#genocide in genosha

[moontheoretist]

I can't stop thinking about how this entire thing with Genosha is also echoing a real life genocide happening right now in Palestine. Every sentence that characters say seem to echo the sentiments of people that are dying in front of us. For example, Scott's comment about "if they looked a bit more human, you'd have focused on death tolls over polls" hits so close to home, because aren't Palestinians dehumanized to the point that governments don't even care about their deaths?

They only care about being called antisemitic because Israel said so, but they don't care about the fact that what is truly antisemitic in this situation is to allow the same thing that happened to Jews during the Holocaust happen to another group of people as if it was ok for them to die. It's both antisemitic and islamophobic. I can't stop thinking that Scott's frustration kind of also echoes our own with our governments and politicians who do absolutely nothing to help and only care about their politics over human lives that are being lost. And even go so far to outlaw peaceful protests simply because we as people, as a united front across borders stand with Palestine and they see it as a threat.

I personally can't imagine someone watching this show and not start feeling compassion towards the real people that suffer the same thing. If episodes 5 and 7 don't trigger understanding in you, and you still think that Israel is in the right, try to look at those mutants. Yes, they have powers. Yes, they could use them against humans, but even if some of them do, it doesn't mean every single one of them deserves to be treated as an enemy for the fact they're not the same as you.

If this cartoon ever taught me anything (and I mean both the old and the new version), then it was compassion towards those that are not the same as me. Taught me to care about people different than me.

[salarta]

Polaris is the Moment

On a drive today, I was thinking more about Polaris/Lorna Dane and where we are as a society. When you get down to it, Lorna would be the perfect character for exploring modern issues. The problem she has is people working at Marvel who are too up their own asses with their toxic nostalgia to recognize and respect this.

Trauma

Literally no matter your view of Lorna, trauma has been a major element of her usage throughout her entire existence.

The biggest and most important case, of course, is surviving the Genoshan genocide. She witnessed the horror of a modern genocide firsthand. Magneto, her father, has genocide background too, but his is from the Holocaust. Being that happened almost a century ago, a lot of younger readers will of course respect that, but there are changes to society since then.

Of course, there's the genocide that Israel (mainly Netanyahu) is carrying out toward Palestine, and now is starting to do it to Lebanon. If Marvel today were less corporate and more responsive to the moment, the comics would reflect this matter and address it. It's been a year already.

But even setting aside the genocide (which feels wrong to say, and Marvel should feel even worse for pretending never happened with her), she's had several traumas. She's been mind controlled and possessed multiple times. She's had her body itself forcibly changed twice (Zaladane and Apocalypse), with changes that caused her to indirectly hurt people (the stupid ass hate aura type power via Zaladane, and diseases as Pestilence). Many people around her have died, which isn't unique to her, but ball it all together with all else she's endured and it's a hell of a lot.

Lorna isn't new to trauma. So as we live in a moment where we're putting real thought into our traumas, Lorna offers a far better window into that reality than most Marvel characters, let alone X-Men characters.

Technology

When Lorna was created in 1968, we had TV, radio, phones, and the infancy of computers. But that's it. Back then, if you didn't live in a city, you could probably still get by. And your communications and social circles were entirely local, aside from perhaps pen pals. You still used paper and coin money, and checks, for transactions. Credit cards as we know them were extremely new.

Cut to today. Basically everything is tied in with technology and the internet. Most money transactions are done online. We often do more social interaction online than off. We rely on computers for just about everything critical to how society functions. Most people would be fucked if we lost all of that. And the internet is the core way for misinformation and disinformation to spread and get made now.

Lorna's powers are electromagnetism. Not just flinging cars around because they're made of metal. A woman like that, powers like that, at her age in the comics? Why the fuck isn't she being used in relation to technology more? Why isn't she accessing the internet with her mind? Why isn't she tricking her enemies by sending them fake messages imitating the voices of the enemies' allies? Why isn't she kicking ass in both the physical and virtual worlds?

Because toxic nostalgia held by people like Brevoort says she needs to alternately cry into Havok's lap and suck his dick while getting captured cause all she can supposedly do is fling cars around. That's why.

Geoscience and Climate Change

Lorna was going for a geoscience degree back in the 70s. At the time, it happened only cause of a stupid excuse to write her out of the comics by having her leave the X-Men with Havok and do the same degree as him.

We can do better now. And while the 2020s X-Factor pissed me off in most ways, one of its few positives was establishing that Lorna has a PhD now.

That her powers involve electromagnetism means she should be able to directly tap into and sense the Earth and its electromagnetic field. She's already done it in Giant-Size X-Men when she threw the island Krakoa at the time into space. This connection SHOULD mean she has a sense of things going wrong with the planet.

Now, I want to very heavily stress something. I do think there are other characters for whom this topic is better suited, like Storm within X-Men and Marvel because of her weather powers, or Poison Ivy in DC because of climate change's impact on plant life. If the story is heavily focused on these things, I do think those characters take higher priority than Lorna for tackling them. Same as I would find it wrong for Storm to tackle the Genoshan genocide when she didn't experience it, or acting like she's a greater authority on electromagnetism than a character (Lorna) whose entire power set is electromagnetism.

