A.X.E.: Judgment Day #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
A.X.E.: JUDGMENT DAY #4
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Valerio Schiti
Colour artist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER / PAGE 1. Various characters look alarmed as the Progenitor poses with thumb poised.
PAGES 2-3. Recap and credits.
PAGES 4-5. Captain America tries to calm the crowd at the Treehouse.
The Progenitor’s narration here seems to confirm that everyone is being judged by their own standards, something which becomes even clearer as the issue goes on. (“They must decide what ‘hero’ means… He needs to believe the world is fundamentally a good place… The world may think differently.”)
“He failed his test…” Last issue. Of course, since Captain America is fundamentally modest, and aware of the gap between his values and reality, he’s going to judge himself as a failure. Clearly, he’s having little or no impact on this crowd.
PAGE 6. The Avengers Mountain cast make plans.
Left to right in page 6 panel 2, that’s Ajak, Iron Man, Sersi, Starfox, Makkari, Mr Sinister and Phastos.
Sersi‘s plan is basically the take on Starfox that Gillen is trying to rehabilitate him from: he simply uses his powers to manipulate everyone into being temporarily better, in the hope that that gets past the test. This gives Starfox the chance to shoot it down, though note that he doesn’t do so purely on principled grounds – he identifies that it wouldn’t work, because he would fail the test and so would everyone else. That invites the question of what Starfox thinks the Progenitor’s criteria are. Sersi is also assuming that the Progenitor wants objectively better people, but Starfox may also recognise that it’s about fulfilling one’s own subjective values.
PAGES 7-9. Judgment montage.
These pages adopt the six-panel grid format that were used with the six civilians in the previous two issues, but they’re mixed in with assorted heroes who aren’t central to the plot. The six civilians appear in the same order as usual.
Tom is the rather right-wing Londoner we’ve seen in previous issues. He fails, apparently through lack of self-awareness; presumably the Progenitor is confronting him with his own behaviour and he’s judging himself without realising it.
Luke Cage became mayor of New York at the end of Devil’s Reign. The Progenitor asks him directly to judge himself; ducking the question counts as a fail. Note the thumbs down among the raised hands.
Thor automatically passes by dint of being able to pick up his hammer – or perhaps by virtue of the self-confidence that it gives him.
Starfox meets with Sebastian Shaw and Harry Leland, as seen in Immortal X-Men #6. These Starfox panels are scattered throughout the montage, with no judgment involved (though the Progenitor did judge Shaw in Immortal #6).
Ms Marvel is tempted with being accepted into a higher order of elite heroes, playing on her insecurity about her status in the Marvel universe. Note that the Progenitor actually refers directly to “Marvel heroes” – in continuity, referring to Captain Marvel and those associated with her, but in reality an obvious reference to Kamala’s status as an ascended fangirl. Anyway, she rejects the notion that any hero would abandon Earth and passes.
Katrina is the social media civilian from Vancouver who seems to do nothing but tweet, albeit with supportive opinions and expressions of solidarity. Basically, Katrina seems to spend all her time expressing the right opinions rather than acting on them in any way, and therefore fails to live up to her values.
Professor X fails because of his guilt over his failure as a father – and probably more generally his failure as a person rather than an icon. The complete lack of relationship between the Professor and Legion is a recurring theme in Legion of X.
Komali is the widow of the random man who died to provide the life force to resurrect Syne in issue #2. The Progenitor doesn’t seem to know quite what to make of her.
Starfox is now in Wakanda, talking to the Black Panther.
Starbrand from Avengers passes simply by doing some superhero stuff, presumably able to prove something to herself simply by succeeding as a rookie hero.
Daniela is the gig economy civilian from the last two issues. Unlike Katrina, she chooses to prioritise those she cares about when the chips are down, and passes.
Dr Doom passes because he thinks he’s brilliant. This is another indication that the Progenitor is basically letting people judge themselves.
Jada is the conflicted civilian; apparently her efforts to understand the big picture are enough to qualify as being true to her values.
Daredevil, in contrast, is premised on his vigilante activities being in tension with his ethical and religious values, and naturally fails.
Starfox gets two panels; the Progenitor tells us directly that he’s already judged himself a failure but it working to change.
Miles Morales, the second Spider-Man, is judged by the original in whose shadow he unavoidably exists; the Progenitor has no difficulty at all in passing him.
Kenta is the schoolboy civilian from previous issues.
PAGE 10. Starfox addresses the United Nations.
