#I still miss Krakoa

[duz-achines]

Maybe I've just missed out on a ton of Laura content, but isn't she only an adult in the more recent comics? And only because she grew up since she was a kid when she was first brought to the page. In the movie Logan she was a kid, and I don't know what else she's been in.

In the comics, she was a kid, then a teen in the academy, and now a young adult as Wolverine. I think since 2016's All New All Different stuff. As for sexualization, I entirely agree that she's been way oversexualized--problematically perhaps more as a child than as an adult--when she was brought into the comics. It added a lot more victimization and abuse to her story than the original X-23 backstory.

When OP brought up appearance, I thought they were going to discuss how Laura (I really don't like referring to her as X-23) was VERY EGREGIOUS WHITEWASHED. In Evo, she was most certainly not the white girl she was in the comics, and it's a massive bummer. They gave her a blonde mom and everything.

Anyway, she has plenty of material in the comics if you want to see more of her and, though she's an adult in the most recent stuff, her newest ongoing feature is the new NYX (2024), first issue out July 24!

I feel like the only person in existence to absolutely despise what they've done with X-23 outside of Evolution, they changed basically everything about her, ESPECIALLY APPEARANCE WISE. You can call me crazy for this but I'm a million percent certain they only changed her appearance so much and made her an adult because they couldn't be bothered with her actual character and just wanted eye candy.

Also I'll repeat this until I die but if you don't like it when Kurt or other adult X-Men are seen as teenagers or adapted as such then you should absolutely despise any adult X-23 adaptations. This is because in Evolution, her OG appearance, she's canonically around the age range of a kid / young teenager. It's literally pure hypocrisy and just because the majority of people care more about a character's sex appeal than the actual character itself.

[nthflower]

I missed Kavita Rao again bring her back with fall of X. Kavita come back :(

[kalinara]

The thing about Scott and Nathan that will always be funny to me is that ultimately the whole "losing your child at a young age and not meeting them again until they're adults" is not a terribly rare beat in comics.

It's, in fact, incredibly common. Logan's got that beat with Akihiro. Raven's got it with Kurt. Xavier with David...maybe, to be honest, I've never been sure when Xavier first became aware of David's existence. I'll have to track down those comics.

Hell, Magneto managed to RAISE his kids and only learn they're actually his kids after they reach adulthood. Whereupon they became not his kids. Sort of. But then he got another adult kid. Whatever.

The thing that's funny about Scott though is that he goes through that plot beat, has the requisite angst about not being able to raise his kid and missing out on most of his childhood, and then promptly decides "okay, well, I'm going to keep raising this fifty year old man anyway."

It's subtly different from the other examples, I think. Akihiro was willing to acknowledge Logan as his father, but they were enemies for a long time. And while there is some cautious acceptance now, they're still not really a traditional father-and-son. Kurt acknowledges Raven and even tries to support her at times, but Raven's not the most maternal at the best of times. The less said about Xavier's fuck ups the better.

The hilarious thing about Scott and Nathan is that they actually do act like father and son. And eventually, that starts to make sense. Scott and Jean did, after all, raise Nathan for the first ten years of his life, albeit under pseudonyms and in borrowed bodies. And then, much later, they got to raise him for maybe a year more on Krakoa?

But those are things that get established later on. And Nathan's spent like thirty-to-forty years after that basically on his own. But for whatever reason, he sees this perpetually twenty-something dude insist on acting like his dad, and inviting him to family dinner and giving him Christmas presents and shit like that, and just kind of goes "yeah, okay. You're my dad now."

And it even extends to Rachel and Nate Grey. Because really, Rachel isn't their daughter. She's the daughter of a long dead alternate future version of Scott and Jean. She's under no obligation to go along with Scott's awkward attempts at fatherhood. And he really has no business trying to be a dad to someone who at various times is either his own age (circa X-Factor) or only a few years younger (current interpretation.) But nope, Rachel's their daughter. And she goes along with it, even when she's mad at him during the Emma years.

Nate Grey is even more bizarre, since he's Sinister's test tube baby from a parallel universe where Scott and Jean didn't even meet until adulthood. (Though it did seem like they might be getting somewhere toward the end.) But he's invited to family dinner too. And while he's not specifically named, I think it's important to note that there are THREE rooms in the kids' section of the Summer House. Not two.

Room number 17 is listed as "empty". But Scott's an organized sort of guy, if he built three rooms in the kids' section, then he meant three rooms.

(Also notice that there's an empty room in the brothers' section too. Maybe if Adam-X wasn't busy in the Mojo-verse, he'd have had a place to stay too?)

It's just funny to me. Other characters meet their kids as adults and are like "okay, well, we've missed so much time and opportunity, we'll have to cautiously find our way forward as adults". Scott Summers is like "Okay, well, you're my kids, so dinner's at six, bedtime's at eleven, and we'll talk about your homework later."

[rei-ismyname]

Giant-Size Wolverine retcons

Marvel, famously, loves having Wolverine as a cash cow, to the point it has its own entry on TVTropes. This manifests as a LOT of Wolverine #1s being released as well as the clawed-one showing up on deceitful covers and guest starring anywhere they think they can justify it. Less common (but still frequent enough) is Forrest Gumping him into historical events or rewriting events he was there for as a character study cynical profiteering.

