All-New X-Men 12

[mindsweeper]

Based on the SWORD post, I mentioned this as great X-fan service and offered to post it. Bendis and his X-run were controversial. So is how Wanda is treated in X-books. However, I love this exchange and I loved teen Jean's indiscriminate use of her new telepathic powers. It acted as a direct response to Remender's Uncanny Avengers.

6-2/3 pages (including the cover) of 22. There doesn't appear to be any other pages from this in the archive.






Ruh roh. Teen Jean's built for exactly this moment.







I hesitate to say this but ... I really did love Bendis' Jean, easily one of the best takes on her IMO.




Bendis shows he gets how a lot of X-fans felt by killing any empathy I might have had for the Avengers with how Wanda, Rogue, Thor and Cap address this revelation. Blame and mock Jean while minimizing the incident. Thor's "This matter has been -" being cut off is perfect analogue for the Avengers office who were all, "get over it" but the matter was clearly not settled for a lot of fans.





Bendis probably got "And that makes it all better?" right from a fan forum.






Things continue on the X-jet with some final parting shots, including a shot at teen Beast, hinting at what he'll become.

Comments

[thanekos]

The empty posturing of the Uncanny Avengers' mission statement, followed up by the equally empty posturing of " That makes it all better? "

(It's not incompetently scripted, but you'd like to think that after eight years of publication history, an event could be addressed in-universe without the characters discussing it sounding so obviously like a back-and-forth in a thread.)

[tcampbell1000]

I read it a bit differently. The X-Men are allowed to sound immature because they're literally sheltered teenagers plucked from near the start of their career. the Avengers sound awkward because they're being forced to cram a whole comic book store's worth of continuity into a few concise explanations. So you get to challenge a few aspects of then-current Marvel continuity by having some outsiders look at them and say "WHAT THE HELL," and yet those outsiders don't have to be right, either. Author-soapbox characters get boring fast.

(With "You let her be an Avenger?", for instance, Jean probably has her chronology confused, skipping past Wanda's many years of distinguished service, her periods of penance. Without those, her story looks something like "Ran with Magneto, eliminated nearly all mutations for a year, finally helped clean up her own mess after a year or so and got a medal." (She might not even know that Wanda helped reverse that situation, if she's pulling her knowledge primarily from Wanda's conscience.))

But it is true that letting Wanda be one of these Avengers after all that was about as politically dumb as the Biden administration trying to heal old wounds by forming a "unity committee" and putting Ted Cruz and Donald Trump on it. (They wouldn't actually do that. I'm... nearly sure.)

[mazway_75]

They did play with the younger X-Men baffled at things like "you guys are working WITH Magneto? How many times has he tried to kill us that we don't even know about yet?"

(Also liked young Iceman on "Wait, Tony Stark is Iron Man? He posed as his own bodyguard, how did that make sense?") But yes, it does play on how as far as these guys are concerned, Wanda and Quicksilver are still "bad guys" not grasping all the times they've saved the world since.

[scorntx]

Anyone remember X-Men: First Class (the series, not the movie)?
There were some stories in there about Young Jean and Wanda just hanging out, in a way that was maybe, possibly, in certain lights, subtextual.

Just saying, coming to the future and finding out your not-GF got possessed, went nuts and did something like that would be a hard thing to take, even without all the other horrible stuff Tean's had to put up with as well.
(though uh... if it's Wanda's memories, why and how is she viewing herself in the third person?
"Good lord! These aren't my memories! I'm having someone else's flashback!")


Really not seeing how the Avengers are blaming or mocking Jean, just asking her to maybe stop lashing out at everyone with her psychic jazz hands.


-"And neither of us should talk"-
Rare moment of self-awareness from Mr. Stabhands, the man whose introduction to Tyclops was trying to murder him, then trying to talk the entire Xavier Institute into letting him murder him.
(sorry, just... *****ing hate that bit...)

[starwolf_oakley]

How'd that go?

"I kill Cyclops, and Xavier is standing right over there."
"Standing?"

[stubbleupdate]

Jeff Parker's First Class was SO good.

[zachbeacon]

Hah, first thought reading this was "I liked it better when Jeff Parker had teen Jean and Wanda shopping together"

[dan_ingram]

Yet Jean later works under Emma Frost, who helped provoke the Dark Phoenix into destroying a damn planet and killing billions.

