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racefortheironthrone · 5 months

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What did you think of X-Men Blue Origins?

(I may turn this into a People's History of the Marvel Universe later today, so keep an eye on this space.)

X-Men Blue: Origins and the Power of the Additive Retcon

(WARNING: heavy spoilers under the cut)

Introduction

If you've been a long-time X-Men reader, or you're a listener of Jay & Miles or Cerebrocast or any number of other LGBT+ X-Men podcasts, you probably know the story about how Chris Claremont wrote Mystique and Destiny as a lesbian couple, but had to use obscure verbiage and subtextual coding to get past Jim Shooter's blanket ban on LGBT+ characters in the Marvel Universe.

Likewise, you're probably also familiar with the story that, when Chris Claremont came up with the idea that Raven Darkholme and Kurt Wagner were related (a plot point set up all the way back in Uncanny X-Men #142), he intended that Mystique was Nightcrawler's father, having used her shapeshifting powers to take on a male body and impregnate (her one true love) Irene. This would have moved far beyond subtext - but it proved to be a bridge too far for Marvel editorial, and Claremont was never able to get it past S&P.

This lacuna in the backstories of Kurt and Raven - who was Kurt's father? - would remain one of the enduring mysteries of the X-Men mythos...and if there's one thing that comic writers like, it's filling in these gaps with a retcon.

Enter the Draco

Before I get into the most infamous story in all of X-Men history, I want to talk about retcons a bit. As I've written before:

"As long as there have been comic books, there have been retcons. For all that they have acquired a bad reputation, retcons can be an incredibly useful tool in comics writing and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Done right, retcons can add an enormous amount of depth and breadth to a character, making their worlds far richer than they were before. Instead, I would argue that retcons should be judged on the basis of whether they’re additive (bringing something new to the character by showing us a previously unknown aspect of their lives we never knew existed before) or subtractive (taking away something from the character that had previously been an important part of their identity), and how well those changes suit the character."

For a good example of an additive retcon, I would point to Chris Claremont re-writing Magneto's entire personality by revealing that he was a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. As I have argued at some length, this transformed Magneto from a Doctor Doom knockoff into a complex and sympathetic character who could now work as a villain, anti-villain, anti-hero, or hero depending on the needs of the story.

For a good example of a subtractive retcon, I would point to...the Draco. If you're not familiar with this story, the TLDR is that it was revealed that Kurt's father was Azazel - an evil ancient mutant with the same powers and the same appearance (albeit color-shifted) as Kurt, who claims to be the devil and is part of a tribe of demonic-looking mutants who were banished to the Brimstone Dimension, and who fathered Nightcrawler as part of a plot to end this banishment.

I don't want to belabor Chuck Austen, because I think that Connor Goldsmith is right about his run actually being a camp cult classic in retrospect. However, I think we both agree that the Draco was a misfire, because of how the retcon undermined Kurt's entire thematic purpose as established in Giant-Size X-Men that Nightcrawler was actually a noble and arguably saintly man who suffered from unjust prejudice due to the random accident that his mutation made him appear to be a demon, and because of how the retcon undermined the centrality of Mystique and Destiny's relationship.

X-Men Blue Origins

This brings us to the Krakoan era. In HOXPOX and X-Men and Inferno, Jonathan Hickman had made Mystique and Destiny a crucial part of the story in a way that they hadn't been in decades: they were the great nemeses of Moira X, they were the force that threatened to burn Krakoa to the ground by revealing the devil's bargain that Xavier had struck with Sinister (and Moira), they were the lens through which the potential futures of Krakoa were explored, and they ultimately reshaped the Quiet Council and the Five in incredibly consequential ways.

This throughline was furthered after Hickman's departure, with Kieron Gillen exploring the backstories of Mystique and Destiny in Immortal X-Men and Sins of Sinister, and both Gillen and Si Spurrier exploring their relationship with Nightcrawler in AXE Judgement Day, Sins of Sinister, Way of X, Legion of X, Nightcrawlers, and Sons of X. One of the threads that wove through the interconnected fabric of these books was an increasing closeness between Kurt and Irene that needed an explanation. Many long-time readers began to anticipate that a retcon about Kurt's parentage was coming - and then we got X-Men Blue: Origins.

In this one issue, Si Spurrier had the difficult assignment of figuring out a way to "fix" the Draco and restore Claremont's intended backstory in a way that was surgical and elegant, that served the character arcs of Kurt, Raven, and Irene, and that dealt with complicated issues of trans and nonbinary representation, lesbian representation, disability representation, and the protean nature of the mutant metaphor. Thanks to help from Charlie Jane Anders and Steve Foxe, I think Spurrier succeeded tremendously.

