X-Men #7 (2020) - "Lifedeath"

[laughing_tree]

It doesn’t mean anything when we kill characters in our books anymore because everybody knows that the IP is coming back. It doesn’t have the impact and I’ve said this in the writers’ room: You need to stop telling those stories, about killing characters. I understand that sometimes narratively you want to do something dramatic but let me tell you, as a storytelling mechanism, walking in the room and kicking all the toys over is not a good look anymore. It’s not the kind of stories that people are wanting to read. It’s not actually helpful in terms of you doing your job 5 years down the road. It makes all of our jobs incredibly difficult. One of the reasons why I did the resurrection stuff was not only because I wanted everybody to be able to have all the mutants back without us doing like literally 30 issues of bringing characters back in various ways. -- Jonathan Hickman

Comments

I’d love to see what happens if someone actually manages to beat Big A at his own game

[deh_tommy]

That’s terrible what happened to the depowered, but that does not and should not make them lesser as people. You are still you, and nothing can ever take that away from you.

And then here comes En Sabah Nope saying “Yes, you are lesser. You are lesser and pathetic for what circumstances beyond your control have made you. You do not deserve paradise, and you will always be defined by your tragedy so the only right thing to do is literally kill yourself.” Like... no! Just no! That’s terrible and the completely wrong thing to say! Becoming a mutant again isn’t going to make them happy or suddenly cure their self esteem issues if this kind of antagonising, indoctrinating bullcrap that reaffirms their worst fears is the driving force behind Krakoa.

At least we finally get some mutants questioning things. Pragmatism won the minute this whole thing took root, Scott.

Re: I’d love to see what happens if someone actually manages to beat Big A at his own game

[cricharddavies]

And then here comes En Sabah Nope saying “Yes, you are lesser. You are lesser and pathetic for what circumstances beyond your control have made you. You do not deserve paradise, and you will always be defined by your tragedy so the only right thing to do is literally kill yourself.” Like... no! Just no! That’s terrible and the completely wrong thing to say!

And yet totally unsurprising. "Sheep deserve to be sheared, and wolves are higher beings" is the be-all, end-all of the philosophy the author seeks to advocate through his writing.

Re: I’d love to see what happens if someone actually manages to beat Big A at his own game

[gnarll]

Well, it is En Sabah Nur. It is in character for him to be doing this, I don't know if we should assume that the writer shares his philosophy.

Re: I’d love to see what happens if someone actually manages to beat Big A at his own game

[locuatico]

The Artist Formerly Known as Apocalypse doing that makes sense. The fact the closest to someone raising an objection is Scott doing the "are we the baddies?" sketch from that one BBC comedy does not.
It's either a clue that there is mind control going on being used to silence any differing opinion or contrived writing.

Re: I’d love to see what happens if someone actually manages to beat Big A at his own game

[deh_tommy]

I disagree. I think this is intentionally... questionable, at the very least. Plus, similar stuff in Mr. Hickman’s previous works for MARVEL usually have the ‘hard choices made by the hard (wo)men’ blow up (sometimes even literally) in their hard faces.

Re: I’d love to see what happens if someone actually manages to beat Big A at his own game

[cricharddavies]

[looks up from "The Nightly News"] ... uh huh.

Re: I’d love to see what happens if someone actually manages to beat Big A at his own game

[arthur_wynne]

I am a little unsure why this setup needed to be put forward in the first place. I seem to recall the story made a big point that the resurrection method has no limits, and using it more is just more energizing to the Five. If that's true, why can't the Five just leave an open door for anyone who wants to be reborn and have their powers back, without setting up this kind of "test"?

Do I have that wrong somehow?

And for that matter, why is it a problem for the Five if every mutant on the planet wants to have the powers of Cypher, Darwin, Madrox, Magneto and Phoenix?

Obviously Marvel isn't going to write that story, because then we're far into Vingean utopian speculative sci-fi, but then don't create a setup where you need to handwave the answer to those questions.

Re: I’d love to see what happens if someone actually manages to beat Big A at his own game

[silverhammerman]

I think it’s just a numbers thing. They are after all trying to resurrect every mutant killed in Genosha and there’s only so many hours in each day, so it might just be a matter of prioritizing. Their solution is still incredibly creepy and weird, but it makes sense that they wouldn’t want people to see resurrection as a simple on demand, ala cart affair.

As to why not swap powers around, just plopping someone’s mind into a different body was implied to cause complications (which I greatly look forward to seeing play out at some point) and altering people’s powers would probably involve Mister Sinister, which we know is a hallmark of several of Moira X’s bad futures.

Re: I’d love to see what happens if someone actually manages to beat Big A at his own game

[bruinsfan]

I’d love to see what happens if someone actually manages to beat Big A at his own game

Little chance of that if they're fighting without their mutant powers. Maybe Forge could with tech he'd already invented if he's allowed to use it in the arena. And Illyana I suppose, though theoretically they shouldn't be able to back up her memories, and losing her mutant powers would be only a minor inconvenience anyway.

