Inferno #2

[laughing_tree]

What the more interesting question is is why does Cyclops need a visor? Why doesn’t Chamber have a jaw? Does the imprinting of the backup of their mind mean they have to be broken in that familiar way to actually be them? And we’ve already shown a couple of interesting tweaks like Monet being able to assume a Penance form and Warren being able to be both regular angel and Archangel. So there seems to be some ability to tweak the finished version of a resurrected mutant. Is that also true about their age? Or about other aspects of their physical condition? What about their gender? What about if they want to be backed up from an earlier version? One that hasn’t suffered a particular trauma or had their heart broken? Regardless, these all sound like stories to me. And we don’t tell them for free. -- Jonathan Hickman

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

And yet we haven't seen most of those questions explored.

I would fucking LOVE to see a trans character take advantage of the resurrection process. I'd love to see a respectful, deeper dive into the difference between Xavier choosing to have his spine fixed and Karma keeping her artificial limb. I honestly can't imagine why Chamber wouldn't want to be made whole again--it's always been part of his story how much he hates the damage his mutation did to him.

We've seen Quentin tinker with his body, but it's all trivial, petty shit. Destiny came back younger, but not at her own behest. Somnus came back young but we haven't gotten any follow-up. Domino came back without certain traumas, but again, it was decided for her. But I can just imagine some character choosing for a reboot from an older backup to shed themselves of trauma and injury... I can also see it done as punishment. And yet I'm not sure it's been properly explored.

If, say, a mutant who had committed heinous crimes chose to be executed and rebooted from a younger state, could we consider them properly punished and/or exonerated?

I know a lot of these questions fall into some really fascinating ethical areas, and it's a shame there's no writer who can really tackle them in the current X-Books.

[blues32]

Not only was it decided for Domino, it was directly against her wishes. She lives on an island with many psychics. If the memories became too much, she could ask them to wipe them. Instead, they just ignored her last request. And really, why wouldn't they? What does a "last request" mean anymore?

Chamber most DEFINITELY would have asked to have those injuries fixed. I could see them refusing to do so on the grounds that it would make other mutants want their disfigurements fixed. They should "embrace who they are", despite their appearance being a result of their powers kicking in and them mutilating themselves as a result. Though, I'm not sure if he would agree without "persuasion"...of the telepathic kind. I honestly can't trust anyone in these books because Xavier no longer seems to have any hesitation about using his powers on people without their consent.

[silverhammerman]

Yeah, it's tough not to laugh at Hickman's comment up there because for all his posturing he, and indeed most of the rest of the X-Office, has proven singularly uninterested in actually telling those stories. Certainly, I understand the impulse to let Krakoa play out for a bit so that we get used to the idea of a new normal before beginning to subvert or interrogate it (though I don't know that I actually think that waiting period is necessary) but it's been two fucking years. If any of them actually cared about telling these kinds of stories they would have done it by now.

And honestly it wouldn't irritate me so much if we didn't get stuff like this; quotes from Hickman, vague allusions in the stories, stringing readers' hopes along with posturing and coy hints, and the clear acknowledgement of the potential for radical and introspective stories. Like, don't tell me that you could be doing deep stories about identity and personhood when you're just going to end up going back to bashing action figures together in your fifth iteration on the not-particularly-groundbreaking premise of "Great Men Do Bad Things."

[mindsweeper]

I think that historically, the X-books have shied away from these types of stories, but Hickman is right - that'd be interesting. It just never gets done and maybe never will.

You'd think that with the growth in comics coming from non-superhero areas, we'd see Marvel creating an aperture for that. I think that Mutants who are not superheroes or face questions/challenges that are outside of hero-villain stuff would be perfect for deeper exploration.

[lencannon]

We'd have to have a trans superhero before we can touch on that and apparently that's a bridge too far! I don't want to derail but it's something that's been really bothering me. It's especially upsetting to me with the X-Men, not because they're doing something especially egregious but because I think if you're going to tell the types of stories the X-Men do, you should hold yourself to a higher standard.

The metaphorical omni-minority can be an excellent way to explore issuues, but it does become a problem when it's only metaphor and ignores real life marginalized people.

[donnblake]

If, say, a mutant who had committed heinous crimes chose to be executed and rebooted from a younger state, could we consider them properly punished and/or exonerated?

Didn't that basically happen to Magneto once, and then Moira re-raised him?

[tinygaylaura]

God I love Mystique

I love how well she knew how to get what she wanted from the Council here. She new exactly how to appeal to Emma and Exodous's desires to get them on her side and in the case of assholes like Shaw and Mr Sinister she knew exactly how to manipulate their arrogance and petulance to make them do what she wanted.