I don't want to go through the issue beat-by-beat, because you should all read it, but the major retcon is that Mystique turns out to be a near-Omega level shapeshifter, who can rewrite themselves on a molecular level. Raven transformed into a male body and impregnated Irene, using bits of Azazel and many other men's DNA as her "pigments." In addition to being a deeply felt desire on both their parts to have a family together, this was part of Irene's plan to save them both (and the entire world) from Azazel's schemes, a plan that required them to abandon Kurt as a scapegoat-savior (a la Robert Graves' King Jesus), and to have Xavier wipe both their memories.

Now, I'm not the right person to write about what this story means on a representational level; I'll leave it to my LGBT+ colleagues on the Cerebrocast discord and elsewhere to discuss the personal resonances the story had for them.

What I will say, however, is that I thought this issue threaded the needle of all of these competing imperatives very deftly. It "fixed" the Draco without completely negating it, it really deepened and complicated the characters and relationships of both Raven and Irene (by showing that, in a lot of ways, Destiny is the more ruthless and manipulative of the two), and it honored Kurt's core identity as a man of hope and compassion (even if it did put him in a rather thankless ingénue role for much of the book).

It is the very acme of an additive retcon; nothing was lost, everything was gained.

I still think the baby Nightcrawler is just a bad bit, but then again I don't really vibe with Spurrier's comedic stylings.

#xmen #xmen meta #raven darkholme #kurt wagner #irene adler #xmen blue #nightcrawler #mystique #destiny #chris claremont #si spurrier #krakoa #retcons #xmen spoilers #hoxpox

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dispatchdcu · 2 months

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X-Men #32 Preview

X-Men #32 Preview #MARVEL #marvelcomics #comics #comicbooks #news #mcu #art #info #NCBD #comicbooknews #previews #reviews #xmen #hoxpox #houseofx #powersofx #wolverine #reignofx #trialsofx #fallofthehouseofx #riseofthepowersofx

X-Men #32 Preview: BESTIES WITH BLOODY BLADES! Kate Pryde and Illyana Rasputin have been best friends for a long time. They’ve had good times, and they’ve had bad times. One thing they can always agree on? Stomping anti-mutant bigots’ heads. GERRY DUGGAN • PHIL NOTO (A) • Cover by JOSHUA CASSARA HEADSHOT VARIANT COVER BY MARK BROOKS HEADSHOT SKETCH VIRGIN VARIANT BY MARK BROOKS TRADING CARD…

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#comic books #comics #Destiny of X #Fall of the House of X #house of x #marvel comic books #marvel comic previews #Marvel Previews #powers of x #Previews #reign of x #Rise of the Powers of X #trials of x #x-men #X-Men 32 #X-Men 32 Preview

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dukesupforcyclops · 5 years

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If your legal system at any point involves a pit, I am not on board.

#x men #hox #hoxpox #house of x #jonathan hickman #taking a firm anti-pit stand here

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scarlet--wiccan · 3 years

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"Don't be such a Wanda. [...] Worrying's totally sapiens." CRIIIIIIINGE

Oh, yeah, that’s the other thing-- fake slang, and especially fake teen slang, is hard to pull off. What Spurrier is doing here is arbitrarily pasting out-of-place words onto existing vernacular functions. It’s cheap, and it feels fake because language is meant to evolve organically. This is more of a writing rule than it is a language law, but invented vernacular should serve a need that cannot be fulfilled by existing language. Mutants, in the X-Men sense, are a fictional population with a fictionalized history of oppression, so when we write dialogue for an anti-mutant bigot, we have to fabricate certain terminology-- “mutie,” as a pejorative, serves a purpose. If DJ wants to say something is cool, he can just say it’s cool, he doesn’t need to say that it’s “krak.”

It also reads awkwardly because they’re proper nouns-- Wanda, Krakoa, homo sapiens. We don’t really do that in contemporary English, and when we do, it’s not usually in reference to specific individual.

I will say that if Spurrier is trying to examine rapidly-emerging Krakoan culture, and specifically give us a portrait of fully inculcated Krakoan youth, DJ is a pretty smart character to use as-- forgive me-- a sounding board. He was depowered on M-Day, died in the infamous bus explosion, and stayed dead until the resurrection protocols were established. For him, M-Day is a recent memory, and he’s been reborn into fully-formed Krakoan society. This is a character who would be in really deep, and it’s obviously meant to be unsettling-- Kurt is weirded out by the whole thing, too. He’s concerned about the ways in which resurrection is changing people’s behavior and outlook, and he’s clearly wigged out by the obvious flaws in the psychic process. He doesn’t seem to be a fan of the Crucible, either. Apologies to Arthur Miller, I guess.

So, I could argue that the dialogue and characterization are uncomfortable on purpose, but we’ve been dealing with “uncomfortable on purpose” since HoXPoX and we’re still not any closer to understanding what that purpose is. I appreciate a long-term plot, but I’m a little tired of this weird sense of unease.

