#maybe even mystique if mutants exist in his universe

[iamumbra195]

Living Different Lives

"I think the hardest part is choosing between doing what’s right and what’s easy and you still choose to go out and patrol with me, even though you don’t need to. I think Mom would be proud of you for that.” He knew he said the right thing when the other teen relaxed just a smidge, slightly proud of himself for the speech and– “Did you seriously just quote Dumbledore to me while trying to convince me to be a better person?”

Or

Miles Miles-42 bonding with some angst and a sprinkle of Aaron-42

His skin stung as he blocked three consecutive blows and sent a swift kick toward his opponent, letting out a startled yelp when his leg was caught and his other foot was swept out from beneath him, sending him tumbling to the ground.

Miles landed flat on his back, knocking the air out of his lungs as he groaned. “Y’know maybe I should stop holding back so much, you’d win way less,” he groused, throwing his counterpart an irritated look as he pushed himself into a sitting position.

The other Miles, who he had taken to calling Morales, raised an eyebrow, the corners of his mouth twitching in amusement. “Strength only takes you so far and I’d prefer that my bones remain intact. And you’re the one who said you wanted to learn, Spidey.”  

“Yeah, but learning requires you to actually teach and you’ve been having the time of your life beating me up,” Miles argued, giving Morales a flat look when he simply smirked in response.

“I mean, that is a major part of why I agreed to this,” Morales shrugged unrepentantly, ignoring Miles’ indignant protest as he continued. “You telegraph your movements too much. You’ve got a decent foundation but it has a lot of holes, especially when I don’t have to worry about your whole super strength shtick. Plus, you tend to do this thing where you hesitate a little every time you hit– like you’re trying to gauge how much I can take.”

Miles blinked at the surprisingly constructive criticism, mulling over his counterpart’s words as he crossed his legs and leaned back. Monitoring his superstrength had taken him a while to get the hang of but as time went on it became second nature to determine how he could use it during a fight– even during regular daily occurrences.

He didn’t have to worry about it so much when he was with his spider friends but Miles had lost count of how many times he’d accidentally ripped off a door handle or broken a glass cup.

There was even this one incident following everything with Kingpin and the collider, where this one kid from Brooklyn Middle– Fabio or something similar– refused to leave him alone and kept picking a fight every time he saw Miles. He had gotten in Miles’ face and Miles had pushed him, momentarily forgetting that he had powers and sending the boy skidding halfway across the basketball court.

Just thinking about the stunned silence that followed and the frantic explanations that had spilled from his mouth made him want to shrivel up and die, embarrassment curling in his gut.

“Hey,” Morales called as he nudged Miles’ leg, effectively diverting his train of thought before he could fall down the rabbit hole of randomly remembering every stupid thing he’d done since he was old enough to remember.

There was a troubled look on Morales’ face when Miles tilted his head back to look up at him, his eyebrows drawn into a frown that made the tiny wrinkle between them more pronounced. It was the same face he always made when the state of his universe was brought up.

“What’s wrong?”

“How did you tell your mom the truth about the whole… Spider-Man thing?”

Miles was momentarily blindsided by the question before he laughed a little awkwardly. Thinking about that particular conversation sent a rush of both anxiety and relief through him. “I�� I was kind of forced to? Not that I didn’t plan to do it eventually,” he added a little hastily despite the fact that neither of his parents were around. “It’s just that after everything with the Spot and the Spider Society I was in a coma for four days and Gwen and the others took me home ‘cause my parents were really worried and then we had to sit down and talk about everything when I woke up… so yeah.”

Morales’ shoulders slumped, his mouth twisting into a bitter line.

“Do you… want to tell your mom?” Miles ventured carefully.

Despite the number of times he had visited this dimension, sometimes even teaming up with the other teen’s alter ego to take down members of Sinister Six Cartel it was always a touch and go when it came to bringing it up when they were both out of their suits.

