The X-Axis catch-up (Part 1)
Don’t forget it’s a podcast weekend – you’ll find this week’s show just a post down, with reviews of Reset, Popeye and Captain America & Hawkeye. Meanwhile, I’ve got some catching up to do, since we skipped last week, and the Avengers vs X-Men crossover is in full sway. Seven issues in those two weeks, people! Mind you, most of them are the same story from different perspectives, so…
I’m not ploughing through 14 X-books and crossover titles in one post. Instead, I’ll do the first half here and follow up with the rest during the week. (Fingers crossed.)
Astonishing X-Men #49 – After the relative domesticity of her first issue, Marjorie Liu spends this one largely in action mode. It’s basically a fight scene between the X-Men and the Marauders (who turn out to be mind-controlled by the mystery main villain), with a pause mainly designed to expand on Kyle and Northstar’s relationship.
Last issue, my initial reaction was that Kyle was a likely redshirt, and the opening flash forward of this issue seems to support that idea. But on reflection, it does seem rather more likely that this is actually heading towards the wedding story that Marvel have been promoting for upcoming issues. Liu’s certainly trying hard to make their relationship central to this story, and to establish Kyle as something more than just a generic partner who exists purely to verify Northstar’s homosexuality. Instead, he’s being played as the civilian boyfriend who feels overshadowed by his partner – not a wholly original idea, but at least it means the emphasis is on something other than the fact that they’re a same-sex couple.
As an action issue with some C-list villains, it’s pretty well executed. Mike Perkins’ art is generally strong; he seems to have dialled back slightly on the Mike Deodato influence from the previous issue, though he’s still not a million miles off that style. The storytelling is strong, the night-time backgrounds are very well done. The main issue with this series is that I’m still not really sure what the book’s identity is going to be – it looked as though Liu was going for a more domestic, or at least grounded, version of the X-Men, but instead this issue takes us back into typical superhero territory. It’s not easy to give an X-Men book its own identity when there are so many of them, but that doesn’t mean it’s not necessary.
Avengers #25 – Brian Bendis and Walt Simonson are a weird combination. You’ve got Bendis doing his usual schtick, but alongside it, you’ve got Simonson’s art playing everything bold, loose and over the top. It’s kind of jarring; Bendis’ dialogue feels very odd coming out of these operatically exaggerated characters.
Anyway! This issue mostly consists of Captain America agonising about his job performance and then leading the Avengers to take down an AIM cell. So why is it being marketed as an Avengers vs X-Men tie-in? Well, there’s an opening flash-forward to Avengers vs X-Men #2, and there’s a bit right at the very end where Noh-Varr is given his own mission to deal with Phoenix on behalf of the Kree Empire. As for the rest of the issue, some of it gives Noh-Varr a chance to shine, so I guess you could justify it as an attempt to introduce him for the benefit of crossover readers – but basically, this is an unrelated story being passed off as a crossover book on the strength of a top-and-tail framing exercise.
Avengers vs X-Men #2 – Jason Aaron takes over as this issue’s scripter, not that the story gives him a huge amount to work with. The Avengers attack Utopia. The X-Men fight back. That goes on for about 18 pages. Then Spider-Man and Wolverine go after Hope but she uses her Phoenix power, gets rid of him, and runs off. Oh, and then there’s a final page trailing Secret Avengers. Basically, though, this is the fight issue.
This issue, incidentally, finally clarifies that she’s getting more powerful as the Phoenix approaches, something that seemed fairly obvious to me, but apparently baffled the hell out of a number of relatively sane reviewers who couldn’t figure out why she already had Phoenix powers before Phoenix got here. Perhaps I’ve just read too many Phoenix stories before that made no sense.
There’s nothing Jason Aaron can do to turn “they fight” into a plot, and I rather suspect that part of his remit for this issue was to work through a checklist of pairings to be covered in more detail in AvX Versus (though see below for how well that worked out). He does his best to liven it up, but you know, it’s a straight fight book. And the thing that interests me least about Avengers vs X-Men is the bit where the Avengers fight the X-Men. I mean, really, who cares?
Fortunately, they’ve got that big obligatory fight out of the way in issue #2, so hopefully the mini is now going to move on to something a bit more interesting.
AvX: Versus #1 – This is the spin-off mini in which individual Avengers fight individual X-Men. Two fights per issue. Expanded from Avengers vs X-Men.
Now, this is the sort of book that’s kind of insulated against reviews. Because on one level you can say, well, this is just pointless fighting. But Marvel can say, ah, but that’s exactly what we said it would be. And I guess I can kind of see their point. To some people, at least, the appeal of AvX is the Avengers fighting the X-Men. That at least is the theory. So if one issue of enormous fight is not enough for you, here’s the expanded version. And I guess from a technical standpoint there’s some interest in asking a bunch of different creators to do variations on a theme – though frankly, it’s not as if many of today’s writer give the impression that this is the side of superhero comics that interests them. Some seem to regard the actual fight scene as a sort of genre convention that’s so familiar it can be vaguely skirted over without worrying much about choreography or inventiveness. Not here.
What you actually get: Iron Man vs Magneto by Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert, and the Thing vs Namor by Kathryn & Stuart Immonen. The Avengers win both, which is a bit of a surprise, but no doubt it’ll all be balanced out over the course of the run. Aaron mainly enjoys himself by inventing weird attacks for them to deploy, while Kubert just likes a good action sequence. The Immonens have the misfortune to be saddled with a guy nobody regards as an X-Man fighting a guy nobody regards as an Avenger, both of whom come from the same book and must have fought hundreds of times. It’s a nicely drawn few pages, I guess. Both stories have the same “AvX Fun Fact!” captions repeated throughout, presumably an editorial mandate.
It’s two fight scenes. That’s it. Nicely drawn, but not spectacularly executed or notably original. As a throwaway tie-in to play up the gimmicky side of the crossover, I guess it’s harmless enough, but even on that level, stretching it out to six issues is surely absurd.
New Avengers #25 – Brian Bendis’ Avengers stories have always tended to approach crossovers rather obliquely, and this is no exception. This is a flashback story in which, hundreds of years ago, members of Iron Fist’s supporting cast investigate a prophetic dream that a red-haired girl is going to connect with some sort of Phoenix thing and will fight Iron Fist. So if Iron Fist is actually going to play a major role in this here crossover, I guess that’s fair enough. Oddly, the story also has them finding the wrong redhead girl entirely and taking her in for training, though whether that’s actually going to connect with anything in the present day, who knows.
It’s certainly a very pretty issue, and I like the way it opens by echoing the first scene from Avengers vs X-Men #1. Is it actually going to connect to anything, or is it just a complete red herring to bulk out the crossover? I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt, and actually, I quite like the idea of using the tie-in books to do foreshadowing for plot points that haven’t yet turned up in the main series. At least you feel like you’re getting some reward for picking up the tie-ins.