Glass houses, X-everyone.

This might be Bendis attempting to tap into X-outrage, but its in especially poor taste.

The wrote the story where Wanda went crazy for stereotypical reasons (Jan: lol, dead babies, right? Wanda: Muh babies! Crazy time!) was written by him. House of M was written by him.

Its like a story about tolerance written by Donald Trump. A poor spokesman no matter what is said.

[mastermahan]

Jean murdered an entire planet until that was retconned as Not Her. Billions died. That retcon was the only time the Phoenix Force duplicated a person. Every other time, it's bonded with them, including with Jean, so I'm not sure how well that retcon holds up any more.

Jean later merged with the duplicate's memories, started calling herself Phoenix again, and even wore the Phoenix costume again.

If Jean doesn't bear any responsibility for that genocide, then all the guilt lies with the Phoenix Force. The Phoenix Force the X-Men welcomed with open arms during AvX, even as it was destroying more planets on its way to Earth.

Oh, and House of M (by Bendis) started because the X-Men and Avengers were discussing whether to murder Wanda. Wolverine and Emma Frost were completely Team Murder Our Fellow Mutant, partially because they were concerned about the bad PR.

In-universe, the X-Men should probably shut up. Out-of-universe, Bendis should probably not complain about attempts to fix his mess.

[dan_ingram]

I'm well aware of how Jean was absolved for the destruction of an alien planet.

I'm simply pointing out that this time displaced Jean? She joined Scott's X-Men faction, which included Emma Frost. Frost was part of the Hellfire Club that provoked the whole Dark Phoenix crap, and there's been no absolution for her.

[bruinsfan]

Emma probably protected her thoughts better around Jean than Wanda did here.

One thing that has always struck me about the X-Men's response to M-Day is how they equate what Wanda did to genocide. Nope, she didn't make all those mutants die or stop existing, she turned them into normal human beings. Might want to check with those still-living people to see if they considered it a fate worse than death, because being politically inexpedient for activism on the part of a separatist mutant society is not the same thing.

[thezmage]

It's not NOT genocide. We don't currently have a definition for "magically changing a significant portion of a minority population into the majority population" but the real world definition of genocide does include non-murder things like stealing babies and putting them up for adoption or forcibly eradicating another's cultural signifiers, so I do think it would be included.

[mastermahan]

It does seem equivalent to cultural genocide. Even if no one had died, Wanda forcibly converted a minority group. District X was an (underused) example of mutant culture, and M-Day all but destroyed it.

[thezmage]

I think forced sterilization would also be analogous

[dan_ingram]

I thought that was the Inhumans?

[dan_ingram]

Minor nitpick, but some of the depowerings did in fact kill some mutants.

Granted, they were characters we never saw before, created only to die, so...

And the X-Men's high ground here is gone given that they themselves now have a round about cure for the depowerings, yet make those who lost their powers be beaten to death first.

[themajesticmoose]

That's like saying we should allow the kind of filthy bigoted evil trash that is "conversion therapy" to exist because "We're not causing LGBTQ people to die or stop existing, we're just turning them into normal heterosexuals"

Speaking as a queer person? I would absolutely rather be dead than live even ONE DAY as a heterosexual

And attempting to inflict disgusting heterosexual garbage on any queer person is utterly nauseating and repulsive

And I'd sooner cut my own legs off with rusty butter knives than waste my life as a heterosexual.

What Wanda did was awful. She didn't mean to do it. She regrets it. She didn't do it because she's an evil or bigoted person, she did it because she was having a breakdown. But let's not try and claim that what she did wasn't a bad thing. What she did was a TERRIBLE thing. What she did was the worst thing she's ever done in her life.

I don't hate Wanda because in context, what she did she didn't do when she was in her right mind and what she's done before and what she's done since has shown that she is a better person when she's not in the state she was in during House of M.

But pretending that she Did Nothing Wrong in her Life Ever is just not true

[agent8]

"Speaking as a queer person? I would absolutely rather be dead than live even ONE DAY as a heterosexual
And attempting to inflict disgusting heterosexual garbage on any queer person is utterly nauseating and repulsive
And I'd sooner cut my own legs off with rusty butter knives than waste my life as a heterosexual."

