Uncanny Avengers #5

[flint_marko]

Comments

[lucky_gamble]

Both Rogue and Wanda literally threw themselves at men (quite dramatically) within this issue. There was nothing fresh or genuine about it either. "You're a woman right? Wells we gots to have a romantic subplot for you then." What about exploring Wanda's power set now that she isn't stuck in Latveria or suffering from explosive amnesia. What of Rogue and Sunfire's history? She did permanently take his powers and memory at one point. Build something there.

Personally, I'm just tired of romantic subplots that will never go anywhere beyond this book.

[darkknightjrk]

I've seen Remender talk in interviews about how Scarlet Witch's hexes work, so I'm certain that all of that will be explored.

Honestly, though, I don't think I really saw any "throwing themselves at men" here. The closest thing I saw to a hint of romance was the scene between Steve and Wanda when he has a finger to her chin, and even that felt more like a former lover/current friend type of thing.

[captainbellman]

THANK YOU, Remender. Perhaps further from this people will stop spuriously referring to Mutants as a "Species".

[jlbarnett]

well, they're supposed to be the development of one. Like Homo Sapiens coming from Homo Erectus

[aulayan]

Pfft. C'mon Magneto, show up to agree with Alex. "Yes. Mutant is a terrible word. Call us... Evolved."

[darkknightjrk]

That would be cool if we end up seeing this conference from the Uncanny X-Men's perspective. Scott would be fuming and Magneto would be thinking, "With the right pull, there might be hope for that boy after all."

[kamino_neko]

*eyes the image below the comic* Cyclops is Racer X, now?

[mastermahan]

Which I guess would make Havok Speed Racer. Wolverine is Chim-Chim.

[beyondthefringe]

Oh, Alex.
You remember what happened the LAST time you led a government-sponsored mutant task force, right? Right?

I'll give you a hint.

"Call us Gee-Cees."

Yeah. Guido coined the term "genetically challenged." I'm surprised Alex didn't bring that up again. :)

[icon_uk]

Which, IIRC, Guido did to satirise political correctness and was somewhat bemused at it being adopted.

[espanolbot]

Hooray, I actually agree with what he has to say!

Not to wait for Scott to sabotage it because it doesn't conform to what he thinks should be the way it works.

[theflames]

But when has Scott done that? At the moment, he's literally doing his own thing, and just not letting other parties stop him, he's not actively interfering with Havoc.

And Havoc is such a terrible brother...

[northstarfan]

"No man should ever unilaterally take action or choose for so many...so now I'd like you to all stop using this term because I don't like it, and to fuckery with whether or not other members of this oppressed group view it as an important and indelible part of their personal and cultural identity."

Oh, yeah. It's the Summers genes.

This scene blows chunks, but at least it blows in unintentionally hilarious ways.

[nate_abril96]

Maybe it's a word that only other mutants can refer to each other, kind of like the n-word in certain African-American groups or neighborhoods. (I say certain because I don't want to generalize that all African-Americans use this word to refer to their peers as this word, as it's still a very controversial subject).

[aravis]

I quite liked this issue, but these pages made me go "ugh...". I don't know much about Havok, but I'm slowly beginning to hate him.

[akodo_rokku]

I kinda think it may be intentional. Is Remender turning Havok into the mutant equivalent of an Uncle Tom? That'll probably depend on the success of various books.

[lorriek]

"The 'M' word represents everything I hate." What the hell? Since when is "mutant" a dirty word? It has never been treated that way by the X characters.

Alex’s little speech could be interpreted as suggesting that minorities should assimilate to the majority, and that ignoring our differences is the key to peace instead of celebrating and understanding them. It’s particularly troubling coming from a white, male, straight, blond, blue-eyed character who could “pass” as an ordinary human. I would love to believe that in a future issue some of the many mutants who could never “pass” criticize Havok for trying to make “mutant” a dirty word instead of something they can take pride in. I’d love to think that Remender understands the implications and they’ll be addressed in-story, but from his (pretty horrible) Twitter response, it seems unlikely.

[bewareofgeek]

This is the writer who spent the first arc of a brand-new series showing how utterly useless the TITLE CHARACTER was, compared to Doctor Doom. I'm not expecting much.

[batman]

I have sorely missed having a white, middle class male American writer tell me through the mouthpiece of his character that identity politics is in fact the cause of why marginalised groups are marginalised. Why, if only those silly marginalised people would stop bleating on about things like how society is structured to favour certain people at the expense of others, then everything would be so much better!

[salinea]

Oh snap!

[icon_uk]

I think that Remender is trying for an MLK "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character" moment, which is a noble and powerful one, but that's really not how it comes across unfortunately.

If he's complained about the use of "mutie" I might feel this less weird.

[shadowpsykie]

agreed on both counts.

i think the IDEA is a good one, but the execution is off...

maybe if he said, Until people stop thinking of Mutant as a negative, call me a human being.

[filthysize]

Boy I've been having arguments about this a lot lately.

Havok's speech can easily be read as a call to eliminate not discrimination or slurs, but the differences that make them minorities in the first place, and that's not something a lot of minorities would agree with. A lot of people are proud of their minority status.

In other words, if a gay person goes to a podium and says "I don't like identifying as a gay person. The word gay is divisive," I imagine there would be quite a lot of proudly gay people who would frown upon such a statement.

[md84]

By Alex's logic, people should stop using the terms "men", "women", etc.

Being equal and being the same are two different things. A true victory for mutant rights wouldn't be people not using the term mutant anymore, it would be people saying the word mutant without giving it a second thought. In other words, when it becomes a total non-issue. Which is NOT the same thing as valuing being a mutant.

[starwolf_oakley]

Any info on that one panel flashback? Scott's costume and Banshee being there suggest it might be right after GIANT SIZED X-MEN #1 or UNCANNY X-MEN #94.

