Charles Soule on IVX

[flint_marko]

X-POSITION: @CharlesSoule Readies The X-Men And Inhumans For Warhttps://t.co/uI0ZFfSfkv pic.twitter.com/fvgcnWqBpn

— Comic Book Resources (@CBR) December 6, 2016

The general consensus from what I have seen is that “Death of X” did right by Emma and Scott. However many fans myself including are still confused as to why mutants became so hated after the destruction of the Terrigen Cloud? And why Scott himself was hated by his own teammates? Are we missing something?

Charles Soule: I’ve gotten this question a lot myself. The key here is in one of Scott’s (well, Emma’s, really) last lines: “You’ve got a story, I’ve got a story. It doesn’t matter which one is true. It matters which one is believed.” So, here’s what we know — the things that happened in “Death of X” happened as we saw. By the time the various “X” #1s began, public opinion had turned way against Scott. Remember that not every mutant was present, nor every Inhuman. The events were shaped by public opinion and through the viewpoints of people who saw them — or didn’t. In the world we live in today, this seems extremely plausible. People believe things firmly based on a single headline — they don’t even have to read the article. “Death of X” is already a tragedy on many levels — in part because Emma does so much in Scott’s memory that becomes increasingly terrible — but then when you realize that people end up believing whatever the hell they want to despite what seem to be the available facts… well, it’s even sadder.

Was it expected that the Inhumans would be perceived as having an equally valid, or even sympathetic, viewpoint after “Death of X,” when the stakes ultimately came down to their having to make significant cultural adjustments in a new environment vs. the slow, painful death of an established population?

The Terrigen clouds are not everywhere. There were two, now there’s just one. Their path is tracked on weather services — once the mutants realize they’re a problem, they’re easily avoidable. As soon as the Inhumans learn what’s happening, they immediately (like right that second) leap to help, moving mutants out of the cloud’s path. The mutants don’t have to touch Terrigen at all, which means the problem is really of a limited scale to them. So, the idea that the Inhumans should destroy their entire (20,000+ years) cultural legacy because mutants have a problem with Terrigen… I think it’s understandable that they would take a wait-and-see approach, and try to find another solution.

To explain another way — there are kids with deadly peanut allergies. We don’t implement a worldwide ban on peanut butter or Snickers. We just make sure those particular kids stay away from peanuts. This is that exact situation. Now, we’ll see what happens in “IvX”…

And the cover art for #6.

Comments

[stubbleupdate]

Yep, that's X-23's ass alright.

[nyadnar17]

I completely missed it.....now its all I can see. damn.

[locuatico]

mmmh... I'm not sure, can't we ask the artist to... next issue will make it even bigger, isn't it?

[scorntx]

-"That is the exact situation"-
...
That... no, Charles, no. No.
Peanut butter allergies are not the same as a roving death cloud.

(Oy vey... I think that broke something important...)

[crinos]

Yeah, talk about torturing a metaphor.

For it to even be close, there would have to be a group out there releasing massive clouds of peanut gas that are instantly fatal to anyone who has peanut allergies, and when the people with Peanut allergies ask them to stop the group doing it says no because its part of their religion to flood the world with peanut gas.

[starwolf_oakley]

Another super hero story, another Aesop about the perils of Yellow Journalism.

[tugrul]

Of course he knows how problematic it is to move mutants rather than move or destroy the cloud, how it disrupts their lives and how closeted and / or dormant mutants could be outed.

But he's a writer selling a story. Disappointed though I may be that this fan-favourite writer is insulting the reader's intelligence, I have faith in his writing skills and look forward to the finished product.

Go get 'm, Emma.

[qalchemist]

KICK THEIR KREE ASSES, FROST!

[laughing_tree]

"Of course he knows how problematic it is to move mutants rather than move or destroy the cloud, how it disrupts their lives and how closeted and / or dormant mutants could be outed."

He's not saying it's not problematic at all, just that it's more complicated than "the Mists WILL kill people unless it's destroyed." Disrupting lives and forced outing is bad, yeah, but not nearly as bad as death. If it's a choice between the latter and the destruction of the foundation of a culture, there's no contest. If it's a choice between the *former* and the destruction of the foundation of a culture... there it's less clear cut.

[every_spiegel]

Well, if peanuts mutate to be a moving indissoluble cloud, we know who to blame. Though I didn't know peanuts were a cultural legacy...

[cyberghostface]

He's coming off as being incredibly obtuse here. It's already been established that there are mutants who can't be moved and are dying.