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brw · 3 years

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Hey random question but like if you had the chance would you scrap krakoa as an idea as a whole or try to make it work?

Hi anon! Despite how many "anti" posts I make about Krakoa I do in fact like it a lot; character's do feel very OOC, but it's something new and inspired and definitely feels like the most unique thing X-Men comics have had in about... oh, a decade or so? Like, I do get tired with all the "oh no, someone mass genocided us >:(" plotlines there are, or timeline fuckery, etc etc. Krakoa is a break from that and puts a new spin on things and allows us to see old characters brought back from Limbo, or reimagined into something completely knew. From a storyline perspective Krakoa is the best thing mutants have had in ages!

But, still, Krakoa does feel very like? textually... not good?? Like they literally murder children so they can "prove" themselves worthy of the mutation that was unjustly taken from them (even though that was SUPPOSED to be restored in AxV and again in Uncanny Avengers but I digress), they allowed a literal n*zi eugenicist and another fascist eugenicist to be on their government, and allowed the n*zi to make his own team, there's those n*zi incest twins that are just... allowed to fuck around, there's multiple r*pists & p*dophiles like Mastermind who are allowed because under Krakoa all previous laws have been forgiven, they banned pregonatives because they would ask too many questions, Exodus is reciting cult speak to a bunch of kids, and I mean, Hank McCoy literally commited genocide on Terra Verde.

Krakoa is interesting but it also very obviously is not a force for good in all this. Which, I have nothing against! I find the story Hickman is building very interesting and I look forward to see where it goes next. I just find it odd how people act as though this is supposed to be "empowering" or whatever. Like, they literally went to a "barren, dead, uninhabited" etc etc etc world and changed it so people can live there, and idk about you but I am of the opinion that just because nobody is living somewhere, that does not automatically make it free real estate, you know?

Anyway. Personally if I had a say, I would want all the data pages from HoxPox & in the more recent comics to link up more, and I would want to see more of those future mutants, and definitely more of the upcoming X-Men vs A.I. stuff we saw in HoxPox and again in X-Men #20. I am biased in this though, because I am hopeful this may end up including some of the Avengers A.I. crew, and maybe we'll get something from Hank Pym, who as we know has a lot to do with A.I., especially since he got merged with his. But, generally, I'm having fun with Krakoa thus far, it's just the unexplained changes in characters & fandom reaction that I get annoyed by lol

#thank you so much for asking anon!#asks #anonymous #krakoa #hixmen #hoxpox #dawn of x

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davidmann95 · 3 years

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What are some contenders for the definitive superhero comic book of the Trump era, now that it draws to a close? Not necessarily just the 'best' of the last four years, but the work that best articulates or speaks to the mood of this bizarre, terrible time in America?

I feel like #1 has to be Batman: Last Knight on Earth, which is nothing if not a primal scream of horror and rage at the election of Trump where the inciting incident of the end of the world is that humanity was faced with an ungarnished, unashamed choice between whether or not to fully embrace evil, and chose of their own free will to do so (which doesn’t exactly line up with a reality where Trump lost the popular vote, but it certainly captures the feeling of that moment).

Some other notable entries, however:

Midnighter and Apollo: A gay man is unjustly consigned to hell, and he and his boyfriend have to fight their way out against a monster of unlimited power who believes he is beyond consequence.

HoXPoX: “We...we lose?” “No. It’s much worse than that. We always lose.”

Wonder Twins: Teenagers dealing with how the generations before them have fucked the world to death on every conceivable level.

Lois Lane: Enemy of the People and Doomsday Clock: Unwittingly perfect representations of milquetoast liberal and centrist responses to Trump, respectively.

Klaus and the Crisis in XMasville: Set in the 80s, but a story of capitalism coopting everything we love into monstrosity and crushing the world down into a black hole beyond our capacity to imagine escaping from.

Superman Smashes The Klan: A story among other things about ‘who can you trust, and how much?’ and what kind of country we collectively want.

DC Nuclear Winter Special: A set of stories where everything’s gone to hell and we just have to ride it out together with some kindness and dignity.

The Immortal Hulk: Obviously, but particularly the Hulk vs. Capitalism chunk.

Far Sector: The pitfalls of policing and the ways those in power ignore and suppress the will of the people who elevate them across generations.

Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child: Okay if you didn’t read this this must seem unhinged, but this is a comic where Joker goons storm and attack an anti-Trump rally and the media presents the Jokers’ victims as the villains of the day, and the last page is Darkseid about to be torn apart by antifa protestors led by Carrie Kelly. It actually rules? Miles from going “Frank the Tank is officially absolved and definitely cool now”, but between this and bits of Superman: Year One he does seem to have in some part realized “oh shit the kids were right” and this is the best thing he’s done since DK2.

Legion of Superheroes: A book that factoring in the Millennium prologue is about the cycle of ways we try and improve ourselves, fall back into our worst, and try to break the cycle.

