Where you hang your hat

[laughing_tree]

X-Men #1 (2019)...

Comments

[obsidianwolf]

Well if your a Cyclops fan who likes Hickman's style.

If on the other hand like me Your a Cyclops fan who loathes Hickman's approach to things it's definitely a mixed bag at best.

[shadowkat]

As a hopelessly die-hard Cyclops fan - who is at the moment on the fence about Hickman's approach. (Haven't read any Hickman until House of X and Powers of X) -- I will have to adopt a wait and see ...attitude. As long as they don't sideline him in favor of Wolverine ( Jason Aaron/Chris Claremount) or have him do weird out of character stuff (Morrison/Gillen)...or kill him off again...it's frigging hard to be a Cyclops fan. I would have been better off if I were a fan of Wolverine -- but Wolverine has been so overdone now....

[obsidianwolf]

Given the whole killed and replaced by a copy is part of the set up Cyclops will probably die from time to time (already happened Once on page) but no chance of there not being a Cyclops walking around at least until the mutant xerox set up is destroyed.

This issue pretty neatly shows what I think is going to be the biggest problem though namely that Hickman is one of those writers who puts his story first characterization, established continuity all of that changes to suit his idea.

Take the fact Scott is claiming his son suffered because he was a mutant implying it was humans who caused it and not the actual culprit Apocalypse who is now part of a ruling Cabal of powerful people making morally ambiguous decisions like Hickman loves to use in his work.

[shadowkat]

This is sort of the reason that I'm on the fence in regards to Hickman. He seems to put thematic structure/ideas before character, and his themes drive the story, not necessarily the character themselves. The characters he appears to be changing to fit the story -- and that tends to annoy me. Although, to be fair to Hickman -- this does tend to be par for the course with comic book writers. They inherit someone else's story and characters, and decide to do their own spin on it. Often ret-conning the characters past history in the process. He's already ret-conned Moira and Charles to some degree. My other issue is going to be the increased focus on humanity as the bad guy. As opposed to say Apocalypse or Sinister who were the villains in Cyclops story for the most part. I mean Cyclops even was merged with his worst enemy. And you are correct -- it wasn't humanity who caused Nathan Christopher Summers to suffer but rather Apocalypse.

[obsidianwolf]

True enough that is definitely a problem I mean sure some variance was always going to be built into the genre. I mean when you've got characters that endure for decades written by extremely large amounts of writers through different cultural eras inconsistencies and need for retcons will always be there. (not to mention adding editorial into the mix)

But for way to many modern writers past writers work are just scrap piles to dig through to play around with and not something to try to work with.

[shadowkat]

Now that I've read it? I'm wondering...the humans weirdly sound more real than the mutants do. Also, people seem slightly out of character. I can't imagine Jean, Wolverine and Scott sharing quarters in this manner -- not from the previous arcs. Also Vulcan's appearance is just odd.

Corsair seems sort of suspicious of this as well.

Also everyone sounds sort of cultish? Magneto and Polaris in particular, as does Storm. There's something off...I haven't read enough of Hickman to know if this is deliberate (ie. it's supposed to sound off) or unintentional.

And I don't think they accomplished their aim in stopping Orchis.

[obsidianwolf]

Some of it is definitely intentionally off sounding cause HIckman loves secret cabals and powerful people and watching it fall apart.

Some of it is also probably HIckman rewriting characterization simply to make his story work.

So basically something is off but most likely some of the weird characterization and altered histories will continue even after what's off has been revealed/dealt with.

I mean personally I'm sitting out this relaunch and waiting till HIckman is replaced because I know from experience I won't care for Hickman's over all story.

[shadowkat]

There's things I like about Hickman -- he's different in style and aesthetic (although I don't tend to care that much about such things one way or the other), and there's some interesting ideas here. But, I don't think I like how he changes characters and ignores things from their arcs to fit his purposes. This feels like a complete reboot of the series -- which they haven't done to this extent before. Morrison came closest and lost a lot of fans, which is why Whedon reverted it back to status quo. The problem the X-men series has always had is it veers between Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/ Grant Morrison/Jason Aaron "the school dynamic of a training of powers/paramilitary group that can find a way of living among humans, and get their approval by helping them" and the Kieron Gillen/Jonathan Hickman "us vs. them" dynamic of mutants and humans trying to kill each other. Both are tiresome after a while. And the tension between those two story lines (Xavier = School) and (Magneto = Us vs. Them) to date has always swung more towards Xavier. Then there's the mix of the two, Whedon, Bendis, Rosenberg, etc.

So the reboot isn't on a thematic level but on a character level -- which I don't think is a good idea. It's also getting rid of some of the soap opera elements and taking it more into speculative sci-fi, which is going to lose a lot of people. I'm not sure Marvel realizes how many people read for the soap opera?

The problem with long-running serials like the X-men, the Avengers, daytime soap operas, Doctor Who -- is the continuous change in writers, and the writers often don't know the source material as well as long-time fans do, or they just happen to interpret it in vastly different and weird ways. So, I kind of handwave it as fanfic or various what if scenarios played out with the same characters. Which is why I love these things -- because I like to see all the what if scenarios for a character.

[lencannon]

Having lived in humanity for a couple of decades, we're definitely the bad guy.

[shadowkat]

Oh true. Having lived in humanity for more than a couple of decades...I'd agree. But from a character perspective, certain villains are more interesting than others. Well, that and escaping from humanity being the bad guys for a bit...

[laughing_tree]

Cyclops is THE true believer. Like any true believer, he has his narrative to push and he'll elide the details that don't help do that. Cable might have suffered most under Apocalypse but as an X-person, he's certainly fought his fair share of anti-mutant baddies too. It's enough for the true believer's narrative.

[obsidianwolf]

Yes that's the role Scott's playing in Hickman's narrative how in character that is. welp that's a matter of opinion.