Sunfire is still great - 'banal prattle.' You tell em

This is the latter, foregrounding Logan in Giant-Size X-Men to the detriment of almost everyone else. In the original Giant-Size X-Men, Logan sits at the back and says very little. Here he takes charge and uncharacteristically identifies that the new squad lacks synergy and a sense of teamwork. He opens with 'it's your first day as new X-Men, people. I'm going to show you how this works.' Uh, isn't it yours too? Did I miss a meeting?

Poor Kurt. Eddie Munster is just mean

So he starts a fight, telling everyone there's one too many people. Colossus objects for sexist reasons (not objection to killing lol) and Storm puts him in his place. Sunfire and Thunderbird both have little patience for white people or bullshit and Logan catches a fireball...

... and an elbow to the spine. Ororo goes off with electricity and Kurt just doesn't want to die, so he BAMFs behind her and starts choking Storm from behind. Logan turns the tables on Proudstar and drops a one liner about metal conducting electricity. I'm no wizard, but I don't think it interacts well with human flesh, either, especially if they have a metal skeleton. Obviously he takes everyone down and has the biggest dick in the world.

Yeah... about Thunderbird.

Banshee bursts in and reveals Logan is acting against Chuck's wishes. I'm generally in favour of that but I'm not fond of its narrative function at all . He has an open shirt, a toothpick in his mouth, and looks oh so pleased with himself. I'm not some reactionary purist who worships the sacred texts and pushes back against retcons. Quite the opposite, in fact. Additive retcons are fantastic when done well - Magneto being a Holocaust survivor stands as one of the best in fiction.

I don't think that's what this is, or at least it's not successful. In Giant-Size X-Men #1 there's no time for this pissing contest because all the other X-Men need rescuing ASAP. Chuck rounds them up and handles the basics then defers to Cyclops, the field leader of many years. They leave immediately and nobody is getting along. Sunfire leaves then comes back. Scott is all business because he's worried about the folks on Krakoa and there just isn't time. If they respect the chain of command in the field that's good enough. Team building can come later.

What's achieved here besides sidelining everyone to centre edge lord Logan? Not a lot, in fact I'd say it minimises Logan's character arc most of all. He was a grumpy loner who eventually learnt to trust people, came to see the X-Men as family, and committed to the team. Logan knowing half this stuff already and having this degree of social confidence just undermines that, as well as Cyclops' leadership of this ragged band. Not sure what Whedon was thinking tbh.

That wasn't the end of it, though. Interestingly, this is Chris Claremont writing here. Again, I'm not a purist and I'm under no illusion about CC's later X-Men work. He'd worked with these characters for a long time but Giant-Size was Wein & Cockrum, so he's choosing to expand the origin story. Thunderbird is still alive so they're still pretty new here. Anyway, Cyke is running a danger room training session - Storm vs Thunderbird.

After some kinda bizarre ethnic posturing Ororo is pinned.

Unsurprisingly, she starts to wig out due to her claustrophobia. Logan picks it up with his advanced senses and jumps in. Scott owns the mistake and ends the training session.

I find it hard to buy Scott would feel like his authority was undermined here. Logan is being as paternalistic as ever, but Scott blames himself for failures. He doesn't externalise it and he understands he's not leading children anymore. It's Chuck who has difficulty adapting to this specific dynamic. Also, Logan had zero interest in leadership. None. It was Ororo who was a friendly rival to him and ended up succeeding him as leader. He also didn't especially trust or show respect to anyone. Everyone else has problems but the focus and Charles' confidant is Wolverine. That's silly as hell.

Okay, private insecurity and self-doubt, totally Scott's thing. I'm just going to ignore literally everything else that's happening, especially 'damaged goods.' Ugh.

The second story came out in 2005 in Giant-Size X-Men #4. Aside from the Wolverine oversaturation and other weird shit I've pointed out, I feel like there was a concerted effort to bring certain characters closer to their FOX movies counterparts. Chuck started looking like Captain Picard, Scott was Flanderised a bit but moreso deemphasized, and Logan started to look and act more like Hugh Jackman. He joined more teams, regressed in social growth yet became way more important to the X-Men. More important to the very fabric of the Marvel universe.

I get why it happened (capitalism) but I think it was executed poorly in many instances. These are particularly egregious, but Wolverine was and is fucking everywhere - under many different writers. There's always going to be a sense of asynchronicity under those circumstances. I've actually come to really dislike Logan lately. Obviously it's an issue for most long running characters, but his particular regression to the mean every new book bores the shit out of me. He's not growing at all, even when everything around him changes. On Krakoa he was mostly just gruff and stabby, monologuing about hell, beer, time, nature, poison, and being the best he is at what he does. 🙄

He'll usually find someone worse than him to point at and call out with transparency he never applies to himself. Magneto, Scott, Beast, Scott, Chuck, teenage Scott, Sabertooth, Omega Red, Beast, Chuck, and Scott again. Someone please deconstruct this guy! Send him to therapy, break him down to his base components and examine them. Fuck his moping or running naked with wolves or fighting the W-digo - give him a messy boyfriend and force him to get the fuck over Jean Grey.

He can still fight ninjas and mentor troubled teens and sulk about whatever his latest thing is - just have him grow! His books will still sell, people will still cheer when he says bub, and snikt isn't going away. Hire Al Ewing to do it like he did with Loki, Hulk, Magneto, Sunspot, etc. Some of those changes actually stuck and the characters are more popular than ever! Is that too much to hope for? Almost certainly, but one can hope.