New Mutants #41 – After their last, rather depressing, mission, the New Mutants are hauled out on the town by a rather perky Blink, who is apparently still in this book’s cast even though she’s based in Westchester. Specifically, Blink takes them to Madripoor to enjoy the carnival. David Lopez’s art really does sell these downtime issues; his handling of a scene with Cypher trying to coach Sunspot’s chat-up technique is perfect. The idea of Sunspot, traditionally the party animal of the group, struggling in the carnival is a nice twist on the character, and there’s also good use of Nate Grey as a character who’s had a sufficiently odd (and grim) background that he doesn’t really know how to react to this stuff either.
On one level, this is filling the gap between the Paradise Island arc and the Exiled crossover. But it’s a good change of pace which plays to the book’s strengths.
Secret Avengers #26 – The Secret Avengers go into space to try and contain the Phoenix. Obviously they can’t succeed because the crossover’s barely started. So instead, Rick Remender builds most of the tension around the relations within the team, and whether any of them are going to get themselves killed in the course of this very unpromising mission. There’s actually a lot of important plot material in here, which will presumably have to be repeated in the main series – the return of Captain Marvel is a main point, for example.
Remender’s done very good work on X-Force, and here, he’s doing a similar balance between the characters and the plot, except without X-Force‘s tendency towards darkness. You could query how well he’s really grasped some of the characters. Thor drinking before battle would make sense for the mythical character, or for Hercules, but it’s a bit off beam for Marvel’s Thor. Captain Britain being persuaded to join in is even further off the mark, I’d say. But he does good work furthering the Noh-Varr subplot from Avengers, and Renato Guedes’ art has a lovely European feel to it that really lifts the book.
This branch of the storyline may well prove to be superfluous to the crossover as a whole, but at least it’s giving Secret Avengers something to work with as a story in its own right.
In the next part: X-Force, Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine, Wolverine and the X-Men, X-Factor, X-Men, and X-Men: Legacy.
AvX Versus put me in mind of nothing so much as Nextwave, with it’s Q&A opening page, wacky facts, and focus on punchification.
“And the thing that interests me least about Avengers vs X-Men is the bit where the Avengers fight the X-Men. I mean, really, who cares?”
Me. I’m a sucker for this kind of thing. If you’re operating a hard magic system in your fictional universe then stick to the rules. The notion that there could even be a contest between the X-Men and the Avengers interested me. I mean, look at the Extinction team alone. I thought that for the Avengers to even have a chance, the writers would have to be really inventive in terms of how they used their powers/tactics. Axe-Cop has more consistency than Avengers Versus X-Men. I was so pissed off after reading the issue that I posted a rather long rant over on BC.
It was probably a bit harsh, but I’ll re-post it here just to show how pissed off I was.
I’m pissed off with myself.
I had high expectations for Avengers Versus X-Men, and they have been dashed into smithereens and digested by an industrious troupe of metaphorical worms. Don’t blame the worms though. The fault lies solely with Jason Aaron – a man who could do with speaking to Brandon Sanderson in order to understand exactly why the issue falls so flat.
Sanderson’s First Law of Magics states that an author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic. Alas for Aaron, his readers understand the power sets of the opposing groups in AVX, and know the limits of those power sets much better than he seems to. I’m going to give some examples of the mistakes he makes – mistakes that stop the book from being anywhere close to satisfactory. But first, let’s start with an example of something he does well.
Colossus Versus Helicarrier
Colossus attacks the Shield Helicarrier with an assist from Magneto. This is helpfully tagged as a Magnetic Fastball Special. It’s fun and it’s a nice combination of two complementary power sets. It also highlights the power of Cyclops team. Under normal circumstances, Colossus is the one who throws his partner. Here, he has found an ally strong enough to use him as a projectile. Unfortunately, even this scene fails. Magneto & Colossus manage to do some impressive damage to the Helicarrier with minimal effort, but rather than continue to use Colossus as an effective projectile in order to disable and crash the Helicarrier, Magneto simply drops Colossus on to the floor where the Avengers are assembled.
If you’ve read New Avengers, you’ll notice that the Avengers’ descent to Utopia is played differently here. In NA, they are scene launching an attack from the Helicarrier, but in AVX#2, they are knocked out of the flying boat and crash into the ocean.
Just to make things confusing, a squadron of fighter jets can be seen leaving the Helicarrier. We never encounter these again.
Namor Versus Thing and Luke Cage
If you’ve read Marvel comics before, you should know that Namor beneath water is unstoppable. And if you’ve read Marvel comics before, you probably haven’t encountered a story where Luke Cage or the Thing can breath beneath water. This fight should have ended in seconds. Maybe it’ll make more sense in the full length fight scene companion mini-series, here it just looks like Namor just got his abilities downgraded off-panel.
X-Men Versus Street Level Avengers ( + Giant Man)
X-Men Roll Call: Hepzibah, Madison Jefferies, Magik, Dr. Nemesis, Sunspot, Magma, Domino, Storm, Emma Frost, Psylocke, Warpath, Cyclops
Avengers Roll Call: Hawkeye, Daredevil, Wolverine, Spiderman, Iron Fist, Black Panther, Giant Man, Captain America
Does that look like a fair fight to you? The X-Men have a large number of powerful mutants who can use all sorts of beams and bullets, and that’s before you include Magik and Storm who should be able to take out these people on their own. The Avengers have a guy with some wet arrows.
So how does Aaron even the playing field?
Well, he has the X-Men – lead by tactical genius Scott Summers – rush the Avengers. Four foot away from Captain America, Cyclops has yet to fire a single concussive blast. Likewise, Nemesis has failed to fire his gun, and the New Mutants have similarly avoided playing to their advantage. This kind of scene only ever worked as part of the intro to the 90s X-Men cartoon. Here, it’s beneath silly.
Emma Frost Versus Iron Man
Ah yes, Emma Frost. You remember Emma, right? She’s a telepath. She’s beautiful, intelligent and wealthy. However, she also seems to be a relative of Gerald Ford. Unlike most women, Emma cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. Rather than reach into the Avengers’ minds and end the battle before it begins, she leaves the field of battle to bring Hope to a building all of 30ft away from the superpowered battle royale – where she will be safe apparently. Emma then decides to return to the field of battle, but for some reason cannot use her powers until she goes outside – telepaths seeming to have developed a weakness to concrete all of a sudden.
When she goes outside, Emma immediately encounters Iron Man. Tony Stark has developed “Microscopic telepathic tasers” which he uses to disable Emma’s telepathy. At this point, let’s refer back to Brandon Sanderson:
“Resist the urge to use magic to solve problems unless you’ve already explained and shown that aspect of how the magic works. Don’t give the heroes a new power whenever they need one, and be very careful about writing laws into your system just so that you can use them in a single particular situation.”