Commanders in Crisis #1: Can’t say it for the series as a whole (yet) since all but that first issue come out after the election, but #1′s big reveals amount to “Final Crisis was wrong, Mandraak won, Super-President didn’t save the day and the backlash wiped away all we gained and so much more besides and we only have further to fall, but by god we have to keep fighting for what we have left”.

For me however, the definitive comic of the Trump era will always be All-Star Batman #4, released the day after the 2016 election. As a blinded Batman is trying to transport Two-Face cross-country for the latest attempt at a cure for his condition (guided by Signal), Harvey intends to have released all the blackmail information he has on people across the country if this happens but publicly promises not only not to do so if Batman is stopped but to wire half a billion to anyone who does so. Bruce believes that people are better than that, and as gunfire suddenly explodes on all sides through the walls of the room our three main characters are in, these are the concluding two pages of the comic I read the day after Trump was elected:

#Donald Trump #DC Comics #Marvel #Image Comics #Boom! Studios #Opinion

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weirdsciencecomics · 3 years

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Hellions #9 Review

Hellions #9 Review #MARVEL #marvelcomics #comics #comicbooks #news #mcu #art #info #NCBD #comicbooknews #previews #reviews #xmen #hoxpox #houseofx #powersofx #dawnofx #marauders #hellions #wolverine #xforce #newmutants #xofswords #amazon

Writer: Zeb Wells Art: Stephen Segovia, David Curiel, VC’s Ariana Maher, Tom Muller, and Romulo Fajardo Jr. Publisher: MARVEL COMICS Price: $3.99 Release Date: February 3rd, 2021 The HELLIONS have returned after a prosperous mission to regain Orphan-Makers armor from Cameron Hodge. Now, as the HELLIONS helped lead a robot revolution against Hodge deterring these anti-mutant robots away from their…

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fiercestpurpose · 4 years

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Was there any kind of prelude to hoxpox? What was the previous xmen title?

Honestly? No.

The previous X-Men title was Uncanny X-Men vol 5. The previous story arc was specifically in issues #11-22 by Matthew Rosenberg. In hindsight, it set up some things for Hickman, but not in the sense of providing any real context for where the story would go.

If you choose to read that, warnings for suicide, transphobia (anti-mutant violence that is clearly a metaphor for transphobic violence), and a generally violent and excessively grim story.

Also running at that time was the event Age of X-Man, the main title of which was Marvelous X-Men. It was not, overall, a great event, and it doesn’t seem to have had a lasting impact on the X-Men mythos. It also doesn’t provide any context for HoXPox, except in making it very clear that nobody in the X-office understands the mutant metaphor.

#Anonymous #asks #x men

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zenosanalytic · 4 years

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HoXPoX #1-3: The Sun: Illuminating Menace

It’s yet another installment of me obsessing unnecessarily about the imagery in the first few books in the new House of X/Powers of X series, this time: Colors! The Sun! T H E S U N!!

The Sun

The Sun and its colors often seeming to represent safety and power, and unsurprisingly it plays into other thematic elements, notably cycles.

HoX1 follows the course of the sun; both through a year, and through a day. Before the story proper we see a montage of the XMen planting strange purple flowers in specific places; on earth, earth again, the Moon, and on Mars. These images are broken up 4 panels to a page across 2 pages. On the first page panel 1 start with lush greenery, followed by color-changing leaves in panel 2, then bare white ground and nighttish skies in panel 3, and ending with red skies over bare ground with a lush green foreground in panel 4. Summer(Green), Autumn(Gold&Brown), Winter(White), and Spring(bare earth plus greenery).

The same pattern of vegetation and earth repeats on the second page(lushness, autumnal colors, bare earth, bare earth&new growth), continuing the seasonal symbolism, but adds to it the sun’s position: if the first panel it is off-panel to the left casting long shadows in a lushly forested environment(The Savage Land); the 2nd setting or rising behind a thin cloud over the Potomac in DC, bathing the scene in reds and oranges and purples(very vaporwave. I will show you),

the 3rd unseen off-panel, it may be over the shoulder or a night scene with an artificial light, while flowers being planted right-of-center in the bare earth by two pairs of purple-gloved hands are spotlit; the 4th rising on the left again, mostly blocked by a barren cityscape, as vines grow up the side of a nondescript office-building. This 4th panel then opens, on the next page set two weeks later, into one of the plotlines of the book; a collection of ambassadors meeting Magneto to discuss Krakoa(the new island-mutant nation) at the Krakoa embassy in Jerusalem.

This plot takes place over the course of a day: it begins with the sun at the same position, rising on the left, continues through a lush marshland scene to a sun-colored orange or gold Krakoa transit-hub, and ends with it setting behind Magneto, framing his message of a new mutant dawn(and non-mutant dusk). In the middle we cut to another plotline, Jean escorting a group of Xavier’s students to Krakoa, with the sun high in the sky and middle-panel.

