Giant-Size X-Men #1 (2025)

[mastermahan]

Kamala Khan has been shoehorned into the X-Men so hard she's taking a tour of mutant history, so let's play Spot The Continuity Error!








Yes, Colossus has his arm around the waist of 16-year-old, but it's strictly platonic. Kamala is too old for him.

Comments

[thanekos]

Cannot fault keeping " Kamala knows Scott because time-displaced young Scott " - that, as fun shared universe wrinkles go, is right up there with T'Challa and Matt Murdock knowing each other.

[beyondthefringe]

Let's face it, this storyline is just an opportunity to revisit the Greatest Hits of the X-Men while also creating fresh new alternate timeline(s) to revisit later on, and I sincerely doubt any of this will actually impact the primary timeline one bit.

Just another excuse to sell a series of overpriced, halfway adequate specials masquerading as a cohesive story. They're not -bad- but not -great-. And like many, I suspect Kamala was the wrong POV character, and should never have been retconned into being a mutant as well as an Inhuman. I love her as a character, but making her a mutant, inducting her into the X-Men, and giving her "I'm a mutant" angst has not done her any real favors. It's been a while since she's had what I'd consider to be a really good storyline.

(Also, I find something offputting about seeing Piotr, who doesn't even -know- her at this point in time, with his arm around her waist. Funny how we go immediately from "My dad would be upset about the skirt" to "Yeah sure, the big Russian dude can get up close and personal..." I do believe that's haram by Muslim standards, and last time I checked Kamala at least -tried- to follow them. Maybe not perfectly, but still.)

What's funny is that under other circumstances, the idea of adding a Muslim woman to the All-New team wouldn't be all that wild (from a contemporary perspective), given the various representation of the new members... Canadian, Russian, Irish, German, Japanese, Apache, African (by way of New York, Egypt and Kenya, lol) Like, if Len Wein had been trying to be a touch more diverse, someone like Kamala might have fit the bill.

But Kamala popping in and being "I'm from the future, I know most of you, Scott and I are best buds, and even though I was only an X-Man for five minutes I can speak Krakoan, a language which didn't even exist until my time and even then the only person who could actually communicate with Krakoa was Doug Ramsey, but anyway I can solve everything by just talking to Krakoa." Not exactly helping the case of "we're trying way too hard to make Kamala extra special."

(Oh and hey, did we forget about the -other- team? Petra, Sway, Darwin, Vulcan? I mean as long as we're right -here- and everything... Ooops.)

[shakalooloo]

I think Kamala being the focus here is because the final issue is at last going to address what her mutant power is.

[scorntx]

Judging by this issue, looks like her Mutant power is going to be sparkly energy constructs.

[deh_tommy]

They already addressed her mutant power back in Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace. It’s energy constructs like in her show.

[shakalooloo]

In that case, I am utterly at a loss as to what the point of this will all be, unless this Legion-less Legion goes on to become an ongoing villain (doubtful).

[numeronone]

I mean, could any continuity error be worse than that part in Fall of the House of X where Duggan claimed the original X-Men had a softball field, and ComicsXF had to write a VERY long essay explaining how stupid that was?

[steverodgers5]

"Yes, Colossus has his arm around the waist of 16-year-old, but it's strictly platonic. Kamala is too old for him."
------------------------------------

Haha! Maybe Colossus just has a thing for teens with bad fashion sense. (Kamala is rocking what looks like a variation on Kitty's early outfits.)

[scorntx]

It's a nostalgic cash-grab and everyone knows it, so that saves a little time.
(And in the case of the AoA one, also a little bit of Jobs for the Boys.)
Burn on the late 90s and early 00s.
No Kamala visiting The Twelve or Onslaught or Zero Tolerance.
Forget the late 90s! Nothing of importance happened therein!

And it's yet another bad future story, because it's been... less than five months since the last?
(thinking the X-Office need someone with a spray bottle, spritz any writer who starts with it.)

Pretty sure Past-Scott shouldn't be remembering knowing Kamala yet because the memories were wiped, but it's a sweet moment regardless.
(either that or Scott gets mind-wiped so much he's built up a resistance... naaaah.)

But I think the biggest hurdle, continuity-wise, is Thunderbird.
Being the biggest, rudest asshole in the room was his thing, personality-wise.
And they're using dialogue from Giant-Sized proper, so it's not like they haven't read it.
So it's a deliberate choice.
Which is fair. Having your only Native America representation be a total asshole with no real depth to him wasn't a great look to start with, and fifty years later even less so.
But making him a cardboard Stoic Native American is... not the greatest improvement?

also Wolverine just being the team Grumpy Bear, when Giant-Sized had it that between Logan, John and Shiro there was enough sheer jerk going around that Nightcrawler and Storm were not feeling the Mutant love.

Buuut given it's a time travel story I'm just going to assume time travel explains any and all discontinuities.
"but-" "TIME TRAVEL!"