But in a world where all's fair and done well, Lorna can definitely be a voice in the overall story of addressing climate change. She can address it in academic ways and specific to the electromagnetic side of things. Limited scope that suits the character's background.

You would think that a woman with this background would care about this issue. At least, that would be the case if Marvel actually reflected the moment.

Identity and Self-Expression

This topic is SUPPOSED to be the bread and butter of X-Men. The entire concept of X-Men came out of the civil rights era. So, technically, all characters in the franchise can address this issue.

But Lorna has background that makes her better for addressing it than most X-Men characters.

Her very first issue, way back in 1968, introduced her as a woman who had naturally green hair but always dyed it brown to avoid attracting attention.

Why?

Even before she realized consciously that she was a mutant, she was very concerned about her identity in the world and how people perceive it. She was hiding her own features, hiding her uniqueness and true self, to fit in. So you have to ask why. Did her foster parents push her into it? Was she getting bullied? Did she have stalkers obsessing over her? Was she simply worried about not being able to function in society and make connections with others if she stood out too much?

There has to be some kind of reason. And this hiding of a natural feature of who she is in order to fit in fits with how we're approaching identity and self-expression in the modern age.

Yet, she's existed since 1968. Which is another strong part of Lorna with this topic. The issues we're discussing when we delve into identity and self-expression aren't new. They're just finally being acknowledged and explored more broadly. Addressing this kind of thing with Lorna has advantages over doing it with a brand new character because doing so reiterates how these matters are not new. They've been around forever. Using a newer character, especially creating one specifically for this purpose, would miss the mark in a big way because doing so implies these issues didn't exist until recently. When that's just not the case.

Aside from hair, there's also the gold and red costume she briefly wore in the 90s. The point of it at the time was Lorna becoming more comfortable with her body, being more willing and eager to show it off. Then there was a ton of backlash to her wearing it, and she was put in a team costume.

I'm not advocating for going back to that costume, to be clear. She needs something that suits history, personality and powers, and that costume only handled a single facet of her personality. My point is, she has additional background with self-expression matters.

In closing, if Marvel weren't stupid levels of regressive and up their own asses with sexist nostalgia, Lorna would be a lynchpin character in this moment. We've seen repeatedly now how readers actually want more of Lorna, the real Lorna, not the toxic nostalgia for sexism take on her, and aren't getting nearly enough.

She broke out on Gifted for a reason.

She won the X-Men vote for a reason.

Marvel acts like she has nothing to offer, deliberately ignoring the evidence of their own eyes. Here, I've highlighted four elements of who she is that should make her essential for Marvel to use meaningfully, as a major X-Men character.

That Lorna's potential like this is not only ignored but deliberately undermined tells you much of what their real interests and desires are when they think they can get away with it.

[x-mensirens]

Idk guys, I went into ‘97 thinking we would get some more Dark Phoenix play and political stuff but like….

I think we’re gonna get fascist terrorist cyclops first (head covered uniform type beat)

[punkrogue]

People: rogue is too morally dark rn i dont like it

Me: you do remember she was raised as a terrorist by mystique and destiny, stalked dazzler with the intent to kill her AGAINST her parents wishes, was present for the moorlock massacre in 616, was stripped molested and enslaved on genosha in 616 and survived a GENOCIDE in this, once lead a xmen shock team that was 50% villains and killed TWO men on international television right?

[rei-ismyname]

Logan tried to murder Chuck. What then?

After the sun set on Krakoa and the dust settled, Charles Xavier surrendered himself to 'human authorities.' He was being transported to his super prison built by Reed Snitchards and Tony Nark when...

Logan came to kill him in a very unsubtle way. Surely those guards died or at minimum suffered serious permanent injuries. What little we get of his motivation is an objection to Chuck's time as Sentinel X - killing a bunch of humans. Logan Behavior, basically. Certainly hypocrisy.

Pretty stylish entrance though, The Shining style. He's just about to gut him after Chuck declines explaining himself or speaking at all. Keep in mind resurrection Protocols just phased into another dimension - Logan is aiming to kill Xavier permanently (comic book permanent obviously) here despite the fact he's going to prison for life. He'd actually be subverting punitive state justice here.

I hardly need to say that this is pretty extreme for Logan. He's killed countless people, but for the last few decades he's worshipped the ground Charles walks on. After AvX, when Chuck committed suicide by Phoenix, Logan appointed himself the custodian of 'the dream' and ran the school (though he renamed it after Jean because he's a creepy and petty man.) Cyclops is often held up as Chuck's heir, but I think Logan is just as much. (Though Jean and Storm beat them both out and surpass him.) Maybe this is a hypocritical broken pedestal moment.

Magneto objects, freezing him in place and proclaiming 'no more martyrs.'