Its Power

The colors of the Noon-Sun -gold, yellow, orange, and yellow-white- crop-up in scenes of power and safety: the chrysalis-pods of the first two pages and their womb/birth imagery, the pupils of Krakoa’s central interface, the clothing the XMen wear, Lighting-eggs Krakoa provides, and far-flung Krakoan habitats. Jean Grey is consistently backgrounded with orange while on Krakoa, and Scott Summers by yellow when in Chicago(I THINK it’s Chicago judging by the architecture and city-layout, at least) negotiating with the Fantastic Four. In the dusk denouement of the embassy scene, when one of the Stepford Cuckoos(acting as Magneto’s diplomatic staff) reveals they have been reading the minds of the ambassadors, the background is a shining, golden yellow, as it remains when Magneto disarms a hostile, armed agent within the ambassadorial party, despite the dusky sun overlooking these scenes, revealed on the final pages.

In PoX 1, pale yellow-gold light bathes the Krakoa sanctuary as Mystique and Toad arrive back on the island from a secondary portal. The doorframe of and furniture-accents within Magneto’s home are in gold. Golden light cuts in from its windows, gilding the ground floor. Xavier, their leader and figure of authority, stands framed by a yellow-gold screen, drawn from below so that he towers within his frames. All but one of the mutants within the Year 100 section(The Cardinal) are dressed in yellows and, as the human-purists arrive on the scene of Cylobel’s capture, they are wreathed in a golden mist. The same mist backgrounds a frame of her telepathically warning Rasputin off from attempting a rescue, and a same-colored light shines reflected from Rasputin’s face as she determines to make the attempt anyway. Her explosive decimation of the lead sentinel is a wreath of fiery reds and golds, with a splash of deathly purple. The pattern repeats; with gold-yellows coloring laser-blasts, intimations of danger, and feats of enormous, violent strength. The imprisoning sphere in which Cylobel is ultimately carried away is a gold one, as the scenes of Rasputin rushing to save her, cutting down purists left-and-right, are filled with the gold-yellow mist. Finally, Nimrod the Lesser’s throne is accented in gold. In the Year 1000 line, the human-preserve sphere is yellow-gold.

In HoX 2, soft gold-yellow light bathes Moira’s sick-room at 13, when her powers first manifested. The next frame, her revitalized and healthy in youth, shows her running through a softer white light, happy, pursued by a faded adult figure dressed in a pale yellow-gold top. The final frame of the next page, the frame labeling her “ ...something new...” and a mutant, has a beige(light-brown gold?) background, and a yellow triangle-block shares the frame with toddler-Moira’s face of stoic disinterest and/or despair. In her eight life, Magneto’s throne is flanked by golden flame, and topped by a giant, golden squid. In the life where she allies with Apocalypse, they are surrounded in Red-Gold light and flame.

As should be apparent from the above, it does NOT only represent power and safety for mutants. Recall the Jean Grey subplot cutting the embassy story in half: that ends in a grove with Jean and Xavier looking on as Wolverine plays with three children in the grass. Behind Jean is the Orange of the sun as stated above(and possibly the Phoenix Force? Given that the Phoenix-Force manifests AS solar power&imagery it’s a connection impossible to avoid regardless of intent), and behind Xavier a beautiful, pale purple vista of the sun, midday and midpanel(though in the colors of dusk; foreshadowing perhaps?), filtering through the dense trees. This is a moment of happiness, love, and safety for the gathered mutants. But it cuts, in the page directly after, directly TO the sun, a jump-cut from close-up on a face to close-up or establishing shot of a ship, as a group of anti-mutant humans gathered from Marvel’s host of secret organizations approaches a space station in orbit near our star. The station is a Mother Mold: a self-directing, self-correcting, learning sentinel-factory. A knife at the throat of every mutant alive, yes, but also a final stronghold --a place of safety and power-- for these anti-mutant, human-purity fanatics and their AI allies. So the Sun comes to represent safety and power both for the heroes of this story AND for their enemies; again, the symbolism of HoX PoX is breaking down simplistic oppositional binaries.

Moving into the other books, we see Moira repeatedly associated with the color gold. In the fair ministory where PoX 1 opens and HoX 2 ends she is wearing large, gold, circular earrings(obvsl recalling the sun itself). In the final scene of this ministory, a series of exchanged closeups btw Moira and Xavier, gold/yellow is color behind Moira’s head as she speak with, and offers, the knowledge of her repeating life. Her lips in these panels are painted in a reflective bronze; not a direct reference to the sun to be sure, but a reflection of its light.

This could just be another connecting of the sun and its colors to power -what Moira is saying is an artifact of her mutant ability afterall- but, in that she’s sharing knowledge, it could also suggest that the Sun and Gold/Yellow can represent knowledge, as well. If that were the case, it would be another classical reference, with Apollo being both a Knowledge-God AND a Sun-God. And there’s some other evidence supporting that reading.

