X-Force #20: The Secret Garden

[superboyprime]

'“Beast is right” T-shirts, let’s do this, let’s make it happen. I don’t think that he’s right, but you know how it is. This is how it is in real life. So many people say Obama is the best president we’ve had in a long time, but then we start talking about, “Yeah, but what about drone strikes?” “Well, that’s a great question.” And then we start talking about, “Well, he shouldn’t have done that.” “But wait, what about this reasoning that he had?” “Well, that’s true, but like, except for this.” That’s the real world that we live in and that’s what Beast is tapping into right now. I think that it’s pretty great, even if I don’t think he is necessarily making great decisions.' - Jordan D. White

Comments

[mazway_75]

Seriously, they never expected Deadpool to somehow show up?

It's like the reason the Legion of Doom let the Joker in, they know they cut him out, he'll just act against them because his ego was bruised. Given how nuts Wade is, at leat having him as "security" would have been better than this.

[tinygaylaura]

Deadpool's a mutant in the movies Krakoa, that should at least get him a day pass to come visit whenever he wants

[shakalooloo]

"Most people are stupid and illogical".

Yeah, no, this isn't Hank McCoy. He's not so smugly superior. 'Stupid and illogical' would be assuming that the majority of people - of a species divided between not only many religions but also a significant non-religious contingent - would be united in their devotion to a suddenly manifested god.

[mazway_75]

Unless the big reveal is that Dark Beast replaced him without anyone knowing again, this is pretty bad.

[tinygaylaura]

I kind of want Dark Beast to show up, see what has been happening and just be apalled by what Hank is doing

"What the hell did I miss while I was getting myself a froyo when did you become the Evil Twin"

[tcampbell1000]

Yeah, this Beast is like "What if there was someone like Obama when ordering drone strikes, only he never did anything else?"

I at least appreciate that the text firmly condemns his actions, with pretty much all his old friends turning on him at this point and only the sharply blue and orange morality of Xavneto saving him from an appointment with the pit. At one point, he even condemns his own actions, sorta: "I'll be a monster if that's what it takes to secure a Krakoan future."

What gets me, though, is that he has no non-horrible ideas at this point. Like, surely kindness and morality have to be the smart moves to protect Krakoa sometimes, right? Seems like Hank's crossed over from a guy who would do questionable things out of love or pain to a guy who gets off on doing sketchy things. And maybe he still says it's out of love for his people, but it's actually out of love for power.

Say, where is Dark Beast, anyway? He can't be dead, it's Krakoa and he's not a precog.

[deh_tommy]

[tinygaylaura]

In the issue Beast's behaviour here is called out by literally everyone else on Krakoa

Sage undoes his evil work, Wolverine loathes him more than ever and shares a moment with Terra Verde when they're free where he talks about his own experiences with people fucking wiith his head and Emma makes it clear to Beast that he is garbage

Beast is a shitbag but we're meant to see him as one. The comic isn't trying to claim that any of Beast's actions so far in the series are acceptable.

Beast is a main character in this book but he's not a hero any more than Sinister is a hero over in Hellions or Hannibal is a hero in the tv series that shares his name

[donnblake]

Is he, and this is an honest question because I have not read the full issue, removed from his position in charge of Krakoa's black-ops and dirty tricks department?

[deh_tommy]

But then you have Excalibur where the human sacrificing Brexiteer brings up how Captain Britain’s basically all but abandoned Britain in favour of fulfilling Krakoa’s agenda while the most she has to rebut with is “mutants have loved Avalon like that were our own” (way to completely miss the point, Betsy), the only one bringing up if that’s okay for X-Corp to be working out of/exploiting the Savage Land is the greedy business tycoon trying to put his competitor out of business, and the whole crux of this event involved Krakoa pretty much proudly proclaiming the solar system belongs to them and them alone and the filthy flatscans just have to suck up and deal with that.

[armycat23]

If Gambit isn't featured in this issue than I cry foul. The glowing shade of pink....the lit up objects....