[flint_marko]

It's probably supposed to take place during Uncanny #94, but it doesn't really make sense since all of the other old X-Men quit in that issue, and Cyclops wasn't freaking out or acting like a jerk towards them.

[nightauditguy]

Has Alex been told that the younger version of his older brother is around? Hell has anyone told Rachel, Nate, Hope and Cable?

I can only imagine what Sinister will do when he finds out about the younger versions of Scott and Jean being around.

[theflames]

That's gonna be handle in issue 11 of All New X-Men.

[theflames]

Can't say I like Havoc, mainly because of why he joined the team, his opinions of Scott (which wouldn't annoy me as much if he wasn't his brother) and his general, 'this is my answer, we're doing it this way, but i'm not sure what I'm going on about' attitude.

He seems like a poor man's Cyclops a lot of the time...

[brooms]

"a cult or religion"

not ballsy enough to add "or a community" even tho the writer has already questioned the reality of a mutant community via wolverine.

cute.

[oddityangel]

Shut up, Alex.

[protogarrett]

But the art is amazing. LOVE.
I am intrigued to see how this team works...

[shadowpsykie]

that whole M word thing.... no... sorry... no.

that last image, yes Scott... right there with you

[turtlefu]

I would say this is very in-character of Alex.
But I really hope Remender isn't saying his position is the best one. Because that's just bullshit coming from a straight, white dude.
This sounds just like that annoying person at the party going "What's with you guys talking about racism? WE ARE ALL JUST HUMANS, GOSH"
I mean, maybe you could find something intelligent about this from the idea that sometimes people's identities overtake their individuality (like, I'm a mutant first and "Scott Summers" second). But it's so clumsy and I think it really ignores the nuances of identity politics.
So: Remender has really fucked the CENTRAL METAPHOR of the X-Men. Gold Star!

[shadowpsykie]

.... also something just struck me.... anyone else getting an Uncle Tom feel from Alex

[darkknightjrk]

I wouldn't be surprised if that's going to be explored to a certain extent. Pretty much everyone in this group is still trying to work past their issues with each other.

[trobadora]

Yeah, this is when I decided to drop this book for good.

The mutants on this team consist of the guy who doesn't think there's a mutant culture, the woman who doesn't think erasing a minority matters, the guy who thinks "mutant" is a dirty word, ... and Rogue. (What's Rogue doing with these jerks? Get her out of there!)

[theflames]

Yeah they did choose the weirdest set of mutants for this team...

[silverhammerman]

I think Joe Hughes, editor at Comics Alliance put it best on Twitter
"Uncanny Avengers #5 is the type of comic you read and instantly think "This was written and edited by heterosexual white men.""
That sounds about right.

I feel like there's a grain of an idea here, like maybe it would have worked better if he'd said "call us superhumans" that would have made sense and also finally raised the question of why mutants experience persecution but apparently superhumans are fine by the citizens of the Marvel U. But he didn't say that, and "m-word" is a pretty obvious analog to "n-word" and then things just fall apart.

At this point I feel like either Havok is an idiot or Remender is. I think if maybe Alex is actually supposed to come off as a bit of a tone-deaf idiot (the blonde haired blue eyed heterosexual white man who can easily pass as not a mutant says to stop identifying as one), that'd be an interesting angle given the way the other mutants on the team relate identify and it would be interesting to see Cyclops take Havok to task over this.

But then Remender reacted like an ass on Twitter and I don't have much faith in him anymore.

[amaniwolf]

I think calling them superhumans would go back to the whole Homo Sapiens Superior things. Then you're not associating with humanity, you just attached a label that says better then them. I think what Alex is trying to let collective humanity know is they are just like humans, they have normal names, hopes, dreams, families. For so long the average person in the Marvel U has heard mutants and it's been associated with terrorists, killers, and such basically making them almost alien, another species. It may not come off perfect, but then again...Alex is an imperfect man, which is fine.

[theflames]

OKAY.

So i looked through Remender's Twitter, and honestly, he wants it both ways. He retweeted Jason Aarons tweets basically saying that the X-men are not *just* a metaphor for gays, blacks etc. And that we we shouldn't view it just through that one lens.

That is correct.

But then he's happy to take compliments from other (awkwardly enough) white male twitter users, who say things like 'Morgan Freeman said the same thing about African Americans'.

So, which one is it? Clearly what Havoc is doing here has it's parallels with with real world minorities, so he can't say that this isn't that. He's confused, and he should've just kept quiet and let the story play out. I'm MORE than happy to let a character in story talk like this, characters have different opinions and reasonings, fine, but Remender is making it obvious that Havoc is just his mouthpiece.

[batman]

Oh, of course Jason Aaron says that. I'm not surprised, given how gross Wolverine and the X-Men got before I had to bail. I'm still angry I paid for that book as long as I did.

[goggle_kid]

Call me crazy but I like this. This is one of the few times that Marvel’s actually done something interesting with the “Mutants as the Every Minority” concept. Debate over what terminology is acceptable is something that happens. We’ve seen phrases like “Oriental,” “Negro,” and “Queer” all fall out of the common vernacular.

Why shouldn’t Alex see the phrase “Mutant” as an example of othering? Why would a person with the X-Gene want to be called something that calls to mind images of bug-eyed sci-fi movie monsters? What defenses would other X-Men have for using the term? Why would non-mutants feel it’s alright to use the term. This seems like a genuine opportunity for debate and I want to see it.

Heck it seems a lot more interesting than the “people hate us because we’re awesome. Now we fight robots!” morass that most X-Men stories fall into.

[theflames]

haha that's fair, and in the hands of a really good writer this is a good opportunity. But Remender doesn't seem like that guy.