X of Swords, Part 6: Hellions #5

[superboyprime]

"Only X-Men fans see 20 characters fighting with swords and ask why so many characters were left out. There are a LOT of characters in this crossover, and more than just the swordbearers are important to it." - Jordan D. White

Comments

[thezmage]

Okay, I laughed quite a bit at these scans

[zachbeacon]

Modern Sinister must be so fun to write for. I just imagine Wells giggling to himself as he typed this.

[themajesticmoose]

I love the fact that they all see this as a perfect chance to get rid of this jackass they're currently stuck with

Exodous, Magneto, Mystique, Emma and Sebastian here all like "There's no one we'd rather see leading a suicide mission than you"

[icon_uk]

And he almost got away with it until he pushed Magneto on step too far.

(That'll teach him to be snarky about Doug)

[gnarll]

I didn't make the connection before... but Magneto is going to be quite protective of Doug.

[icon_uk]

As far as I know, we've seen pretty much NO interactions between Doug and Magneto in the ten years since he came back, which seems like SUCH a lost opportunity. To the extent I had to write my own! :)

[gnarll]

That is very very good:) Takes me back to the old Speculum Mundi.

Claremont always managed to balance action and character iteraction. Later writers don't really seem like they want to write anything but mindless action.

Took years for Illyana and Kitty to talk, Magneto and Toad never spoke, etc, etc. Its just fights.

[zachbeacon]

In hindsight it makes perfect sense for Exodous and Sinister to hate each other but where is the Artist Formerly Known as Apocalypse? His absence is really noticeable for two reasons.

1) Going to a magic land to steal magic swords seems like exactly the kind of mission you send Excalibur (a team which also includes the leader of the Thieves Guild) on. This is really feeding into my opinion the the Hellions are a redundant series/team.

2) I'd think En Sabah Nur would JUMP at the chance to send Essex on a suicide mission. He's going to be so bummed he missed this vote.

[icon_uk]

The Hellions usefulness rests in their complete deniability/expendability.

[zachbeacon]

I mean, with the resurrections, most mutants are expendable.

As for deniability...

At this point shouldn't everyone know Scalphunter is part of Sinister's personal hit squad? Is it one of those open secrets most people (who care to know) know but no one can prove?

Everyone certainly knows Havok is the brother of the guy leading the mutant military. Between X-Factor and the Avengers, I'd think Alex would be a VERY high profile mutant even to the average guy on the street.

Kwannon and Wild Child seem like more trouble than they're worth just because of how easily they could be mistaken for other, more high profile, mutants.

[donnblake]

Ah, that's the brilliant part. Nobody would expect Alex "Don't Call Me a Mutant," Summers to be part of the Mutant Society on Mutant Island.

[zachbeacon]

Okay, that's the best possible reason I can think of to put a celebrity with explodey powers on a covert team.

"You think it's him?"
"Nah, no one would be that stupid"
"Shape shifter?"
"Shape shifter"

[jlbarnett]

he's still got family there

[cainofdreaming]

Resurrections don't work if you die in the Otherworld, apparently.

[jlbarnett]

how soon till someone starts starts ignoring the resurrection protocols and cloning someone before a trip to Otherworld then? Duplicate them. Keep the clone unconscious through telepathy or drugs till the other returns. Kill the clone if they do return, wake them if they don't

[zachbeacon]

Again, Sinister has been doing this stuff for years so I figure at least Havok and Scalphunter are safe. You know he was all condisending hipster when he found out about the resurrections and the Five. "Wait, you guys only just NOW started backing up your work now? I've been doing it since before everyone jumped on the cloning bandwagon"

[cainofdreaming]

That would kinda go against the dogma that the cloning is true resurrection, rather than making a copy.

[jlbarnett]

Dogma vs actual death? Dogma loses

[cainofdreaming]

If the people stopped believing the dogma then the whole resurrection process would be kinda moot. Since what do they gain from having a copy of themselves going around after they've died? They're still dead.

[jlbarnett]

I'm not talking about "the people" in general, I'm talking about the higher ups and a select few individuals.

Plus the way people in comic book universes view things is always a little wonky compared to real world universes

[themajesticmoose]

Yeah the mission here is a covert one and they're sending the Hellions basically because they need a team that's willing to make sure that there are no witnesses left alive if they get caught doing this

They're not sending Excalibur for the same reason Amanda Waller doesn't send Superman when she wants someone dead. Yes he might be more physically/superhumanly powerful and have skills that would get the job done more efficiently than Deadshot or Captain Boomerang but he'd have huge moral objections to doing something like this while John Greycrow or Psylocke are perfectly happy to kill whoever needs killing if it means the job gets done

Also anyone who dies in Otherworld dies permanently and cannot be resurrected. So the resurrection protocols wouldn't help here which means that they need mutants who no one will miss for this mission.

And let's be honest, no one is going to be crying if Mr Sinister or Empath get killed. Even Sebastian Shaw thinks Sinister is a complete and total monster

[zachbeacon]

Now it seems like you're describing X-Force's mission statement.