[nyadnar17]

He didn't answer the question. I have enough faith in him to believe(hope?) he is just doing his job of selling an editorially mandated story as best he can.

[an_idol_mind]

I know somebody with a peanut allergy, and it really sucks that they have to evacuate their homes whenever a cloud of peanut butter floats into their city.

[thanekos]

Until this comment, I had never thought about how life in the setting of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs must have been for some allergic people.

[nyadnar17]

Man I hope we can more Aunty Em. I am loving seeing Frost back in the spotlight where she belongs.

Hope she comes out of this as popular as Cyke, Storm, Magneto, Logan, Xavier.

[informationgeek]

What losses have the Inhumans suffered aside from the cloud? The “IvX” intro implies that they had multiple losses, but so far all we’ve seen is the destruction of the cloud. Did something happen off screen?

There’s been a fair amount of cold-war-esque conflict off screen, and there have been losses, yes.


Of course it was off screen. Why would something important happen on-screen after all, am I right folks?


I swear to god writers are getting lazy when coming up with reasons to do or to not do things. The Al Ewing one regarding the new Red Hulk recently was a lot of bullcrap too.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

What'd Al say about the Red Hulk?

[icon_uk]

Yeah, sorry Mr Soule, whatever the reason for the finale of Death of X being the character gold, but plot-fail that ti was, it's just plain not working as an explanation.

I'm trying hard to see how "Rendered a toxic, mutant killing death-cloud harmless, without inflicting mass Inhuman casualties in the provess" could be spun into "The guy who did this is comparable to Hitler!!"

[akodo_rokku]

Well the guy who did it was a mutant, so that gets 95% of the MU populace to Hitler automatically.

[lucean]

This comparison... I just.. What?

I understand they need to sell a story and that the Inhumans seemed to be the chosen ill-fated heroes, but that comparison is just insane. It is borderline insulting.

[laughing_tree]

"The Inhumans seemed to be the chosen ill-fated heroes."

I don't see this. The storytelling doesn't take their side over the mutants and, more importantly, the writers themselves have brought up, both in-story and in interviews, the moral ambiguity of the royal family's actions. Heck, over in Daredevil, also written by Soule, when the Inhumans guest-starred recently they were practically villains, obstructing him from finding a serial killer and picking fights with him.

Marvel's pushing the Inhumans as a property, obviously, but clearly not as clear-cut "good guys." I honestly don't see why more people don't see this.

[beyondthefringe]

And when they prove that the Terrigen has saturated the atmosphere, at least in the Savage Land... a little hard to justify the Inhuman side when their precious mists are making Earth uninhabitable for mutants. "Don't like peanuts? Leave Earth. Or maybe we can cure you by removing that which makes you special."

There was a time when the pollution made Earth uninhabitable to the Inhumans... do they have sympathy? Noope.

I hate this plot.

[shadwing]

Agreed, he seems to be ignoring the fact that once Terrigen is 'wild' in the ecosystem it WILL NOT STAY PUT or should not stay put. Its not going to stay in a nice neat predictable cloud you can see coming, weather prediction is not 100% perfect, it's going to get caught in rain get into the water systems, food chains ect this is a roving Death Cloud with the potential for tainting the entire planet that will give for a segment of the population a painful death and all he can say is "Oh we can move them!"

ARGH

[thanekos]

" So, the idea that the Inhumans should destroy their entire (20,000+ years) cultural legacy because mutants have a problem with Terrigen… "

It's a valid point- on the one hand, the loose Terrigen mist affects many people against their will, and Black Bolt bears the responsibility of loosing it.

On the other hand, it is all the Terrigen mist on Earth- without that, there's no Terrigenesis. Without Terrigenesis, key parts of the Inhuman identity become an impossibility.

Mutantkind has every right to say " Your thing hurts us. We don't like the way you're dealing with it. We will fight your thing- and you, if it comes to that. " Inhumanity has every right to say " Our thing helps us. We recognize the impact it's having, and we are dealing with that in our way. If you interfere with our thing, we will fight you. "

It's a conflict between two sides where it can be argued that neither side should do what they're doing because their victory would permanently diminish the other. It's also a conflict that can't at all be resolved with that argument, because that argument can only be applied from a perspective entirely outside the story. Every character involved in this exists inside the story, and has their own survival to consider. It does not make sense to judge someone harshly for not throwing themselves over for someone else.

