X-Factor #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FACTOR vol 4 #10
“Finale”
by Leah Williams, David Baldeon, David Messina, Lucas Werneck & Israel Silva
COVER / PAGE 1. X-Factor dance at the Hellfire Gala.
This is the final issue of the series, and it’s a Hellfire Gala tie-in. So there’s an awful lot of racing to tie up loose ends here.
PAGES 2-4. X-Factor prepare for the Gala.
Jean-Paul and Kyle are discussing the Five’s practice of removing traumatic memories when resurrecting mutants – at least in those cases where they understand that it was requested. The most obvious case of that happening was with Domino in X-Force, though in that case Colossus lied about Domino’s wishes.
Rachel and Daken are talking about Daken’s relationship with Aurora, which has evidently just become common knowledge (at least within the team). Off to the side is the new Rockslide, resurrected in “X of Swords”, whose plot never really got a chance to go anywhere.
Rachel says that she misses the “old Mojoverse programming”. Presumably she’s referring to the programmes that Aurora was watching earlier in the series, rather than the films Mojo was making when she was a prisoner there in the run-up to Excalibur vol 1. The Mojoverse was overthrown last issue, with Sofia Mantega being installed to run the place.
Prodigy has received a package from himself, but we’ll get to that.
Polaris and Aurora. Polaris is presumably nervous because she’s planning to put herself forward for election to the X-Men. As we’ve already seen in X-Men #21, she gets in.
Eye-Boy is wandering around looking harmless and picking up everything that’s going on.
The Five show up to leave as a group. They presumably work more closely with X-Factor than any other Krakoan group, given X-Factor’s death-investigation remit.
PAGE 5-6. X-Factor arrive at the Gala.
Carmen. This is very interesting. The nervous girl that Eye-Boy strikes up a conversation with is Carmen Cruz – Gimmick from the Young X-Men, over in Children of the Atom. But the Young X-Men aren’t mutants and the whole premise of their series is that they can’t get to Krakoa. Given her nervousness – and the absence of any of her teammates – this surely isn’t a mistake, but foreshadowing for something yet to happen in her home title. (Children didn’t have a Hellfire Gala tie-in issue – their issue this month takes place on the day when the Gala is publicly announced, and so it hasn’t actually reached the Gala itself yet.)
“Laura … while you were gone.” Laura Kinney, the second Wolverine, and Daken’s sister. She’s been “gone” due to the Children of the Vault arc over in X-Men, where she spent a (very) extended period of time locked in the Vault, but doesn’t remember any of it due to resurrection. Gabby is Scout, their younger sister – she’ll be found dead later in the evening, as seen in New Mutants #19.
Jubilee from Excalibur is the woman encouraging Kyle and Jean-Paul to start a family.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits, in the Hellfire Gala modified format.
PAGE 8. Prodigy visits Club Pepper.
This scene relates to the subplot about Prodigy investigating how he actually died, before his previous resurrection. We established in issue #8 that he had left himself a hidden message embedded in a photograph of himself at this LA nightclub. The staff at the nightclub are pleasantly surprised to see him because they apparently knew or suspected that the guy he left with was a serial killer – understandably, if he’s the first regular to return after departing with the man in question.
PAGES 9-10. Shatterstar arrives at the Gala.
Prestige is dancing with Kate Pryde, her former teammate from the X-Men and the original Excalibur.
Shatterstar‘s quest to save Siryn from the Morrigan was very hastily rushed through at the tail end of the previous issue. If you hadn’t guessed that this was to do with the book’s cancellation, Rachel helpfully points out that “it should have taken him months.”
We’ve already seen Shatterstar’s return in Excalibur #21. His reunion with ex-parter Rictor goes badly, but showing that here would screw up the sense of closure. This storyline is presumably going to be continued in Excalibur, where Rictor is a regular character.
PAGES 11-12. Prodigy confronts the serial killer.
We’re not really told the details of how he found the guy, but there just isn’t time, nor does it really matter. Buck Thatcher is a new character; since he’s a millionaire film producer, I assume this was going to be a story about the predatory elite committing sexual violence with impunity. There’s timing for you.
PAGE 13. The X-Men election.
Kyle. Somebody finally asks the obvious question of what he’s doing on Krakoa (and we’ve seen in other books that they won’t even accept human refugees onto the island, after all), but it’s the final issue so it gets brushed off as a running gag.