Its Light

In HoX 1, when we see Krakoa’s IT-information team, Cypher and Sage, in Krakoa’s “interface room”, they are dressed in yellow, Krakoa’s interface is a wall of yellow-god eyes, and a pale yellow-gold light source sits in the corner. When Scott confronts the F4 in the same book his comments, all referencing “knowing” in some capacity(“What would life be without little surprises?”, “you’re a smart man, Richards... I know you know...”, “It’s upsetting, I know, but new beginnings demand a wide berth”), are all backed in yellow-gold, as is Reed’s final response to him(“then I think I have a problem with that”), and Sue’s later comment after the potential conflict is resolved(“...what are all of you thinking?”).

In HoX 2, 4th-Wall Moira wears her sun-earrings and, in the first panel where we see her speaking directly to the audience about her abilities, a golden cloud halos her head. A soft, gold-yellow light infuses all the scenes of her at Oxford. The mask of Destiny, Mystique’s partner and lover, is gold, and her power is precognition.

In PoX 1 the usb Mystique gives to Xavier is accented in gold and the screen behind Xavier is that of a computer; an information-device of some kind. As Xavier places the usb in it, golden light bathes him from below, from the machine(though Xavier’s dialogue her is abt “making a better world” and what mutants “owe” to it; a stereotypical power dialogue). As Nimrod the Lesser and his court obliquely(and comically) discuss placing Cylobel in the mutant archive, their dialogue is framed in gold.

Ok so, those are my arguments. I could probably add to it but this is already YUUGE, so I figure I’ll stop here. There’s also some interesting stuff going on with other colors, notably purple, I’d like to get into later, but we’ll see as I move on with the series(which I havent had time to yet what with Wintereenmas and everything X|) If you read this, I hope you liked it ^u^

#HoXPoX #X Men #Hickman et al #The Sun #Sun Symbolism #analytic posts

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Marvel X-Men Trailer Reveals Next Evolution

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Marvel's X-Men trailer reveals what's next for everyone's favorite mutants.

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With House of X and Powers of X steaming towards their close (or vamping towards the close, if you're Mister Sinister), Marvel is starting to ramp up its promotion of the post-relaunch event X-Men line of comics. They've relased a teaser trailer for the "Dawn of X" lineup of books- X-Men, Marauders, Excalibur, New Mutants, X-Force, and Fallen Angels - that is mostly covers but has a handful of preview images. If you're anything like me (which, let's face it, you absolutely are), you are freeze framing the video to try and suss out clues about the end of HoXPoX from the preview art. Because I value your time, I went ahead and did that for you.

The first book featured is the flagship X-title, X-Men, from Jonathan Hickman and Leinil Francis Yu (most recently the penciler of Ta-Nehisi Coates' very good Captain America relaunch). The preview art consists of the Summers family reunion cover, with Corsair, Vulcan, Havok, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Wolverine, aka the rumored 43rd Summers Brother from the gossip page of Powers of X #4. Hickman has said in interviews that this series is going to be one-and-done stories with a rotating team of X-people, but it is interesting to note the Orchis logos on the arms of the people being zapped by Storm. Orchis is the interagency anti-mutant strike force that killed Cyclops, Jean and Logan (among others) on their Dyson Mastermold next to the sun in House of X #4.

The next book is Marauders, by Matteo Lolli (Asgardians of the Galaxy) and Gerry Duggan (Infinity Wars). This book has a team of mutants - Kitty Pryde, Pyro, Bishop, Iceman, Storm - doing some light piracy on behalf of Emma Frost's Hellfire Trading Company. There's nothing revealing in the art here, but it does look pretty nice.

Following that is Excalibur. Tini Howard (Thanos) and Marcus To (Age of X-Man: NextGen) have Betsy Braddock taking over as Captain Britain, and her team (Rogue, Gambit, Rictor, Jubilee and Apocalypse) gather together to explore Otherworld. We see a woman who certainly looks villainous, if what my superhero color wheel tells me green means is accurate, swirling a crystal ball. Could it be Morgan le Fay? Roma? Saturnyne? Does it matter, after what's being done to Apocalypse in HoXPoX? Because it doesn't to me, I'm buying.

Next up is New Mutants, from Hickman, Ed Brisson (Extermination) and Rod Reis (Exiles). The New Mutants will be heading off into space for a mission (to hang out with Cannonball, I bet), and the solicits said they'd be meeting up with the Starjammers. What the solicits didn't tell us that this preview art does is that Illyana and Raza have a swordfight and it's DOPE. Also, Mondo is in the book, and considering his power set (organic matter absorption and like, dirt teleportation) and background (he's a former henchperson and plant golem spy for Black Tom Cassidy, who is now in charge of Krakoan defense, according to Powers of X #4) it's not particularly surprising that he's around.

read more: How Marvel is Redefining the Future of the X-Men

After that is Szymon Kudranski (The Punisher) and Bryan Edward Hill (American Carnage) on Fallen Angels. The title is a throwback to an '80s miniseries that was primarily about lobsters. This one has a resurrected and re-bodied Kwannon teaming up with young Cable and X-23, and if I'm seeing this preview art correctly, Magneto riding Fantomex's external nervous system/flying saucer, EVA.