Morales shrugged in response to his inquiry but his shoulders were lined with tension. “It’s not that simple. Me being the Prowler… it’s nothing like you being Spider-Man. It’s not something Mami would be proud of.”

Miles wet his lips as they lapsed into silence, absently tugging a loose piece of skin between his teeth as he considered his counterpart’s situation. “I think you’d be surprised,” he said quietly, mind drifting back to the many months he’d spent agonizing over what his parents’ reaction would be.

Sure, they hadn’t been ecstatic that he had been putting himself in danger with them being none the wiser on a daily basis and maybe they had gotten a little overbearing and protective but it had been far tamer than anything his mind had conjured.

“I’m a murderer,” Morales spat angrily, shoulders hiking up to his ears as he glared at the ground. “What’s there to be proud of?”  

Miles wasn’t going to excuse that, he wasn’t going to absolve him of his guilt by reassuring him that the people he killed were probably bad people because he didn’t know that, and even then, taking a life was never something he’d condone.

Morales’ choices and actions were his own to address and deal with the consequences of but he still had his whole life ahead of him. He made mistakes, big ones at that but he still had time to change, he could still better himself.

And he was.

Miles had seen it himself in the reactions the residents of New York had to Spider-Man and Prowler patrolling together. There was less fear and more of a wary hope in their faces when they looked at them and it never failed to make something warm swell in Miles’ chest.

And Miles had always been an advocate for second chances.

Perhaps it was because a part of him had always wondered if he could’ve gotten Uncle Aaron to turn his life around, to leave the Prowler behind if he had managed to survive that gunshot. But that was a what-if he didn’t have the luxury of entertaining.

Morales was different. He was a distorted reflection of Miles, one that represented a life that could’ve been his if he was born under different circumstances.

“You made mistakes,” Miles said and continued even as Morales scoffed. “I’m not trying to justify what you did but… you’re trying to be better, right? I think the hardest part is choosing between doing what’s right and what’s easy and you still choose to go out and patrol with me, even though you don’t need to. I think Mom would be proud of you for that.”

He knew he said the right thing when the other teen relaxed just a smidge, slightly proud of himself for the speech and–

“Did you seriously just quote Dumbledore to me while trying to convince me to be a better person?”

Heat rushed to his face and Morales laughed, nothing like his usual amused huff but an actual laugh. It was a little rough, like he wasn’t quite used to making the sound but it made Miles grin.

“Hey, you got my reference, you don’t get to talk, asshole,” he snickered.

“You walk around in spandex and shoot webs from your wrists– I can make fun of you all I want.”

“My suit is cool!”

“It looks like you’re bleeding from your armpits, man.”

Miles threw his arms up in frustration and exaggerated offense– that was like the fifth time someone had said that to him. He had designed another suit after everything but he still liked that one. “Why does everyone keep saying that?!”

“Maybe ‘cause it’s true, idiot,” Morales snorted, letting out an undignified squawk when Miles swept his legs out from under him in retaliation. He bristled like a cat when Miles cackled and somehow they ended up wrestling, his counterpart fruitlessly attempting to get the upper hand strength-wise.

There was an edge of playfulness to it that the other teen rarely indulged in, the harsh breath that escaped him when Miles managed to pin him emerging as more of a scratchy laugh.

“You’re an asshole,” Morales informed him as he threw Miles off and jammed his hands beneath his underarms in a quick dirty move that had Miles flailing, arms slamming down on his sides in a desperate attempt to protect them.

His strength all but abandoned him as he tried to roll away, shrieking with laughter as his counterpart continued his assault with a terribly amused look on his face.

“Stop– stop,” he cackled, ineffectively attempting to glare at him through his laughter– although it mostly alternated between screaming or giggling like a little kid.

“Say uncle.”

“Fuhuhuck you!”

The door opened and Morales froze before drawing away quickly. It took Miles a moment to follow, rolling onto his side and twitching a bit in embarrassment when he saw Uncle Aaron shooting them an amused look.

