Scans_Daily

Pretentious (and inaccurately) I think of the issue as the leitmotif for my whole run. In the small story, you can see the whole picture. It's certainly the tightest example of how I'm using the villains in my post-relaunch issues. As in, I'm exploring them as a compare and contrast with the current situation of mutantkind, and as dark possible futures. This is the first time I've explicitly mentioned this, but every primary antagonist they meet is the last member of another species. The Phalanx is driven mad by the loneliness. The Savage and the Immortal Man are dual custodians of a people's past, fighting over what really matters. Sinister is a new species of one person — which of course simultaneously also makes him the last. And as readers of S.W.O.R.D. will know, UNIT is a very friendly ends-justify-the-means final-artifact-of-a-long-dead-people, with an ethical calculus that justifies infinite genocides to achieve their aim. When I'm writing about the villains, I'm really using it to explore the question of mutantkind and their current position as a species on the cusp of annihilation, and where that can drive you.

They're also useful for fights. Big ol' fights. Honestly, there's punching. It's not just metaphors. There's often metaphors you can punch, which are the best kind of metaphors.