Its one of the many things I love about her

Charles and Moira continue their run of oh-so-wise decision making here by picking the guy whose being mind controlled by slightly less evil Vladimir Putin to be the new choice for a Council seat. Brilliant work there Charles, that's exactly the kind of wisdom I'd expect from someone who decided two guys named Apocalypse and MR SINISTER should be part of the countries government

I love Emma chewing these three out here

[angelophile]

Oh, this is going to go well. Colossus. Geez.

[numeronone]

It's a total 50/50 for me whether this is part of the communicative, interwoven narrative between X-Writers that we've seen thus far (i.e. Colossus being a mind-controlled Russian asset)...

...or Hickman just forgot. Or didn't bother to find out.

I cannot tell.

[freezer]

See, this is why I can't get into the whole Krakoa arc at all. This isn't a case of "Let's see where they go with this", it's "How many intriguing concepts and character arcs get flushed when they inevitably hit this 'It All Goes To Shit' button?"

See also: New X-Men's mutant subculture, Magneto's Genosha, Utopia...

[numeronone]

Ah, but, you see, in the text they've definitively stated that this is the "Last" island that mutants ever try.

So, like, the next one will be some kind of peninsula, IDK. Maybe a hollowed-out mountain.

[jgraygaming]

Three thoughts.

1. When you set up a government with no civilian oversight and then appoint a bunch of evil murderous assholes to it, your chickens will eventually come home to roost.

2. The no precog thing wasn't sustainable in the long run. Eventually a new mutant child would be born with the power and what would they do then, kill the kid?

3. I miss the Moira who was a good mom and a genuinely caring and loving doctor.

[tinygaylaura]

"2. The no precog thing wasn't sustainable in the long run. Eventually a new mutant child would be born with the power and what would they do then, kill the kid?"

Moira: Well first we'll find them and then we'll um...

um um um...

um....

.....

Magneto: Uh excuse me?

You didn't answer my question you just trailed off

Moira: Yeah I guess I did just...traill of...there...

.....

[blues32]

1. Especially when it actually all falls under the sway of a single, thoroughly traumatized person. Moria seems to be the proverbial man behind the curtain. Her defeatist behavior seems to stem from the fact that she's afraid to die again because she might not be able to come back and try it all again. I believe Destiny said she has ten or eleven lives. She wasn't sure which...which sounds like something someone who sees the future and wants to mess with someone would say.

2. Well, I don't think that's an issue. Xavier's got Cerebro on his noggin all the time. If he senses a pre-cog, he just doesn't tell anyone, right? Besides, Kraoka isn't meant to be long term.

3. Seems like the only time she ever did the right thing is when she died curing the Legacy Virus. ...which SHOULD have effected her, come to think of it. I don't care how "cloaked" her powers are, the virus shouldn't be fooled. It's a virus. It finds the X-gene, it infects the X-gene.

[icon_uk]

That's been one of my principle issues with Krakoa's leadership, Tony Benn's famous five questions concerning democracy apply

“What power have you got?”

“Where did you get it from?”

“In whose interests do you use it?”

“To whom are you accountable?”

And, most importantly,

“How do we get rid of you?”

I'm also still irked that the entire Quiet Council is X-centric (Oh that HAS to be a series title at some point, for the eird mutants with unusual lifestyles and points of view) and, relatively, old. The youngest members are Kate and Doug, and he's not even a member per se, he's the Voice of Krakoa.

Where are the leaders of the mutants on other continents which Xavier rarely seemed to concern himself with unless he was recruiting?

I also want to say where's Sam, one of the most versatile and skilled leaders the X-Verse has ever known, as well as one of the most decent people on Krakoa. He studied with Xavier, Magneto and Cable, AND retained his moral compass throughout!

[blues32]

Here's how I would have liked that conversation to go.

"Well...can you kill her?

"She wears a metal helmet on her head. ...but I won't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because you're batshit crazy and your hate hard-on for Destiny is going to get us all killed."

[tinygaylaura]

I think Magneto's actual response here is him basically saying "I think your bat-shit crazy" in his own eloquent way to Moira

[silverhammerman]

To begin with I do really like to see Destiny get to come back and have her relationship with Mystique explicitly acknowledged and depicted on-panel, which is something of a rarity with big name characters in the, imo, weirdly conservative X-Men editorial office.

Hickman's quote is laughable posturing, for all of the reasons that people have gotten into above; his desperate reassurance that no, he is actually a very smart and cerebral writer, he's just too self-possessed and mercenary to give it away for free by... actually... writing... any of those stories... in the two plus years which he's had to do so. Sure thing champ, keep telling yourself that.