Polaris is leaving the team on being elected to the X-Men, as we already saw in X-Men #21. She apologises for not giving advance warning; Northstar wishes her well.
PAGE 14. Aurora and Northstar.
The first panel is a repeat from Hellions #12 – Wild Child is making a clumsy attempt to rekindle his relationship with Aurora, and has flown into a rage on realising that she’s with Daken. His teammate Greycrow is subduing him.
Daken finally takes a moment to explain the circumstances of Aurora’s death back in issue #1 – she killed the bad guy, and tried to cover it up by suicide. (“I know that you killed Eddie. And that you tried to cover it up by dying.”) What actually happened in issue #1, according to X-Factor’s investigation, was that Aurora hit Eddie Avidan with a car and both plunged over a bridge; the car had had its brake lines cut. At the time, X-Factor assumed that this was sabotage by an anti-mutant activist and that the unexplained question was what Aurora had been doing there in the first place. Daken’s theory – confirmed by Aurora’s reaction – seems to be that she sabotaged the car herself in order to provide deniability when she killed Avidan.
This, of course, is a violation of the rule against killing humans. Daken says that he went back and killed Avidan’s gang, so that they’re both in it together. I’m fairly sure that’s new information.
PAGES 15-19. X-Factor gather to help Prodigy.
This is the explanation for Prodigy’s mystery death. The basic idea is that (during the Krakoan era) Prodigy became aware of this potential serial killer, and went with him as part of an investigation, knowing that he’d be resurrected on Krakoa in the end. He says that he deliberately timed this between his Cerebro backups, so that if he was killed, he wouldn’t have any memories of it on resurrection – he calls this “plausible deniability”, but I don’t really understand what he would need to deny.
I confess that I don’t really follow the mechanics of all this. In issue #7, Prodigy claimed that he believed he had died “during the same O.N.E. attack on Xavier’s Institute that wiped out a bunch of other kids”. Whatever he was referring to there, he apparently had no memories of being on Krakoa before his current resurrection… which doesn’t really fit with him timing the incident to take place between Krakoan-era backups. He wouldn’t know about the backups before he was on Krakoa. And if he wanted to leave a message for his future self, why did he go about it in such an incredibly arcane and roundabout fashion? Perhaps these would have been explained if the story had played out in its full length.
Eye-Boy has a Krakoan word that appears on his chest (or perhaps floats in the air next to his hands) when he’s making the hand shapes. It changes from panel to panel. It reads AUM – VAM – RAM – and finally ANG when he gets the power to work. (Was it meant to say BANG?) This is evidently a hint of where the sub-plot about Eye-Boy gaining new powers would have gone, though how it’s an outgrowth of his existing abilities is less than obvious.
PAGES 20-22. The Scarlet Witch is found.
Prodigy is reunited with Speed to round off the series. But we end the book with Speed discovering the corpse of the Scarlet Witch, who was dancing contentedly with Magneto when we last saw her in S.W.O.R.D. #6. Speed is her reincarnated son. This presumably gets us into the vexed question of whether the Scarlet Witch is in any sense a mutant, or just an experiment of the High Evolutionary who was successfully passed off as a mutant for many years – or indeed whether that’s close enough for Cerebro anyway. After all, it seems to have some records of Tier, who isn’t a true mutant either. That said, if there’s going to be a trial, presumably she’s staying dead… for now, anyway.
PAGES 23-24. Farewell messages from the creative team.
PAGE 25. Trailers. The line “The Party Is Over” refers not just to the end of this series, but also to the fact that this is the final Hellfire Gala issue – Cable #11 is not a tie-in.
The Krakoan reads NEXT: TRIAL OF MAGNETO.
PAGE 26. The X-Men inspect the body.
Wolverine, in his X-Force security gear, immediately identifies Magneto as the top suspect.
I can only presume that Eye-Boy has found a way to weaponize his X-ray vision in combination with other visions… infrared? Ultraviolet? Maybe he has an eye that taps into Cyclops’ “not heat vision” dimension of kinetic force? It’s the comment about sunburn and radiation poisoning…
It’s a shame this series was cancelled so abruptly. Leah Williams was clearly writing for a longer timeframe with so many plotlines that had to be truncated or wrapped up without proper explanation… and I guess she didn’t want to leave too much dangling in case she didn’t get to come back to them after Trial of Magneto.
This series was a bit goofy at times, but far more entertaining than Excalibur or X-Corp, and a lot more coherent, too.
