Wolverine and the X-Men #14

[lordultimus]

Comments

lol

[flint_marko]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DerailingLoveInterests
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DieForOurShip
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RonTheDeathEater

[shadowpsykie]

I honestly don't see where they went wrong... why would the Avengers have been against this... they actually WERE doing good. Why were the avengers opposing them? I mean before, there was the threat of an uncontrolled phoenix... then the phoenix was controlled and split by them. had they not been pushed by the avengers... I am honestly at a loss. curing disease, healing the planet... they basically let everyone live in peace.

[lordultimus]

1. Super heroes have always been against this kind of stuff. Check out Secret Wars II sometime.

2. They were also trying to dismantle every government on the planet or something.

[gnarll]

To me, it seemed a combination of Wolverine passing the Avengers bad information, and Cap overreacting massively to it.

I think it works much better if we assume it is part of Hydra-Cap continuity.

[byc]

Hydra-Cap has been predictably well-received after the initial backlash.

"Cap can't be HYDRA, that's just wrong!"
"Oh Hydra-Cap is really cool. He's the best!"
"Cap is back to normal boring goody two shoes. Should have kept him evil."

[draganoche]

The phoenix five did do good but once they started feeling pressured, their humanity fell apart pretty quick.

[lordultimus]

And, for all that it's a retcon, the Phoenix Force was shown to be a corrupting influence in the story.

You can blame that on poor writing, of course, but still.

Though with that said, Reed Richards reaction was "No the FF aren't getting involved, they haven't done anything yet."

[tugrul]

If I remember correctly, even after they turned Phoenix, they didn't hunt and round up Avengers though before the Avengers attacked them. They were a bit more sporty, well-tempered Phoenixes that first issue. xD

[burkeonthesly]

The Avengers had the impression that if the Phoenix showed up, it would inevitably go world-eating at some point down the line, and they wanted to nip that in the bud. When the Phoenix ended up in five hosts, they were already at loggerheads with the Avengers, so the P5 dove pretty quickly into "screw the rules, I've got power." The P5 decided they'd overturn all the nasty anti-mutant governments around the world and replace it with their own benevolent, omniscient rule just as soon as they finished crushing all dissent--and, being telepathic, they would know if you were going to someday dissent.

To the Avengers, the Phoenix Five were this week's wannabe world-conquerors, with an option on planetary genocide. To the Phoenix Five, the Avengers were the unthinking jackbooted defenders of an oppressive status quo and Wolverine for some reason (also, Cap made an uncharacteristically bad speech at the start when he tried to get the X-Men on board with the world's concerns about the Phoenix).

[lordultimus]

Let's face it: they shouldn't have named this Avengers vs. X-Men, they should have named it Assholes vs. Assholes.

[tcampbell1000]

Y'know, it's things like this that make me wonder if I did the right thing getting that English degree.

To me, this story is, like, just barely more subtle than the Civil Wars, where about all Tony and Carol didn't do to telegraph that they were becoming the bad guys was grow Dirk Dastardly moustaches, start Sieg Heiling when they walked into rooms, and cup their hands to their mouths and shout "I'M THE BAD GUY NOW."

Here's the interpretation that I sometimes can't believe isn't the only interpretation: the Phoenix Five were imbued a fifth each of the Phoenix's power and a fifth each of its corrupting influence... you know, the corrupting influence that turned Jean from a classic never-kill-anybody hero into a destroyer of worlds? Of course, that didn't happen to Jean overnight, and 20% is 20%. But it was always going to happen to the Five, sooner or later. Always always always, whether there was any Avengers opposition or not.

Sure, they did some great stuff before then! But it really only matters so much what wonderful things you do if your coup de gras is to purge the whole planet in a big ball of fire.

[gnarll]

Jean was corrupted by Mastermind, over a long period. And to be fair, she was a little bit disposed for it.

The Phoenix "corrupting influence" was invented for this story. And its a particularly bad invention, since its at odds with Rachels history as well as Jeans.

[tcampbell1000]

I don't think I agree with any of that. To be fair, Marvel has been wildly inconsistent about some of the Phoenix mythos, retconning or just ignoring various plot points at different times... but the idea of the Phoenix power itself as a corrupting force goes all the way back to the Dark Phoenix saga. It's not a new addition, it's an original aspect of the story that was later muddled for a while when Marvel wanted to keep the Phoenix brand alive without everyone asking the X-Men, "So... are you guys just TIRED of Earth having life on it, or what?"