Aaron shatters Sanderson’s law in this situation. Not only are these “Microscopic telepathic Tasers” a silly deus ex machina, but they aren’t even used consistently in the book. Emma Frost is not the only telepath on Utopia. She’s not even the only one depicted in this book. We’ve just seen Psylocke beating up a bunch of athletes with a psychic sword. Why didn’t Tony use these tasers on her? Heck, why didn’t Psylocke or the Cuckoos just do what Emma was planning on doing?
Iron Man Versus Magneto
As Tony defeats Emma, he is confronted by Magneto. Dear ol’ Mags, like many of his fellow X-Men, seems intent on attacking Avengers from short range in spite of the fact that he doesn’t need to. Remember for a moment, that Magneto recently dragged a bullet back to earth from space. We’re talking about that Magneto. Here, for reasons best known to Aaron, he decides to hover up to Iron Man and hit him with a couple of pink discs.
Iron Man, living up to his title as invincible (if they ever release a new title perhaps he should be described as the Logic-defying Iron Man), counters with some sort of beam that Magneto blocks. Inexplicably, Magneto resists the urge to use any of the creative tricks we’ve seen from him over the years, and instead we have a stalemate.
Well, we have a stalemate right up until the point that Quicksilver turns up. Magneto’s son then bursts through the barrier than had defied Iron Man, and punches his father. He can do this, because he is really fast. Or something.
Storm Versus Black Panther
This isn’t actually a fight. It’s mostly just bitching, but it provides important indications of what the future holds for this couple: Early Onset Alzheimer’s.
Storm complains that her husband should have told her what was happening. Well, to be fair to T’Challa, they were both at a meeting where they were informed of the situation by Captain America a few hours earlier. Black Panther for his part seems annoyed that his wife has not mentioned that Hope lived on Utopia. Now, that’s fair enough, except it’s not been a secret. In fact, various Avengers have met Hope before, and surely somebody would have mentioned that Hope was the one who defeated the Nimrods during Second Coming.
Cyclops Versus Captain America
I like Steve Rogers. In his own series, he’s a great character, but for some reason writers don’t let him fail even when he really should. He’s a strong man with a shield. Yes, he’s well trained and yes he’s an excellent tactician, but so are half the characters in the Avengers and X-Men. When Cap faces a well trained athlete with the power to blow the top off a mountain by glancing at it, he should lose. In fact, he shouldn’t get anything other than a suckerpunch in.
We’re meant to believe that Cap can block Cyclops’ blast with his shield. Well, let’s accept that for a moment. It’s silly, but it is at least consistent with the way the shield has been depicted in the past. Yes, I can accept that the Shield can deflect a beam with the power of 2 Gigawattts, with a range of 2000ft and that can knock Thor’s hammer out of his hand without moving Cap back a foot, but what I can’t accept is Cyclops acting like a complete and other idiot.
We know from the past that Cyclops can adjust the size, width and intensity of the beam. Simply by turning his head to one side and emitting a single beam, it should be possible to hit at least some part of Cap’s body.
X-Club Versus Iron Man
Okay, so this isn’t really a fight, but it needs to be noted.
Madison Jefferies controlls machines. Iron Man is a man inside a machine. So why doesn’t Jefferies take over Iron Man? This is proper “No-Prize” Material.
Dr. Nemesis is smart. Really Smart. That’s his thing. He’s smart. But here, not only does he fail to understand how guns work, he decides that rather than find a way to counter Iron Man’s tech, he is better suited to shooting Quicksilver. Bizarrely, he achieves this goal, but he then tries to shoot the man in armour with these same bullets.
Danger is from an advanced alien civilisation. Wait. Scrap that. She’s from the single most advanced alien civilisation still in existence. We’ve seen her defeat all of the X-Men at once and we’ve seen her keep some of the most dangerous super-powered criminals in the Marvel Universe in prison. Here, she fires laser beams from her belly and manages to be hacked by Iron Man within minutes of having met him.
Wolverine and Spiderman Versus Utopia’s GPS
Ond of the advantages the X-Men had against the Avengers was their numbers. Yet somehow, they managed to miss the fact that Cyclops and Wolverine had left the field of battle and headed for a sewer. They’re wearing bright coloured costumes in the middle of battlefield. How exactly are they supposed to have just left? How have they not been tracked by Danger? How are they supposed to have avoided the psychic triplets who monitor Utopia? How about old fashioned security cameras?
Utopia’s Populace versus Apathy
There are about 200 mutants in the Marvel Universe at the moment. Let’s make a conservative estimate and guess that after Schism, only seventy-five remained on Utopia. What the hell are the other 50 mutants doing? So maybe, only half of them are adults who have powers that would be useful in combat. Where are those 25 other mutants? Boom Boom, Dazzler, Random, anyone?
At this point, maybe Wolverine should ask himself if he should reconsider his opinion of Cyclops because in spite of the fact that Utopia is being invaded, he has failed to order teenagers into the field. He’s not ordered any of the non-teamed mutants to fight. Which brings us to:
Wolverine Versus Himself
So Wolverine thinks it is a bad thing to put teenagers on a battlefield. Even when it is their choice. Even when it is to save innocent people. Even when there is no other way to defeat an enemy who seeks the destruction of all members of your species.
Wait, that was yesterday. Today, Wolverine wants to kill a teenager.
I guess a lot of headmasters could relate to that.
At this point, hopefully you can all see why this issue is bad. The success of a series like Avengers Versus X-Men depends on how much sense the slugfests make. Yes, Hulk Versus Colossus makes for a nice visual, but that’s not enough. The outcome of the battle needs to make sense. If Batman beats Superman, you need to show us the Kryptonite. You can’t just show us a visual of Batman standing over Superman’s dead body. The whole issue brings to mind the “Das Bus” episode of the Simpons where Dr. Hibbert narrates the final two lines of the show and announces “So the children learned how to function as a society, and eventually they were rescued by, oh, let’s say…Moe.” For all we know, it might well have been Moe who helped the Avengers beat the X-Men. Perhaps, it was ol’ Moe who got the other residents of Utopia drunk so that they couldn’t fight. We’re not given satisfactory explanation of how the Avengers were able to defeat the X-Men, so the whole thing just falls flat. The fact that explanations provided don’t make any sense, adds insult to injury. You’ll probably enjoy this issue a lot more if you imagine Moe moving around behind the panels draining moonshine from bottles into the X-Men’s skulls.
Only a charitable reader can enjoy Avengers Vs. X-Men round two and only a highly creative reader will be able to fill in the blanks in order to make this story make sense. My best attempt (aside from the Moe explanation) to salvage a story out of this collection of silly scenes involved making an assumption that Iron Man’s Microscopic Telepathic Tasers actually affected all of the mutants. You see, Tony tells us that “The harder you think, the more they shock you”. Maybe the only way the mutants were able to fight at all, was to act like mindless morons.