Finally, we get a look at Ben Percy (Wolverine: The Long Night) and Joshua Cassara (Falcon) on X-Force. This book is going to be about the mutant intelligence service, a Krakoan CIA, with one side working on gathering and interpreting data - Beast, Jean Grey, Sage, and Black Tom - and one side acting on their intelligence - Wolverine, Kid Omega, and Domino. The preview art here has Wolverine and Beast being attacked by 30-50 mutant hogs.

Go on below and see the video for yourself. And for more on what's next for the X-Men at Marvel, stick with Den of Geek!

Video of DAWN OF X Official Trailer | Marvel Comics

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News Jim Dandy

Sep 16, 2019

Marvel

X-Men

X-Force

Jonathan Hickman

from Books https://ift.tt/301za1I

#aion-rsa #Books

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racefortheironthrone · 1 month

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This is becoming a big debate on Twitter, but—have the actual comics established decisively whether Magneto is Zionist or anti-Zionist?

I'm not on Twitter any more, so I missed this debate, but...I would say that it's complicated.

As established in X-Men #161, Magneto did make aliyah in the 1950s and worked with fellow Holocaust survivors in a mental hospital in Haifa. However, it's pretty clear that at this early point he'd already begun shifting his identity and politics to mutant nationalism, so his commitment to Israel seems to have been somewhat shortlived.

By the end of the issue, he kills a bunch of Nazis, liberates their gold to finance his revolution, and then leaves Israel to make the world safe for mutants under his benevolent dictatorship that will impose universal military disarmament and world peace under threat of volcano machine. That's a pretty big departure in terms of political ideology.

Magneto's revolutionary campaign repeatedly took the form of efforts to create a mutant nation-state on Genosha or Asteroid M/Avalon or Utopia or New Tian, and then most recently on Krakoa. These different nation-building efforts all have various real-world allusions - for example, Genosha is a very clear allegory for apartheid and then post-apartheid South Africa, whereas Utopia was inspired by the Native American occupation of Alcatraz in 1969-1971 - but I would generally describe them as post-colonial independence struggles for national self-determination.

As he worked it out over the decades, Magneto's political philosophy clearly has its roots in Jewish nationalism of the 1950s - Chris Claremont has been quite clear that he had Menachim Begin in mind when he began writing Magneto in the 1980s - but has clearly evolved beyond that perspective. In HOXPOX and Dawn of X, Hickman has Magneto get quite self-righteous that mutants have never fought a war of conquest and that Krakoa is unique among nation-states in that it was founded with the free and informed consent of the living island (which was also the indigenous population) itself.

So yeah, I think the guy who makes this speech would not exactly fit neatly into contemporary Israel/Palestine politics:

#xmen #xmen meta #magneto #max eisenhardt

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racefortheironthrone · 5 months

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Why aren’t there seemingly any Krakoa era-esque stories based in Wakanda, where the creator goes deep on the world-building for the nation and it’s relationship with the wider Marvel universe? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like most Black Panther books are basically always just “who is T’Challa if he isn’t King” or “why T’Challa is the worst” type stories. They’re boring and uninspired, give me my nerdy shit Marvel!!!

I think you've missed some key issues, because there's definitely been some that cover world-building about Wakanda's relationship with Krakoa.

From the beginning of HOXPOX, Hickman established that Wakanda had a unique relationship with Krakoa - while most human nations signed trade deals with the mutant nation-state, some did not due to ideological or geostrategic opposition. Alone in the world, Wakanda (and its protectorates in east Africa) didn't sign a trade deal with Krakoa because it was so technologically advanced that it simply didn't need anything Krakoa was selling.

This was a source of consternation for the Krakoan government, so they went to some lengths to try to bring Wakanda into their diplomatic-economic orbit - as we see in X-Men #4. These efforts were politely rejected, as the Wakandans preferred a more arms-length relationship in which Krakoan-Wakandan relations would be managed through bilateral monarchical negotiations between T'challa and Ororo Monroe, leveraging their personal connections to promote a friendly policy of non-interference.

This status quo broke down during the Arraki-Amenthi invasion of Otherworld, which threatened the very existence of Krakoa and indeed the survival of the whole world. As part of Saturnyne's scheme to foil the invasion through a tournament of sword-bearers, Storm was tasked with retrieving the Wakandan blade Skybreaker. This vibranium weapon was uniquely suited to Storm's powers, amplifying her omega weather control powers even further, but it was also sacred to Wakanda as it was also the weapon forged by the founder of their nation and the Black Panther cult.