Did you know 9/10 failed murderers say 'cripes?'

Then he yeets him out of the prison and levitates it so he can't get back in. Mags and Chuck have a chat and we see nothing of Logan until Wolverine #1.

These people all need therapy. Emotional intelligence so low.

That murderous unilateral motivation seems to have cooled - 'Charles doin' what he did' is third on his list of things that took their toll. Not to minimise his pain, but everyone else has experienced those things too. Many had it worse. Scott, for example, was tortured for six months with his eyes sewn shut and a broken back (which... healed somehow.) If someone else was doing this he'd call them out at best, more likely he'd tell them to get over it. This is #Logan Behavior, though it's weird he doesn't mention Daken's death.

Brief aside - was he truly needed in the pack? I can't see what use a throng of wolves would have for a naked guy with opposite sleep patterns, very different dietary requirements, and the inability to breed with them. His presence got them killed. He was tolerated at best, more likely an imposition. Kevin Costner motherfucker.

I'm 99% sure this is next chronologically. Scott says Logan was 'in the area so he asked him to investigate' - 'the area' being Santo Marco, a fictional South American country that Magneto briefly conquered in 1963. The X-Men answered his distress call.

No mention of Chuck here, and he greets Scott warmly. No thank you though. They patch him up back at the Factory. Looks like he does have use for X-Men.

Wolverine can absolutely give up. It's his thing.

From 'I never should have left the woods' this has to be after Wolverine #1, but before Uncanny X-Men #1-4, because that takes place over a few days and the phone call between Rogue and Scott implies so. We only get the end of this conversation, but it's very safe to assume it was a soft recruitment offer and assumption of a family relationship. No mention of Chuck here either. He claims he's done, citing Krakoa as a loss. It is a loss, but it also bought back the 16 million Genoshan dead and established a mutant paradise in a heaven dimension - one he could have gone to.

Also, Logan didn't build shit. He had nothing to do with Genosha, in fact he opposed and obstructed it. He bailed on Utopia and the narrative kept genocidal threats away from the school. He had little to do with building Krakoa itself and while he went on the missions he was asked to, he remained a skeptic the entire time. He didn't trust the island and lived on the moon in a polycule. Anyway, he tells Scott not to come looking for him. I promise you he wouldn't say that to Jean.

Sure, stay in the woods, idiot. Get more wolves killed.

She's right, they're not strategists.

Looks like he's fine hanging out with Rogue and Gambit. Rogue seemed fine with joining Cyclops and co, but doesn't argue at all when Logan (who is hours away from leaving and has no intention of staying) shoots it down for... reasons? They were X-Men enough when they rescued him from Santo Marco, ingrate.

Neither should struggle to imagine a community 'run' by Scott Summers. Logan has been living with him for at least 3 years and he wasn't everywhere when Logan and Jean were banging. Rogue was on a Krakoan X-Men team with Scott and he and Jean prepped new leaders and stepped back. They all considered themselves Krakoan and Scott 'lived to serve.' How does it end this way? The Chuck question answers itself, though Logan doesn't say 'I wish Magneto didn't stop me killing him' or something. Scott? Uhhh, you took this misanthrope's grumbling as gospel. Go to Alaska and say hi! Or maybe he'll call you. Kate? Uhm, she just told you. She broke in Fall of X, you know this.

Interestingly, Logan uses the term 'fill Chuck's chair.' I thought he was quitting the parts that don't work? 'Why do you even want to?' should be self explanatory. Rogue receives a phone call after this from Scott, and she says he's 'the last person she wants to speak to.' Maybe Logan is right and he shouldn't be around people. He infected Rogue with Scott haterism very quickly.

The Outliers show up and less than a day later he leaves, heading for the nearest forest. Even the swamp hag that guts him thinks he's a whining bitch. Logan is aware that Rogue's group are planning a prison break, that children are being hunted, though it doesn't stop him leaving.

Put all this together and it paints a very human portrait of a traumatized person pushing everyone away, albeit in the most immature way possible. This is what Magneto referred to when he said Logan Behavior, and he's right. If I was talking about a real life person it'd be unforgivably callous, but I'm not. I wrote this piece to interrogate his continuity from Krakoa to FTA, and I was expecting it to make less sense to be honest. As I said, this is textbook trauma response. It portrays that well, but the whiplash of Logan going from 'murder Chuck no matter the collateral damage' to 'Chuck did bad things but Cyclops is worse - don't be friends with him, Rogue' is severe and unsatisfying.

Uncanny #700 was one of the last things written for Krakoa, so it's likely that information wasn't available for FTA writers. Except Logan and Kate had both sworn they'd kill Chuck with plenty of notice, so I don't think that deserves a pass. Is anyone surprised by this? Maybe I should just write a post that says 'From The Ashes doesn't care about smooth continuity and has clumsily broken up these teams by fiat. Just ask Havok, Polaris, Angel, Storm, Omega Red, Jubilee and Shogo, etc etc. Also, it's pretty fucking mid' and pin it on my Tumblr.