There were ways to introduce Kamala having a syngerstic version of her MCU powers. This was definitely a convoluted way of doing it.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Wouldn't she be about 18 or so now? I thought she started attending ESU a while back?

Also, I just love her and Scott together here.

[icon_uk]

Yes, I believe she is.

[mastermahan]

That sounds right, actually. I called her 16 because Kamala refers to herself as 'only 16' on the second page there.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Yeah, sounds like the editor dropped the ball?

Or death had any adverse effect on her aging process. Though if no one else knows...

Yeah, IDK. Sure, I forget my age all the time at this point, but I know one doesn't at that age. Especially in a country like America, where it's like you've got "Achievement Unlocked" behind a bunch of them over a couple of years.

[mastermahan]

Well, the editor also forgot about Vulcan's X-Men team and that Krakoa doesn't understand Krakoan, and those seem like bigger oversights.

[scorntx]

Acknowledging Vulcan's X-Men team does kind of mean having to acknowledge Vulcan exists to begin with.
And is it really worth that cost?

[mastermahan]

Oh come on, what about Darwin? You know, the Evolving Boy? He was in X-Men: First Class for like five minutes? He has a Krakoa-era subplot with the Children of the Vault no one ever bothered resolving?

Is it really worth losing such a significant character?

[scorntx]

(Gosh, I'd actually forgotten all about Darwin being involved in the Children of the Vault plotline.
Yet another Krakoa plot that went fizz...)

Can't forget his memorable role in X-Factor, spent trying to kill a kid before coming to the realisation that it was bad.

[icon_uk]

Agreed that Scott remembering Kamala shouldn't work, but I can give it a pass because it's a cute moment.

It does feel very presumptive for Colossus to wrap his arm around a young woman he hardly knows like that.

It is, of course, bad form for a man to make that sort of unrequested physical contact with any woman, but I believe it is very, VERY bad form, to make unrequested physical contact with a Muslim woman. Not that Kamala wouldn't take issue with it herself, but still....

[thanekos]

Honestly, that sort of thing works as a reflection of Chris " everything I know about other cultures, I got out of other people's novels " Claremont.

(I'll always love the John Byrne remark that was something like " Chris read Shogun once, and that's why all the Japan stuff. "

[icon_uk]

Yeah, that tracks! :)

Reminds me a bit of the interview with Kazuya Tsurumaki, director of Evangelion, where he openly admits that

There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool.

[cyberghostface]

It looks like she's doing the same with him at least.

[beyondthefringe]

Even if we accept Kamala is less observant about some aspects of her religion than other, the physical contact we see throughout is a little bit much. I can buy her hugging Scott, a close friend, in a moment of emotional vulnerability, but she barely knows Piotr and he doesn’t know her at all yet.

As for the memory blocks the O5 were supposed to have about the future… yeah, that’s kind of an issue also given how much of events to come they might want to avoid if they know what’s in store for them.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

My personal theory for the memory block is that it's only in effect for as long as nothing directly triggers the memories, I.e. Scott wouldn't remember Kamala existed until he actually knew of Kamala existing, which kind of breaks the block. "Out of sight, out of mind," as it were.

Kinda like how it can be hard to remember a dream unless something directly triggers it.

I forget if the others met Kamala, too (since only Scott was a Champion), but my guess is none of them would have any memory of her until they saw her again, which none of them were supposed to until they were already adults again.

[beyondthefringe]

Yeah, I figure there's gotta be some reason, because the memory blocks were set up precisely to ensure that history didn't get bent out of shape. And I can't see young Bobby voluntarily staying in the closet until he grows up, after the growth he went through in the future. That's just TOO cruel. (I know, it happens all the time in real life. Fuck real life.) Warren knowing about his Archangel days, Beast knowing about his future changes, Jean knowing -anything- about her future... I mean, can you tell me they'd accept these future developments gracefully? Can't say I'd be so brave.

Sometimes I hate the trope of "Heroes experience alternate timeline, and when they discover the tragedy, misery, and death waiting for them in the real timeline, they accept it because they're heroes and time must be restored." I think that happened in JLA/Avengers, among other places.

Oh and Scott going "Oh yeah, I know Kamala from my trip to the future" which means -Xavier- knows about the future trip, so how much does -he- know, and would -you- trust Charles Xavier with future knowledge? I'm not sure I would.

But I'm convinced all of this is just going to spin off one or more alternate timelines which we'll see again in What If, Exiles, Secret Wars VIII, Spiderverse vs Kamalaverse, or whatever.

[shakalooloo]

So it's Doctor and Donna rules, yes?

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Not to let the writer off the hook, but is it not possible that the artist did that unprompted, and either no one thought to question it, or it was too late to change by the time they did?

[shakalooloo]

Entirely possible. I really doubt that the writers, in describing a big team scene, wrote in "make sure that Colossus has his arm around at least one woman, even the teenager".