[donnblake]

I *think* the velvet rope is meant to be a psychic construct of Quentin's, but come to think of it, what is Gambit up to these days?

[lonewolf23k]

*Sees the ending*

Oh wow, you mean using telefloronics to take control of an entire country's population might actually backfire on you?

[sarcasm] Never saw that coming, no sir. [/sarcasm]

[tinygaylaura]

It's as shocking as the time The Night Gwen Stacy Died ended up with Gwen Stacy dying

[numeronone]

"But we're not doing anything wrong. Our goal is ultimately altruistic."

'Hank Violates The Geneva Conventions'

[tinygaylaura]

It's Always Sunny On Krakoa

[deh_tommy]

Don’t be so silly, those are human laws. They don’t apply to mutants, as they are superior in every single way. They call that human error for a reason.

[mindsweeper]

When this launched, Hickman said that they rejected a bunch of pitches because they were destructive. Folks immediately wanted to blow everything up and that's not what they wanted. I was happy to hear him say that because I was tired of the extinction plots, endless deaths, and the mess of Rosencanny.

I struggle to reconcile that with this X-Force run. I think it is a bad fit for Krakoa and goes against what Hickman said the books would do. X-Force hasn't added anything positive to the narrative and the entire run feels like it's just been tearing down. Maybe it has - it's the first book I dropped, so I've been following via synopses - but it feels like an old X-book, not anything fresh or new.

[nyadnar17]

"'“Beast is right” T-shirts, let’s do this, let’s make it happen. I don’t think that he’s right, but you know how it is. This is how it is in real life."

Its fucking not. Its really isn't. In comics, in real life, in most fiction where the writer actually attempts to make arguments in good faith, the character doing the atrocities can at least be painted as being forced into a corner.

Like....whatever man. At this point I am just gonna pretend this is actual Dark Beast and go about my life. Beast is the worst part of the Hickman era IMO.

[tinygaylaura]

Jordan White obviously doesn't even read the comics

Even the actual X-force comic has never tried to make the claim that "Beast is right"

Every time I've read the book it's had the characters we're actually meant to like calling Beast an awful douchecanoe and the things he's doing being presented as being terrible, stupid ideas by an asshole who has convinced himself he knows better than everyone else

Sadly Beast being an asshole can't be blamed on just how Percy writes him. He's been written as a dick for a while now. Percy just kind of took it to its natural conclusion and made him a full on supervillain

[numeronone]

You never know, John Sublime might be in there...

[shadowpsykie]

ugh i am SOOOO tired of Dark Beast 2.0 he's surpassed Reed Richards in unlikeability.....

[silverhammerman]

While Tony Stark isn't, I would guess, the most popular character around these parts, I actually like seeing someone for once push back at some of the creepy overreach on Krakoa by not wearing the flower or letting them read his mind. Casting him opposite Quentin Quire for the exchange also lets it be a meeting of two jerks, so neither side gets to entirely look in the right.

On the topic of Beast's megalomaniac bullshit, I continue to love it. I love seeing Beast spiral down into what is essentially old school supervillainy, and even if he's told to knock it off here I look forward to seeing more of it. Whether or not the Council approves of what he did, they still sanctioned giving him the power and authority to do it, so in some ways it's still on them. Given that, I expect that Beast will probably not face any sort of comeuppance, because much like people who do shady shit like this in real life, punishing him would requiring admitting any level of culpability to those in power, and that's never going to happen. That said, I am increasingly curious where his whole character arc is going, because narratively it's not going to be satisfying unless all of this bites him in the ass at some point.

The treatment of Deadpool in this era has been interesting, between this and Cable he's been treated as something of an annoyance, not someone that the mutants like or respect, which is understandable. Kind of hoping that with the return of adult Cable we'll get a bit of interplay though I very much doubt it. The nominal inclusivity of the Krakoan era would be a great time to finally canonize the long joked about romance between the two, but I think at this point that seems wildly unlikely.

[bradygirl_12]

Emma's going for the witch look, I see.

[tinygaylaura]

Does that make her a WILF?