That's no fun though. Even when it sucks, when it's safe and nostalgic, when everything you loved has been swept away and replaced with cardboard cutouts, when it's 'fine I guess', and even when it's great; the play's the thing. I love the X-Men and fans have as much ownership of the story as anyone. Not entitlement, just the right to be a part of the narrative, close to the characters. I find it fun and if I ever don't I'll stop (or spend a few years covering Krakoa). I hope you do too. Importantly, you should be critical of the things you love in good faith. As for Marvel the capitalist entity - all bets are off. Fuck em. They do it for the money, we do it for the love.

[biblioflyer]

Being right doesn’t mean you get to kill everyone else.

I’ve seen some griping that the writers of X-Men ‘97 “did Magneto dirty” by first showing how human / mutant coexistence was a delusion only to have Magnus go full genocidal tyrant. I think this, like the exchange between Rogue and Captain America has nuances that aren’t being appreciated, but I’ll grant the point that the demographic disparity and the destructive capabilities of the setting ensure that it doesn’t take broad support by non-mutants to enact a pogrom. Even before the revelation of Bastion, the idea of an attempt to kill as many mutants in one place as physically possible and ruin the illusion of safety wasn’t that far fetched: with or without the support and sanction of major world governments.

That Magneto would respond to the Genosha massacre with disproportionate force, and let’s call it what it is: killing humanity including quite a lot of mutants, is not the writers turning on Magneto. It’s who Magneto is in the animated series and at the moment in comic lore it’s based on. Who Magneto is is a mutant supremacist. Separation from Sapiens was never just about safety. Magneto wanted to build a parallel culture. Not for the sake of creating a culture and the beauty of creative endeavors but because of mutant chauvinism.

Because the setting is what it is, Charles the assimilationist is doomed. If the rubric for success is mutant safety and equality across the board, then it’s simply unachievable because tiny cabals of madmen can cobble together salvaged alien tech, secrets from the future, and knock off Stark tech to unleash horror that is obscenely difficult to prevent and doesn’t require widespread societal consent.

Charles chooses not to blame the people just trying to live day to day for the actions of hate filled mad scientists and lynchers.

Magneto blames the masses for not recognizing and stopping the threat in their midst, sees their inaction as complicity, and even if they are blameless then they are camouflage within which existential threats to mutants conceal themselves and if Magneto has to burn down the whole village or planet to deny genocidal schemers their cover, that’s what he’ll do. He’ll kill as many non-mutants as it takes to feel safe because he did not value their lives prior to Genosha, did not feel they valued mutant lives, and he has always viewed mutant lives as more valuable. Genosha ratcheted that up to genocidal rage.

Revolutionary, terrorist, oppressed, and oppressor are not static categories. Real life figures and fictional characters can slide between them very easily because monsters can make valid points and victims can do monstrous things. A correct observation about society doesn’t justify the monster’s darkest desires and suffering doesn’t make evil deeds justified.

That’s the point. That’s always been the point of X-Men. It’s not cops and robbers, bigots vs good people, it’s the struggle of everyone not to judge everyone else by the worst thing a member of the other group has ever done. Magneto and Bastion are the faces of giving in to rage and fear. Succumbing to the easy moral certainty of collective punishment and of the rationalizations provided by their respective supremacies. They always were. Even when they were making sense. Especially when they were making sense.

Epilogue: (Tolerance is Extinction pt 3 spoilers)

It’s never too late though to step off the path of the tyrant. Better early but late is better than never.

[justmenoworries]

I swear to fucking god, if they make Magneto a villain again after this I'm gonna mcfreaking lose it.

I know "Magneto was right" is basically a meme at this point but... he literally was? He literally didn't do anything wrong???

The Prime Sentinels were going to kill an unfathomable number of mutants. No one else came to help. The humans were all in on it and no, Val finally getting a conscience after already helping Bastion does not count.

Magneto didn't even hurt anybody, he just shut down the killing machines.

"[Magneto] declared war" Oh shut the fuck up Logan, no he fucking didn't. If anyone declared war it's fucking Bastion when he attempted a genocide on Genosha.

And even if Erik did declare war at this point he's well fucking justifed to do so, the peaceful approach has only ever fucked him and every other mutant on Earth over so far.

[silverflowers14]

My X-Men AU: A rough outline

Cause you guys wanted to hear it. here's part of it. I except ideas, critique as long as it's not mean, and your thought on it.

It's kinda hard to explain because it’s come to me in parts and starts in different ways. I wanted Logan to have the same mutations as he normally does, and since there’s a multiverse, there’s bound to be one version of him that’s an Omega-level mutant. Logan, however, is typically shown or classified as a Beta or Alpha-level mutant, and this one is too—but I wanted him to change or evolve into an Omega-level.