Re: I’d love to see what happens if someone actually manages to beat Big A at his own game

[arilou_skiff]

To be fair, the ethics of killing becomes a whole different thing when it's reversible. Still questionable, weird and culty, but.... different.

[minervasolo]

Nice to get a glimpse of Skin!

Is Icarus back too, or is he still dead because he died of becoming human?

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

He's alive, he died a mutant, killed by being written by Yost.

[scorntx]

Also by being a total frikken idiot.

"Oh, hey, creepy minister who tried to kill mutants before. Sure, I'll trust you. Wait, what are you doing with that gu-"

(That must've been one awkward resurrection day...)

[dewinged]

Yep. Killed by being mis-written.

I'm just happy he's back.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

I know this would be in character for Apoccy, but I'm hard pressed to see anyone else condoning.

Hickman is the new Grant Morrison, ignoring basic characterization for his grand ideas. Hopefully the crash following his departure will be softer.

[jmacq1]

I'm holding out hope that a whole lotta the original X-People and a fair number of their traditional adversaries are actually "buried" in Krakoa and nearly everyone we're reading about are in fact brainwashed, idealized clones.

Mostly because that seems like it would be very much in keeping with all the shenanigans Moira/Xavier/Magneto are getting up to here.

Also Moira has been conspicuously absent. I suspect she is the string puller here though I'm not sure precisely how. Just like I suspect there's a reason Xavier is very rarely taking off that helmet.

Also didn't Sam just agree to stay in space with his wife and kid + Berto? Was he back "just visiting" for the ritual or something? It may well be telling that the guy who hasn't been around is the one not buying in to the cult.

Basically whether Hickman pulls the trigger on them or not I see a lot of potential "outs" to sweep most of this under the rug (beyond the Mutants' reputation being even further in the crapper than it was before).

[shakalooloo]

The Prof needs to keep the helmet on in order to be able to constantly sense and make back-ups of human minds across the globe for resurrection. Anyone that dies while he's not wearing it won't be reborn with their most recent memories.

[obsidianwolf]

It has already been stated as a given that they lose memories since the back ups where said to be once a week. Not to mention folks beyond his range or in an area that blocks telepathy.

Sure in situation like this where they are doing the killing they can be ready with a back up that last up to the second of death but the folks who die in other ways are more than likely going to be missing memories.

In fact we've already seen it on panel with the mutants sent after the Mother Mold

If they manage to resurrect Kitty I imagine the fact she won't remember being killed by Shaw will be a plot point.

[akodo_rokku]

Moira lives in a secret bunker somewhere deep in Krakoa, she's been shown once or twice since this all started. As far as everyone other than Chuck and Erik know, she died of Legacy Virus.

[matrix_dragon]

... I... A way for depowered characters to get their powers back. Fine. But letting Apocalypse beat them to death in front of a crowd while preaching about how much humans suck? No.

[shadowseeking]

None of this is anything any of the X-men should be allowing.
Hickman's nonsense needs to end sooner rather than later.

[jmacq1]

I dunno. I think a lot of this is fairly compelling. It's certainly not "my" X-Men, but that ship sailed when Grant Morrison came on board nearly two decades ago.

It's a radical shift and absolutely folks are acting weird/out of character/culty, but I think the underlying creepiness is part of why it appeals at this point.

Not that I'm buying the titles or anything, just the tidbits I've seen I've mostly been enjoying.

[shadowseeking]

I'm sorry but after all the garbage X-men fans have had to endure because of the Inhumans and the like, this is just another insult to injury.

I don't find it compelling or appealing at all, just tiresome and annoying.

[zachbeacon]

Yep, totes not a cult

[scorntx]

As... utterly horrific as that was, it is pretty in-character for Apocalypse to do all that.
Everyone else, nope.
(The fact that Sam is apparently the only one who thinks his sister getting beaten to death just so she can have her powers back is not helping the whole "everyone is brainwashed" idea...)

And, uh... Exodus wasn't there at House of M.
The only people who were supposed to remember were the X-Men and Avengers who were there.
So the X-Men are going around deliberately telling people lies about what happened to fuel their mutant cult.
For fuck's sake...

[gnarll]

Exodus always had a massive case of jealousy for Magnetos real kids. "No more mutants" must have been the Christmas eve of his "what did I say?" This may well be something hes pieced together on his own.

And to be fair, he is a massively powerful telepath, hes going to have picked it up from brains.

[bruinsfan]

Yeah, Xavier, Magneto, Magick, and maybe Karma are probably the only people whose brains he couldn't have picked for the story.