That's a little over the top don't you think. Let's reverse those sexual orientation descriptors and see how it reads

"Speaking as a heterosexual ? I would absolutely rather be dead than live even ONE DAY as a queer
And attempting to inflict disgusting queer garbage on any straight person is utterly nauseating and repulsive
And I'd sooner cut my own legs off with rusty butter knives than waste my life as a queer."

I know I haven't been here very long or participated as much as some folks, but at the risk of sounding judgmental, that does not sound Scans-Daily guidelines compliant to me

[thezmage]

Moose has posted many things that I would consider "a little over the top," but "Let's swap the minority with the majority in that comment" is just never the way to make a convincing argument. Society prevents them from being interchangeable

[deh_tommy]

Normally that would be true, but I think that raises my eyebrow a bit that they frequently talk about heterosexuality and heterosexual people the same way anti-LGBT+ folk would tend to talk about us.

[themajesticmoose]

I was talking about changing someone's sexuality, in the same way Wanda changed mutants into humans with her magic here, not sexuality itself.

I don't remotely care whether straight people want to be LGBTQ or not becuase I'm a normal person who doesn't go around judging what people do or don't want to do sexually. As long as everyone involved is consenting and adult anything goes and I have no interest or desire in trying to control their sex lives or sexuality

The LGBTQ community doesn't go around trying to abuse and torture straight people into being LGBTQ or tell them that they're going to hell for being heterosexual. It's straight people that have this pathetic and delusional obsession that there's any such thing as "Right" or "Wrong" when it comes to the sex lives of consenting adults, not us

If straight people are happy being straight and don't want to be queer goody for them. I don't hate straight people or the existence of heterosexuality any more than I hate marmite.

For people who enjoy it it's fine, I personally don't want it anywhere near me and so I don't eat it. I'm not going to try and ban people who enjoy eating it from doing so or tell them that enjoying marmite is a sin, I'm just not going to put it on my sandwiches and I'm certainly not going to allow anyone to try and force me into liking it

[deh_tommy]

I agree with your point about Wanda, but bloody heck, do you always have to jump for the extremities?

[icon_uk]

Because of her actions a specific form of genetically identifiable life which had established it's own culture and identity was nearly erased completely, and many did die as a result, falling from the sky because they lost their power of flight, drowning because they were no longer amphibious any more, or burning because they were no longer fireproof.

Some might have welcomed being free of their mutation, but their feelings don't reduce the impact of what she did.

[deh_tommy]

Actually, in classic X-Men fashion, I think that did get turned into a genocide. Certain X-books had mutants either straight up drop dead or lose control over their powers, leading to grisly and oftentimes gruesome deaths (which makes no sense with what No More Mutants was meant to be, but the X-Men gotta suffer somehow).

[mastermahan]

I know, and that's an excellent point. I was just pointing out the greater issue of the X-Men forgiving adult Jean while turning Wanda into "The Pretender".

[themajesticmoose]

Emma Frost was not remotely responsible for what some freakish alien space bird did

Blaming her for what that abomination did is like saying if someone sets a tree on fire its their fault if someone steals one of its burning branches and burns a village down with it

[dan_ingram]

Emma Frost gave Mastermind the devise he used to slip into faux-Jean's mind, and what led to her becoming unhinged and destroying a world.

Morally speaking, all members of a conspiracy are responsible for the acts committed

[scorntx]

Re: The Team Murder bit, Emma's point was that if the world learned that Wanda had gone insane and caused the deaths of three Avengers, mankind would use it as an excuse to try and commit full-blown Mutant genocide.
And given the sheer amount of horrific crap the Marvel US government has done, including actually attempting genocide, for less, she's not wrong on that score.
(Though how murdering Wanda was meant to be a solution to that, I dunno...)


Logan just wanted to murder her because Logan-as-written-by-Bendis just defaults to murder as his one and only decision.

[mastermahan]

Wanda killing three (four?) Avengers wasn't nearly the worst mutant attack. Onslaught killed the Avengers and Fantastic Four while noticeably failing to kill any mutants. Xorneto attacked New York and began exterminating humans.