The UN logo is obscured by lettering in both panels where it appears, which makes me wonder if there was some sort of issue there. Anyway, Shaw has rightly figured out that Starfox is making offers of Celestial technology that he can’t deliver on. But give him time…
PAGE 11. The Avengers Mountain cast discuss.
“Well, that’s a Panglossian perspective, Ajak.” “Panglossian” usually means irrationally optimistic in the face of all the facts, but Sinister seems to be using it here in its original sense from Candide (1759), a satire by Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet, 1694-1778), where the character of Pangloss was specifically an attack on the philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716).
Leibniz, best known today as the co-inventor of calculus, argued that since God is all-powerful, all-knowing and perfectly good, he must have the knowledge, the power and the inclination to create the best of all possible worlds. Therefore this must in fact be the best of all possible worlds, because if a better one was possible, God would have created it instead. While it may look imperfect to us, this must be due to the limits of our perspective, and there must be reasons in the grand scheme of things why the world is better for having things like evil, disease and so forth in it.
Candide isn’t really a novel in the conventional sense so much as a venomously sarcastic takedown of Leibniz’s whole worldview. It consists of the naive Candide and his mentor Pangloss being exposed to an increasingly absurd barrage of horrors that cannot possibly be serving a greater good, while Pangloss insists that “everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds”. This is essentially Ajak’s view here – she insists in the face of all available evidence that the Progenitor’s behaviour must serve a greater good, or else he wouldn’t be doing it.
“This is what Uranos did when Druig let him loose.” Uranos’s attack on Mars is shown in X-Men Red #5-6.
“The Uni-Mind selected [Druig] as a compromise candidate.” In this year’s Eternals #12.
PAGE 12. Druig consults with Uranos again.
The weak Druig persists in looking to Uranos as a sounding board – but still refuses to take the suicidal step of releasing him permanently.
PAGES 13-16. The Uni-Mind attacks Krakoa.
Sinister must have got back to Krakoa off panel. One of the Eternals could have teleported him.
The mutant psychics infiltrate the Uni-Mind and “vote” to make Starfox the Prime Eternals. In page 15 panel 1, Jean Grey is in the centre. The left-hand group are Mr Sinister, Proteus (mainly a reality warper, but occasionally written with psychic powers), Mentallo from S.W.O.R.D., four of the Stepford Cuckoos, and a woman in a cape that I’m guessing is Captain Britain. The right hand group are Chamber, M, Exodus, a man who seems to be Kid Omega (if so, it’s a continuity error, since he’s missing in X-Force), Cassandra Nova, a woman who might be Rachel Summers and Professor X. Glaringly obvious omissions are Psylocke from Marauders and Legion, whose absence is presumably to do with the Legion of X tie-in that hasn’t come out yet.
Druig releases Uranos in a last-ditch attempt to retain power, and Uranos promptly betrays him, leaving Starfox to become Prime Eternal for whatever that’s worth.
PAGES 17-20. Uranos attacks the world.
It’s not clear what’s going on with Ikaris on page 18 – he doesn’t seem to be killed since we see him again a few pages later. Presumably we’ll get more of this in the next issue of A.X.E.: Death to the Mutants (the Eternals book).
Magneto is “heartless” because Uranos tore out his heart in X-Men Red #5; he’s using his powers to keep himself alive. He “deleted himself from the database” in X-Men Red #4, for the reasons that the Progenitor explains. As the Progenitor notes, there’s nothing to stop Magneto (and indeed Storm) from reversing that decision and allowing backups to be made after all – and indeed it’s not obvious that Magneto could stop Professor X from making backups anyway. It’s not like he got consent forms from all of mutantkind when he started the whole exercise. At any rate, Magneto certainly doesn’t reverse his decision before apparently dying here.
“I take the form of the one he thought lost.” Presumably his murdered daughter Anya. The Progenitor apparently passes Magneto for standing by his word on immortality.
PAGE 21. The Progenitor judges Ikaris and Sersi.
Ikaris, an uncomplicated hero, passes. Sersi, the morally compromise schemer, fails. Iron Man still doesn’t seem to have twigged to the fact that this isn’t simply about objective good or bad.
PAGES 22-25. Starfox tries to talk the Progenitor down.
With no success.
PAGES 26-27. Trailers.
I can’t help but note that this “judged by your own standards” is a long for version of a joke from the 5th season Red Dwarf episode “inquisitor”, where it was shown to be moronic there.