Yeah, I didn’t buy it either. But the line pretty much sums up the issue. The harder you think about this issue, the more it’ll shock. The greatest shock of all comes from the realisation that the writers and editors and Marvel thought they could get away with such nonsense. They really must not think much of us.
Marvel, next time you want to try something like Avengers Versus X-Men, give Brandon Sanderson a call.
Ah, Magneto. How low we have fallen. From being able to take on entire teams of X-men or Avengers to losing to Iron Man…poor guy.
So far, this crossover seems the most…eh of the crossovers we’ve had lately. And given the crossovers Marvel has given us over the last 6 or 7 years, that’s saying something.
Astonishing is still a pointless title. Other have said it, I’ve said it, but the line really needs a good trimming.
All of this AvX silliness is precisely why I’m inclined to like Astonishing, even aside that it has a writer and cast I’m glad to see more of: I can get my X-fix without having to worry about the plot being derailed mid-sentence by the latest crossover.
Also, a brief round of applause to Niall for that dissection. I’ve heard people saying that Wolverine being ready to gut Hope is a follow up on a conversation in UXM, but I don’t give anyone involved credit for actually having put that much thought into that scene.
The only AvX book I’ve bought so far is the most recent Wolverine and the X-Men issue because I get that anyway and I really like it. Reading that, it occurred to me that I’m actually rather interested in the story of the Phoenix and Hope. I’m curious what the heck is actually up with Hope and the Phoenix drags in some cosmic elements of the Marvel U that I enjoy.
But framed and marketed as Avengers vs. X-Men I completely lose interest. They’ve turned a story the X-books naturally needed to get to into a contrived event. Perhaps I’m just too jaded to enjoy heroes fighting each other anymore.
“I’ve heard people saying that Wolverine being ready to gut Hope is a follow up on a conversation in UXM, but I don’t give anyone involved credit for actually having put that much thought into that scene.”
While I agree with your basic point that Marvel has not done a heck of a lot over the last decade to earn the benefit of the doubt from their readers when it comes to logic or continuity, that exact point is addressed in Uncanny #11.
So as Niall demonstrated, there are lots of issues to be taken with AVX so far, but that particular one has been dealt with.
Also seriously impressed by Niall’s smackdown here.
Paul: Are you saying that Captain Britain was drinking with Thor before battle? Does Remander not understand the character at all?
I agree that there was some degree of connect between Uncanny #11 and Wolverine’s actions in AVX#2, it is a stretch. It isn’t as though Hope had done anything to warrant Wolverine stabbing her through the chest.
Killing an out-of-control Hope is one thing, but there wasn’t any evidence that she was much of a danger to anybody.
Oh, and by the way, I’m shocked that Paul and Al didn’t comment her or in the podcast on the most important event in comics of this year: the return of Hepzibah!
@Taibak
Yup, Thor wants Captain Britain to drink with him before the battle, Brian says something to the effect of “I make a spectacular arse of myself when I drink,” Thor says that Brian’s too nervous and booze will give him confidence, so Brian drinks.
Now, I think that scene could actually be made to work (well, Thor is wildly out of character – and drawn so that he appears to be half plastered already – but I’m talking about the Captain Britain part) because the other AvX books paint this mission as a “suicide mission,” and most of Brian’s recent appearances have hammered on about his powers nowadays don’t work if he loses his confidence. So I can honestly see a recovering alcoholic thinking “I’m terrified, I’m going to let everyone down if I don’t get a handle on my fears, and I’m going to die anyway so I won’t have to live with the consequences … it would be selfish of me NOT to have one last drink.”
The problem is, the issue doesn’t play it that way at all. There’s no indication that Brian’s drinking problem is anything worse than being a sloppy drunk, and he seems more like someone giving in to peer pressure than someone grappling with conflicting weaknesses and deciding that this might be the one circumstance in which the demon in the bottle can do more good than harm. It’s a scene that COULD work but, in my opinion, doesn’t.
It feels like a number of the AvX fights are delivering reversals on what would be the accepted fanon outcome on account of trying to make them clever, but without working to make them entirely convincing in any respect. Hell, it should be pointed out the initial AvX VS fights don’t even end with anybody ‘beaten’ – demoralized, maybe, but neither of the losers are down for the count by far, thus leaving them open for the rest of the crossover… which seems weird. You’d think taking characters out of play would narrow the crossover down to something resembling a coherent cast in future issues, but… it’s a case of wanting to eat their cake and have it afterwards, I suppose.
I heard a reliable rumor today that Remender’s going to win the Who’s Going to Clean Up Brian’s Mess sweepstakes.
Can someone tell me when or how the X-Men first learned that Hope was a Messiah who would Do Something? Were they just taking Cable at his word? Was it someone else? I didn’t follow Messiah Complex too closely. I also still don’t understand the significance of the Five Lights. Cyclops grinning like an idiot when they activated and saying, “It worked.” What worked? Does anyone know what Hope is supposed to do? I’m sorry, but Hope just makes no sense to me at all. Someone please fill me in.
@DanLichtenberg
Yes, all of this is based on what Cable’s assertions of Hope’s importance, starting around Messiah Complex. But neither he nor anyone else has ever explained how or why she is important to the future; they just keep asserting that she is. We haven’t even heard that much from Cable directly; it’s mostly been Cyclops saying that Cable told him Hope was important.
There was the fact that she was the first mutant birth since M-Day, but it’s never been very clear why that makes her a “messiah.” She does have the power to help newly emerging mutants stabilize their abilities, but none of the sermons on her importance have made mention of that so there must be more than that.
The most charitable explanation is that Marvel wants to show her importance in a story, and so they’ve been keeping things vague as a way to build up to that story. If that’s the case, hopefully AvX is that story so we finally get some answers, and hopefully the story is good enough to payoff all this build up.
@Andy Walsh
Thanks for the information. Right off the bat we have the problem of why Cable or Bishop had never mentioned Hope before (because she wasn’t created yet, but in the context of the story it doesn’t really make sense). Also, I had always assumed that Cable’s future was not simply a continuation of Bishop’s. Can someone correct me? Them both knowing about Hope, though, suggests that their futures follow the same timeline.
You’re far more charitable than I am. This story reeks of “making it up as we go” as much as Decimation did. Seriously, Messiah Complex is already years old and there STILL isn’t a solid explanation for any of this. The characters all seem to know things that haven’t been explained to the reader; why is Hope a messiah? Did anyone bother to ask Cable? If he doesn’t know, then couldn’t he be mistaken? If he’s from 3000 AD or so, then how are we to believe that he’s correct about a supposed even that took place 1000 years prior? And considering all the the alternate timelines and realities in the MU, Cable and the X-Men should really know better (Days of Future Past, anyone?). How do the characters know what Wanda’s spell actually did? If the Five Lights exist, is there still a problem of mutant births? Marvel obviously has some idea of what’s going on, but I think they’re painting way too broadly and didn’t stop to think of what the characters would actually know about any of this and how they would know it.
