Figured I'd start a thread for the current new status quo for the X-Verse. House of X/Powers of X and onward. I was going to do separate threads for each book, but I doubt this'll get a ton of traffic. Best to keep it here for now.
Everyone’s acting out of character for story’s sake, and that story is depicting glorified cult.
Stories like this are the reason alternate realities exist, so writers can indulge themselves without damaging the main universe.
Meh,
I survived Morrison’s all-leather-shirtless-Wolvie-turn-Scott-into-a-douche-cat-beast run, i’ll survive this one.
Interesting. I'm happy to hear other views even they are different from mine.
I personally love most of what's happening in the main series so far. Hickman works slowly but he usually gives us a big pay off, and I don't know if many more storylines were left with the previous X-Men status quo. I love that all these arcs are being set-up and will come crashing down soon: The Phalanx, The Brood, The Children of the Vault, Orchis, etc. They're all being expanded upon and given the proper narrative support to actually be scary again. The data files in the issues are really well done, and really deepen the histories, hierarchies, and goals of all these things.
My favorite aspect so far are the Children of the Vault. They were a good but horribly executed idea from the Mike Carey days. Never thought I'd see or want to see them again. Hickman has is set them up spectacularly though imo, and they are poised to finally fulfill their purpose of being the "true" threat to mutantkind. They represent evolution on an entirely different scale than anything humanity or mutant-kind could ever approximate, and it scares Xavier.
I can't wait to see what happened to the X-23, Darwin, Synch trio they sent to the Vault. The Vault internal readout said several Children are already at level 2, and upgrading to level 3 will mean times up.
Last edited by StyleTime on Apr 8th, 2020 at 04:33 AM
I definitely think Xavier, and to a lesser extent Magneto, are being uncharacteristically assholish to Mystique though. Dangling Irene's revival in front of her like that is so wrong, and Xavier is so condescending about it.
On the other hand, they are kinda right. Mystique does have some of it coming, and these are fairly unique situations, being that Xavier learned he was "wrong" after Moira's whole multiple lives thing.
I take it you weren't a fan of the recent Emma/Jean issue of Giant Size either? It was a direct homage the no-dialogue issue of Morrison's run, where Jean/Emma went through Cassandra Nova's mind. I feel like Russel Dauterman does such a better job on art than Quitely did in the original, that it alone improves the experience. I'm obviously not a Frank Quitely fan though: only time I'm ever gotten nauseous reading a comic. (not joking)
Last edited by StyleTime on Apr 8th, 2020 at 04:51 AM
Oh, no doubt. Mystique is definitely not a good girl. Still, I don't know. Xavier isn't normally the type to demean you, or dangle someone's life in front of you like that.
Plus, Mr Sinister, Shaw, Apocalypse, Exodus, and such are on the Quiet Council too. He doesn't put any of them through this. It really seems like Mystique got singled out so they could coerce her into becoming their little spy-bot on Orchis. I get her abilities/skills are a great fit, but she probably would have cooperated with Irene alive too.
I mean, don't get me wrong, emotional blackmail makes for great story drama. I like it for that apsect, but hot damn. Maybe I'm a softie, but seeing Mystique's tears when she got shot into space made me feel for her a bit. https://ibb.co/CHVFwRB https://ibb.co/2W5yNbL
I understand why they all voted to let Krakoa eat Sabretooth or whatever, but I feel like this is going to bite them in the ass. The flashbacks with Destiny indicate she knows something that could probably help.
Last edited by StyleTime on Apr 10th, 2020 at 01:20 AM
Yeah, and the whole Quiet Council hates him. I love Hickman Sinister. He's wacky without annoying the reader like 95% of Deadpool depictions. That whole scene when Xavier and Magneto came to recruit him was something else. The Sinister clones just kept offing each other lol
Fair enough. I just like that the Quiet Council are all getting different personalities. Wacky Sinister doesn't take me out of the world at least. His crazy seems internally consistent. His old persona overlaps too much with current Apocalypse. And I dig this storytelling teacher version of Exodus that is great with kids.
But yeah, this Sinister is the "mutant" Sinister it seems.
New X-Factor series is supposed to drop in a few days. I don't have high expectations for it, but let's hope it's readable at least. While I like the main series X-Men, the associated X-Books are kinda meh. I'll probably give my take on them soon.
Last edited by StyleTime on Apr 18th, 2020 at 06:47 PM
Not to be a broken record, so I'll keep this short. Hickman has fallen in to his usual trap of making the characters fit the story rather than the other way around. This, on top of his weird ideas of how certain X-Men characters should be, means we're getting some pretty strange if not poor characterisation across the board, even if the basic plot concept is actually pretty interesting.
As far as Mystique goes: The question to me, isn't whether she deserves it. The question I would ask is why someone like Xavier would sink to those kind of levels to manipulate her like that. There's a lot of X-Men that, under other writers, would be flat-out disgusted if they found out Xavier was pulling that shit. Even for Magneto it feels kinda c**ty.
Destiny isn't a fool; plus, she's a big girl. She can look after herself. I definitely got the impression they were keeping her locked up for a reason other than to **** with Mystique. That, somehow, makes it look worse to me.
100% understandable. He's definitely taking liberties with several folks. I'm willing to sacrifice though since, as all us X-Fans know, it's been a hot minute since the main series produced any good stories. Second Coming was fun, but ultimately the best of a bad lot. I do like some of the new takes though. And chilled-out, drunk Vulcan = Best Vulcan.
Yeah, that is what irked me too. I just don't feel typical Xavier would do that. Even Magneto seems inclined to cut her slack, provided enough transparency. I have a feeling someone will find out about it and have problems though. Cyclops already went off on the Quiet Council in Hellions, albeit over his brother. I feel like he'd be willing to call them out over Mystique.
Possibly. Maybe that's the difference though: Mystique can be made to cooperate. She does legitimately care for Destiny. Sabretooth has no such attachments.
Magneto highlighted Sabes inability to follow basic mission instructions when he voted against him. Apoc agreed lol. Mystique, for all her flaws, does her job, although not "handling" the Nimrod situation was deceitful AF. I feel like Mystique is more selfish than psycho. Still bad, but can be contained at least.
That would be fuuuuucked if Destiny was alive this whole time, and they're just using her too or something.
Last edited by StyleTime on Apr 21st, 2020 at 10:27 PM
And speaking of the new X-Factor, it's about what I expected BUT....I will say the actual detective portions are pretty solid. I wish we'd get more of that. The rest feels too sitcom-y for my tastes, and Daken has been totally reduced to his sexual orientation. It's a shame since his orientation has only ever been incidental to his character. Leah is making his whole identity about it.
Then he just turned into a contrived, laugh-box, network TV gag. It's like some clueless exec walked into a writer's room and went "you know what would be funny?" as the writers roll their eyes but get forced to put it in.
Last edited by StyleTime on Sep 16th, 2020 at 02:37 AM