I kept Logan’s backstory the same, except for the fact that during the Weapon X procedure, he dies and stays dead (don’t worry, he’ll be fine … eventually). The program dumps his body in a forest in the middle of nowhere. Now that I had that part set, I needed something to revive him while simultaneously making him an Omega-level mutant. So, I came up with these things called Guardians. They are spirit-like beings made of light with godlike powers, typically green in color, that protect the Earth from threats and nature from humans. Occasionally, they choose a creature (in this case, a mutant) they find worthy to bond with permanently.

After Logan is dumped, one of these Guardians bonds with him, reviving him from death and making him younger.

Some of the improvements he gets include:

The adamantium bonded to his bones is now organic (by organic, I mean not toxic).

He can coat and uncoat his bones with the metal (adamantium—don’t ask how; it is what it is, it’ll make sense later).

He heals the same, but now he is immortal.

He can share his healing with others.

If he forms a strong enough bond with another human, mutant, or animal, they become immortal as well, and they are psychically connected (but only for communication).

He has Mother Nature-like abilities (he can revive and kill plants or other natural things).

He has an energy-based power that burns you if he feels threatened and turns red when he’s angry.

He can shift into a few different animals, limited to a wolf, wolverine, dog, cat, and weasel (because I said so). He also has personality traits of all these animals. He can half-shift as well, giving him a werewolf-like appearance, but more human.

Appearance

He can shift his height from 5’3” to 6’6”. If he grows taller, he gains fur—a caramel color that fades into black near his hair.

His hair is long and has two stripes that form a point on his forehead and connect at the bottom of his hair. The pattern resembles the stripe wolverines have.

He has longer, sharper fangs, pointier nails, and piercing blue or amber-colored eyes.

His body has markings on his back, arms, chest, and one on his head (I haven’t decided what they look like yet, and I’m open to suggestions).

His hands are large and paw-like.

When he’s 5’3” and not covered in fur, he looks the same as normal, except younger (around 26). He has freckles, green or red eyes, shorter—but just as sharp—fangs, and dull-pointed nails. His hands remain large and paw-like.

After Logan is revived and gets over the confusion of being alive and having new abilities, he sets out (and just because I can, and it makes it funnier to me later) to create an entire country. Much like Wakanda, no one knows about it, and they keep it a much better secret. It’s located in a “Godzilla vs. Kong: The New Empire”-like place, and by that, I mean exactly like it—except not as deadly. There are no giant monkeys or dinosaurs, but it’s just as majestic and beautiful, and it’s all Logan’s.

The population of this place is larger than Genosha’s, and it’s more successful at not being blown up. It’s well-protected, and its leader is not a dictator or a genocidal maniac (cough Magneto cough).

The majority of the population are ferals (because I said so), and the rest are mutants. All are rescued by Logan and brought there, and there is a strict no-hate rule. The culture is native and flamboyant in nature, and singing is a common thing to hear. The country is named Novesper (a word I made), meaning "new hope."

The next post will cover what I call feral tech.

[duncneydivorce]

Lorna was magnetos protégé before she was his daughter and that’s such a fundamental part of their relationship that I feel is lost in the fandom interpretation of their dynamic.

For all his many mistakes with the twins magneto didn’t abandon them, if anything he literally took them in and kept trying to be part of their lives and they’re trauma bonded to him through the similar tragedies all three of them lived through. Lorna is the child he actually abandoned, he knew since she was a child she was his and where she was but he made the deliberate choice not to claim her until she was ready for his crusade, which if we’re being generous was his own way of protecting her but it shows how he will never put his children above his mission and ego.

Lorna spent a lot of her pre 90s era unsure of her place and powers, which is what motivated her to seek magneto out in the 90s. Unlike Pietro who was only on Genosha because he was being emotionally blackmailed by magneto, Lorna was there because she wanted to be, largely because she believed it would help her better understand herself, and that’s where she began her tutelage under him. However, even after mentoring her he still didn’t claim her. For all their estrangement magneto lauded Pietro around like a prince on Genosha and always claimed him, Wanda didn’t even help Genosha and she was still given the royal welcome as his daughter, where as Lorna actually did work on Genosha, trained under him and was significantly less hostile then her brother but that STILL wasn’t enough for magneto to tell her the truth and publicly claim her as his child. In fact it wasn’t until Lorna survived a genocide that he finally accepts her as his daughter despite knowing she was his this entire time because that man is incapable of bonding with his own children through anything else but the suffering that defined his own childhood.

[moontheoretist]

This episode is for people with the nerves of steel. You look at the screenshots on your own responsibility. The imagery is disturbing for any group that faces oppression and fears persecusion and death.

Genocide in Genosha: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

... this entire episode is too horrifying to watch. The deathtoll...

So many victims that Magneto had a flashback to the Hollocaust.

And then... he was killed, along with the Morlocks he protected.

[salarta]

Comic Book Fandom and "Got Mine Fuck You"

There's a recurring situation I see way too often with X-Men comic book fandom. As I write this, I know what I'm saying doesn't apply to everyone, or to every fandom, or to every platform. It applies to what I've seen. And what I've seen is abysmal.