Boy I got carried away on that outro, lol.

[kierongillen]

HEY GILLEN!! i have a few questions for you, if you don't mind answering them! what was in your mind for S.W.O.R.D's ending? abigail brand is one of my favorite characters and i just need to know what you had planned for her and beast -- and unit too, honestly.

also -- which pheonix host is your personal favorite? if you have an opinion on that!

It's hard, as the things which got us there never happened and so the emotional through line isn't there.

Excuse the roughness of this. There's a lot more, and I'm always aware whenever I describe a half idea, what's missing is the craft in executing it.

The final scene would have been Brand with UNIT back in his cell, while Beast has packed his bags and is leaving SWORD forever.

The context: UNIT had escaped, as another UNIT turned up, and been the big bad. The story seemed to reveal that our UNIT was actually a penitent war weapon who wanted to be punished, while this other UNIT was the real unrepentant monster. UNIT and SWORD have to stop him, and they do.

In the moment when the other UNIT is defeated and is killed, there's a mind to mind conversation between the UNITs - where basically the other UNIT reveals this is all about buying the original UNIT cover. They'll trust you now. This is all for the greater good. These two UNITs were old lovers (for those who have read the battleworld SHIELD mini may see what I was riffing on there - the idea of SHIELD was, in part, me doing fanfic versions of stories you never read. Me writing a happier ending for the two UNITs)

In short, for the greater good, UNIT forsakes his great love. Anyway - Brand and Beast had split up, because Brand was always putting the work first, and generally pushing Beast away. There was a whole lot along the way (the basic plot of the book was it was beauty and the beast - but Beast is the beauty and Brand is the beast.) She was closing him off, at every chance we got, as she had to protect the earth.

When this meeting is going on, Beast is leaving SWORD, out the station, back to Earth.

Brand and UNIT are doing a normal meeting, and everything is by the book.

At one point, UNIT just breaks off from the serious briefing and tells her: It's not worth it.

This throws her. She doesn't understand what he means. Your whole thing is about the greater good, UNIT. What do you mean?

To sacrifice love for duty? If you were an immortal being like I am... perhaps it's worth it. The dividends are larger. But your life is very short, Agent Brand. It's not worth it.

So it's a big moment for UNIT in terms of that awful bittersweetness of him clearly thinking he's made a mistake... and also for Brand. This robot, which she still distrusts to some level, who she views as a cold and calculating thing... is telling her this.

Unit is basically her. She is turning herself into a robot. She doesn't want to be a robot. She doesn't know it, but senses the truth - even the robot doesn't really want to be the robot.

It gets through to her.

She runs through the Sword Station.

We have the full "stopping Beast boarding the plane" scene, and we end on the big kiss.

Aww.

I think of that Beast and Brand a lot. There was a fork in the timeline for them, and I didn't realise when writing SWORD we were already past it - the Beast who became a genocidal monster was already appearing in another thread of Marvel's tapestry. I think that timeline as the one where Brand influenced Beast more than Beast influenced Brand - or maybe better phrased as the SWORD timeline was one where the relationship made them better, rather than making them both worse.

(I sort of allude to this briefly in Immortal X-men issue 1.)

They were great stories - Brand and Beast were two of Krakoa's greatest villains - but I'm still a little sad for them. Brand and Beast were the first couple in the MU who were briefly "mine", so I can't pine a little for that timeline where they kissed.

[dewyatt]

Laura Kinney: Wolverine #2

I loved the work Schultz did with Laura in Deadly Regenesis. It's the most in-character Laura was written the entire Krakoa era, and along with X-Terminators was the only real bright spot for her in the period. So I entered the new series with high hopes.

The first issue IMO got off to a strong start. It wasn't "safe" like All-New Wolverine, but Laura still sounded like Laura. The second issue preview was a little rockier, but I still had a lot of faith. Unfortunately, the issue itself failed in that regard.

I think the best way to express it is a response I left to a post made about the issue by Schultz on her BlueSky:

I loved your work with Laura in Deadly Regenesis, and the debut issue of LKW was very strong. But I honestly have to say as a long-time Laura Kinney reader this episode was a let down, and it's all to do with characterization.

The one bad thing that's happened with Laura since she took the Wolverine name is that she's lost her own personality, and started to be written AS Logan.

When she first appeared, Laura was pretty much the anti-Logan. He was gruff and snarling, Laura was quiet and laconic. If Logan was a machete, Laura was a scalpel. Logan was a brawler, but Laura was Simone Biles with knife hands. Logan was a tank, but Laura was swift and agile. Seeing her liken herself to an axe while waxing about Elektra's elegance rings false when Laura HERSELF was presented as more of a dancer.

She could absolutely be impulsive, (see Mercury Falling) but she never did anything without a plan. She was someone who Hopeless described in Avengers Arena as being able to walk into a room and immediately reason out the most expedient and efficient way to kill everyone inside it. She was a calculating strategist who even at her most reckless didn't take an action she didn't think through first, and have reasons for doing that at least made sense to her (this got her into trouble with Logan on X-Force when she let Wolfsbane get kidnapped because protecting her would jeopardize her mission).

Ironically, the shift into what many of her fans have pejoratively dubbed "Logan With T**s" began under Hopeless himself. In his All-New X-Men run, Laura spends most of the first issues asking, "WWLD?" and would proceed to throw herself head-first into fires and the Blob without thinking of the consequences. It's later revealed this is Laura ACTING OUT, and she's doing what she is because she THINKS it's what people expect of her.