If the team was JUST people Sinister has basement clones of then I buy them as a Suicide Squad but surely at least some people will miss Wild Child.

[themajesticmoose]

Canonically the only people who might miss him are all on that suicide mission team with him

Which is the other part of why the Hellions are the ones being sent. Apart from Alex Summers all of them are expendable.

Orphan Maker, Nanny, Wild Child, Empath and Kwannon all either have absolutely no friends or personal connections on Krakoa either because of past misdeeds that people will not forgive, the fact that they don't really socialise and have a hard time interacting with others or in the case of Empath because he's literally worthless garbage that even a mass murderer views as being one of the most disgusting people he's ever met

And in the case of Greycrow the only friends and personal connections he has are people who everyone on the island hates just as much as they hate him, namely the Marauders so even if they got mad that he was dead literally no one else would be in their corner after the terrible things they've done to their fellow mutants

[petermilley]

I'm pretty sure Apocalypse was badly injured earlier in the crossover.

[zachbeacon]

Thanks. I assumed he was otherwise occupied because a lot of earlier scans from this crossover seemed to revolve around him but I wasn't sure.

He's gonna be so sad he missed this.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I have NEVER really liked Sinister, look aside.

...until this whole Krakoa thing, that is. I LOVE this version, and I'll be sorry to see it go.

[caivu]

As someone who finds the X-Men franchise completely impenetrable at the best of times, but is still curious about it... is there any point to this series besides "swords cool"? I can't help but see it as Marvel's answer to Metal.

[themajesticmoose]

It's like most events in that there's a big threat that is putting the world in peril and heroes are coming together to fight it and going through various sidequests and such in the lead up to the final showdown

Personally I have been enjoying it for the most part and finding it good but if you're not an X-fan or if you're not a big fan of comics events in generals it might leave you a little cold as it is very much event comics storytelling and is aimed at people who are already into the X-men comic books

If you want to get into the current X-books I would recommend not starting here and instead checking out Marauders, X-factor, Hellions and Excalibur as well as the main title

[caivu]

Oh, I've looked at those other titles. Same thing, I can't get into them. Everything's all Very Important and high-minded and it just leaves me cold for how impersonal it is. I don't understand when or how this shift into high fantasy stuff happened or why it affected the X-Men of all things.

A lot of it also smacks of cool for cool's sake (especially Marauders) in a way I really dislike.

[themajesticmoose]

I'm sorry to hear that.

Personally I am loving the X-men books right now more than I have done in over a decade and Marauders is one of my favourite Marvel comics in general not just of the X-line. I've found them refreshing and fun and the first interesting and enjoyable thing to be done with the concept or with the characters in years, helped by the fact that I actually like most of the writers working on the books right now which definitely has not been the case for the past ten years + of X-men stories we've had...the only exceptions being Kieron Gillen and Tom Taylor, though in Taylor's case I wasn't a big fan of his X-men run. Though I've heard he wasn't either apparently as he was working under a lot of editorial mandate

Still if it's not your cup of tea that's fair enough

To answer your question this story has been building for a while throughout the X-men and Excalibur ongoings but it really kicked off with Excalibur 9-12 and X-men 13 which dealt in detail with Apocalypse's backstory with Arrako, his desire to save the mutants trapped there including his children the original Four Horsemen and his plan to achieve this

The Excalibur issues also reintroduced Saturnyne who is a major player in this current story arc

[caivu]

I appreciate you trying to answer, but I just don't know what any of that stuff means. I don't have any context for any of that except sorta knowing who Apocalypse is.

How about just this for X of Swords: why are they fighting in a sword tournament? Why swords? What's at stake?

[themajesticmoose]

In a nutshell: there's a parallel world called Arakko that's full of bloodthirsty helldemons and evil mutants that want to cross over into our world and basically kill everything and conquer our world.

However because Arakko is part of Otherworld and Otherworld is ruled by Saturnyne who is basically a god there are rules in place that even Arakko has to follow...if they want to cross over into our world they first have to defeat Saturnyne's champions. Who are the nine X-characters that are part of this event

So the tournament is being fought for the fate of earth. If Krakoa wins then Arrakko will remain trapped in another dimension and the legion of murderous hell-mutants living there won't eat everyone. If Arrako wins the earth is done for...

It's basically the plot of Mortal Kombat with Arrako and its sword bearers in the role of Shao Kahn. If they can beat Krakoa's champions they get to come to earth and basically burn it to the ground.

As for why swords...I'm guessing just because swords are pretty cool.

[caivu]

Thanks. That's at least something I can wrap my head around.

[donnblake]

I think part of it is a deliberate shift from the storylines leaning hard into geopolitics and questions of Mutant Separatism and Identity into high fantasy and a relatively unambiguous world-level threat.

[scelestus]

This feels ...alien to me. Fun? In an X-Men book?? Where is the angst? The existential crises?

...I may have to pick this up.

[themajesticmoose]

I recommend Hellions, X-factor and Marauders as being excellent choices for X-men books with a good sense of fun. Serious stuff happens as well but they are definitely lighter in tone than X-men or Excalibur and don't have the needless grimdarkness of X-force or Wolverine