Buck Thatcher is a not-veiled analogue to Ed Buck:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Buck
I feel bad about the heat Leah is taking for this issue. It’s a sensitive subject, and I believe Leah had a thoughtful place she wanted to take it and was unable to do so. Editorial really ought to have considered the ramifications of resolving this plot so abruptly, and perhaps promised her a one-shot or something down line to make sure it didn’t blow up in their faces exactly as it has.
One other note: I appreciate the subtle twist that the coupling of Daken and Aurora is more about joining two murderers and sociopaths together and not just “wow Daken is a nice guy now.”
“Sociopaths” seems extreme. That’s not really how Daken or Aurora have been presented in this series. I agree that relationship is more interesting with this shared secret, though, and I hope it’s going to be followed up somewhere.
As much as I’ve enjoyed this series, this issue and #9 were not particulary good. I appreciate the desire to resolve everything, but I wonder if some storylines (like the Mojoverse and Eye Boy) could have been cut to make more room for stuff like the Prodigy mystery. I agree with Paul — it’s not at all clear what happened there.
Considering this was such a fun “hang out” book, it’s a shame they didn’t get to do more of a character-focused issue for the Gala.
Also a shame that there was so much fill-in art here — Baldeon has a unique style that really fit the book, and while the other artists made an attempt to mimic it, the tone rarely felt right. Apparently he’s off to do a Star Wars book, but he’ll be missed.
On the hastily-wrapped up plot lines, it seems that Prodigy’s is the one that is getting the most attention online, and which gets the most space in the issue. It’s unclear and unsatisfying, but doesn’t seem to damage the character. He died (off panel) in a terrible way, but it was part of his own plan to stop the bad guy, and that plan worked. Presumably there was more to this story than how it played out, but it’s fairly anticlimactic.
The Aurora/Daken twist is more interesting in that it retroactively changes how the reader perceives the characters in the series, and presumably this would have been revealed in a more dramatic way if the creative team had more space to tell the story.
Coupled with David’s plot line, though, it means that nearly every mystery X-Factory has investigated in this series had the victim being an active participant in their own murder, either willingly (Aurora and Prodigy) or through some kind of coercion (Wind Dancer and Siren). That seems like a long-running theme that the book didn’t get to play out as successfully as it could have. I wonder if the parallel between those plots was intended to be building towards something, or whether it was just a pet theme of Williams.
The trailers mention Trial of Magneto being X-Factor’s “greatest and final” case, or something like that, which suggests that the book may not be coming back for a second “season” after that miniseries, which seems unfortunate.
Sad to see this go.
You think they could at least give it a full 12 issues to wrap it up, but what do I know.
Daken and Aurora really didn’t do anything Wolverine hasn’t done a thousand times, but I did like adding some darkness to the relationship.
The Wanda death was janky and didn’t need to be in this book.
Really aside from some fun character moments in the actual series the whole Gala could have been done in an oversized special issue.
Maybe I’m being dense, but I don’t understand the online anger about how the Prodigy storyline was presented. It was rushed, obviously, but it seems like Prodigy successfully investigated and subdued a racist serial killer and then his friends supported him. That’s good, right?
“nearly every mystery X-Factor has investigated in this series had the victim being an active participant in their own murder”
Such a good catch. I wonder where that was going.
I’m going to miss this book. It’s a shame it ended so sloppily.
The issue some readers have with the Prodigy plot is that the hasty resolution meant the whole business of queer predation and racialized sexual assault rather comes out of left field, and piling all the other characters in makes it seem like Prodigy gets overshadowed in the wrap-up of his own plotline, especially where Eye-Boy is concerned. I didn’t have that strong a reaction, but I’m not exactly unbiased and I’m really forgiving given the circumstances of the book’s cancelation, so there’s that.
I’m just mostly sad. This book at least needed a double-sized issue as a send-off, but no, the only procedural of the lot had to squeeze the resolution of all its plots in between the Gala stuff and the set-up for a spin-off book, and the creative team is taking all the flack for it. I enjoyed this book and it deserved better.
“Buck Thatcher is a new character; since he’s a millionaire film producer, I assume this was going to be a story about the predatory elite committing sexual violence with impunity. There’s timing for you.”
Indeed! This book hit the stands the same day Bill Cosby was released from prison.
