X-Men In General

“Did Captain America nuke the moon during a war...with Canada?”

Whut

Can I get context for that?

There's literally an issue of Mutant X called "Blame Canada."

Having read that Ultimate X-Men story recently, yes, that was a good story. The one worthwhile thing Chuck Austen wrote at Marvel.

As for Mutant X going off the rails, I actually found that to be part of the charm. It went absolutely bugfuck ridiculous, and that was very entertaining. I'll admit it probably did go a bit too far, but whatever. I was still entertained.

Have you gotten to The Brotherhood yet, 'matty? Have heard that's pretty bad as well, and likely went through heavy mid-plot rewrites, though I've never read it myself.

Wait, wait, wait.

So stuff like, Captain America nuking the moon, viral videos of the literal Norse god of thunder eating shwarma, a people dressing up like bats (or other silly costume) to fight crime, and Jimmy Olsen turning into "Monster of the week" are perfectly fine, but God and /or the Devil is where you draw the line of being "too absurd?"

Edited by megaeliz on Aug 27th 2019 at 12:41:03 PM

I've read it. It had some interesting ideas, but the execution wasn't great. The best part was the ending with all the Brotherhood getting killed in a failed attack on X-Statix, and X-Statix having no clue what the hell it was about.

But yeah, a story about a revolutionary movement being torn apart by its own internal personal and political differences wasn't a bad idea. It was just weird because there was a very sudden shift in character focus halfway through, switching to an entirely different set of characters that weren't properly introduced.

Okay, House of X #3. Here we go:

Already, I am highly suspicious of Xavier even more. He sets Cyclop's mind at ease, saying that he won't "allow him to die." Magneto makes like that's a metaphor — "you won't die as long as you are remembered" — but I sincerely think that Xavier isn't going to allow Cyclops to die because he is just going to reclone him over and over again.

Also, the code in the beginning of the book reads "The House of Xavier and the Eternal War of Man."

The assault on the Orchis Forge happens, but first a side-quest: Sabretooth is taken to "Project Achilles," which is apparently the new supermax for supervillains (the worst of the worst, probably because they kept escaping from the Raft). But before his trial can even begin, Emma and two Cuckoos show up and tell everyone that since mutants have amnesty, Sabretooth is going with them. It's a pretty awesome scene, because Emma doesn't use her powers at all and still leaves with Sabretooth using only the political power of Krakoa.

The assault team consists of Cyclops, Wolverine, Archangel, M, Mystique, Marvel Girl, and...Husk? I think that's Husk. I'm not sure why Cyclops chose these to go along with him — obviously, Logan and Archangel have healing factors, M is invulnerable, Husk can turn into something invulnerable, and Jean can pretty powerful telekinesis and telepathy. So maybe this is the team Cyclops thinks will be able to survive? The odd one out is Mystique, perhaps they are going to put her undercover in the base?

And then the assault happens and everything seems to be going smoothly for the X-Men, until one of the scientists sets off a bomb. What's interesting is that the scientist — all scientists so far in the present day of HOX — is portrayed pretty sympathetically. Hell, Karima is pretty sympathetic, too — she is obviously pissed that the X-Men left her out of things when they made their mutant nation, but she still remembers Nightcrawler's name.

I also find it interesting that the assault in POX #3 and in HOX #3 both resulted in all the characters "dying" in a explosion. We know Cyclops and the others can't be dead, but...what if they are? what if Xavier (or...Sinister?) just keeps cloning them? Or perhaps Cyclops just knew things would go wrong and everyone made sure they survived?

The issue ends with the complete alphabet of Krakoan (good, I don't need to Google it anymore).

THEN: IT WILL BE DONE.

NOW: SOMETHING SINISTER.

Edited by alliterator on Aug 28th 2019 at 1:31:18 AM

I know, just addressing the "Marvel and DC" part of it.

Edited by megaeliz on Aug 28th 2019 at 7:38:15 AM

Bec, in Mutant X #31, Captain America, who was just revealed to be a mutant, has a beam clash with Havok. Iceman puts up an ice shield to protect them from the explosion, but the shockwave reached space and a big chunk was taken out of the moon. Yeah, one of those stories. It was going for a super-over-the-top finale since cancellation was imminent. It was more entertaining on my second read yesterday, but that's after years of having my brain punched by things like Nextwave or even Dragon Ball Z.

Edited by flawlessvoid on Aug 28th 2019 at 9:31:39 AM

Ok, they really just walked in and saved Creed despite everything he's done? I'm getting really worried now.

Are we sure that this is really Xavier? I mean, I get it; writers love revealing Xavier is really evil and all that but I'm kinda sick of him either estranging himself from his former students or being evil. It's gotta stop.