I think a nice twist would be if this was all in Cyclops’ head and he was just taking this and running with it for whatever reason.
BTW, another sort of relevant question, how did Cable get his TO virus back (he was recently cured by Hope). I remember he lost it in the Soldier X series. What happened after that? Thanks for the answers.
@ Dan Lichtenberg
I was always under the impression that Hope’s importance didn’t really revolve around any kind of prophecy, as much as her being born just gave Hope to mutants that mutantkind had a future. I don’t think Cable (or anyone else) ever pointed to any specific thing she was going to do to save everyone. From the outset, she was just a symbol.
She seemed to become more than that after all the bad guys tried to kill at her birth, then Bishop became obsessed with whatever he thought she was going to do. (and yes, I’ll concede that Bishop never mentioning her before seems a bit puzzling). And then Hope started catalyzing the creation of new mutants (the Five Lights) which just nudged Cyclops toward seeing her as more of an active savior than just a symbol.
And to top it all off, she started exhibiting Phoenix-like behavior and now the Phoenix is actually coming, and Cyclops starts irrationally connecting the dots (you know, like a paranoid schitzophrenic), and because he’s a mutant he’s already got a bit of a persecution complex and then Captain America shows up with his Helipad and it’s all kind of spiralled out of control.
I’ve been reading the stories this whole time as if Scott were slowly delusional into delusional madness.
And also: the reason Scott was grinning maniacally when he said “It Worked” was probably because Greg Land was drawing that issue, and maniacal grinning is just how he rolls.
@maxwell’s hammer
“I was always under the impression that Hope’s importance didn’t really revolve around any kind of prophecy, as much as her being born just gave Hope to mutants that mutantkind had a future. I don’t think Cable (or anyone else) ever pointed to any specific thing she was going to do to save everyone. From the outset, she was just a symbol.”
Fair enough, but why go to such lengths to protect her? I could see Beast maybe wanting to study her to determine how she was born a mutant, but beyond that, why assume she’ll be the only new mutant birth? Even if it is the case that she was the only new mutant birth, the characters would have no reason to assume that.
“And then Hope started catalyzing the creation of new mutants (the Five Lights)”
How do the characters know she was directly responsible for this?
“And to top it all off, she started exhibiting Phoenix-like behavior and now the Phoenix is actually coming, and Cyclops starts irrationally connecting the dots (you know, like a paranoid schitzophrenic), and because he’s a mutant he’s already got a bit of a persecution complex and then Captain America shows up with his Helipad and it’s all kind of spiralled out of control.
I’ve been reading the stories this whole time as if Scott were slowly delusional into delusional madness.”
I’m telling you. I think it would be fun and an easy way to undo a lot of this mess. They could always point back to Apocalypse’s leftover influence slowly driving Scott crazy. Not sure what Bishop’s excuse would be. Poor guy, I still think he was a great character. Like Colossus and Nightcrawler though, he hadn’t done anything of interest in years (District X was a dumb idea, I’m sorry) so I guess they had to royally mess him up somehow. At least he’s not dead, although I can’t imagine that would be much worse than turning him into the Terminator like they did.
So, any guesses as to what book(s) will come out of this story after the Phoenix does its thing? You know you can’t just have an event anymore, it has to launch a new “ongoing” (12 issues or so lol).
Thanks for your answers to my questions, fellas.
Aw, I liked District X, it was a good way to utilize Bishop.
But again, it is frustrating that Cable and Bishop both keep screaming to anybody who will listen that Hope is important, yet neither bother ever saying why she is important. Granted, it’s partly because the writers themselves probably don’t know, and are taking the Onslaught route and hoping they’ll come up with a reason eventually.
“If he’s from 3000 AD or so, then how are we to believe that he’s correct about a supposed even that took place 1000 years prior?”
Yes, the conflict between Cable and Bishop would make more sense if they were from closer points in time from whatever alternate future worlds they come from.
“And also: the reason Scott was grinning maniacally when he said “It Worked” was probably because Greg Land was drawing that issue, and maniacal grinning is just how he rolls.”
Ha! So true.
I liked District X too, but it really did feel as if Bishop was the secondary character in that book. I don’t know if that’s strictly a complaint, though — I thought the whole thing was interesting.
Didn’t they go to major lengths to establish that Wanda’s spell removed the mutant gene almost entirely across the multi-verse? They really wrote themselves into a corner, as far as I remember, to get the point across that there was NO MORE MUTANTS save the ones who actually starred in comics that sold.
Then they started quietly dropping some of the finer details. I’m sure suddenly mutants in the multi-verse were fair game again.
Has anyone ever investigated who Hope’s parents were?
I think the broad strokes they take writing Hope as prophetic is because they’ll otherwise have to contradict something.
I’m not saying District X was poorly written, it wasn’t. But I was already sick to death of Lucas “I’m a Cop” Bishop from that stupid X-Treme X-Men arc (the one with Stryker) and just wasn’t in the mood. I never understood why Bishop thought he had the authority of a normal officer (being that a “cop” in his time wasn’t exactly the same thing as a modern day NYPD) and why everyone around him seemed to play along. He would have worked better as a vigilante or something. Or, better yet, as a member of the team he cared about and not running around playing sheriff or wining and dining with Sentinel Squad ONE. Sorry, I feel they screwed his character and I’m still mad.
@wwk5d
“But again, it is frustrating that Cable and Bishop both keep screaming to anybody who will listen that Hope is important, yet neither bother ever saying why she is important. Granted, it’s partly because the writers themselves probably don’t know, and are taking the Onslaught route and hoping they’ll come up with a reason eventually.”
I never thought of that, but it does seem eerily similar to Onslaught. The creators admitted that they spent the better part of a year dropping Onslaught hints while not having a clue as to who or what it actually was, which is exactly how not to write one of these things. All of those clues didn’t mesh at all with the eventual reveal, and I’m convinced we’ll get a repeat of that at the end of AvX.
@ maxwell’s hammer
“I was always under the impression that Hope’s importance didn’t really revolve around any kind of prophecy, as much as her being born just gave Hope to mutants that mutantkind had a future.”