And honestly, it's the part everyone remembers, to the point where we're likely to get a second movie adaptation of the Dark Phoenix saga while Rachel barely had an unvoiced walk-on in the X-Men cartoon series.

But ask Wikipedia why Rachel stopped being an avatar of the Phoenix Force. Long story short, you just can't use that power for too long without destroying something you shouldn't.

Mastermind did his thing to Jean and may have loosened the lid on Pandora's Box, but Jean burned away any influence he had on her when she burned out his mind. I don't recall if the text ever said Jean was "predisposed" to corruption, but her original design was definitely fairly innocent... and I think most would agree that the fall of an innocent is what gave the original story a lot of its power.

[gnarll]

No. While it is true that Marvel has been wildly inconsistent about the Phoenix, with every writer wanting their own piece of it, the notion that the Phoenix force was a corrupting force was completely absent originally. They were, as I remember it, not really clear on the Phoenix force being separate or a part of Jean originally. There was one exchange in the Savage Land that could be taken as indication that there was a notion about the Phoenix as a separate force at the time, but I remember it as pretty ambiguous.

The original idea was that _power_ corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. As Jean got used to the power, you would notice little things over the years. She started to show off, wearing light clothes in cold weather. She would get tired of bothersome people shouting about their child, and change their minds for them. She was even arrogant enough to do so right in front of Xavier. And I believe this started even before they started bumping into Wyngarde.

Rachel was the host for the Phoenix-force for years, yes. And for a while her mind was blanked, and the Phoenix was puppeting her like a waldo. And that didn't seem to result in any corrupt behaviour.

I really can't see anything on Rachels Wkipedia page to address any corruption issue either, it just says that the Phoenix connection is lost when she time-travels. But it is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, speaking on a comic book character with an exceptionally complex history even for an X-man. So I thin a minimum of considering the source is in order.

[tcampbell1000]

I'll concede that Jean may have been getting power-hungry before the Phoenix came along.

But if absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the Phoenix is absolute power, then... the conclusion is pretty obvious, isn't it? That means the Phoenix corrupts absolutely.

The notion of the Phoenix as a separate thing from Jean goes back at least as far as the Eighties. FWIW, it was always John Byrne's intent (and editor Jim Salicrup's), which is why Byrne lost no time in setting it up as soon as he was writing his own material.

My bad above. What I was referring to was on Rachel's section of THIS page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Force_(comics) The Phoenix power via Rachel was eventually shown to be robbing energy that would be used to birth future generations, yeah that reads a little hippieish to me too, but the upshot, so far as I can see, is that Rachel doesn't really count as an exception to the idea that using the Phoenix for too long endangers innocents, as its hunger is too great. And that story was also published in the Eighties.

[icon_uk]

That might work if we didn't have Rachel's long history as a perfectly sane, viable Phoenix host who never went evil.

[tcampbell1000]

But ask Wikipedia why Rachel stopped being an avatar of the Phoenix Force. Long story short, you just can't use that power for too long without destroying something you shouldn't.

[icon_uk]

If you can make it right the way through Rachel's bio on wikipedia, you're doing a darn sight better than I ever could. That thing is PAINFUL!

[mastermahan]

Of AvX's many, many flaws, one of the biggest is how they skipped over the Phoenix Five using their power to improve the world in favor of more punching. That's not the sort of thing you can just skip over. What was the P5's approach? Were they benign dictators or something else? How did the governments or the civilians of the world react to them? Were they grateful, suspicious, or scared? Is it even ethical to use cosmic-level power to force changes onto the world?

We never find any of this out, because it gets dumped for a much less ambiguous With Great Power Comes Great Insanity, and the entire plot point seems to have been forgotten by most of Marvel's writers. You'd think Cyclops destroying a cloud would get less attention than the time he took over the world.

[icon_uk]

Ah yes, Colossus and his unending creepy stalking of Kitty Pryde... That never gets old.

[flint_marko]

Only when another writer wants to prop up their new ship so they make him look bad.

[angelophile]

Oh, Colossus's weird obsession and awfulness to Kitty has been well established outside of any time she had a new beau on the scene.