My updated summary of the judgments delivered so far:
PASS – Thumbs up from the Progenitor
FAIL – Thumbs down from the Progenitor
DEFERRED – Noticed by the Progenitor, but more time needed for judgment
UNKNOWN – Judgment delivered but not revealed to readers
HUMANS:
Tom > FAIL
Katrina > FAIL
Komali > DEFERRED
Daniela > PASS
Jada > PASS
Kenta > DEFERRED
Sally > FAIL
SUPERHUMANS:
Daredevil > FAIL
Doctor Doom > PASS
Hellbride > DEFERRED
Kraven the Hunter > Ignored by Progenitor
Luke Cage > FAIL
Ms Marvel > PASS
Spider-Man (Miles) > PASS
AVENGERS:
Captain America > FAIL
Thor > PASS
Starbrand > PASS
MUTANTS:
Professor X > FAIL
Destiny > FAIL
Exodus > PASS
Mystique > FAIL
Kate Pryde > PASS
Emma Frost > FAIL
Sebastian Shaw > FAIL
Magneto > PASS
Jean Grey > DEFERRED
Cyclops > PASS
Wolverine > DEFERRED
Tempo > UNKNOWN
Psylocke > UNKNOWN
Red Bishop > UNKNOWN
Daken > UNKNOWN
Aurora > UNKNOWN
Somnus > UNKNOWN
Cassandra Nova > UNKNOWN
ETERNALS:
Ikaris > PASS
Sersi > FAIL
Phastos > PASS
Ajak > DEFERRED
Makkari > FAIL
Delphan Brothers > FAIL
Uranos > DEFERRED
Sui-San > DEFERRED
Earth Machine > DEFERRED
DEVIANTS:
Warlord Kro > PASS
Karkas the Kind > PASS
Ransak the Reject > PASS
Entire Deviant race > PASS
My new predictions for possible upcoming judgments (based on solicits and speculation):
Komali > A.X.E. Judgment Day 5 + 6
Kenta > A.X.E. Judgment Day 5 + 6
Fantastic Four > Fantastic Four 47 + 48
Hawkeye (Clint) > Avengers 60
Iron Fist (Lin) > A.X.E. Iron Fist 1
Lauri-Ell the Accuser > Captain Marvel 42
Loki > A.X.E. Iron Fist 1
Spider-Man (Peter) > Amazing Spider-Man 10
Iron Man > A.X.E. Avengers 1
Captain Marvel > Captain Marvel 42
Jean Grey > A.X.E. X-Men 1
Wolverine > Wolverine 25
Storm > X-Men Red 7
Nightcrawler > Immortal X-Men 7
Colossus > Immortal X-Men 7
Hope > Immortal X-Men 7
Mr Sinister > Immortal X-Men 7
Legion > Legion of X 6
Druig > Death to the Mutants 3
Uranos the Undying > Death to the Mutants 3
Earth Machine > Death to the Mutants 3
Ajak > A.X.E. Eternals 1
Eros > A.X.E. Starfox 1
I’m not buying that the Progenitor is judging people by their own standards- Katrina had no clue that she failed because she didn’t tip.
Besides which, it’s still horribly inconsistent. Sometimes the Progenitor appears as itself, sometimes it appears as someone the person respects. Sometimes people other than the judgee can interact with whatever it appears as, other times they can’t. Sometimes there’s a test, sometime’s there isn’t.
“Daredevil, in contrast, is premised on his vigilante activities being in tension with his ethical and religious values, and naturally fails.”
It’s not just that- Matt’s done a LOT of unethical things over the years, like goading Baron Strucker into attacking the Kingpin’s LEGITIMATE businesses (luckily Strucker decided not to kill anyone), suing a newspaper for accurately reporting Matt was Daredevil, and of course, the death he recently went to prison for.
The panel with Komali is very interesting because I think it foreshadows the ending of this event. The Progenitor does not want to judge Komali because they are afraid that she will judge them instead and this makes them question themselves.
(SPOILERS FOR FUTURE COVERS)
The cover for Judgment Day 6 has a bunch of heroes (Starfox, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, Captain America, Iron Man, Ikaris and Sersi – the ones who form the main cast according to Gillen) holding their thumbs down judging someone. Now, this could simply be artistic license on the part of Mark Brooks but I believe that this is a hint that part of the ending will involve the heroes turning the Progenitor’s game on themself – forcing them to justify their own existence.
Then there’s the issue of the six civilians – Tom, Katrina, Komali, Daniela, Jada, Kenta. I’m reminded of the last time a bunch of random civilians got roped up into Celestial events – it was in Thor 300, where the Gods of Earth chose 12 random civilians to represent Earth during the Third Host. They eventually became the Young Gods.