[lucean]

I've seen it pointed out by others, but Scott's growing role and seeming hesitation is an interesting feature here for me. When this run started, I was a bit disgruntled how he was seemingly sidelined, even if still in a prime position, and wasn't one of the real leaders, but it does appear like it is leading towards something.

[angelophile]

I hate everything about this. I hate what the X-men have become. It saddens me just how much I hate this when it's seen some of my favourite characters revived.

[owlbrigade1]

Agreed. IF anything this whole Krakoa thing seems to be an exercise in justifying the fear and hate of the Marvel humans against Mutants. I'd hate these smug assholes too if I were them. This version of the X-Men and the Mutants are unequivocally the bad guys. The sooner this gets retconned, the better.

[angelophile]

I get that these are cleverly written books. But a book where Apocalypse brutally beats a child to death in front of a baying crowd of X-men, while lecturing her that she is lesser before murdering her to public acclaim... is not a book I want on my shelves.

It makes me angry.

[cainofdreaming]

So, so much for that kill no human thing?

[scorntx]

"It says no humans. ... we're allowed to kill them one at a time."
"No, you're not!"
"Eh."

[nyadnar17]

I adore Hickman for these writer comments alone. 100% spot on.


As for the rest, am I crazy? Is my head just so far up my own ass that I really like this as exploring what multiculturalism can look like when the basis is shared ethnic experience? We can see the cracks in the foundation forming from jaming also these people with vastly different ideals together. We can see how creepy and openly xenophobic a repressed people can people when they are no longer in mixed company. I am having a lot of fun exploring the darker sides of what it can mean to be a minority.

[arthur_wynne]

I totally understand everyone who's angry or dismayed that the X-Men have been turned into this, but on its own merits, I kind of agree with you. This is really interesting.

But then, the reason I like it is that it highlights how the X-Men have long since stopped being able to be a vehicle for any kind of coherent commentary on real-world minorities... because real-world minoritized people aren't actually any more powerful or dangerous than anyone else, which is very much not the case for mutants.

[owlbrigade1]

There is one very notable exception, but to discuss it would open a whole can of worms that I am not able to do justice to and would definitely violate this comms TOS. But there is at least one example, and I don't like the allegory, or applicability, at play here very much either.

[deh_tommy]

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the books are bad at all. Quite the opposite! If anything, that’s a little too good at that’s job: I just get really, really uncomfortable with cults and cultish behaviour, so this simply isn’t for me.

I think the biggest reason I get annoyed is that the cult attitude is never really addressed in the books proper: every mutant is just automatically 100% on board with Krakoa even in spite of... well, pretty much everything at this point, and the only people who call Krakoan society out are either evil, bigoted or both.

[xammax]

This issue is the one that solidified it for me. Scott is going to be the big damn hero of this storyline. Probably Emma too. Watch who is and isn't questioning things.

[mistersandman]

Can you really call your story Lifedeath if Storm isn’t the star?

[super_fly]

"So hey, we've got this thing on tonight where we demonize a women who had a super-powered mental breakdown, then one of us has a fight to the death with an age-old immortal mutant so they can be reborn from the island-plant thing we all live on and we call it, let's be clear on this, the Crucible. You coming?"

"Sure, that all sounds completely normal and fine. Will there be snacks?"

[dr_archeville]

Another troubling implication: that Xavier & The Five (Goldballs/Egg, Proteus, Elixir, Tempo, and Hope Summers) can resurrect anyone, not just Mutants. Well, I mean, the implication was already there, but this furthers it.

Melodie Guthrie was affected by Wanda’s “No More Mutants” thing. That spell/reality warp didn’t just deactivate or suppress a Mutant’s x-gene(s), it completely removed it/them, turning the affected Mutant into a baseline flatscan human. It also removed the x-gene(s) from any biological matter which had been removed: doses of MGH became ineffective because the blood samples it was made from had been retroactively de-x-gene’d.

(There were exceptions, and some Mutants retained their anatomical changes, but for the most part this is how it went down.)

Presuming all this is still true, then the sample they got from Sinister to grow Melodie’s new body would’ve been de-x-gene’d. (But maybe Proteus changed that?) And it means she was a standard human when she moved to Krakoa, and when Xavier recorded her mind, so the whole "record someone’s mind and upload it to a clone body" isn’t just limited to Mutants.

[gnarll]

I would have thought Proteus could re-mutate her on is own. Although his reality alteration is a limited resource so maybe this is more effective.

[scorntx]

Assuming Hickman isn't just ignoring / retconning all of that in favour of telling the story he wants to tell.

Which given the number of Mutants who got their powers back by other means (Celestial tech, different reality warping, Apocalypse blood, divine bargains, wishing really hard and in at least one case just 'cuz)... isn't as particularly bothersome as it could / should be, at least in this case.

[shadowseeking]

Its Hickman. Of course he's just retconning and ignoring. This entire Krakoa status quo is a massive pile of retcons to tell his bad story.