Surprising they didn't start blaming impostors or brainwashing after a point, if they want to use Charles again. Like they want to keep him kind of radioactive.

Yep. He has diplomatic immunity now.

What's really interesting is that the book and the characters acknowledge that Sabretooth is a monster, but they let him go anyway. And we know that he did these monstrous acts in order to get the plans to the Mother Mold and save mutants from genocide. Meanwhile, we have the human scientists on the Orchis Forge, including Erasmus, who are building genocidal robots, but are clearly not monsters themselves. Erasmus even gets his own little speech making him much more sympathetic than Sabretooth before blowing himself (and maybe the X-Men) up.

Edited by alliterator on Aug 28th 2019 at 8:04:48 AM

This immediately reminded me of the Genosha / mutate plots in the latter Claremont era, where enslaved mutates were seen as the property of Genosha and were subject to their laws, regardless of how appalling they were.

It could turn out White Queen and Cuckoos are taking him to face some kind of mutant justice. And if not, I am reminded of HOX #2, when both Moira and Xavier are described as being "radicalized" by her experiences. Cyclops has been down this route already, even having shadow operations X-Force. But for Xavier, if he's okay with it all, it does seem like a big moral shift.

Annotations for HOX 3

• Pointing out how both sentinels and mutants have Omega as an appellation for their most advanced type does tie further into mutants and machines as the competing successor for Mankind. And that Nimrod breaking that paradigm by going beyond is a pretty plausible theory for why he's so pivotal as the make-or-break moment for the timeline.
• Project Achilles is slightly less ridiculous as a name begging for mythological invocation if the juxtaposition of Magneto's speech with that name was intentional. Slightly.
• Their guess on what the "Heller-Faust Line" is meant to reference is Joseph Heller for Catch-22 and ofc Faust.

So we know that the year 100 stuff was from Moira’s 9th life, while her talking to Xavier on the bench and the establishment of Krakoa is part of her 10th life. So all that year 1000 ascension stuff... do we know which of Moira’s lives that takes place in?

Everything would seem to point to it taking place after the Mutant-Machine War, which suggests it simply takes place after Moira's death, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there's a curveball coming there.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Aug 31st 2019 at 5:30:11 AM

I just like how this thread is hopping now that Hickman took over. The X-Books needed this.

Damn straight they did.

I admit I'm a little worried about how the mutants no longer seem to be heroes anymore (though I can't blame them for prioritizing their own after everything that's happened), but as this is still only the beginning, I'm hoping they find their footing in that particular front again.

They need to gain some breathing room before they can be heroes again.

And connecting more with the rest of the super communities, really.

Yeah. Maybe a bit less bailing out murderers with Diplomatic Immunity and telling Reed Richards you're son should join us type stuff.

But I feel like I can trust Hickman. He put the Illuninati through the ringer during his Avengers run but in the end it they are heroes again right....though Cap had the entire Hydra Cap thing....and Tony ended up involved in another super hero Civil War....but you know....besides that.

The books are clearly benefiting from Hickman having a set and clear plan in place, without any executive meddling, and a story which is both exciting and new and gives readers reason to talk about it and return to it.

The problems with the prior runs of X-Men was that either they didn't have a plan of where they were going (Bendis — even though I liked his run, by the end, it was clear that he had no idea how he was going to end it) or there was too much Executive Meddling (Lemire's run — the issues he was able to do just on his own were great, but then they forced him to do Inhumans vs X-Men and everything fell apart) or just the general idea was lackluster (X-Men: Gold). The only team X-book that really felt great in the past five years was X-Men: Red and that, like Hickman's run, was something new, innovative, and Tom Taylor clearly had a plan.

Edited by alliterator on Aug 31st 2019 at 10:22:09 AM

I just found Uncanny X-Bot and it's hilarious. It's tweets out fake summaries of X-Men issues. My favorites:

• New X-Men: Academy Annual 62 | Jean Grey arrives only to discover that Captain Marvel destroyed the dinosaurs.
• Uncanny X-Men #27 | Kitty Pryde asks Wolverine what is the golden key to this world and the answer is to kill people.
• Unlimited #35 | Ant-Man is surprised that everything only gets worse all the time.

• The first one: I'm not sure if surprise is the proper reaction or not. On the one hand it's both something I could see happening in the Marvel Universe, and Carol is probably more than strong enough to do it, on the other hand, there's no real reason for her to do so besides it would be awesome.

• The second one: That's a Logan answer if I ever heard one.

• He of all people should not be shocked about that to be honest.

I've had an account on here for 6 or so years and it was HOX / POX that got me excited enough to talk to another human being about it.

Edited by flawlessvoid on Aug 31st 2019 at 6:55:02 AM