Unfortunately, as later writers picked up her character, it seems that this part of Hopeless's characterization was missed: Laura stopped to being the reserved, focused, calculating person

she was introduced as, and became just as snarling and grumbling as Logan himself. And this is unfortunate, because it takes away what set Laura apart and made her distinct from Logan.

And sadly, this is the Laura we seem to get in LKW #2. She charges through the whole issue mindlessly snarling at anyone who gets in her way. When Elektra tries to patronize her or brush her off as a kid, Laura's "I'm not a teenager" reads as a tantrum. Laura is going off like a rank amateur, when this is someone who has been on superhero teams since she was 16 (New X-Men and X-Force) and had been one of Marvel's most dangerous assassins from the age of ELEVEN. She's not someone who needs a lecture on how to be a hero, and this sort of patronizing also rubbed many of her fans the wrong way when Kwannon tried to "mentor" her in Fallen Angels. Even though Laura was racking up a body count in the four-digit range for people like Kingpin during a time Betsy was wearing Kwannon's body as a meat suit, and Kwannon was dead.

And that's the Laura we get here: She treats herself like a blunt tool, not the surgical instrument she was debuted as. She acts like she's never worked with another hero before in her life, and makes blatantly rookie mistakes. There's no thought or strategy in what she's doing, she's just bulldozing through one confrontation after another.

I think Laura is a very difficult character to write. She's an introvert in a medium and genre dominated by bombastic personalities, almost as a necessity to tell the story (I do love your use of narration boxes to show her thought processes, as that's an ideal solution to how to write a character who doesn't like to talk at length, and still show their thought processes). And I entered the series with incredibly high hopes precisely BECAUSE your work in Deadly Regenesis demonstrated you "got" Laura's character in a way that few other writers captured. After almost a decade of seeing Laura written as Logan, in DR I saw the Laura that made me a fan: Quiet, thoughtful, reserved. She wasn't quipping or snarling, or the frothing berserker. The Krakoa era was NOT good to Laura from a character standpoint, and DR and X-Terminators were the only books in that period that I could pick up and Laura actually SOUNDED like Laura, not just Logan wearing a DLC skin.

Anyway, I'm sorry to go on at length, but as a long-time fan of the character it's incredibly frustrating to see her turned into what she wasn't by making her more like Logan, when she was created to be as different from him as possible (and as an introvert myself, it's incredibly frustrating to see yet another introverted character treated as if this is something that needs to be "fixed," not as just something she is).

Thank you for (hopefully) reading to the end. I loved your previous work and meant this with all due respect, I just needed to vent a growing frustration.

No idea what, if any, sort of response I'll get. Schultz does seem to actively engage with fans on BlueSky (she did respond to me once asking about a possible TK Fastball in the future) so we'll see what happens.

I do still have hopes for the series because I KNOW Schultz gets her better than this, but there's been so little genuinely GOOD content for her lately it just makes these slips even harder.

[honey-minded-hivemind]

It's me still a nervous wreck with ideas that won't go away I did not in fact die of dehydration!

Reader, I um what no I'm not a child! I have an ID!

Gambit, and it was a wonderful fake one really great craftsmen ship! But I knew it was fake from the moment I saw it.

Reader, mother fu-

Gambit, have a welcome to Krakoa gift basket while I get you the really good painkillers.

Twenty minutes later a very drugged reader is looking through the gift basket.

And more ideas because they won't leave my mind

Reader sitting in a Krakoa bar before they leave to find another Mutant, eating waffles

Gambit sits close and tries to convince them to stay, reader asks for an alcoholic drink and hands over their ID which gambit sees and knows is fake from his less then legal past, ladies and gentlemen we got em.

Reader being so confused as to why Gambit seems so happy all of a sudden "you okay dude?"

More ideas that won't go away!

One reader gets better they try and leave but it feels so strange everything seems normal they're in a normal hospital in a normal town and people treat them like a normal teen (ignoring the strange looks and obsession.)

They're confused high on pain meds and have no idea how to leave as they've never been to this part of Krakoa before only staying in towns that have gateways, so they wander aimlessly in a hospital gown and jacket from the gift basket, a kind bakery owner giving them free food and inviting them in while calling the very concerned X-Men who are freaking out at there missing bby.

More ideas! I'm sorry for flooding your inbox!

A court battle ensuing about who gets to adopt this skraggly can't even write their own name bites people who get too close teen.

Meanwhile reader is attempting to escape Krakoa CPS wanting no adoption and to be free of these obsessed people who keep feeding them and giving them pain meds.

Welp imma go buh bye!

Reader: Please help me, I just need to find a road out of here-

The worried shop owner: Okay, okay, calm down, dear, eat your waffles and fries and let me go get you something to drink-

The worried shop owner, actually calling the X-Men: Hello? There's a worried child here who seems so scared and confused, and they're asking to leave- I know, the poor dear seems like they aren't doing so well, they might need a doctor- Yes, yes I'll try to get them to stay put, see ya in a few minutes-

The worried shop owner, back with Reader: So, what about you stay for a few minutes, tell us about yourself, where are you from, do you want to stay for about fifteen minutes-

Reader, now suspicious: Um... can I use your bathroom?

Shop owner: Yes, right that way, dear

Reader: Thank you

Reader: actually leaving through the back door

Reader: Why is everyone acting so weird??