Back when the 2020 run of X-Factor happened, I saw a LOT of apologism for the way Polaris/Lorna Dane was treated on that book. Paired with trying to spin her being on the book as good for her.

"Oh hey yeah, the X of Swords issue didn't acknowledge Lorna surviving the Genoshan genocide because... uhh... it was all implied! They didn't just didn't say it explicitly."

Then when the Genoshan genocide took center stage in another comic's story arc a couple years later, with Kitty Pryde as the focus, Lorna acting like she has no history with it and just complaining about a lack of coffee gets painted as "Oh but there's only so much panel space! And they already told Lorna's story with Genosha anyway, this time they're focused on Kitty's story with it!"

Let's also not forget that during the X-Men vote, we had so, so many X-Factor fans arguing for her to lose the vote, and not get to be a mainstay on the flagship book, because "X-Factor is her book and she's getting good use there anyway." As if it would've been impossible for her to be on two books at once. Some of those fans were at least more honest about it, where they admitted the real reason they wanted her to lose is cause they thought the book would die without Lorna to exploit for other characters like Rachel.

And now, we have the current X-Factor. Where fans of Havok, Pyro, the name X-Factor, nostalgia for the 90s, etc have all insisted that forcing Lorna back into "Havok's girlfriend who acts stupid so he can be a big strong man about it" is fine actually. Perfectly cool. The sexism is satire so it's fine, everything's fine, shitty treatment of her is fine. Anything to promote Havok, or Pyro, or X-Factor, or whatever else.

Only for those same people to start crying the instant Havok and Pyro look stupid too. Because you see, they can excuse the sexism and making a woman look stupid and completely destroying her character and development to make her fit a sexist mold for their cis straight Aryan male self-insert.

But they draw the line at their woobie self-inserts looking just as dumb. Stupid and character assassination is for the womenfolk you see, not for men.

What I'm getting at is, I keep running into a brick wall called "Got Mine Fuck You" that's pervasive with too many comic book fans. And while I'm emphasizing this behavior on Lorna, it's not just her. They've also done shit like attack and badmouth another writer for daring to suggest their great golden god Writer Of The Moment could have plagiarized their work. Harassing her, changing her Wikipedia page. Because they care more about salvaging the reputation of their favorite things than about what's right.

It annoys the fuck out of me. Because in spite of all the fanfare about comics being progressive (when it's financially convenient), this is one of the big gaping dark sides.

I try not to be that guy. I can't say I don't fail, but I try to be better than these chucklefucks.

When season 1 of Gifted killed Dreamer off, I had no problem calling out how asinine and insulting their handling of her death was. I COULD have been That Asshole that tries to act like it was a genius decision, all because Polaris was being treated amazingly in season 1 and Dreamer's death could've been leveraged for Pain Points for Lorna. I didn't do that.

Secret Wars House of M also gave Quicksilver and to a lesser extent Magneto a raw deal in characterization. Even as AU characters, it hit very wrong for Pietro to be depicted as a mustache twirling traitor type when there were ways to keep him closer to his core without taking that route. Now I will admit, I had a moment of weakness with this because I loved what it was doing with Lorna. But in the end, I still recognized it was a problem.

Even with the X of Swords issue of X-Factor. There were many problems with Lorna's treatment there, but there were problems all around. Rockslide fans were very upset with it, for good reason. And Rockslide had actual people around who knew him and had closer relationships with him. Why did they get shafted, with Lorna used instead?

Fandom should really strive for better. For all characters. Not just their pet favorites. Fandom should not be eager to throw other characters, other fandoms, everything that means so much to them and resonates with them, under the bus just so their own faves can get a little benefit out of it.

Fans should not be eager to make excuses for shitty treatment just cause that shitty treatment makes their fave look good. Fans should not want to see another character's potential undermined and thrown away just cause keeping that character down allows a book they like to prosper. Fans should not be trying to make sexism out to be nothing but satire just cause they think a female character "deserves terrible characterization."

These fans try to say their fandom is great. But then they act in ways that tell the world it's not.

It would be nice if they had some fucking principles for once.

[fionapplespiano]

X-Men 97 speed running these iconic comic storylines like

So far we’ve had

- Inferno

- Lifedeath

- Cable being sent to the future

- The Genosha genocide

- Scott and Jean’s marriage problems including a psychic affair and Jogan’s resurrection🤮

And we’re only halfway through good lord, we’re gonna be on Krakoa by the season finale

[spottheantisemitism]

Magneto and Holocaust Inversion (Many Such Cases)

Case #1: He who fights monsters ( UXM #150 I, Magneto - Chris Claremont)

So this was my first X-men comic I got at a con at a discount so THIS was my introduction to Magneto. I love this comic to bits. It's a great scene

While this sudden breakdown is quite good there's the pieta symbolism between two jews and there's the distinct implication of "I'm no better than the Nazis" in his breakdown (you are allowed to fight me on this as not counting as holocaust inversion)

to pivot Magneto this much Claremont pretty much had to do something akin to holocaust inversion because Lee and Kirby wrote him as a fascist coded character and Claremont couldn't not have Jewish (and Romani?*) holocaust survivor who was likely sonderkommando not realize the irony of his actions.