Now, we know Gillen has read Thor 300 – he referenced it in Judgment Day 2 with the Destroyer panel. So it’s possible Gillen is doing a riff on that here – the Superheroes of Earth choose 6 random civilians (which happen to be the 6 civilians we’ve been following so far) to act as a kind of ‘jury’ to deliver judgment on the Progenitor.
No, Doom wasn’t literally getting to judge himself. His test was just reflecting the idea (recently suggested by Cantwell’s run) that Doom is incapable of doing anything without trying to one-up Reed.
Therefore he is judged based on that because, according to Cantwell, Doom would even destroy an entire universe if it was one where he made peace with Reed.
This is not every writer’s take on Doom, but it’s certainly the one in the consciousness right now.
I know that Doctor Who changed UNIT from the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce to the United Intelligence Taskforce because the UN objected. Perhaps something similar has occurred here.
Another thought:
If the Progenitor appeared AS Reed to judge Doom…
Doom would probably immediately destroy the planet himself. Whether he passed or failed.
Doom has actually admitted that Reed is smarter than him a couple of times. I guess the Progenitor is giving him points for clinging to a belief he knows is false?
I read it as Doom laughing at the silly game and refusing to participate. Admitting Richards is smarter isn’t the same thing as selling out for an easy reward.
But Doom’s reaction is very similar to a story Ryan North told about Steve Ditko’s reaction when he asked if Ditko wanted to contribute to a Squirrel Girl special.
I interpret page 23-25 as the judging is over with a collective fail. I don’t see how the Progenitor’s dialog can mean anything else. So any future tie-ins will deal how characters react rather than them being judged (or they are late like ASM; issue 9 with Moira was a wet fart btw with nothing significant whatsoever happening).
I also find it funny that ethical giant Tony Stark has hacked and presumably now has at least some control over Uranus’ weapons.
@Si
What Ditko story was that?
Just that. North asked him if he’d like to submit a story, being the creator of Squirrel Girl and all. Ditko laughed, laughed some more, and said no. Which was apparently the most polite response he’d given anyone for years, so it was almost a mark of respect.
This is running on my own memory, I might have it wrong.
There is a twitter post from Ryan North dated 7/7/18 where he tells the story (I believe it was shortly after Ditko’s death)… sorry, I don’t know how to link to it. Basically what Si said is spot-on.
How would anyone mistake a blond or red-haired man as an eastern European, and are there any cases of European bashing in Great Britain? If the judging is based on the person’s standards, then Tom should have passed. Lack of self-awareness implies an objective standard. (Tom could also argue that east Europeans never claimed to be the future inheritors of the earth.) It would be interesting to see the judgement of someone from Orchis like Dr. Devo, Alia Gregor, Omega Sentinel, or Nimrod.
So Captain America failed, but Ms. Marvel got a test which showed how noble she is? It could have been a call back to when she went against her standards in Civil War II.
In a way, that Ditko story is a real shame; because if the thing that finally lured Ditko back to superhero comics had been an 8-page Squirrel Girl story, stodgy old comics fandom would’ve lost its collective mind.
I still feel that the core traits being judged are willingness to embrace the potential for transcendence and willingness to attempt to improve circunstances. Sersi fails because at heart she is too reliant on misguidance when the ships are down, Cap fails because he is ultimately a patriotic hero, Tom fails because he embraces the right wing, Xavier and Emma fail because they hold expectations of privilege at heart.
I have no idea of how come Magneto passes.
My theory is that it’s a giant crazy space Frankenstein god and nothing it does makes sense.
Luis Dantas- I think Magneto passed because he sacrificed himself to stop Uranos from killing his people, and then held true to his word that he would not seek resurrection. He worked for the greater good and was internally consistent.
I don’t think “consistency with self” is the sole factor that determines how one is judged. Otherwise, Kraven being ultra-macho would have probably gotten a thumbs up. It worked for Cyclops. Charles prioritizing X-Men business over Legion’s need is also consistent. There is a moral component, too. Ignoring someone in need (Charles), being unscrupulous (Shaw), procrastinating when action is needed (Luke Cage, and I thought that judgement was the least fair), knowing you need to do something for others but not doing so because it’s inconvenient (Katrina), and seeing that racism is harmful but not rejecting it (Tom) all resulted in thumbs down judgements.
If the morality is being applied inconsistently, well, Uncanny
X-Ben’s above assessment is probably correct.