The X-Men, showing up at the front: We are here about a strange child!

Reader from the back alley: D*mn it, they move fast!!!

Reader is going so fast into the shadows and simply booking it to the nearest coastal area, apologizing as they go and sneaky sneaking through the back allies and side streets and avoiding main roads and the majority of people and citizens and heroes and villains-

Only to realize someone is trying to track them, and Reader now has to lose the teen trailing them like a hunting dog or a needy kitten on steroids-

[pacing-er]

Krakoa Era Reading List Cherik Version (part 6)

17. Immoral X-Men, Storm and the Brotherhood, Nightcrawlers

All Sinister stuff, tbh I lost interest pretty fast when I found out that Charles wasn't going to have a big part in it all. Each title has 3 issues, skipping forward 10 years, then 100 years, then 1000 years. I think some characters from future timelines shown in House of X Powers of X are shown, which is cool I guess. It's all pretty complicated but basically Sinister creates this timeline where everyone has a bit of his personality quirks and the mutants quickly take over the earth. There are small factions of resistance which fight against the odds to take down the sinisterified mutants, including Sinister himself who hates living amongst a bunch of Sinisters who won't listen to him. He instantly regretted creating this timeline and tried to kill one of his Moira clones to reset it, only to find that they all had been stolen by Destiny. Cue 1000 years worth of hijinks and plotting. I did find the subtle changes in the characters with the Sinister infection to be interesting, since they retain their primary personality traits but with looser morals.

This is one of the few Cherik crumbs we got 😭😭😭 it's a pretty good one though! He's hardly in these issues at all, but I also liked this Charles scene:

Evil softie 🥰

18. Sins of Sinister: Dominion

Direct continuation of the previous issues, but with more Xavier this time! It's cool to see how much of a threat he still is after 1000 years. Also we get this cute scene where an Arakki replicates Erik's helmet, which shocks Charles enough to catch him off guard. 1000 years since Magneto died and man is STILL pining XD

It ends with a timeline reset, puts us back at the end of Immortal X-Men #9. The key change is that now Sinister knows about the newest danger to mutant kind but his warnings fall on deaf ears, until Mother Righteous (another sister clone but different ig) intervenes and informs them of everything that has happened in the previous timeline. The council is compromised by Sinisters DNA, and the four affected by it are to be sent into the pit including Xavier.

19. Immortal X-Men (Issue #11-13)

Surprise! They aren't going into the pit after all. Worth noting that this is the point in time that X-Men Red issue #11 takes place during, in case anyone was wondering. That one had good Cherik bait. Whole lot of Quiet Council drama in this one, ending in an agreement to disband the council since they've all become too corrupt. They plan to announce it at the next Hellfire Gala, which Irene ominously predicts is a terrible mistake as Doug is dragged into the depths of Krakoa. This leads directly to The Hellfire Gala (2023). There are some good Charles scenes and he talks some more about missing Erik lmao poor guy!

20. X-Men Before the Fall - Sons of X

Big developments happen here. Mother Righteous reveals her goal to become a dominion, which she can only accomplish with the help of David's powers. With her assistance he is able to locate and save Nightcrawler, who was being held captive by Orchis. She kills the legionnaires and attempts to absorb David but David activates his fail safe and disappears, taking the (now empty) Altar with him. After resurrecting Nightcrawler's horns are gone but he is left emotionally damaged and decides to leave Krakoa. I thought David and Kurt's bond was sweet so I'm sad to see it go, though from some spoilers I saw this is not the end.

21. X-Men Before the Fall: Heralds of Apocalypse

Part of the post-sinister series of comics but Charles and Magneto aren't in it so I didn't read it and don't care. Apocalypse-centric.

Some good stuff in these ones! Finally we are at the Fall of X, I'm going to make that series of comics its own post. See the rest of my krakoa reading list under #krakoa era reading list

[cornyonmains]

I finally got around to watching X-Men '97. It was better than it had any business being, and I'm just so disoriented.

Episode one. Almost immediately you know they've got someone on the deck who knows how to hide gay shit, because one of the first things you see is Gambit in a crop top.

So, Charles is MIA, but he put Magneto in charge. He rolls up on the mansion looking like a whole-ass Herbal Essences commercial. Him, Rogue, and Gambit spend most of the season in horny jail, and I'm just sayin' Krakoa can have more than one threesome but I digress.

Morph is thirsting hard for Logan. There's a brief scene where they're going to troll him in the shower that looks like something I read on Joe Phillips' website in 2003.

Scott Summers has finally gotten his day. He's still so tightly wound you could use him to launch a cotton ball through Wolverine's skull, but you finally get to see him be as good as he is in the comics. They had him ice skating around with his beams, doing figure eights before he ass blasted sentinels into next week. Bishop was there, he ass blasted them back to the current week to avoid a paradox.

There's a scene where Scott tells Logan not to break Jean's heart. We all know what's going to happen on Krakoa. I did not miss that shit.

Where's Storm you ask? In horny jail with Forge. In the desert. Fighting demons and horseback riding. Jubilee? Locking down a sugar daddy and finally having her powers developed.

And all this isn't even going over the plot, which is genuinely good, and deals with heavy subject matter such as discrimination and genocide in heavy tones that don't condescend, instead of that after school special kind of tone cartoons that aren't specifically geared towards adults often have. The kids watching are going to hate the villains passionately instead of just finding themselves waiting for the X-Men to save the day.