(Sure, that leads into the " Why don't they just find a way to neutralize/contain the roving Mists " question, but the answer to that seems obvious- it's a large mass of mutagenic gas dissipating through the atmosphere. The logistics of dealing with that are immediately obviously complex- they would be for anyone who wasn't a broken people still rebuilding themselves following a cataclysm, to say nothing of the sides in this conflict.

This is also true for " Why don't they just switch to that one Terrigenesis alternative/variant from that one time ". At the very least, any solution for either case being a guaranteed fix would be contingent on whoever was depicting that scenario not introducing complications for dramatic purposes. As that could never be guaranteed in any fiction ever..)

[locuatico]

At this point, the only way i can justify the Inhumans refusing to deal with the terrigen mist is NOT because it is sacred... but because is the only way they can see that ensures the new Inhumans WILL come to them.

Like, why should I accept to follow them just because of ancestry?
Now imagine someone after terrigenesis, they are scared, they have no control and there is nowhere they are safe. Now going with the Inhumans, who are offering you shelter and help to deal with your new abilities, looks a lot more desirable.

I mean, i think it would be incredibly manipulative for them to do this, but i could see more of an argument if it was like that.

[long_silence]

But the Inhumans haven't had Terrigenesis for their entire 300,000 years of history. Randac discovered the mists like 25,000 years ago, there were Inhuman cities and culture and civilization before the mists. Karnak's training in the Tower of Wisdom proves that Inhumans don't have to go through terrigenesis to be Inhuman

And that's not even getting into the fact that Terrigenesis has always been a crapshoot even for the Inhumans. Inhumans go through it and get random and unpredictable powers, that could potentially ruin their lives or turn them into monsters. That's why Karnak's parents chose not to put him through the process when they saw what happened to Triton. And now the uncontrollable death cloud is going around the world and dozens of Inhuman descendants have died in the process because they weren't able to survive Terrigenesis. Inferno's mother, Flint's entire adopted family and town, all of the people who've died in the cocoons because they weren't expecting this to happen and were defenseless and vulnerable to attack.

The Inhumans don't deserve superpowers more than people (mutants and nuhumans) deserve to live. That's pretty damn cut and dry.

[survivor19]

Frankly, i do not understand why would anyone outside some very devoted Inhumans would hold 'inhuman cultural legacy of 20000 years' as having positive value. After all, if Inhumans have blown their cultural legacy with a bomb - why should anybody else casre about it?

[shadur]

Another good point. Just because something is a "cultural legacy" doesn't mean it automatically needs to be respected and preserved, especially when said legacy is actively, even lethally, harmful to people.

Bear in mind, the Confederate South tried (and occasionally, still tries) to argue that slavery was "part of their cultural legacy" and no one had the right to demand they stop. The North disagreed.

[remial]

ok, 1) this isn't a peanut allergy, this is an oxygen allergy you hack.
2) why are mutants feared and hated but not Inhumans? with mutants you have a kid, and maybe she can turn her blood into cotton candy (or something), Inhumans OTOH, you go outside on a cloudy day and maybe you get super powers, maybe you turn into a monster, or most likely you die! Mutants set up their own nation (a couple times) and the world tries to bomb it into the stone age. Inhumans come down off the moon to earth and set up a country and everyone is like "yeah, this is great!"

[lordultimus]

For 2), that's basically a point people have made for every non-mutant superperson. There's a reason people think the X-men would work best in there own separate universe.

[zylly]

Maybe it's just because I'm an agnostic white guy who doesn't particularly identify as much of anything... but when it comes down to death of a culture vs. actual death of individuals, the individuals are going to win out.

Furthermore, as I've said before, being an Inhuman is as much cultural as it is genetic. And Terrigenisis is not the only part of that culture. It's a big one, yes, but it's not the only thing that makes them Inhuman.

[laughing_tree]

The way Soule's framing it, it isn't death of a culture vs. actual deaths because the Inhumans are helping mutants move out of the way of the cloud. I'm not sure that really lines up with how things have been depicted in the X-books, but that's the framing.

[tigerkaya]

Lets see, scan daily unamiously hates Inhumans with uniamous fury. Wants to see them all kicked out and never return. I always find it funny for this site to post a comic about a race they hate with a burning passion. Why not don't post it, simple as that.

[flint_marko]

Because it's about the X-Men as well?

[john_wyatt]

As far as Black Bolt knows, he executed Cyclops. I haven't picked up on any outrage over that, only this never-shown public opinion turning against Cyclops. Why isn't running around, trying to kill everyone involved is destroying the first cloud?