Also we get more Magneto backstory and depth in ONE PAGE than any comic before and most comics since

Case #2: No equals (Magneto Rex episode 3- Joe Pruitt)

Listen the Genosha metaphor was clumsy when Claremont wrote it but the hands of Joe Pruitt, it sounds like a Soviet psyop about the evil colonizer Jews who like apartheid.

While Pietro is one of the few people who get to say the "you're making us look bad" line and it landing in and out of universe the way it's presented is the most simplistic argument possible

The implication of "he's gone full circle and become the oppressor" is clear and this time painfully intentional. The fact that these people are imprisoned for having legacy virus- the x-men equivalent of aids just makes it all worse

Case #3: A mad old terrorist twat (New X-men: Planet X -Grant Morrison)

^ tw for misgendering Grant Morrison who used he/him at the time of publication but use they/them now.

Many people have pointed out that part of what stings when Morrison separates McKellen from the "schizoid-conflicted" Hitler reborn terrorist twat Magneto is the former is a gentile and therefore more deserving of their respect. The implications that Magneto is like that because his ideas are dumb and out-dated mirrors the way antisemites claim that Jews are gentiles over "their made up fairy tales".

I don't think Morrison is so much an antisemite as the kind of fanenby hypocritical chud who loves the silver age (bad era to fandomize and idolize, Grant) exactly as it was. They love when THEY get to make Beast or Ice man gay but hate when a Jewish writer makes a wannabe dictator a Jewish holocaust survivor. We get it Grant, rules for thee but not for Jews. No, no they'll rewrite the character as literally Hitler to show that only Morrison gets to re-write X-men comics, antisemitic implications be damned.

Well you made one thing clear, Grant sweaty, you hate retcons and the art of Jewish writers whose politics and visions you dislike.

screenshot source:

Case #4: when your boyfriend invokes Godwin's law (House of M: Civil war #3)

I feel like Charles only gets away with this because they're such close friends (who canonically share a room) and he's been through a lot in this issue.

To be fair "you twisting semantics won't save people from fanatics who want genocide" is the BEST comeback to holocaust inversion I've seen in an X-men comic

the framing here is both of them are wrong and Magnus (that's one of Magneto's human names) is clearly in the right about this. The humans may think he's Mutant Hitler but that's because they're projecting

(sorry for making you read sideways and making you read something I took a picture of IRL)

Case #5: The oppressed becomes the oppressor (X-men 97 episode 2)

Magneto's speech in X-97 has been said as a watered down version of his speech in Uncanny X-Men 200

What is pointed out many times is the line where he claims "his own people joined the nazis to betray him". Never expanded upon, never brought up again. There are no other Jewish character in 97, no foils. It feels almost gross and tokenistic, like Marvel wanted Magneto be the good token self-hating Jews. Since at that was the only acceptable type of Jew in early 2024.

I do hope to see a course correction seasons 2 and 3 as something as simple as showing a flashback of his past or just showing a character like Kitty would go a long way to dispel the accidental implication that Magneto thinks all other Jews are evil

*While Magneto's children Wanda and Pietro are explicitly Jewish-Romani everywhere BUT the MCU in some universes like House of M, so is he. These intermarriages happened in Weimar Germany all the time so these universes are quite plausible

[roseraintears]

So Bastion used Genosha for people to fund his sentinell programm.......meaning a bunch of humans saw this guy mass slaughtering a population and were like " lets give this guy money so he can do worse...."

Wanna bet the us president aka the " i cant help genocide survivors cause voters wont like that" guy was one of them

[rei-ismyname]

With recent events in the X-Men comics, I could honestly imagine and see the mutants being dissatisfied with X-Men and starting their own mutant teams that actually fight for mutants without the influences and drama of the X-Men and Xavier. 

As could I, though I'd go back even further than that. The X-Men's mission of specifically rescuing mutants from fucked up shit is relatively recent - for a long time they focused on stopping 'evil' mutants and recruitment. They were a PR exercise in the form of enforcing behaviour and various paramilitary heroics.

I'd say that changed once Xavier wasn't exclusively calling the shots and Genosha was probably the apex of that. Even then, the Xavier School being open to any and all students for free was using his resources positively. The death count is certainly unfortunate, though it's hard to blame the X-Faculty for that.

M-Day and afterwards was a bit of a wash - I'm not sure anyone could be prepared for that.

Skipping forward to Krakoa, I'd agree but I'd separate Xavier and the X-Men. Xavier did give everyone a place to live, but lost everyone's trust and made a series of terrible decisions. So I definitely agree on Xavier. Anyone Morlock-adjacent or from outside North America probably has a negative or neutral opinion on both, which may or may not be fair. It's hard to avoid drama when people keep building murder robots.