Did I mention Magneto's fabulous hair yet? It looks like what would have happened of Fabio had believed it wasn't butter. Or if Farrah Fawcett found that flower from Tangled. He looks like he's having the kind of sex you read about in dogeared copies of Lost Souls during your teenie goth phase.

I wish I knew how to take things seriously enough to give this show the review it actually deserves, but I'd get two paragraphs in and decide I want to play Scribblenauts instead. Anyways, my point is, watch the show.

[geek-antic]

It’s been a while after the whole krakoa thing and I’m still bummed that I can’t find a single sign of Evan Sabahnur.

The only mention of him I can remember was from Laura Kinneys clone, being rightfully worried for other clones and why they weren’t getting revived (bless her heart).

Imagine getting killed off when you aren’t even in your own state of mind with your own memories. I mean he had a whole freakin character arc and friends who I thought would miss him but I guess not? I sure as heck didn’t see Quentin quire mention him during his time on krakoa, nor did any of his other classmates for that matter.

I wish Gerry duggan had absorbed him into the Deadpool cast of characters so he didn’t have to go through the terrible krakoa ordeal (aka Nate grey) in the beginning. He could be hanging out with the Preston family right now. This sucks. It also sucks that at the end of his run Gerry duggan hit the factory reset on Deadpool’s memories so I’m not even sure he remembers Evan!

BUT on the bright side it seems like they revived a lot of mutants at the end of the krakoa arc so I’m hoping that one of the writers will remember he exists and actually do something with him because there’s a lot of story potential in that kid just waiting to be explored.

I hope he returns rightfully pissed off

[scarlet--wiccan]

Who are Pietro’s friends?

There have been several points in Pietro's history where kinda didn't have any. He's been through enough character rehabilitation recently that I think it's fair to assume he's on okay terms with with most people, at least as far as Avengers go. As far as I can tell, he's never really made amends with any of his old X-Factor teammates (from the 90s/2000s), save Lorna, and things were just rough in general with mutants during Krakoa. He and Wanda have both proven their allyship since Trial, but Pietro hasn't had significant page time with anyone besides Monet. Outside of those groups, most of the Knights are dead and I think his bridges are still pretty burned with the Inhumans-- not that they're ever around.

I think the last time Pietro was on a real team, long-term, was Uncanny Avengers. By the end of that series he was getting along really well with Janet and Jericho, in particular. I also noticed that in the recent miniseries, he and Rogue seemed pretty friendly, which was nice, but surprising. And I guess, for whatever reason, he and Steve get on well now, too.

I know I'm just biased towards this character, but I'm really into his friendship with Jericho. I thought it was so fun and thoughtful that Pietro and Wanda both had a good relationship him, and they clicked together so easily as a unit when Jer and Wanda started dating. All three characters were being refreshed and kinda reinvented during that time, and it was just fun for me. I kinda miss it.

The most important person in Pietro's life, besides Wanda and Luna, is obviously Mr. Dibbles.

[lovecanbesostrange]

Please know that since yesterday I am mentally trapped in these two panels. There is actually a lot I will miss Krakoa for, but I also felt a bit of resentment throughout the era and this family is a big reason why. NOW that we are in the last stretch of burning it all down and the new X-launch is in reach, we'll get this wedding special. And we finally have all four together in a panel. NOW?! I bought X-Men Unlimited #4 in either fall of '94 or spring '95, solely because of the cover. 30 years of waiting. Let me live in this moment for a bit.

Look at what they are doing with the art! Oh sure, Mystique and Nightcrawler are the blue ones. Pair up Destiny and Rogue next to that to make them look similar enough as well. Only for my brain to scream "but the personalities are the other way around!!!!!!!!". Irene and Kurt work on faith and believe in possibilities and reaching out to be better. Raven and Anna Marie typing this out makes me feel weird are the ones who will kill a bitch and say they will darken their soul so others don't have to. Plus there is the element that they both have lived more than one life and their sense of self is distorted .

They've come a long way, okay?!

Yes this is exactly what it looks like. For plot reasons Nightcrawler was too weak to teleport and dangling off a cliff next to Mystique. And of course Rogue could only save one and before she made a decision Mystique said "I make this for you" and let go. I still like to believe she flipped them the bird when she fell. Because she is Mystique. "HaHa! Take this, you think I'm the worst mother ever, but you will have to live with a moment of nobility from me!" (Also Destiny knew this would come, and she fucking knows there is something good inside of Mystique. It just comes out... different. And needs very specific circumstances.)

Apart from X-Men Evolution (and the X-Men Forever alternate history comic with its very special vibes), we have never gotten any bigger acknowledgement of this family. And Irene has been cut out. Either conveniently on account of being dead, or because she's an old lady and clearly just a gal pal, ahem. (It's also very funny to me to go back to their first appearances, where the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants has the biggest Three Stooges energy ever. I needed Mystique, Destiny, Rogue, Pyro, Blob and Avalanche to have a drinking contest on Krakoa. That is what Krakoa was supposed to be about!! You needed to give us 200% domestic nonsense, fun and games. So it would hurt everybody when it was inevitably taken away. EVERYBODY needed to find happiness in that place in unconventional ways.)

