X-Men In General

The constant mentions of Dominion as early as Rise of the Powers of X, Dominions losing to the Phoenix Force from the future that the current Omega Sentinel came from (w/c Hickman wrote), as well as Hickman's comments around Sinister being 1 of his top 5 favorite Mutants despite not being a Mutant and when told otherwise he said "Watch me work", hints that Essex's Race to Dominionhood has always been the endgame of the Krakoa age even during his tenure.

And from a thematic perspective, Enigma's a fitting final boss. It's an amalgamation of all the worst aspects of baseline humans, mutants, and artificial intelligence.

So you've said before, and as I've said before, agree to disagree.

And yeah, I'm totally aware of that. That doesn't improve my opinion of it all much. At best, I think Hickman would've handled the ideas with a little more skill and grace if he stuck around, but I still think he was setting the Krakoa Era up to fail with the decision to do the Moira X retcon and Enigma/Dominion as the main villain. While Hickman is still far up in the annals of "best X-Men writers", I do feel he made some fatal mistakes in the setup and Fall of X is partly the result of those early wounds.

Edited by immortaleditor on Mar 20th 2024 at 7:44:46 AM

Thing is, Krakoa was set up from the start to not be quite the right idea. The Mutant essentialism and separatism were problems from the very beginning of the era.

Yeah. The next time they try their own nation, I hope they leave that part out.

Do we know how much of that was Moira's idea?

Basically all of it was Moira's idea, Hickman wrote her as basically being the mind behind it all (with the "twist"/probable double retcon that she was doing it to wipe out the mutants all at once, or at least as many as possible). But it could've very easily been written as Magneto's idea that Charles reluctantly went along with out of disillusionment despite still believing in coexistence deep down, which is kinda how they ended up writing it anyways. There was zero need for "Moira is a secret mutant using his super Reset Button powers to manipulate history Illuminati-style".

And yeah, the mutant essentialism was terrible but that was the entire point and it was something they were seemingly building up to changing; Magneto in particular has begun really espousing the need for the X-Men to represent all hated and feared people, not just mutants, which is fantastic character development for him. I'm still annoyed that From The Ashes seems to be dumping Krakoa instead of just keeping it around as a place where people of all kinds - humans, mutants, robots, etc. - can come together and maybe as a headquarters for all of Earth's heroes.

Edited by immortaleditor on Mar 20th 2024 at 7:57:09 AM

Of the three founders, only Magneto really bought into that. Moira paid lip service to it, but only to make the trap more appealing. And Xavier of course hated it from the start but went along with it since Moira convinced him it was the only way.

So yeah, I'd blame both Magneto and Moira. Magneto at least has walked back from that and now wants to protect everyone the world hates and fears instead of just mutants.

To be slightly fairer to Moira, she didn’t want to kill them, just turn them into “regular”people. Over her reincarnations she’d seen over 1000 years of mutants always losing, so she decided that she could at least save their lives by sacrificing their X-genes.

Yeah, but that was just another example of how the character became a mess. First she had become a clumsy plot device in the middle of an otherwise great story, than she was abruptly turned into a discount version of Damian Tryp, who did that exact "time-themed self-hating mutant trying to destroy mutants" gimmick but also did it much better.

Edited by immortaleditor on Mar 20th 2024 at 8:01:16 AM

Problem w/ that is, as Decimation showed, simply depowering Mutants will never be enough. In fact, it'll send genocidal bigots into an even bigger killing frenzy and cause anti-Mutant bigotry to skyrocket. Not to mention the current Omega Sentinel, who mentally killed and displaced Karima, came from a future where Mutantkind actually won and w/ the help of the Phoenix Force/Yahweh, succeeded in defeating Dominions once and for all.

Back to X-Men Forever, it's hilarious to see Enigma engaging in cultural posturing about British culture. Even after becoming a Dominion digital god, Essex is still an arrogant Victorian British man to the core. Enigma even confirms it took that name due to liking Enigma Variations.

Edited by M84 on Mar 21st 2024 at 12:00:36 AM

It is appropriate given how the British Empire treated its subjects and Nathaniel is taking what he learned from his previous upbringing and applying it on a godlike scale.

I always wondered this, why are Gambit's eyes black and red?

Even more hilarious is that he uses his godlike power and freedom from regular space-time to attend a concert. Seeing the digital machine god head whistle in tune with the music was great.

Edited by M84 on Mar 21st 2024 at 12:34:31 AM

He was born w/ that kind of eye color as a physical side effect of his Mutant gene.

I do find it interesting about Enigma that despite having the pooled knowledge of all the other Sinisters, he's also still got Nathaniel's stupid Victorian colonist worldview. He's essentially a vast intellect applying all his computational power to a completely idiotic end-goal that even he doesn't seem to fully understand.

Magneto on the Avengers, as befitting his new outlook. Heck, Mackay's now writing both. That's my bizarre longshot nonsense prediction. Please, flame me, it's what I deserve.

Edited by raykoda16 on Mar 21st 2024 at 7:48:48 AM

Magneto on the Avengers is actually a really cool idea.

Seconded, especially if it leads to another confrontation between him and the Red Skull (or another Nazi/Hydra-affiliated villain, such as Hydra-Cap), akin to the end of Acts of Vengeance.

Magneto and Scarlet Witch being on the same team would be interesting too

Pietro would probably start punching everything he could at super speed if that happened.

Unfortunately, nobody gives a shit about him. This is literally a fact at Marvel. So I don't expect it to matter all that much.

He's currently starring in Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch which is looking to be a good showing for him.

So he's doing pretty decent currently.

I have noticed that people tend to care more about Scarlet Witch than Quicksilver. Which, to be frank, isn't terribly surprising given that Wanda is infinitely more likable and Pietro's whole thing is kinda being a dick.

Really?

I didn't know he was sharing a comic with his sister. As far as I know, the last thing he was involved with was another round with the Avengers Unity Squad.

Well, looks like Pietro finally getting his due.

The preview for issue 2 of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver starts with Pietro doing some cool shit