One point I forgot to make. I hate to say it, but I almost wish it WAS the result of a prophecy. At least then we would have a reason for it within the context of the story. It would work because you’d have fanatics like Cyclops who would just blindly believe it, and then you’d have people who were skeptics but willing to play along as well as those who would just think he’s a nut and want no part of it. The prophecy angle would actually alleviate the questions I’ve been asking; when a character would try to ask the tough questions, there just wouldn’t be answers because all they have to go on is a prophecy. Cyclops would buy into it completely on faith. The X-Men would be splintered (Schism could have been about this instead of some hamfisted “kids shouldn’t fight” nonsense). I like this idea and it makes a lot more sense than practically everyone on Utopia saying, “sure Scott, that sounds great” based on some heresay from Cable.
Actually, I’ve read every FF issue EVER, and Thing CAN breathe underwater in the right conditions. Reed Richards invented pills that let Ben breathe underwater, and also a spray, for up to an hour.
If Ben thought beforehand to take a pill or get sprayed, then YES, he can fight underwater for an hour without any problems.
@Aaron Thall
He’d still get his ass handed to him.
In schism didn’t magneto get chumped by a normal 12 year-old, so iron man is a step up.
Cable and Cyclops are just really big Idlewild fans.
Aaron Thall,
I’m betting the writers haven’t read every issue of FF, because otherwise that would have been a decent explanation. Instead Ben apparently held his breath a lot and took a big gulp of super hot air bubbles to do the job. Also, can anyone explain how Namor got knocked down? It looks like he swung the giant fish at Mr. Grimm (for reasons I don’t quite understand) and somehow stunned himself instead.
It was always my understanding that Bishop and Cable had different notions about Hope because they came from different futures.
In Bishop’s future, something happened with Hope that ultimately led to all the mutants being put into camps. Thus, all mutant kids growing up in those camps (like Bishop) learned to hate her. And you can almost justify Bishop not mentioning her because when he first came back he was focused on more immediate issues, and then after Onslaught finished and the whole “traitor” nonsense turned out differently than he remembered, he perhaps assumed his future was no longer going to happen until Hope showed up.
In Cable’s future, Hope is some sort of Messianic figure for reasons that are never specified. The most surprising aspect of that was the notion that Cable wanted to preserve something about his timeline, since his general raison d’etre was making sure that his future never happened. As for why he never mentioned Hope before… he’s Cable and has always been cryptic about the future? It’s weak, but not entirely unprecedented for Cable.
I suppose it’s also possible that Bishop and Cable come from the same timeline, but that Cable’s perspective on Hope is different because he is viewing events through the lens of an additional thousand years of history. Perhaps things were bad in the short term, but ultimately worked out better in the long term than if Hope had never been around. Or perhaps certain details of the past got lost or garbled and so Cable’s perspective is skewed.
But it’s actually more interesting if they came from different futures, because then neither is right or wrong and there is some tension in AvX as to how the story will end.
And yes, the Endangered Species mini/backup series went to great lengths to establish that mutants had been erased from all parallel universes and all possible future timelines, only to be promptly ignored in pretty much every story involving the future or the multiverse since. I think Warren Ellis’s first Astonishing X-Men arc was the only other story to actually reference that plot point.
What if the Phoenix just comes to pick up Hope and they go sightseeing the cosmos? All this crap for nothing.
Also if I remember correctly, the whole Jean Grey/Phoenix as killer of planets was written as her being pissed off from the Hellfire Club turning her into their handpuppet. So shouldn´t this “let´s find Hope and kill her or put her into a bunker or whatever” just transform her into this state of mind in the first place?
Great analysis, Niall 🙂 I don´t buy these books, but reading all of this just makes one wish for the Garth Ennis version of AvX. Magneto vs Iron Man; I guess Magneto would make Andy Warhol proud :-))
Niall,
Nice job on the various problems with this (although you left out the most annoying line. It’s something like you think a man who can control metal will defeat a man in a metal suit. Then you don’t know Tony Stark. And that’s it. No attempt to even tyr and come up with even a techno-babble explanation. I know they go in to it in the comapnion book, but if there was enouhg time to write the caption, then there was enough time to come up with something.
But you’ve left out how little sense the Phoenix parts are. For instance:
The Phoenix is travelling across interstaellar distances and apparently on a straight line to Earth. Space is mostly space, how is it all these inhabited planets are directly in the way?
Hope’s getting stronger as it gets closer? How does that make sense when things are measured in light years. The distances are too great for that to make any real sense.
And (as someone on Savage Critics pointed out) if the Phoenix is traveling across space either it’s going slower than light in which case it’s not getting here for many years or it’s going faster than light in which case you can’t intercept it in space because you can’t see it.
@Andy Walsh
How did Bishop know this was the same girl? He heard stories about a redhead named Hope who was born some 60 odd years before he was that did something bad and caused mutants to be put into camps? Why were there even mutants in his future at all unless M Day was reversed, in which case, what the hell did Hope do that was terrible? Did M Day even happen in Bishop’s future? It would almost have to have happened in order for Hope to have any significance, and he surely would have heard about it if he had heard of Hope. Why didn’t he ever warn the X-Men that one day their face would be decimated? Why didn’t he just tell them how it was fixed (it had to have been as he is living proof of that)? If M Day didn’t happen in Bishop’s timeline, then the whole thing is thrown out and clearly he would have no clearer picture of who Hope is or what she’ll do than anyone else.
I’m sorry, but none of this makes sense.
As for Cable, wasn’t his future already jettisoned when he, um, killed Apocalypse in Search For Cyclops? Isn’t that the entire reason Rachel Summers was bounced out of the time stream and back into 616? And like you said, he was never interested in preserving his future because it was a rotten place, which was almost entirely due to Apocalypse taking over everything. Besides, it’s still 1000 years away. I’ve never understand how a man who’s traveled all through time and seen so many alternate realities could cling so closely to the concept of destiny. If this is the case, why doesn’t Cable just sit down with the X-Men sometime and lay out the next fifty years of storylines for them? Seems like the least he could do.
As for Endangered species, why in the world did they even try to take it that far? Even the Ultimate universe is part of the multiverse, so if they were serious, then there shouldn’t be any mutants there either. They obviously didn’t think this through because they not only ignored that, but there are now more X-books and mutant characters running around than ever before. Decimation has been the driving force for stories in the mutant books for years, but it sure doesn’t feel that they’re a minority anymore. They need to do a story where Cable goes back in time and slaps Quesada in the face.
@Aaron Thall
“If Ben thought beforehand to take a pill or get sprayed…”
This sentence made me chuckle for reasons I still don’t understand, but thank you. 🙂
@Rich Larson: Easy, the Phoenix is not traveling faster than light, it’s taking many short jumps through hyperspace while making sure to stop and work over some planets along the way.
Haven’t read the issue, but it seems like Namor threw the fight intentionally (remember, not only does he have membership in the Avengers as well, but he’s always had a thing for Sue Richards and causing real harm to Ben would NOT help him in that regard.)