Sadly not my original thought (I don't have those), but recently I read some comment where somebody said that with Irene being his bio-mother, Kurt should have inherited a type of precog-sense, a sorta spidey-sense for teleportation. A natural ability that he won't teleport into an obstacle. And I would be so on board with that. (Also funny, because Ms Marvel had that type of sense and I could pull up panels where Nightcrawler tried to trigger that in Rogue.) Would it be weird to add that now? Sure. But also super cute and helpful.

My deepest gratitude goes out to the fanartists who have doodled and sketched and painted cute family moments for them out of time. Now canon can catch up. Imagine their dinner conversations. N: "Logan is my best friend." M: "Oh, that reminds me there is this blue furball running around with his and my powers. I don't even remember if we ever had sex or not, we're so close in age and have these memory gaps." N: "Mutter, nein!" D: "You should ask him out, you two would make a cute couple. Trust me." R: "You're setting up Nightcrawler with Wolverine and keep giving me grief over Gambit?" M: "He speaks too much French! Wolverine might be Canadian, but at least he's not a Franco-Canadian!" N: "So I couldn't date Northstar?"

Do not get me wrong though. Mystique and Destiny are horrible people and they will stab others in the back. They have worked for the government, they have plotted assassinations of government people. They have fought alongside and against the X-Men. I don't want them tamed or be reasonable. I want their mess. I want them as anti-villains. Because they don't do heinous things for nothing. They like to create less horrible murder events than what could be... some writers just liked to go overboard with the scheming and forgot the sympathic undertones, which I want to cling to. And we deserved a time of peace on Krakoa. Truly imagine a Mystique who was happy on Krakoa. And the absolut batshit villainous energy when it's burned down against her will... now THAT would have been something. Instead of baking resentment into the foundation.

[pedrocomicreviews]

Magik #2

"Just because a child can persevere does not make it right."

So, X-Men reset a few months ago now, and the comics are trying to harken back to how they were a few years before the Krakoa Era-- some of the attempts have been more seamless than others and overall the project is not on the interesting side. But one of the actually new things they're trying is solo books for a lot more characters at the same time.

The Magik solo is trying to be a book to appeal to every era of Magik, and I feel like it's succeeding, even if it's still nothing to write home about yet. It's a great place to start if you've never read her, though.

Right off the bat one of the things I really like is that Magik finally feels like a young adult. The Krakoa Era's decision to keep the New Mutants frozen in their old uniforms and relationships meant that even though they kept being referred to as teachers, it was hard not to feel like they had regressed from the adults they obviously were. Roberto and Sam always stick out as the ones who are allowed to not be like that, but ever since she came back, Magik has been vaguely a teenager-young adult who could still be carded at a gas station and no one would be weirded out about it.

She's definitely the older character here, and she fits the role. I like it when Magik is not only a phenomenal battlemage but also has wisdom to share. Even if I miss her crash out soulless era (you have to scream THERE ARE NO SNOWFLAKES IN HELL every time you kill too many people in Rivals as her), a calmer Magik who's always willing to go to bat for anyone is really fun. Rizzing up the cute waitress on aura alone is also cool, I guess, even though we never see her again. Definitely not a teen, definitely a young adult, definitely allowed to grow past some stuff.

However one thing I am a little annoyed at is that we've regressed her back to having to control Darkchylde -- which, hey, tangent, why don't we spell it like that anymore? It's "Darkchild" consistently all over the book, which is a lot more generic. Is it a copyright problem from somewhere else? Even Marvel Rivals spells it Darkchild, I completely forget when we started to do this. It's boring, change it. -- and I felt like we had left that behind. Illyana is obviously always going to deal with the primal urge to kill everyone around her, but I thought we had left this specific aspect of it in the past alongside the storyline that made it relevant.

She should by all means be in full control of her demon side by now, as part of the point of the character: they tried breaking her and failed, but the scars remain and make her stronger. She is not her damage, but the damage is a part of her. The separation between Illyana and Darkchylde basically only serves to make it so other characters can tell her "Yeah girl your demon side saved the day, don't be afraid of it", and that's like... a story we have told way too many times for Illyana to be surprised by it by now. I have more thoughts on this but they're not really relevant to the issue.

Which is a good one, also. Magik The Book continues to be fun and to have good art and good writing, even if it regresses the character a little too much in my opinion. But eh, that's all of X-Men right now. I can't really blame one book for following a mandate.

This is definitely a good comic book to pick up if you've never seen Magik outside of Marvel Rivals, though. If you just accept her game kit as is, you're good to go.

[kalinara]

(House of X #5)

I mentioned the missed opportunities of Krakoa before, but that was a relatively minor complaint.

But here's my REAL complaint, which I've probably made before, but here we go.

I am still rather furious that, at least as far as I know, we never got the actual post resurrection reunion of these two characters.

Scott KILLED Xavier. He wasn't in his right mind, unquestionably. At that time, he was completely out of his mind, hosting a cosmic being he was never supposed to host (...have I really never made a Jean/Phoenix penetration joke about this? I feel like that was a missed opportunity).

But Scott became a mutant wide pariah because of this.

And moreover, despite all the issues between them before and during AvX, Scott did LOVE Xavier like a father. A flawed father, perhaps, but Xavier was still the man who saved him at the beginning, gave him a dream and a purpose. And he killed him.

