X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #4-5: Verdigris

[superboyprime]

"It is something that I did kind of have to course correct in my earliest pitches. And I’m eternally grateful to Hickman for kind of mentoring me in how to look at storytelling from a bigger picture because my initial pitches that I brought in were super-destructive because I was basically stress-testing Krakoan world-building. My pitches represented what I thought the flaws in the entire system are. Like 'Here’s where your world can break down, Hickman,' basically […] Because instead of breaking the world, which would have happened with my initial pitches, Hickman was like, “Well, let’s go back to your concept of stress testing it. Do this but make it stronger. Fix it. Make it additive instead of subtractive.” And that ended up being hugely beneficial to… that was a game changer for me as a writer in general, just not for X-Factor but kind of moving forward in everything that I do now…" - Leah Williams

Comments

[numeronone]

So. All but confirming that this book was in fact "Scarlet Witch: Rebirth" but with the bonus of re-using an old IP.

[cricharddavies]

So ... if I'm understanding this right, these two framed Toad?

And we're supposed to view this as a good thing?

[tinygaylaura]

Toad was not framed, he volunteered to take the fall

Toad's dialogue here takes on a new meaning with this reveal. When he tells Magneto "I did this for you" he's talking about agreeing to be the fall guy, not the murder

Also "It's just a prolonged death sentence, isn't it?"

No Cap, it isn't, because people in the Hole have the possibility of being released one day. I'm curious, where is all this Moral Outrage from him at all the men and women on death row in America who his country executes? People who will never have the chance of being released because when someone gets put in an electric chair or a gas chamber, they can't be released later they're just gone for good

A system which has sent many innocent people to their deaths. A system that exists primarily to work against anyone and everyone who isn't a cishet white man

[blues32]

Has Cap ever rallied for the death sentence? If not, I'm pretty sure his moral outrage has always been there. And I don't think anyone is supposed to ever get out of the Hole. Out of sight, out of mind.

[cricharddavies]

Unless you're an ecoterrorist, in which case you'll get a pass.

[blues32]

Well, from the island anyway. And somehow the most powerful telepath on the planet while wearing a boosting helmet is unaware of their escape...

[deh_tommy]

Maybe he does know, but he’s too scared of Curse giving him, like, a stubbed toe or something.

[deh_tommy]

The Hole(tm) is a place where they dump their problematics and people they can’t be bothered with so they won’t need to deal with them anymore and forget about them (kind of like the actual American prison system DOHOHOHOHO). Just because one system is bad doesn’t mean the other is any better.

[tinygaylaura]

I mean Sabretooth is a completely unrepentant mass murdering cannibal psychopath who laughed as he threatened to try and murder every living thing on Krakoa so I'd say he's a bit more than "problematic"

But I wasn't saying the Hole is a good system. Just that its kind of ridiculous for the Avengers to act shocked and aghast at this when they actively take part in a justice system that is far far worse

[deh_tommy]

That’s whataboutism and you know it. That’d be like saying “you dare to criticise society, yet you live in one”.

And my memory’s not what that used to be, but wasn’t Sabretooth holed for breaking the rules retroactively, before they were actually set in stone?

[tinygaylaura]

I wasn't attempting a whataboutism here honest

I wasn't saying that no one who lives in one country can criticise what another country does

My point was rather that the Avengers, as a literal government sanctioned superhero team in America don't really have a leg to stand on when it comes to standing in moral judgement of other countries justice systems when they're part of what is without a doubt one of the most unjust justice systems in the western world

And Tony Stark trying to talk shit about is especially laughable when you consider that less than thirty years ago in real time which is probably less than two years ago in-universe he was putting people who hadn't done a single thing wrong besides breaking the unjust and fascist laws passed by jackbooted morons into a hellish otherworld prison in a dimension that causes psychological trauma

Tony: I can't believe this is how Krakoa treats convicted murderers who openly admit to their guilt in a court of law

If only they were making clones of their best friends to brutally murder people who did nothing wrong, then I'd be fine with

[akodo_rokku]

The Avengers haven't been a government-sanctioned team in a while afaik.

Also I can absolutely understand Steve Rogers not being a fan of a form of imprisonment where there's absolutely no chance for reform.

[superboyprime]

Yeah, on the one hand, you have the Avengers, an independent organization funded by private citizens, whose relation with their "government liaison" can traditionally be described as "want to punt him into the sun." Getting on their case about the American carceral system is like getting mad at the Red Cross about it.

On the other hand, you have the X-Men, whose member are actually in the ruling government of Krakoa or close pals with folks who are.

Between those two, one's a lot more complicit and responsible for it's government's failings and it's the one whose members are going, "Sending kids to permanent solitary confinement is fine actually. I mean the Nazi in our ruling council's all for it."

[bravest_spinja]

Like, Captain America has never been shy about expressing his distaste for government overreach or injustice, and if he gets fed up with it, he'll like, create a band of outlaws or even drop the Captain America name, but he does return to the fold because "Nomad" just isn't a valuable trademark to Marvel you have to fight injustice from the inside or something.

He isn't even making that big a deal about. He's not organizing a jailbreak for Toad, or challenging anybody's sovereignty, he's ending his misgivings with a question mark.

[donnblake]

Hmm. Setting aside the matter of how guilt got assigned to Toad, condemning him the Pit or the Hole or whatever we're calling it raises some interesting questions.

I mean, on its face, it tracks- Wanda is, at least until the next round of retcons, not a mutant, so Toad has broken the Kill No Humans* law, which is the one Krakoan law with reasonably well defined boundaries and consequences (albeit with a number of exceptions, caveats, and carveouts).