NB,
Ah, well of course! You’ve made it all make sense now! 🙂
What an excellent thing that Iron Man can track the “direct path to earth” through hyperspace and that Beast knew where it would stop off next.
My bad, I’ve obviously been mis-reading the whole series!
M-day happening in Bishop’s timeline makes no sense. He came back specifically to stop something and change the future. If Hope was a thing that affected his future, then M-Day was a thing that affected his future. He would’ve mentioned M-Day, at least. You can’t pull the “somethings about the future I just couldn’t tell you” card when his entire reason to be was to change the damn future.
@DanLichtenberg
Re: Cable, Bishop & Hope – All good questions, and at this point I’m not sure there are satisfying answers.
Re: Endangered Species – I think there were a few reasons for making such a sweeping statement about the impact of M-Day. First, they were trying to reinforce the idea that no more mutants was a Serious Problem. That was arguably necessary, since it had been a couple of years since M-Day, most of the X-books had moved on, and few major characters were still affected.
Second, they had to make it appear as if Beast had made an effort to solve/reverse it. That meant Beast had to be at least as clever as the average reader, so he had to look at other universes and future timelines. Both are such staples of X-stories that if he hadn’t, many readers would have complained that obvious options had been overlooked.
Third, I think they were trying to convince the readers that they were serious about no more mutants, and that they wouldn’t just be using parallel dimensions as a cheap way of introducing new mutant characters. And to their credit, they stuck with that in the main books for quite a while in the sense that new X-Men characters have not joined the team from another universe. We’ve seen alternate universe mutants in titles like Exiles, but they’ve stayed in those books. And characters like AoA Nightcrawler predated M-Day, and presumably kept their powers the same way that some 616 mutants did.
Also, at the time of Endangered Species, the official Marvel stance was that the Ultimate Universe was not part of the regular MU multiverse and could thus not be reached from Earth 616 the way that, say, the AoA universe could. They have since revised that position, but at the time they could reasonably say that M-Day impacted the entire MU multiverse, but Ultimate characters were not affected.
Cheers guys!
Aaron, I stand corrected. And I’m sure the scene where thing popped the pill was in Jason’s original draft but got cut 😉
Rich, you’re right, the Phoenix stuff doesn’t make sense, but I tend to let that stuff pass just because the way that Galactus, the Celestials and the Phoenix Force work in the Marvel Universe doesn’t make all that much sense anyway. I could be wrong, but it is consistent with what’s gone before.
Regarding Hope and alternative universe Mutants, my understanding was that Hope’s birth, changed the multiverse. Wanda’s spell had been broken and mutants were once again a possibility.
As for why Hope is seen as a Messiah, well, she was the first mutant born after M-Day. Cable has prophecised that she will be very important. Her arrival back in out timestream conincided with the activation of the 5 lights x-genes and she appears to be the only one capable of stabilising the new mutants after activation. She also saved Utopia and most of the remainder of the mutant race from the Nimrod sentinels and showed signs of having Phoenix force abilities.
People have followed individuals for less.
I think there are ways to write their way out of this corner if they want to. Obviously, they should have thought it out ahead of time (especially with Hope since there seemed to be a long term plan when they introduced her.)
You could try something like this. Bishop came back to stop the X-Traitor and did with the Onslaught story. M-Day never happened to Bishop (let’s assume Onslaught did something that took Scarlet Witch off the board.) However, in his timeline a mutant named Hope came along and Did Something horrible that ruined things even further for mutants. Bishop assumed that stopping Onslaught meant everything changed and so he freaks out when the horrible Hope shows up anyway. (From his perspective she’s a baby Hitler.)
For Cable, in a different timeline, he remembers a mutant named Hope that came and Did Something tht made things better for mutants. He may even only know a legend, but he knows that Hope was important and good and the mutants are in trouble without her. (For him ,it’s a baby King Arthur.)
So what have we seen from Hope. She was born whcih broke the Scarlet Witch’s spell. Her return to our time sparked the first new mutant manifestations. However, she also uses mind control on them. She can channel all the powers of any mutant (she needs proximity now, but maybe not later.) She’s connected to Phoenix. We’ve seen a future where the Avengers stop her from Doing Something and the world is destroyed.
So there is evidence Hope is important and tha she can use the most powerful forces around. The story then becomes what is the Something she will do or not do and which choice saves the mutants (and the world) and which choice ruins the mutants (and the world.)
Avengers vs. X-Men could actually sort all this out if they’ve come up with the Something that ties it altogether and is a clever development (like when the prohecy comes true just not the way you expected it to.)
Has somebody actually come up with a satisfying resolution to this? It would be hard to be confident about it, but the MArvel Architects would gain a lot of good will from me if they could bring the past few years of stories in for a coherent landing. We’ll find out soon………
@Rich Larson
The problem with that is that it’s just too continuity heavy, which is basically the other side of the issue with these stories (the first being that Marvel is kind of just winging it). As I’ve mentioned before, I think a lot of the readership these days is old timers who have been invested in this stuff at one point or another for the past 10, 20, or 30 years. The ten year old boys just aren’t there anymore. Most of us have an understanding (more or less) of Bishop, the X-Traitor, Onslaught, Phoenix, etc. but these things are poison to new readers. And the fact is, new readers are still heavily sought after, especially with the extreme marketability of these characters that we have now (the movies, basically). While a fifty year old continuity will occasionally cause creators to forget certain plot details, I think a lot of what we’re seeing now is just choosing to quietly ignore them. AvX has multiple implications that this is the first time the Phoenix has been an issue since the original saga; we know that’s not the case, but there’s just no way that Marvel is going to devote an issue to twenty year old stories from Excalibur just to make everything complete, especially not in a big story like this. I truly believe that as far as Marvel is concerned, the Bishop of the last few years is just a guy from the future who came back in time to stop Hope. The X-Traitor business is over and done with and now sits under the rug.
@The original Matt:
“Didn’t they go to major lengths to establish that Wanda’s spell removed the mutant gene almost entirely across the multi-verse?”
From what I recall, Marvel did the same thing that it had been doing since at least House of M, blatantly making everything up as they go along, with no coordination or organized plan.
Or, to put it another way, I recall there being multiple explanations for what Wanda did. Just like there were multiple explanations for what “198” meant, how there were two different percentages used to say how many mutants left (and neither fit being left with only 200 mutants), how one book could say there were no alternate futures with mutants anymore while another contradicted it. Just like how different writers had different understandings of how House of M worked. And you can find similar contradictions in Marvel’s various other big stories as well. (Heck, Bendis managed to contradict his own stories on a month to month basis. What hope did a reader have of Marvel coordinating its various writers in such an environment?)
Has there ever been an in-story explanation of why the original “No more mutants” hex didn’t quite affect all the mutants, or how it chose which ones to skip?
“And you can find similar contradictions in Marvel’s various other big stories as well.”