Now of course, a lot of things happened after that. Scott died, himself. Came back. Believed the entire team was dead, and decided to try to go out with a last hurrah. And the end of Rosenberg's run was fucking BLEAK. Jono died in his arms, expressing total hatred (and I'm always sad not to see some follow up to that, because that was fucking brutal). Rahne murdered by civilian racists. Alex had just blown himself up. Logan had left in a rage and returned as a cavalry. Emma is at her anti-hero best. And of course, at the very end, the "dead" team returns. With Jean Grey at its head.

Those are a LOT of emotional stressors for a guy whose been mid-nervous breakdown for a couple of decades real time now. And Xavier is BACK. I just can't imagine him taking that revelation without some kind of very justified freak out.

And while I hate Xavier on general principle and try not to care too much about his emotional state, how did HE react to this reunion? Because he does love him like a son, and is far more willing to say that outloud during the Krakoa period than he'd ever been before.

Now, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there was a reunion on panel somewhere. If so, PLEASE tell me. I have to see it. If not. I will continue to sulk, because while I do understand most of the other missed opportunities, this reunion of the man who started the dream and gave his name to it, with the man who, at various times, has been considered the embodiment of it ("Death of X", I point out, wasn't a mini-series about XAVIER's death), we should have gotten to SEE that.

[rei-ismyname]

Nova tries to arrest Magneto

The Guardians of the Galaxy have been invited to the first Hellfire Gala, but only Richard Rider and Star Lord are able to make it. As they pull into The Peak, Nova is feeling skittish and anxious about everything changing. Krakoa's moves in particular have shaken the galaxy.

Among other things, he finds himself allied with reformed bad guys and has that reflexive heroic urge to punch them. DOOM, Super Skrull - he doesn't like grinning and pretending he can trust these people. When he and Peter Quill are greeted by Ambassador Magneto, Nova leaves him hanging on a handshake (rude!) and declares he's going down.

Rich clearly has an amazing memory (it's Al Ewing, so duh) and huge cop energy. He brings up an ancient space crime (that was actually Melter but whatever) and charges him with it. Mister One and Mister Two weren't mutants, they were Shi'Ar Subguardians. I actually covered these events here. You can decide for yourself if Mags is guilty.

Mags doesn't respond very well to his ranting and raving. As Brand and Star Lord try to calm them down, hero and villain step into old familiar roles. For Magneto, that role involves dramatic violence - he flings a vehicle at him. Mags loves throwing vehicles around and he must be missing it. Honestly, I love Magneto throwing vehicles around. It's fucking great.

Nova punches that shit in half as they trade one liners. There's still an air of politeness as they break shit. It's almost flirting, though ASCAB.

Abigail Brand has had enough of this shit and calls for a security team. Peter isn't much help but it's probably the right choice. Nova breaks down why exactly he's the galaxy's top cop. The Nova Force.

Marvel usually avoids specificity with marking time - 'a dozen years' has many implications.

Well, the Nova Force and punches to the face. He knocked his helmet off! Mags starts to get serious, switching to Master of Magnetism mode, but this is Brand's station dammit. She tells Rich he's full of shit and just wanted someone to punch. A clear bad guy he could oppose to feel like a good guy. She's not wrong either.

Nova admits he was being a dick and Mags meets him there. They start to chat, though good luck getting Magneto to be respectful about the Avengers. He frames it as a question about the Guardians' beginnings, but Mags takes the opportunity to reminisce on times past.

Nova trying to arrest him for 70s shenanigans has Mags dwelling on them. He does it in the most verbose and dramatic way possible, but he's saying that the simpler days of black and white morality pull at him too. Al Ewing had his hands on Magneto for SWORD, X-Men Red, and Resurrection of Magneto so he nails his state of mind. The secret king that's starting to crack as every choice feels like a bad one. The traumatized and grieving man that doesn't have ultraviolence as an outlet anymore.

These two powerful men hover in the docking ring and agree that change is scary, that DOOM probably shouldn't be trusted, ha. It's a nice moment for both of them, and Rich has his own trauma/violence dynamic, but I'm mainly interested in Magneto. He was knee deep in nasty shit at this point, but he's a lot more self aware and restrained. Dick Rider ended up fighting on Arakko during Judgement Day and the Genesis War, interestingly. Curious that both men found something they were looking for in the broken land.

[stormxpadme]

For the Pride Month Prompts of Scott Summers Events @scottsummersevents, I made an entry for the Mood Board Madness section.

title: Krakoa was for lovers

prompts: Club scene, poly ship characters/ship: Logan/Scott Summers, Logan/Scott Summers/Synch/others medium: comicverse (Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence)

story: Krakoa was for lovers but now that Krakoa is out of reach for most mutants, where does that leave people no longer interested in outdated moral restrictions limiting their love life? Ever since the Orchis war, Scott and Logan have been too busy with their new teams respectively to give much thought to that question, or for finding chances to live out that part of their lives, no longer even sure where they stand with their poly relationship after Jean's left for space indefinitely. But when pride month kicks around and Logan is forced to take a couple of days off after a particularly nasty encounter with inhibitor bullets, he uses the chance for a visit at Scott's new team base and drag his lover out for some much needed timeout in a mutant dance club. Amazingly enough, they quickly find that thanks to the mental bonds still connecting the mutants left on Earth, it only takes the right moment and mood for the old spark of unity and passion to re-ignite. After mentally indulging in a long-missed erotic encounter together with a few of their old lovers like Synch and others, Logan and Scott withdraw to Scott's private rooms in the Anchorage base for another few hours of private tenderness and ecstasy, strengthening the bonds between them before the next mission will call.