Such as his obliviousness to breaking her heart when he met someone during Secret Wars and didn't consider her feelings at all and then went and got into a bar fight with Juggernaut because he threw a tantrum when Nightcrawler and Wolverine called him out on it.

Or blaming Kitty for his not being there when Illyana died of the Legacy Virus.

Or the horrifyingly creepy way he howled Kitty's name over and over again while getting her name tattooed across his chest.

Just off the top of my head. I know there's more, including one in the new X-men issue this week, but I don't want to think about it too much.

[lordultimus]

For that first one, it's more like Colossus got date raped, since alien girls healing powers messes with people's brains.

[icon_uk]

Zsaji was an empath, but in the sense that she was an empathic sensitive and healer, rather than an emotional manipulator (Like Manuel de la Rocha of the Hellions) wasn't she?

[lordultimus]

I don't think it was anything intentional on Zsaji's part, but if I offer a girl a drink that I don't know had something slipped into it, it wouldn't look good.

[icon_uk]

Fair point, though I would query whether Wolverine would be particularly skilled in spotting such things.

Especially since he's talking about there being no honour lost in following your heart, when there most certainly is. Honour is about following your sworn duty even if there is a cost to your own heart.

[mastermahan]

Let's not forget the time he nearly murdered Pete Wisdom. Not that it makes Kitty/Bobby work, but this is hardly the first time Kitty and Piotr have had serious issues as a couple.

[angelophile]

Oh, I certainly hadn't forgotten it. I was just excluding any times that could be claimed as Piotr acting out of character because of a creator's desire to establish a different ship for Kitty.

[mastermahan]

Which, you're right, it absolutely was.

[icon_uk]

I know it was probably incidental, but back in X-Men Annual #10, when the Mojo de-aged X-Men attack the "Wearing their graduation gear" New Mutants we had this moment.



Where the first thing that lil Colossus does is punch Cypher in the groin... which given that Doug was the first person to distract Kitty from Piotr (even if it never went anywhere) could probably have a whole heap of subtext.

[flint_marko]

1) How exactly does cheating on her count as being weirdly obsessed with her? Wouldn't that suggest the opposite?

2) when did he blame Kitty? Are you talking about when he had a serious head injury and couldn't transform back into his human form?

3) Colossus got a tattoo with Kitty's name, Kitty stalked a cop that looked like him. I think the latter is a little bit more obsessive, but that's true love for you. :)

[angelophile]

So you're saying it's a really unhealthy relationship from both sides? I'd agree with that.

[flint_marko]

Why, because they were both really upset when they thought the other one was dead? It just shows that despite their ups and downs they still love each other, and that what they had together was more than just a forgettable fling like their other relationships.

And back to your argument about Colossus blaming Kitty for Illyana's death; when was this? He withdrew from her because he couldn't deal with the grief of losing his sister so soon after both his parents were murdered, but after they performed the surgery on him he collapsed in her arms and let his feelings out.

[gnarll]

I'm willing to cut him a break on this one, since he is possessed by Cyttorak, and whatever phoenix-influence they've pulled out of their ass for this story.
And even with a Demon from Hell playing on his emotions he is still the most restrained of them.

[tugrul]

Isn't this the end of Cyttorak's influence?

[trooper924]

This is when Colossus had the Juggernaut's powers, right? Did they ever do anything with that?

[lordultimus]

I recall him meeting Cyttorak a few times. With Cyttorak acting completely differently every time.

[gnarll]

Illyana cut the Cyttorak out of him with her soulsword, like she did with Black Tom and the Juggernaut before. She just didnt do it earlier because... reasons.

[captainbellman]

Given how Brooklyn-99-Terry also talks about himself in the third person, I've just now realised I'd kill for a Fantastic Four project with Terry Crews as Ben Grimm.

[angelophile]

Ben loves yoghurt.

[lyricalswagger]

Did anyone else get distracted by Bobby's shiny frozen butt?

[icon_uk]

Well, it is a very NICE shiny frozen butt,

[lbd_nytetrayn]

On the one hand, I kind of hate how we're only following this one particular title, as every time we get a new issue, it feels like we've missed something.

On the other, it provides a remarkable demonstration of why big crossover events like this can really suck if you're only picking up one or even some of the books associated with it, and a round-up post with links to all the parts would probably be a good idea.