I wonder if the finale could be another fakeout by the Progenitor. I wouldn’t expect Gillen to repeat that, but… maybe that’s why it could work?
On another note, I’m not sure about the X-Men voting for Eros. How did that work? The deviants count as mutants as far as Krakoan gates go, but surely mutants don’t count as Eternals. Does every mind in the Uni-Mind get a vote because to be in the Uni-Mind one has to – usually – be an Eternal? But surely the individual Eternals know this instance is a complete sham? (Cue the ‘they’re stealing the vote’ memes).
@neutrino
I’m not sure I follow. Do you think there are no blond people in Eastern Europe?
@neutrino
Same with redheads. There are populations in Russia with VERY high percentages of redheads.
The problem with Magneto is that I just don’t see any way to accept the attempts at making the character in some way heroic or idealistic. That is one of the several Claremont retcons that I don’t think works nor is worth attempting to gloss over. I guess that ship has sailed far as continuity goes.
Much like Krzysiek Ceran I stand uncertain on how the mutants managed to have a vote in the Uni-Mind. It looked like it happened due to the psionic equivalent of a failure to close the doors during a solene meeting. Apparently the mutants learned to emulate the Uni-Mind on their own, muscled their way into the Eternal’s version and simply voiced their preference for Eros.
That is a fine way of making themselves noticed by the Eternals, I suppose. But it does not make them Eternals, and unless some sort of revelation is involved, it does not make them Eternals in any way.
By my understanding the Eternals have no duty to consider the votes of mutants as if they were Eternals. If they did, we would have to consider the question of what would happen if Jean and company had voted for, say, Nightcrawler instead of Eros. Can a non-Eternal be Prime Eternal? If that happens, what are the consequences? Will that Prime Eternal the subjected to time in Exclusion if the Machine so decides, for instance?
I don’t know what the uni-mind is since the Eternals got reimagined. It used to be one big gestalt brain. Voting wouldn’t be a thing because there’s no individuals in there, but I could see other psychics being able to communicate with it and plead their case.
And I’m pretty sure Kro and some humans once joined in forming it, but they were invited by the Eternals.
@Krzysiek Ceran and @Taibak
If you see a blond or red-head in England, is your first idea that he’s east European? Gillan seems to be going out of his way to make it white attackers as opposed to South Asian “youths”.
@Mike Loughlin
Xavier was fighting to prevent genocide of mutantkind. Certainly a bigger moral dilemma than Ms. Marvel got. If there’s a moral component, how did Doom or Kro pass? Magneto is the poster child for recognizing racism is harmful while embracing it.
Chavs beating up Eastern Europeans seems like the sort of notion some liberals would get feverish about in like, 2007. It does seem anachronistic given what’s happening in Leicester today.
I’m not expecting rational thought or logical consistency from racist characters, especially ones whose only purpose is to beat up a character off-panel.
As for Magneto, he was being judged by his actions during the sequence seen on-panel. At other times in his life, he would have merited a thumbs down. The Progenitor tests people inconsistently. Thor was judged with no interaction, Ms. Marvel was tempted, Katrina was judged by her most recent decision, Daredevil was judged seemingly by his life history, Dr. Doom was challenged by the undisguised Progenitor, Prof. X & many others interacted with a disguised Progenitor…
Speaking of Charles, I agree that his judgement was unfair. He was busy fighting for survival, why would he take the time to deal with an individual’s non-life-threatening problem? Similarly, Luke Cage punting a non-crucial question at a press conference so he can get back to work should not result in a thumbs down.
I’ll be surprised if the inconsistent standards of judgement aren’t addressed in future issues. I can see them being used to judge the Progenitor itself.
The judging in AXE feels very much like the contests in X of Swords. Earth will survive in the end, like the Krakoans were always going to win. It’s just a question of whether the ending will be particularly interesting or clever. Right now, signs point to “no”.
For the end of this issue, it would be amusing if the Uni-mind backed by non-Eternal telepaths pulled a mental whammy on the Progenitor, showing it what the future would look like if it continued, much like it showed everyone what would happen if they were successful in destroying it.