I find it interesting to see which plot lines writers choose to prioritize and wrap up when there’s a sudden cancellation. Williams essentially chose to do no harm to Northstar, Rachel and Lorna, who ultimately kinda did nothing in this series, and prioritized making progress with Daken, Aurora, Prodigy and especially Eyeboy. I like Rachel and Lorna a lot, but I think Williams made the right calls. The Shatterstar bit must have been worked out with Howard in advance and will presumably play out in Excalibur, because it really sticks out as “wait, we’re spending panel time on this?”
I wasn’t as in love with this book as some, but I hope Williams sticks around the X-universe awhile. Trial of Magneto seems like a good fit for her skills.
Huh — I can see that. Thanks for the explanation. Given the circumstances, it seems like progressive readers piling up on an ally, which is one of my least favorite things. But maybe they don’t know the circumstances? I suppose it doesn’t matter in any case, since the series has been so seriously derailed.
“Maybe I’m being dense, but I don’t understand the online anger about how the Prodigy storyline was presented. It was rushed, obviously, but it seems like Prodigy successfully investigated and subdued a racist serial killer and then his friends supported him. That’s good, right?”
It’s a sensitive subject because it’s real. The villain wasn’t a supervillain or the Joker, he was a very thinly veiled analogue of Ed Buck, a wealthy man currently facing charges for a series of young, gay, black men that he overdosed. It took years for anyone to actually investigate these murders. Queer BIPOC being fetishized and murdered is a Serious Subject, and that trauma is reduced to a punchline: “I fucked around and found out!”, it’s made into, somehow, a stage for Eye Boy to actualize himself and his powers (instead of David), it’s made into a way for Aurora and Daken to fantasize about execution and prison, all the while David’s naked (and presumably, sexually abused) corpse is stuffed in a backpack.
The subject matter is complex, it’s painful, and it’s personal, and it’s blown through as a B plot in a crossover issue. I would suggest that it might be akin to having Spiderman catch the falling Twin Towers in a net on 9/11 in the middle of fighting Kraven the Hunter or something, but of course, the body count on 9/11 was lower.
I think it’s rather harsh to treat it as offensive given that it’s so obviously truncated due to cancellation, but I can certainly see why (if you ignore that fact or simply aren’t aware of it) it would play badly. It never gets the chance to do anything with the serial killer or his activities, and so it doesn’t actually say anything about the topic beyond “hey, I think we can all agree that this is an *especially* bad kind of serial killer.” The veiled criticism is, at least in part, that it plays as “and don’t you all think better of me for holding that view” rather than as a serious explanation of the point.
Shame this wasn’t at least a double-sized issue like the first one to give Williams a little more room to work.
It was damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation – wrap as much up as you can haphazardly or leave pretty much everything completely unresolved? What’s the less bad option? At this point Marvel writers very rarely bother to pick up plot threads left by previous creators. Even though the current crop of x-writers collaborate pretty closely, they still each have their own plans, so I don’t think we’d get much more than the Rictor/Shatterstar scene in Excalibur in terms of other books picking up X-Factor’s loose ends.
So out of the two bad options, I think I still prefer the haphazard wrap up. Even though it resulted in pretty much two weakest issues of the ten. Not bad, but very rushed.
‘he calls this “plausible deniability”, but I don’t really understand what he would need to deny.’
I think the implication is that Prodigy was planning to kill the guy.
Are we supposed to be able to piece together who wrote X-Factor the creepy email about the shrinking room, or is that just a loose end now?
Yeah, the climactic scene should have been Prodigy’s since it was his case to solve and his life to avenge. That scene is almost there if you squint, but he certainly doesn’t get the triumph or catharsis he deserves.
I give Williams the benefit of the doubt about the specifics of the storyline being included only for shock value or self-congratulation. She has clearly been interested in writing and developing queer men of color over the course of this series, so I can forgive some clumsiness due to external pressure to wrap up her storylines.
If anything, I think the book has raised the profile of a series of abuses and murders that were previously being swept under the rug. I certainly didn’t know anything about Ed Buck before this. But I suppose for those who did know about his crimes, this was a cursory examination at best.
This backlash should be directed at the Powers that Be that cancelled this book without even letting it hit 12 issues. Just two more issues would have allowed Leah to flesh out these subplots so much more.
I get angry knowing that an unneeded title like X-Corp is getting started just as this gem is getting canceled. I have little doubt that Leah would have handled all of this so much better if given the right amount of issues to work with.