However, the underlying argument for that law was that killing humans, who by and large can't come back from death,** represented a far more serious act than killing mutants who can now just pop back as soon as Quentin Quire is done being resurrected six or seven more times.

And that more or less doesn't apply to Wanda here? Even if it's politically awkward to explain that her death and resurrection here is fully consensual and more or less a complicated expression of the same sort of logic as the Crucible deaths, it feels weird to condemn Toad for the murder of a woman who's standing right there.

I mean, maybe they're going to let him out as soon as the Avengers leave, although in that case, they probably could have just dragged him off and announced he was being thrown in some less hellish form of detainment.

*Magic using humans representing a parallel species called Homo Magi is, I believe, a DC conceit.

** I know. I know, all right? But those are all special cases. So... many... special cases.

[cyberghostface]

Surprised they didn't reveal somehow she was still a mutant. Figured Marvel was going to do that now that Disney owns the film rights for X-Men.

[donnblake]

Ah, but to the degree they're being guided by movie synergy, MCU Wanda already has a non-mutant backstory. Actually, she's got two so far, so also making her a mutant would seem a bit excessive.

[lordy_co]

Yeah, I for one am happy with this outcome. Tie Wanda to the Earth's magic forces, tie her and Pietro to the High Evolutionary if you must (tho I'd argue you don't), but there's no need for them to also be mutants.

[tinygaylaura]

Is it only two?

I could swear she had more than that

[donnblake]

I mean, I've stopped bothering to keep count in the comics, but in the MCU specfically so far she's got

"Got her powers from HYDRA experimentation,"

and

"Witchcraft."

[tinygaylaura]

I was thinking of the comics where I think aside from the whole being the daughter of Magneto thing which Marvel retconned she also had two normal sets of parents and also at one point I think her dad was golden age speedster The Whizzer?

[donnblake]

Oh, yeah. Comics Wanda history is all over the place. There was also Django Maximoff, who I don't think was ever supposed to be their biological father, but did turn up to turn her and Pietro into puppets once because... he missed them?

[tinygaylaura]

I'm sorry I think I had something crazy in my eye because for a minute there I thought I read that you just said he turned his kids into puppets

[donnblake]

Sorry, you're right, that would have been crazy.

What happened was, he trapped their spirits in magic dolls.

[tinygaylaura]

Thank god, the world makes sense again

[donnblake]

They didn't come visit! What was he supposed to do?

[tinygaylaura]

HIS HANDS WERE TIED

[deh_tommy]

WELL MAYBE THEY’RE TIED BY THE PUPPET STRINGS

[tinygaylaura]

I think Rifftrax summed up horrible puppet sorcery best

"Use this power for good and it will be good. Use it for evil...and it will be evil"

"Everyone, real quick, just come up with a list for the GOOD uses for demonically posessed puppets"

[deepspaceartist]

I think the retcon is that the Hydra experimentation just awakened and strengthened the witchcraft that would otherwise have taken years of training to master.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Wait, so she's not a mutant here? I thought she had to be for Krakoan resurrection?

[donnblake]

As I understand it, the resurrection system doesn't depend on the subjects being mutants, it's merely that they've made a choice to only back-up mutants. They have a back-up of Wanda from back when everyone thought she was a mutant.

[shadowpsykie]

But Wanda specifically says “mutant resurrection “ and wasn’t the point of this to MAKE her mutant again? What was the point of it?

[donnblake]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean, she was resurrected by the combined powers of a half dozen or so mutants.

[lordy_co]

"We have no rights to dictate Krakoans' approach to morality. We're not a part of this nation."
....sigh

[dr_archeville]

"We're the Avengers, not the CIA!"

[tinygaylaura]

Well yeah no

As I pointed out

If the Avengers want to start telling any country that their justice system is wrong they should probably start with their own and then work their way up

Especially since America's justice system is WAY more of an absolute fucking shitshow than Krakoa's is

We've seen four actual trials take place in Krakoa. In three, the people involved were without any doubt to 100% guilty and were actually convicted for breaking the law

In this case Toad took the fall for someone.

So that gives it a 99% accuracy rate in delivering justice

In other words a 98% higher accuracy rate than America's justice system

[lordy_co]

Oh I agree with that, my problem is the way the Williams wrote it. I wouldn't be surprised if she was an anthopologist or a social scientist, because "hey, maybe this is bad but it's just part of their culture! We can't judge it" is a common atittude in social science circles. And in real life it usually makes sense, because the "we" is usually someone from the Global North analysing other, non-"Western" cultures, so you want to avoid cultural imperialism and the destruction of local traditions.
The problem here is that she's clearly framing this as if mutants were still a threatened minority inside their own country, and not a global superpower capable of destroying the planet. What's the worst thing that could come of the Avengers criticising the Hole? Does it threaten mutant culture in any way? The Avengers may not be mutants, they may not be part of the mutant nation (whatever that means since we haven't actually seen much nation-building in these books), bu there's nothing wrong with criticising how a global power deals with its internal questions.

[leahandillyana]

The most frustrating part is this approach sometimes (rather frequently in fact) ends up with Western sociologists supporting regressive and inhumane practices that progressive members of their own societies want to exterminate. There's the never ending fiasco centered on evaluation of the Boxer Rebellion, for example.
Speaking of the comic itself, it's confusing and overall seems to have added nothing to the setting.

[deh_tommy]

I am so horribly confused.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Oh good, so it's not just me.

So now that we're at the end of the story... can someone please explain precisely what happened?

Like, I think I get some of the broad strokes, but...

[shakalooloo]

Faff faff faff, then Toad in the Hole.