Now the X-Men are all split up, with the known active teams being homeless or close to it. They have Xavier's training but not his resources, and that severely limits what you can get done in a world where the public face of mutants is a high profile mass murderer. Anyone left in Graymalkin is likely anti-X-Men (fair) so that just leaves the rest of the world.

Ironically Magneto probably has the best rep when it comes to saving mutants, though he's out of the game, sadly. I can certainly see the desire, but from what we're shown - mutants without the training and resources of Xavier keep their heads down and try to live their lives. It would be cool to see an anti-X-Men team form that explicitly challenges them on their effectiveness and focus.

It's a bit awkward as a minority metaphor - cycles of infighting and genocide - over and over and over. There wasn't a question in there, but I hope I addressed your ask. Thanks for sending it :)

[positivelybeastly]

Welcome to the first Installment of

Goat’s Gremlin Gibber-Jabber

(Hell yeah alliteration)

Hi, I’m currently at work at the moment but I’m on a break now and I wanted to share my thoughts because I got to about an issue in the 20s of astonishing X-Men. I believe the last issue that I read before my Internet decided to say no more, had Kitty saying it’s not like it’s written in stone, flash cutting over to it actually being written in stone.

The reason why I mentioned my work is because my mind tends to wander a lot because it’s a very muscle memory job rather than using brain power, so it wanders and you know I’m currently on the thought train of feline Hank as discussed earlier.

BUT I was just noticing a thing of the similarities in 97 with astonishing X-Men especially the portion with Emma Frost. because it really depends on the material with her secondary mutation of how it occurs. and with Astonishing X-Men there’s that moment where it’s revealed Cassandra nova I believe, altered her to have that sort of secondary mutation because of the genocide on Genosha. It’s not EXACTLY the same in 97 but her secondary mutation wasn’t a thing in the og series till 97.

Cuase there was the genocide on Genosha and there’s Emma being one survivor with her secondary mutation popping up and, that kind of makes me think “oh is there a possibility that we may see feline Hank animated” is it like a possibility because in that storyline if there’s any sort of connection to that storyline which I might be reading into too much but I can only hope it’s just the possibility that we may be able to see him like that.

Cause yknow I was talking about him in his feline form to my rp group and A lot of them did not know about that.I had to explain that and that’s the reason why I did my thing on my blog because of my love for feline Hank.

Cause initially I had noticed that when they introduced Trish Tilby. I knew about her after my initial watch so when I went back I really realized who the reporter was because she kind of slipped out of my mind immediately name wise, but realizing that because she had the thing with breaking up with him, and I don’t like her for that, but whatever. It just lead me to go, “Oh that was the first clue on a possibly feline Hank.”

I really hope it is but then reading astonishing X-Men. I see that connection with Emma and it makes Hope even more that we get to see him animated. I just MMMM feline hank.

Hope you enjoyed my extreme ramble that was mostly Speech to Text cause I had to get it out of my mind immediately else I’d lose it.

Goat’s Gremlin Gibber-Jabber is an S-tier name for a recurring segment, I'm here for this.

So, the secondary mutation is absolutely on the cards, because secondary mutations, as introduced, can just happen.

The two best known instances are Emma Frost's, as you mentioned, and Hank McCoy's, and they happened extremely close to one another - and despite what Cassandra Nova claimed, she had nothing to do with Emma's secondary mutation. Emma's mutation happened out of luck and trauma and pressure.

And it happened . . .

Interesting.

Notice the little blue fella to the right of Professor X in the comic panels? Yeah, Hank is already in his feline form by this point. '97 has already started adapting storylines, directly quoted, outright lifted panels, from the stories where Hank is feline. He's absolutely on the board.

So, the question then becomes, well, what triggered Hank's secondary mutation?

Uh. Well.

He nearly died.

Now, granted, Sage is not in play in '97, so her ability to jumpstart mutations isn't on the playing field, but frankly, it isn't really required, as demonstrated by Emma. You don't need anyone to trigger a secondary mutation, it will just happen by itself - when the right situation arises.

So, literally all we need is for Hank to die, and come back to life.

. . . Which, you know, cheery thought. But it also means that the '97 team can just do it - honestly, I was watching Hank get the living shit beaten out of him during the first part of Tolerance is Extinction like, oh, is he gonna pop? Is he gonna pop? It's on the board now. We're adapting these storylines.

All it takes is for someone on the writing team to take enough of an interest, to want to dive further into Hank's character and develop him.

I'm also heartened to see that you've fallen as in love with feline Hank as I have! He's honestly the version of Hank that I have the most experience with, the one that I grew up reading in the comics, and the sheer amount of depth and complexity inherent in his character, the wild bipolar swings between chattering wit and utter despair, the bon mots and the dumb jokes, the dysmorphia and the bleeding heart, it's such a potent stew of a character that I really do wish it had just been his permanent status quo going forward.

Thank you for the ramble, it was honestly a joy to read. <3