See Xorn.
Dan,
I mostly agree with you (although my nine year old seems to be able to generally ignore the heavy continuity when he wants to and enjoy the story anyway.) But I do think they have to make at least the recent story make sense and they could do that without having every last statement by every character be gospel. I’m fine with ignoring an old Excalibur reference. I’m less fine with no one explaining why Bishop and Cable are reacting the way they do. And they chose to put Wanda in the mix so it should pay off her story too. The Hope story seemed to imply there was a game plan when they introduced her. I’ll be annoyed if the payoff isn’t pretty good. I’m hoping to be surprised!
Who says continuity is poison to new readers? I started reading comics when I was about 12 or 13, and half the fun was seeing all the references to older stories I’d not read, then scouring the back issues at the LCS to fill in all my knowledge gaps!
All my “Dark Phoenix” and “Fall of the Mutants” and “Inferno” and “X-Tinction Agenda” comics carry a lot more personal significance because they’d been made to seem like important things in the later issues I was reading, so I felt like I’d made a big score each time I added one of those issues to my collection.
Fascination with continuity is what ended up making me a collector and life-long fan! It’s kind of depressing the way the current climate focuses more on THE NEXT MAJOR EVENT instead of celebrating the rich history of the comics. That’s one of the reasons I miss Mike Carey on ‘Legacy’. He didn’t just dig up an old character and shove him into a three fight scene (*cough*Exodus*cough*). He really sunk his teeth into the history of the characters and used that as the material for great character driven stories.
I loved that moment at the end of Carey’s run on ‘Legacy’ where Magneto is beating the shit out of some aliens and Frenzy just stands back in wide-eyed awe and says, “That’s why I was his acolyte.” Add an editor’s note and refer back to the Fabian Cortez days, and you’ve just sent a dozen kids running to the backissues to see what that was all about.
But those moments are few and far between and editor’s notes have been verboten for so long, there aren’t any kids left to go run to the back issues.
What was this thread about again?
@maxwell’s hammer
I come from a similar place. One where I was wondering who all these people were and their histories. And I had to find out more. Old comics. The heresay from other readers that “did you know this happened”.
When I first started reading X-men, I had a friend at school who swore he had old X-men comics where Wolverine had a brother named “Wolveranda”, who was killed off. I kid you not. We never saw these comics because “his mum wouldn’t let him bring them to school”.
Then they were “accidently” (read: convieniently) thrown out after the issue was pressed a bit more.
It was a different world then.
Nowadays, almost every room in the house has a tv. Comics don’t provide the escapism they used to because as a kid you could go to your room and get lost in this colourful world of characters and awesome. Now kids are watching tv and using the internet in their rooms at the same time.
Even if they were to start reading comics, they wouldn’t have the fun of hunting down back issues, or trying to work out who came from where and what relationships they had with other characters. It’s all on wikipedia. And they’d probably just torrent back issues.
Then get on forums and complain.
I see Hope working like this. If you looked at the timeline from the outside, Hope didn’t exist. Then Jean Grey died and was reincarnated, let’s say by the Phoenix Force as a new vessel. Jean/Hope had to be a mutant to make a strong enough vessel, but for this to happen, the Phoenix Force had to directly oppose the No More Mutants reality whammy. This actually changed reality a second time, weakening the spell and creating new time lines. The weakening allowed new mutants to be born (or to have been born), albeit needing a kickstart. And Hope suddenly existing affected all of the future, and suddenly Bishop and Cable knew about her. They didn’t act or say anything previously because she didn’t exist previously. Even though they’re from the future, she didn’t exist in the future until just now, either.
And to put icing on the cake, maybe Bishop’s future suddenly became a lot worse, while Cable’s later future because a lot nicer.
Niall hit the hammer on the head. I enjoy seeing fights, but only when they’re done right and follow acceptable logic (citing Sanderson’s First Law of Magic is perfect). If the fights aren’t going to make sense, or consistent of the “I drew a few page spreads of random group shops” type fight that is vogue these days, then forget the whole thing.
I didn’t buy AvX Vs, but did take a look at it. I’m a Magneto fan, so I wanted to see the first fight. And yeah, it was bad. “You don’t know Tony Stark…” ok, so, what? Is his suit plastic? Give me a reason why Magneto doesn’t instantly wipe the floor with him. And the ending was kinda silly, having Magneto be obviously the more powerful, yet have Iron Man “win” because Magneto has an Obi-Wan/Alderaan moment. It just makes the whole “fight” seem cheap and pointless.
At this point, I’m interested in AvX just to see them finally resolve the Hope storyline, though I know in my heart Marvel’s just been making it all up as they go along. I really do feel silly buying all those issues of Cable (a whole 25 issues of Cable and Hope running away from Bishop!) and so on. Marvel really needs to get an editor and some writers dedicated to filling in the gaps and making everything make some sense (as happened recently over at IDW with the Transformers comics). Ah, to dream…
Si: The problem with your theory is that Cable and Bishop, by the virtue of coming back in time, now exist outside of time. Their memories don’t alter to adjust to a new timeline.
Not to a new timeline maybe, but to a whole new reality they would.
“I’ve heard people saying that Wolverine being ready to gut Hope is a follow up on a conversation in UXM”
First, it’s not a “conversation” that happens in Uncanny #11 – it’s a throwaway line in a narration box. Second, the scene in AvX #2 isn’t a follow-up on the Uncanny line – the Uncanny line is clearly meant to be an after-the-fact clean-up to explain the AvX scene. The problem is that the explanation – that Hope supposedly asked Logan to kill her if she ever turned into the Phoenix – still makes no sense, on multiple levels.
First, Hope supposedly had little to no idea of the origin or nature of her powers or connection to the Phoenix until very recently – in fact, until after Wolverine left Utopia. So how could she have asked him to kill her? Second, even if she had asked him to kill her, Wolverine would still be presented with the ethical dilemma that Niall pointed out and that remains utterly unaddressed here – namely, that he refuses to send children into battle but is apparently more than happy to kill them. Third, even if Hope wanted someone to kill her as a failsafe, why in the name of fuck would she ask Wolverine? Wolverine’s powers are (1) healing factor, (2) metal bones, (3) knifey hands. As popular and marketable and toyetic as he may be, he is still a short hairy troll who stabs things; just about any other member of Hope’s own team is vastly more powerful and would have a far better chance in a fight with an increasingly godlike cosmic being than Wolverine. He may be “the best there is at what he does,” but what he does is grow terrible sideburns, sell overpriced action figures and appear in increasingly short-lived spin-off titles.
Has there ever been an in-story explanation of why the original “No more mutants” hex didn’t quite affect all the mutants
Doctor Strange did a wiggly thing with his fingers, but apparently didn’t do enough of a wiggly thing with his fingers.