But as a long-time Avenger, Wanda was probably one of the most popular mutants in existence. Revealing that even "one of the good ones" snapped and started killing some beloved heroes (and Scott Lang) - yeah, that's potentially Really Bad. So Emma had a point there.

Still, it shows the X-Men's attitude towards Wanda was pretty shitty even before Decimation.

[scorntx]

Three Avengers died in Disassembled - Scott Lang, Vision and Hawkeye.


The only X-Men invited to the meeting about Wanda were the Whedon team.
So Cyke, Emma, Beast, Shadowcat, Colossus and Wolverine.
(Rather than a wider selection that might've included some of the others such as, say, Storm who was the founder and leader of a mutant police force at the time.)

Emma and Logan were for killing.
Kitty was probably all for the opposite of whatever Emma said out of pure contrarianism, but would've gone with not killing anyway.
Piotr... had no real business being there (much love for him, but he's not one of the X-Men's big decision makers, just saying), and probably would've gone along with whatever Kitty or Cyclops chose.
Beast almost certainly would've chosen whatever decision was the most stupidly self-destructive option available without hesitation.
... we don't actually hear what Scott's decision would've been.

[lordultimus]

I'll say this: it's better than Rick Remender's defense for the speech.

(And not talking about the hobo piss thing, that he apologized multiple times for.)

[themajesticmoose]

I love the part in the next issue where Kitty Pryde quite rightly says that she thinks Alex Summers speech is absolute garbage

And we then cut to Mystique who likewise is just like "Oh look, Scott Summers little halfwit brother is trying to talk like a big boy"

The sheer loathing of Alex Summers and his braindead little spineless centrist "M Word" speech made me smile

[themajesticmoose]

"You X-men are wanted felons!"

God I utterly loathe the Avengers

Pathetic spineless jackbooted servants of hateful fascists and knuckle dragging morons. Honestly the Avengers should have just stayed dead after Onslaught got rid of them. It's not like any of them have done anything worthwhile or relevant since they came back

Moments like this remind me why I love the current status quo in the X-men comics and why I am so glad that mutantkind has finally decided to no longer put up with the worthless garbage of pathetic whiny little humans and their bigoted bullshit any longer.

Because I utterly despise humanity in the Marvel universe, even more than I hate people in general in real life...and that's saying something

Also...

[dan_ingram]

I guess mass murdering mutants in the control of others only deserve sympathy if they kill humans?

Wanda was in a coma, in the custody of Xavier and Magneto. Quicksilver provoked the House of M, leading to the events that followed.

So why is it that Wanda is the only one held responsible?

Re: Also...

[stubbleupdate]

A woman's responsible for original sin. A woman cuts Samson's coif of power. A woman asks for the head of John the Baptist. Read that book again sometime. Women are painted as bigger antagonists than the Egyptians and Romans combined

Re: Also...

[donnblake]

For a divinely empowered champion, Samson was kind of a jackass. A thing you saw one time walking around in the wilderness isn't a good riddle, Samson! Murdering random people and stealing their clothes isn't a good way to settle a debt, Samson! Maybe after you give a woman a couple fake weaknesses and she immediately tries exactly that on you, don't give her your real weakness, SAMSON.

Re: Also...

[lordultimus]

Because Bendis has a huge hateboner for West Coast Avengers.

Re: Also...

[dan_ingram]

I want to disagree, but there's so damn much evidence...

[deh_tommy]

Quicksilver and Magneto provided the gun and the bullet, but that was Scarlet Witch who pulled the trigger. She wasn’t in her right mind, she was suffering from numerous breakdowns, that’s completely unfair to pin everything on her, but she was still the one to say “no more mutants”.

And much like Hank Pym, no matter what happens, no matter where she goes or what she does as a character, someone’s always going to drive her right back to that one huge mistake and everything prior gets thrown out the window. Pym’s breakdown was on a much smaller scale than Wanda’s, though: Hank’s behaviour mainly affected his wife and his teammates. Wanda’s affected an entire race.

[gnarll]

Magneto? I always saw him as kind of hard done by in HoM except for his tantrum towards Pietro at the end.

[zachbeacon]

Kitty: What did we say about digging into people's heads?

Jean: HEY EVERYBODY, DID YOU KNOW KITTY IS A BISEXUAL?

Everybody: That's really none of our business. Also, yes, of course we know.