(In regards to X-Corp, I don’t hate Tini’s work as much as some commenters on here do, but I can’t deny X-Factor has much better storytelling that either of Tini’s books)
MathiasX is the only person who has their head screwed on right by the whole “let’s use the implied rape & murder of a bi black man, derived from a Ripped From The Headlines case like the trashiest of true crime podcasts, as a way to develop his white buddy” matter. Being cancelled “early” had nothing to do with Leah Williams’ choice to do this story in the first place, and the only reason it was greenlit is because comics STILL thinks this kind of rapesploitation is an instant ticket to dramatic credibility. And the sheer number of men in the comments rushing to defend this choice and protect its author from her poor writing (which, sorry, this book has had in volumes, it’s only good if you like your gay rep as shallow & stereotyped as possible) is showing WHY it keeps happening. Gotta white knight for the bi-of-convenience WASP lady, after all, to be given the “benefit of the doubt” by y’all instead of anyone else who does this kind of trashy nonsense.
Everything about the Krakoa era is trash that’s demolished what made the X-Men unique & even likable, to inexplicable acclaim, but the elevation of this book & its cavalcade of 90s rep standards by a writer who is barely a step above the worst of AO3 is personally the worst.
I’m not sure how the Krakoa era has destroyed what made the X-Men “unique”.
For most of the publication, the characters were mainly involved in superhero plots. Hardly the most original idea.
I’d say this direction is quite unique for the Marvel Universe.
Whether you enjoy it or not is beside the point, and yes, it has done a great deal to take away from mutants being likeable.
Personally, I’ve been disappointed by the new direction. Until the “Hellfire Gala”, I feel like the titles had been in a holding pattern since the end of Powers of X.
I don’t see how it is taking away from the “uniqueness” of the X-Men.
Daken and Aurora are being hypocrites here, plain and simple. That they bound over that is believable but does not reflect well on either.
Then again, Wolverine gets away with that all the time, so I suppose that chip has sailed a few decades ago.
@Sara – Or, alternatively, the Krakoa era is the most unique thing the X-Books have done in decades and has breathed new life into a stagnant franchise.
I must admit that the more I think about this, the more troubled I am by the fact that it’s clearly alluding to an actual case (and one which hasn’t gone to trial yet) in which people actually died, and not that long ago either. That does seem to call for a level of sensitivity that might perhaps have been viable if the story had played out in full, but isn’t achievable in this context. Keeping the references to that case, while cutting it down to this degree, does strike me as a misjudgment.
Sara – you can simply not read the books if you don’t enjoy them
“Bi of convenience” is a fucking horrible thing to say about someone.
Worse than anything this book did.
Can anyone confirm if the series was cancelled due to low sales, Polaris joining the X-Men, or somewhere between the two?
I also feel disappointed that any positive momentum for the series was curtailed abruptly. I can see the direction Williams was going in – I was enjoying it. It was all very grounded in character.
I wonder where she wanted to take Rachel? Though I appreciated the development of minor characters like Aurora and Eyeboy (something good across the X-line). Others have pointed out that Aurora might not have been in control of herself through this series as the other characters think – it’s just more subtly signposted.
On the controversy around Prodigy’s story, I do think it’s been handled poorly by rushing to conclusion – there’s no build of investigation (plainly what was this book was being geared towards) and Eyeboy ‘saves the day’. And it’s a very poor choice to tack it to a current real world case. But isn’t the intentionality to tackle the story better than it not happening at all? I’m still undecided, I admit.
Based on what I remember reading, it was due to low sales.
Cable was the only remaining X-book selling lower than this one, and Cable was canceled right before this one.
Now, Excalibur is the lowest selling title.
The line is so bloated, it made sense to start canceling the lower-selling titles.
The ironic part is that the final issue is going to end up selling more than any other issue.
Internet sites were listing it as a “speculator book”, due to Wanda’s death.
It’s going to sell out quickly.
If you are going to end an X book, I like the symbolism of ending at 10 (X) issues instead of 12.
As opposed to, ending a mini-series called the great twelve before issue 12. 🙂
Or a book called the Great Ten at 9 issues.
(Where is that edit button, Al)?
It suddenly occured to me reading these annotations that Northstar and Polaris technically have the same name. Has this ever been pointed out in the comics?
@Daibhid – I’m not sure! My mind has just been blown a bit by the obvious codename connection…
I think it’s fair to say that Prodigy was not served very well by this issue, and that the mystery wrapped up in a way that was unsatisfying and confusing. I wonder if it would have been better to leave the plot line as an unresolved mystery if there wasn’t time to finish it properly.