Regarding Charles, I don’t know how we got the idea that her was a bad dad in the first place. He first found out he was a father in New Mutants 27. He tried to be a father but then he almost died in Uncanny X-Men 200 and to save him Corsair and Lilandra had to take him into outer space. He has a chance to return home in New Mutants 51 but Corsair and Lilandra are in danger and he decides to stay to save them, since Legion is in no immediate danger and he fully intends for Illyana to come back to bring him home as soon as they’re safe. Unfortunately, Havok fails to recognize that the High Evolutionary’s new assistant is Zaladane. Zaladane uses the High Evolutionary’s equipment to steal Lorna’s powers while she’s possessed by Malice. Lorna goes to Moira for help but finds a side effect of what Zaladane did is that it turns everyone around her evil. So Legion’s evil personality takes control of all his powers and Moira becomes cruel and reckless and has Legion use Cerebro to search for the X-Men. This attracts the attention of the Shadow King, who takes control of Legion and Moira. As soon as Charles finds this out he hurries to Earth to save Legion but unfortunately Legion is rendered comatose in the resulting battle. Charles tries to bring him out but fails. When he finally comes out, Age of Apocalypse results.
So if you look at this sequence of events, the problem is Alex failing to recognize Zaladane.- Charles’s decisions were reasonable. (Maddie also failed to recognize S’ym around the same time, resulting in her transformation into the Goblin Queen. This suggests the problem was systematic- Storm failed in her responsibility as leader to make sure her teammates were familiar with villains they never met.) Charles has done a lot of questionable things, including sleeping with Legion’s mom when she was effectively his patient, but he was never a bad father to Legion. But ever since Spurrier started writing Legion. the idea has been “Xavier is a horrible father to Legion” when it really should be “The X-Men should not let Storm be leader again without writing on the blackboard 100 times “I will make sure my teammates are familiar with villains they never met””.
It feels like the M.O. at Marvel is “if you have an opportunity to make Xavier seem like a flawed dick, seize upon it”.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure the single healthy paternal relationship in all of Marvel is Ms Marvel’s. That is if Saladin Ahmed hasn’t retconned it to add a bit of extra misery yet.
Note though that thanks to retcon, Charles groomed a mentally ill woman in his care to deliberately impregnate her, then abandoned her with a son that he knew had access to enormous destructive forces and never once tried to help that child until the timing was right for his own schemes. Which makes me wonder if anyone at the company actually thought this retcon through before putting it on paper.
I also have issue with how eugenics works in the MU, even with something so random it’s literally named the X-gene, but that’s far less icky.
Boy does Krakoa ruin Professor X even more than Deadly Genesis.
The writer’s daddy issues run deep.
During HoXPoX, I thought the eugenics + Charles’ helmet-covered face were two big clues that Krakoa was a seriously creepy place. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the original plan was that Charles had been replaced or mind controlled.
Now that Krakoa and everything on it has been normalized, it’s just another instance of Marvel saying, “Oops! I guess our good guys do seriously bad things sometimes” because they’ve run out of story ideas for their villains and no one is willing to write new ones as part of their work-for-hire contract.
I would rather see Xavier be judged due to his presentation during the Krakoa-era, for giving up on his dream of coexistence and accepting mutant superiority and separatism.
Hickman’s love of covering characters’ faces with helmets that don’t have eyes says a lot about his ability to write stories about humans, IMO.
The problem with Legion is that he’s also been narratively synthesised with Proteus on and off. That Scottish accent remains…
And I also agree the initial promise of creepiness, with Xavier’s eyes always being obscured and characters acting like cultists, has been lost. If you wanted to could have eventually explained that as Moira’s influence, but that’s also been dropped.
Though to be fair I’m pleased that characters are allowed to “be themselves” again even if it means that we have to take Krakoa at face value!
@Evilgus- the Scottish accent was Spurrier’s idea. It never made any sense, since Legion was about the same age when he came to Moira as Henry Kissinger was when he fled Germany- Kissinger still has a recognizable German accent. People adopt the accent of their early childhoods. Every writer before Spurrier wrote Legion either as having no accent or an Israeli accent. All the other writers seem to be humoring Spurrier.
Accent loss varies a lot from person to person. If you listen to Charlize Theron in interviews, she basically sounds American these days.
Legion was on Muir Isle for less than two years in universe.
Legion is an extreme MPD case, or has been for most of his early appearances. And one of his powers is telepathy, which IMO may easily correlate with increased, even superhuman ability to gain, lose or switch accents.
On top of that, he has so many other and more exotic powers that we are not even sure how to count the ones that we are aware of.
His accent is almost too easy to explain, all things considered. Now, his hair, that is something else entirely.
His telepathy is controlled by Jamal, the terrorist he killed, and both already knew English before coming to Muir Isle. Spurrier invented it to claim that Moira actual was functioning as his parent.
“His accent is almost too easy to explain, all things considered. Now, his hair, that is something else entirely”
He *is* telekinetic… Not that it explains the choice of hairstyle.