful concerns of mutant culture becoming more and more of a meritocracy over time, where the scope of your powers determine your standing in society. ...Though, it still does place the basis of an individual's worth upon whether or not they are a mutant. Apocalypse tells Melody, almost pityingly, that there's nothing wrong in living like a human...a couple minutes after remarking on what a disappointment she is, for no longer being a mutant. It's powerful stuff. It's also another way to say that even the least significant mutant nobody is a thousand times more worthwhile and valuable than a human being. Which...y'know. Yikes and all. galagazombie posted:I never liked the whole "Superheroes don't care about mutants" thing because it's just way to meta. Like of course characters don't show up in other peoples books outside the occasional crossover. You never say Spider-Man doesn't care about Californians because he never shows up to help in West Coast Avengers. And in fact their are tons of crossovers where non-mutant heroes help out the X-Men and vice-versa. Or stories where Captain America or whoever defends a mutant and punches a Sentinel or something. It seems a wholly invented animus. To be fair to how Zdarsky's writing X-Men/FF, the characters in it have been very upfront that the FF have treated mutants well in the past. The current conflict here is not about that at all. Now, the Avengers...there's a different story. I honestly don't mind there being friction between Avengers and X-Men, within reason. Their histories support it at this point, and honestly it's just more...well, interesting if one team is a bit more by-the-books lawful and stodgy if the other is going to be feared and hated and off-the-rails. And then there's the matter of...look, if you're going to build a world that contains the large-scale bigotry against mutants that this one does, then it's going to follow that some superheroes...well, might just be anti-mutant to a macro or micro degree. Not every single person who likes mutants is going to be a good guy and not every single one who dislikes them should be a bad guy (again, within reason). It sucks for the hypothetical hero involved who would be outed as mutantphobic in this hypothetical scenario coughI'mlookingatyouCarolcoughcough, but it would alleviate just how...well, just how wishy-washy that anti-mutant sentiments in the Marvel universe can be.
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Feb 28, 2020 06:29
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Skwirl posted:Yeah, but it does make the continued vilification of Scarlet Witch a little weird.
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Feb 29, 2020 11:54
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Mephisto calls Dani a "part-timer" over in the Jane Foster series 
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Mar 9, 2020 22:52
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The latest X-Men issue is super fun. I'm a little surprised we're delving into War of Kings territory so heavily, but I don't know why I'm surprised because it was a pretty big deal at the time and changed Shi'ar and Kree status quo a lot, not to mention the part Vulcan played. And don't tease me with that mention of Black Bolt, Hickman. I need him and the rest of the Inhumans to show up in this series. I thrill for that confrontation. Rick posted:Wait hold on. In Marauders 8 did we finally see the Iceman teleport (a referenced power in Age of Apocalypse that I don’t think made it on page) for the first time in 616? Or was that via some other means? But I don't think he's actually teleporting away in Marauders #8? He wouldn't be able to take Bishop with him, after all. It looks like they're being beamed away somehow, probably by Emma's ship. It's not too clear.
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Mar 13, 2020 10:26
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I'd be near-certain that Anole isn't old enough to drink, let alone tend bar, but then I remember this is Krakoa so legal drinking age is, like, European at the very least. They probably let ten year olds vape. So at what point does Beast acting like a wild unfettered rear end in a top hat become...a little bit out of character? It feels like that's just all he is nowadays and it's not as if we can blame Percy for following up on precedent, but is there no longer any upper limit on how big an rear end in a top hat Hank McCoy can be before we can be like, "Yikes, that feels less like his characterization and more like a hack job"?
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Mar 19, 2020 10:23
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Nah they're super racist against humans rn. This issue of X-Men/FF has Doom, of all people, laying it on pretty well.
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Mar 28, 2020 03:08
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