Even then, I think the idea of having Prodigy’s status as a queer BIPOC character be the *reason he was killed* is pretty troubling.
I think that’s compounded by the fact that it’s the last issue of the book (so it’s unlikely that there will be a chance for the characters to reflect, process or move on from the trauma in a meaningful way).
Eye-Boy gets more interesting stuff to do in the storyline, and frankly more character development than Prodigy. I think there were plenty of hints here that Eye-Boy is queer as well, but there’s a sense that his character is left enriched, while Prodigy is rather diminished. As a character hook for Prodigy, “solving crimes while simultaneously trying to determine whether or not his own memories can be trusted” strikes me as quite a bit stronger than “boyfriend of grieving son of just-murdered b-part character… and by the way he was also killed by a serial killer because he was black and bi, but don’t worry that story is over now”.
I’m not sure why the fact that he is killed by a serial killer for that reason is so particularly troubling, outside of the fact that anyone being targeted by a serial killer is highly disturbing.
The serial killer was a gay man.
This was based on a real-world case. It’s something that can and does occur in reality, and it is very disturbing.
The idea of a serial killer targeting blonde females is also highly disturbing.
There is usually a psycho-sexual component to serial murders.
Jeffrey Dahmer exclusively murdered young gay males.
This isn’t a statement about the quality of said story, or any sort of endorsement that said story should have been told (although that was up to Williams).
@Daibhid C I don’t know, but your question did make me look to see if Marvel has a character called Ursa Minor, but alas, no.
Which is a shame, because not only would it have been a third Polaris/Northstar connection, but it would have been perfect for Ursa Major to have a mini-me sidekick.
Maybe the oh-so unusual overblown online outrage will lead to writers steering clear of identity politics in future. Which is no bad thing for me, but surely counter-productive.
@Sara I respect the anger and your points. They are valid and have merit.
HOWEVER lashing out with the bi of convenience comment is not something that should be tolerated.
‘identity politics’
that queer people… exist?
@chris v … There aren’t a lot of queer, black characters in superhero comics, so the fact that Prodigy’s main plot line is about people being murdered for being queer and black feels like it was poorly judged.
Especially when the story doesn’t really do anything with that thematically or in terms of character development.
Lots of troubling things happen in real life, but I think when those things get dramatised in fiction they need to be done for a good reason, and with extra sensitivity.
Aro-Thanks for clarifying.
I agree.
If there was a thematic reason for Prodigy’s storyline, I think it would have something to do with using the resurrection protocol to combat prejudice and prejudicial violence.
Over the course of the series, Wind Dancer escapes the mutant-exploitative Mojoverse by agreeing to be killed for ratings. With X-Factor’s help, she ends up with an administrative role over the entire dimension, ending mutant exploitation there.
Aurora is thought to have been the victim of an anti-mutant hate crime, but it turns out she was using the resurrection protocol to gain plausible deniability for killing the human who was targeting her. Along with Daken, she took out an anti-mutant faction of humans.
Prodigy’s story brings that idea into “our” world a bit more by focusing on attributes that people have in real life (i.e., Black, queer). But he uses the resurrection protocol the same way to a) end the violence of a racist serial killer and b) ensure he doesn’t have any memory of the trauma he endured.
So characters over the course of the series were consistently gaining the upper hand over their aggressors by pushing things to a deadly end. And why not, when you’re not going to remember your death anyway? The book was exploring resurrection as a means to prove extreme prejudice (“you raped and/or killed me”) while avoiding the awful consequences (“but I’m still alive and don’t remember any of it”).
Was Prodigy’s story well executed? Not especially, since elements of it were unclear to long-time comic readers. And his final victory was overshadowed by Eye-Boy. But then, all of the examples above include multiple people coming to the victim’s rescue. So maybe that’s a general flaw in Williams’ writing.
Was the story worth telling, especially if you’re going to attach it to real world events that might hurt/offend actual humans? Probably not, at least not in this form. Honestly, if the killer had been targeting mutants instead of Black men, it would have fit the book’s pattern better and probably side-stepped a lot of controversy.
Am I “white-knighting” for Williams by trying to find thematic resonance in Prodigy’s storyline? I have no idea. But I think it’s interesting and worth talking about, so there you have it.
“if the killer had been targeting mutants instead of Black men, it would have fit the book’s pattern better”.
