Giant-Size X-Men: Thunderbird #1: And When There Was One

[superboyprime]

"I’ll say this, Thunderbird has a unique dynamic with some of the biggest icons of Krakoa. In his early appearances, he thought Wolverine was a soft punk, and couldn’t be bothered to respect an uptight ass-kisser like Cyclops (John’s POV, not mine). Now, while he was gone, Cyclops and Wolverine have become foundational to Krakoa. Thunderbird to me, as an emotional hook, really has a singular point of view on some of Krakoa’s greatest. And he does not care what anyone thinks." - Steve Orlando

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

It's kind of wild to see John Proudstar back and in action, given that he only had a couple of adventures before he was so unceremoniously killed off, and to see him in relation to his little brother, who's had 30 years worth of adventures in the meantime.

But so far a decent start, but I hope they get past the "he's angry" aspect of his personality sooner rather than later and it doesn't define him too much. (Some is good. But it doesn't need to be his dominating character trait.)

[morallyambiguousscience]

This is now two separate specials in a row where a writer has had to edit the "all human cultures are inferior to krakoa" with "except for indigenous people".

Which is hilarious to me, because it's another case of cowardice of writers when it comes to Krakoa, balking at the logical progression of it's ideology because if it were expressed like that it would rightfully be seen as incredibly racist.

[shakalooloo]

I think it's more of a case - in intention, if not how the execution is perceived - that Krakoa is a nation made for an oppressed minority, and that most indiginous cultures are themselves oppressed minorities, so they have a common cause.

[donnblake]

I mean the basic problem is that they've set up some (varyingly valid) critiques of the dominant global capitalist/industrialist culture, but they explicitly framed those critiques in biological terms, as problems that humanity had that mutants had transcended. Whatever the intent was, the implication that mutant culture was superior to all human cultures was there from the beginning, and not hard to spot.

[lordultimus]

It's not even that - X-Corp showed that global industrialism and capitalism is actually super great so long as mutants are the ones doing it.

[30secondstonataliemars]

Yes because there is such a thing as context

A group of people doing something one way and another group of people doing a similar thing but in a different way can change the nature of what is being done

[lordultimus]

So it's nothing intrinsic to humanity even though the characters never shut up about being better than humanity inherently.

[blues32]

But even then, they aren't allowed on the island unless they have a direct connection to a mutant who can vouch for them. Any connection between mutants and indigenous cultures are hazy at best. Used to be that mutants represented ALL of the oppressed minorities.

[shakalooloo]

Sure, but in the case of indiginous peoples, the indiginous part is rather important, so they wouldn't want to abandon their own land.

[blues32]

It's not their land. It's the land they were moved to after their land was taken from them. Is it worth holding on to what amounts to their giant prison cell?

[arilou_skiff]

The status of reservations is a bit more complicated, in most cases it *is* native lands, or rather the remnants of it (in theory various native groups ceded lands to the US/canadian government in exchange for various terms (often these terms were "please stop killing us" of course) now over time and because the US government has keept breaking treaties reservations have been made significantly smaller tahn allotted by the initial treaties (and often consisting of worse land) and sometimes you have stuff like the US "reserving" land for one tribe that already belongs to a different tribe.

But the basic point is that reservations are native land, with their own legal jurisdictions and other stuff like that.

There are some cases where native groups were displaced entirely to new areas (Oklahoma, in a lot of cases) but those are not the majority of them; Most reservations are the (pitifully small) remnants of traditional tribal lands (or at least, what tribal lands looked like at the point of conquest)

[30secondstonataliemars]

The entirety of America is their land

If someone breaks into my house and steals my PS5 it's still my PS5

It doesn't become the thiefs PS5 just because they insist it belongs to them now

[blues32]

Yeah, but after a few hundred years, the line gets rather blurry.

[iamrman]

Always happy to somebody puncture Xavier's bullshit. I hope Thunderbird appears more now that he is back.

[scorntx]

Puncturing Xavier's crap used to be Storm's job.
And Kitty's.
And Cyclops's.

[blues32]

I have no idea who this Martyrnec is, but he's right stupid if he thinks that Thunderbird has done anything helpful to them here. John could turn him into a pretzel. Not literally, that's something other mutants can do, but it's good enough.

Just how much of a sample is needed to "harvest the X gene"? Seems all they would need is a drop of blood. Even if that isn't enough to get the gene directly, they can use the drop to clone someone and harvest it then. Going to these extremes is just foolishness.

Speaking of foolishness...I can't help but think that the strength and durability Thunderbird is showing here doesn't quite match with the guy who died punching a plane. Wasn't even the fall that killed him. Have they ever explained HOW Thunderbird died and Neferia didn't?

[cainofdreaming]

"Does Proteus need to eat a pretzel, ye bampot?"

[icon_uk]

Have they ever explained HOW Thunderbird died and Neferia didn't?

Yes, in 1977 in Nefaria's first appearance after the explosion.

He shows up to fight the Avengers and Beast expresses surprise that Nefaria is alive. Nefaria explains he'd had a backup plan to be teleported out if things went south, the same way that his Ani-Men were teleported into the base in the first place.

[scorntx]

Oh, so that's how it happened.

Neither Wikipedia, the Marvel Wiki or TV Tropes had any explanation for how he survived.
It was starting to seem like one of those things that required sacrificing a body part / loved one to know...

Awfully quick turn around for Nefaria, too.
(though, uh... if he had the teleporting doohickey, why didn't he just use that instead of mucking around with a plane?)

[icon_uk]

I'm old enough that I remember reading it in an issue of "Marvel Superheroes", a black and white reprint comic in the UK in what must have been 1979.

Of course, MY problem was I had no idea who this "Thunderbird" Beast was talking about was because I'd not read much X-Men.

As for why he tried to escape in the plane? Well...



Plus, I'm sure teleporting is all well and good for (expendable) minions, but it's not necessarily something you want to risk unless you HAVE to.

[dan_ingram]

"Hmm, I could risk being teleported into a solid wall, or I could rely on a machine that's been proven reliable thousands of times a year."

...not exactly a hard choice that.

[cainofdreaming]

He'd seen Spaceballs and didn't want a front butt, yes?

[blues32]

Yes, the teleporter was his BACK UP plan, rather than his go to. How ridiculous... Though I'm sure that complaint was made back then.

[filthysize]

ooh, is this the issue written by Nyla Rose?

[sisterofbloomerjunior]

Why are the kids answering any of John’s questions if they think he’s too white?