Thus, when Ororo traveled to Wakanda to ask for the sword in Marauders #13, T'challa did not want to give it to her - but rather than refuse her outright, he attempted to stall negotiations and avoid the confrontation. With a literal deadline for Krakoa, Otherworld, and Earth itself breathing down her neck, Storm was unwilling to wait and broke into the royal vaults to steal Skybreaker. While T'challa ultimately let Ororo leave with the weapon, trust between the two of them and their respective nations was broken - and Wakanda cut ties with Krakoa, although it never declared formal enmity with the mutant nation.

At the same time, neither country could totally isolate themselves from the other - especially after Krakoa terraformed Mars at the first Hellfire Gala and turned it into a new homeland for Arrako and her people. Through the joint efforts of S.W.O.R.D and Storm, Arrako would become the diplomatic nexus for intergalatic politics and Krakoa the new foundation of intergalactic monetary policy - something that had enormous ramifications for the Intergalatic Empire of Wakanda.

This ushered in something of a cold war between the two nations, who had to maintain formal diplomatic and economic channels, but who secretly engaged in espionage against the other in order to gain intelligence as to what their counterparts were up to, since they no longer trusted the other to give them an honest answer directly. This caused a great deal of tension for Wakandan citizens who were mutants, as they became the obvious candidates to spy on Krakoa and Arrako for Wakanda.

As depicted in Black Panther #3 and X-Men Red #4, the former X-Man Nezhno Abidemi, aka Gentle, was recruited by T'challa to be one of his sleeper agents. Using the very real anti-mutant prejudice Abidemi experienced growing up in Wakanda as cover, Gentle spied on Ororo Monroe in her capacity as the new Regent of Arrako and Voice of Sol on behalf of the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda.

Because Storm isn't an idiot, she quickly uncovered Gentle as an agent, but left him in place as a backchannel between their two countries, although the deception further strained the personal ties between her and T'challa. As both of them are professionals, this didn't stop Arrako and Wakanda collaborating diplomatically to forestall a Shi'ar civil war.

When Krakoa fell, ORCHIS attempted to take advantage of the situation and Wakanda's presumed anti-mutant sympathies. In Wolverine #39, we see that the ORCHIS operative Jun Wei was dispatched to Wakanda to work out a Vibranium-for-Sentinels agreement. When Prime Minister Folasade rejected the offer, Jun Wei turned to the criminal gangs of Birnin T'chaka to get ORCHIS' hands on rare earth metals - only to be foiled by the joint efforts of Logan and T'challa.

#xmen #xmen meta #marvel #marvel meta #krakoa #wakanda #black panther #storm #t'challa #ororo monroe #gentle #nezhno abidemi

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racefortheironthrone · 6 months

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what do you think of the x-men (and iron man) villain, anti mutant Orchis leader Feilong? What sets him apart, if anything, from previous evil anti mutant leaders and is he a well done character?

Because Hickman introduced the concept of amnesty for mutant villains in HOXPOX, one of the defining features of the Krakoan Era has been the introduction of a host of new villains, some of which inevitably have worked better than others: ORCHIS as an organization is a timely exploration of the different strands of the contemporary alt-right (even if some of the many villains within it are more fleshed out than others), Moira.exe is the best additive retcon since Claremont remade Magneto, the Sinister Four are a fascinating extension of Gillen's work on "Sinister as a system," Nimrod the Lesser and Omega Sentinel and the whole concept of Dominions are probably Hickman's best iteration on his obsession with singularities, Genesis and the original Horsemen are a great recontextualization of Apocalypse's social Darwinism, etc.

On the other hand, there's some that are less memorable: some of the ORCHIS villains are pretty one-dimensional (I challenge anyone to tell me Doctor Devo's motivations without googling first), XENO is pretty generic (and overlaps a lot with Morrison's U-Men), the Flower Cartel are even worse, the Russians aren't particularly interesting outside of the Chronicler and Rasputin family shenanigans, and so on.

Feilong brings something interesting to the table, because he's both ORCHIS and transcends ORCHIS, and because he has a really interesting motivation: envy.

Feilong's whole deal - from his alliance with ORCHIS to his Silicon Valley transhumanism, to his Elon Musk-esque obsession with colonizing Mars, to his obsession with Tony Stark - is that he is envious of everyone around him, but especially mutants. No matter how much of an educational prodigy he is, no matter how much money he makes, no matter how much he transforms his body, at the end of the day he can't change the fact that his parents were born mutants and he was born a flatscan.

And that's a fascinating motivation for an anti-mutant villain.

#marvel #marvel meta #iron man #xmen #xmen meta #krakoa #feilong #ORCHIS

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