Very much so. It would have fit the whole idea and history of X-books better. The history of being a METAPHOR for minorities and prejudice. Stick more to that and you don”t have to contend with the sensitivities of real life groups.
Dave,
“It would have fit the whole idea and history of X-books better. The history of being a METAPHOR for minorities and prejudice. Stick more to that and you don”t have to contend with the sensitivities of real life groups.“
Using mostly-white, heterosexual characters written and drawn mostly by white, (presumably) heterosexual creators as a metaphor for minorities has long been one of the X-Books greatest flaws. People who find representation lacking, poorly-executed, and/or offensive absolutely should make their voices heard, and those that screwed up should strive to do better. Complaining about “identity politics” and “the sensitivities of real life groups” is tantamount to telling people who have been marginalized and met with hostility to just shut up and deal with their devaluation. Instead, I hope the creators, editors, and suits will learn and grow from their mistakes.
The set-up for this series – investigating the details around resurrection and who would in and out respectively – was good, with the early redacted datasheets being fascinating.
But it never actually went anywhere, and turned into mere soap-opera.
If it was a flaw for white hetero creators to write these themes at a time when that was nearly all the creators, then…those themes shouldn’t have been used at all??? Is that the logical conclusion? Was Claremont OK to write Storm, and bring in Magneto’s Jewish back story, because he did it well enough, or because he wrote at a time when people weren’t quite so eager to point out whatever he did that could be perceived as ‘problematic’?
I occasionally find the portrayal of Brits in American comics to be grating, and I do largely not bother talking about it. But I guess I don’t have the expectation that the creators should be campaigning for acceptance of Brits, because (and you can imagine here that I’m talking about a much stronger example of a demographic for this argument) I can accept that the large majority of readers AREN’T actually unaccepting or intolerant, and don’t need to be shown…what they’re doing wrong? How to be better? Whatever the point is supposed to be.
I complain about identity politics because it seems to put the focus as much on characters’ or people’s differences as it does on story or all the other things that define the character. In X-books the differences are largely all (loosey) represented, or used to be, by mutancy.
I think you are discussing two different topics here, Dave.
One which seems more supportive of Williams’ story, while the other point seems to be negative about Williams’ story.
I want to point out that Leah Williams is bisexual, as is Prodigy.
Also, I might point out that Chris Claremont is Jewish.
These facts are beside the wider point, but I just wanted to mention it.
Overall, I am more sympathetic to what you write in the first paragraph.
In this case, I find the problem to be one of terminology, mistaking topical for identity politics.
I highly doubt (or I really hope) that Williams doesn’t feel the need to lecture us on the assumption that white males need to be told that murdering Black bisexual people is wrong.
If you look at the history of Marvel, there is a long history of writers using topical socio-political issues in the plot.
For example, a story about protestors being killed by an authority figure…or more prominently the Steven Englehart Captain America/Nixon story-arc.
That got posted before I had finished making my point:
I do think the idea that mutants should solely exist as a metaphor, therefore all mutants being white and straight is perfectly acceptable is problematic.
It’s especially true when writers follow the original Lee and Kirby premise of mutants as “the next stage in human evolution”.
@Dave
“If it was a flaw for white hetero creators to write these themes at a time when that was nearly all the creators”
This statement implies it was okay for Xmen to be written by all straight white guys because those were the only writers . 1. It was WRONG for nearly all of them to be straight white guys
2. You act as if Marvel had some magic curse keeping them from hiring black queers in the 70s.
[Deleted for being purely abusive. I’m not clear whether posting it under my name was intentional, but I do note that this IP address has been used for other comments. Regular posters are discouraged from using sock puppets to have arguments. — Paul]
To b fair, the magic curse was society.
There’s a reason he’s remembered as Stan Lee not Stanley Lieber.
That was on Stan Lee.
He said that he used that name because he thought he’d move on to a real career as a journalist or novelist, and didn’t want some “kiddie books” be what he was best known.
Martin Goodman and Jack Kirby didn’t feel the need to use a pseudonym.
Lee didn’t exactly have much to worry about as far as prejudice considering he was hired by his own relative Goodman.
Also, Marvel did hire Arvell Jones during the 1970s as an artist.
Geez, I’m an idiot. Why did I think Kirby is a Jewish name?
Ignore what I said about Jack Kirby.
Still, they wouldn’t have faced prejudice from their employer at Marvel.