Interesting data page there, Krakoa is essentially a panopticon if the living island can essentially listen to (and transcribe!) anything said on it. The odds of that actually going anywhere hover somewhere in the realm of "deeply unlikely" but still.

It still strikes me as more than a bit of a plot hole that Hope, whose powers explicitly call on her replicating the powers of a mutant near her, is able to channel telepathy when there are no telepaths present, and doesn't notice that Mystique-as-Xavier doesn't actually have telepathy to borrow. There are ways to handwave that away, but if it's not on the page I don't give writers credit for it. Show your work.

I still don't love that Moira had to be brought back as a young woman, I suspect that doing so is mostly due to Disney preferring to cast a younger actress if she ever shows up onscreen, and the fact that comic book artists seem to absolutely hate drawing any woman who looks a day over 40.

Nice to see Moira finally get to be characterized, and y'know, appear on-panel. Sure it's at a moment when everything seems to be coming to a head, but it's nice.

[icon_uk]

Interesting data page there, Krakoa is essentially a panopticon if the living island can essentially listen to (and transcribe!) anything said on it. The odds of that actually going anywhere hover somewhere in the realm of "deeply unlikely" but still.

Given Inferno #1 included a seemingly almostout of place, scene with Doug, Krakoa and Warlock sitting down to have a private conversation about how things are going on "their" island (as Doug put it) I wouldn't be sure about that. (And a much, much earlier data page has a throwaway comment that Doug, as the representative of Krakoa itself, is the only mutant there NOT bound by the three rules, which seems oddly specific if it's not going to be relevant)

[jgraygaming]

Thinking about it, I'm curious where the "nope" line is for citizenship.

The Fenrir twins are literal Nazis and they got to live on the island.

The original Marauders maybe get a pass because who knows how much of their genocide of the Morlocks was actually them and how much was one of their Sinister-made clones.

Selene has owned people, one of the most horrendous crimes against human rights one can commit but she's allowed.

Sabretooth didn't get thrown into the Hole, really, because he breaking laws. He got thrown in because the Quiet Council couldn't get him to play nice and knew he was a diplomatic incident waiting to happen.

When the Mandrill shows up, do they welcome him with open arms?

The whole "every mutant gets a clean slate because maybe your bad actions were caused by being in human society" is all well and good but that's obviously not true in all cases.

[blues32]

Oof. Mandrill. That's...that's going to be tough. They better debate that one long and hard. We're talking about a broken, angry man who suddenly had the power to make women do whatever he wanted. His hate for EVERYBODY should make him a hard sell for the idea of citizenship on Kraoka.

[dan_ingram]

I preferred the Moira that wasn't literally a stupid plot devise :(

[sinisterlink]

Okay, so Moira is asking if Magneto can kill Destiny, but even if he did kill her, since she's a council member now, wouldn't she just go straight to the front line for resurrection?

[donnblake]

Well, maybe. But...

1) Who the heck knows how the queue actually works? Shaw's on the council, and Emma was able to at least semi-plausibly threaten to prevent or indefinitely delay his resurrection after he tried to kill Kate.

2) While I don't think without further evidence that it's likely that Xavier is engaging in wholesale editing of the resurrected mutants' memories/personalities, I can certainly see Moira arguing for him to do so in this case.

3) Destiny being out for however long would be one less vote on the council, and give Moira and her clique an opportunity to try and seize control again, at which point they might be able to lay out some plausible rationale for Destiny's exclusion.

I mean, no doubt, Moira got outplayed here and killing Destiny at this point probably wouldn't help even if Magneto was onboard, but it's not a totally pointless idea.

[gnarll]

I really thought Mystiques forcing the issue very elegant and impressive. I was expecting something like Rogue borrowing the telepathy to bring momma back.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Any idea what Mystique brought to Emma?

As for the quote, unless it's been addressed, it would be cool if we discovered Cyclops doesn't need the visor at all now, he just likes the look.

[donnblake]

I vaguely seem to recall a bit in Astonishing X-men (I think?) that claimed that his need for the visor was emotional, rather than neurological.

[icon_uk]

I'm a little surprised that Hope, whose whole power I thought was being a power proximity mimic (The one who isn't Synch), didn't realise that this wasn't Xavier in front of her, but Mystique, since she wouldn't be able to mimic Xavier's telepathy from her.

[scorntx]

This would require Hope to have a role and agency in the plot, rather than being a plot device that just happens to be a teenage(ish) girl.

Of course, if she was being written in character, would she necessarily care?
Or would Mystique use her patented smooth handling skillz to work around that?

"Oh, uh, yes, I was shapeshifted as Xavier as part of a security test. Which you passed. Well done, you."