“You look like you’re having fun. How’s the training going?” he asked.

“He sucks,” Morales answered with no preamble and Miles shot him an offended look, jabbing him in the side with two fingers and the smallest amount of electricity crackling around them. He flinched hard, choking a bit before he gave Miles a withering glare that promised pain if he tried that again.

He was totally going to do it again.

Uncle Aaron huffed, the crow’s feet around his eyes crinkling in amusement.

Something in Miles’ chest stirred and ached at the sight because as much as he had grown used to the man before him, as much as he reminded Miles of his Uncle Aaron, he wasn’t his. He wore the same cologne and listened to the same music but his beard was tinged gray and the jacket he wore wasn’t the same one he used to match with Miles’ own.

“You staying around for dinner, kid?” Uncle Aaron asked him and Miles shook his head.

“Nah, I promised Mami I’d be back for dinner,” he explained, grabbing his phone from where he’d set it on the side in order to check the time. “And I should be going back home soon.” He glanced at Morales. “I’ll see you later?”

His counterpart nodded as Miles began collecting his things. “Thanks, by the way,” he hedged as Miles was just about to dive through the portal back to his own, clarifying when he raised his eyebrows in confusion. “For what you said earlier.”

Something warm bloomed in Miles’ chest, a small smile tugging at his lips. It was weird, becoming friends with someone who looked just like you but remained a completely different person but somehow, in a weird, convoluted way it worked.

“Any time. Tell your mom I said hi!”

Despite all that had happened, he could never quite bring himself to regret accidentally landing on Earth-42.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

I love writing them bickering, it's so funny to me This is kinda inspired by my other fic, Stranger Who Wears My Face, but also not really. It was just a random thing that popped in my head. Fic name is from the song 'Brother' by Kodaline

Check out my other fics and Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbra195/pseuds/Umbra195

[gaeilgeoirgay]

SpideyTorch Week Day Three Alternate Universe

For Day Three, I chose an alternate universe in which our favourite couple are the villains! This one is a bit darker than usual, and there’s a mild instance of torture, that isn’t explicitly described near the end, so do watch out for that

Ao3 Link 

@spideytorchweek

 they don’t question our violence

“Hello, Spidey. Nice of you to swing by.” Comes a mocking voice from behind him. Peter almost swears, his Spidey Sense hadn’t even warned him, the traitor! Clearly it doesn’t think of Morning Star as a threat despite the fact Johnny has tried to kill him on several occasions. Maybe. To be fair, the Dock Incident was Peter’s fault and Morning Star hasn’t attempted murder in ten months, coinciding with the new depths of their relationship.

And it’s not like Peter is a complete angel either. The Wolf Spider is a name synonymous with death and blood- at least Morning Star tends to stick with arson. Peter is a mercenary, it’s not like he can judge his pyromaniac boyfriend.

“Hi, starlight. I have a job for us, and we get to explode the place afterwards.” Peter says, turning around to smile at Johnny, who perks up at the idea. He lets his flames fizzle out and lands next to Peter, who gratefully accepts the kiss he’s given. It’s freezing right now, and even the slightest bit of warmth makes a difference to Peter’s non-regulating self. There’s also the fact he’s kissing Johnny. That’s a big factor.

He turns fully around to kiss Johnny properly, taking care with his fangs so his venom doesn’t enter Johnny’s bloodstream. He rather likes his boyfriend and he doesn’t want to kill him. Johnny eventually pulls back to smile brightly at Peter.

“What’s the job, Fangs? I like the sound of it already.” He says. Peter beckons him up onto the vent protruding from the building they’re on, hopping up himself to swing his legs childishly. Johnny joins him, feet tapping impatiently.

“I met Remy Le Beau downtown a few days ago. He mentioned that there’ve been a few disappearances lately, mainly mutant children living on the streets that don’t appear on official records. I did some digging and it turns out there’s a lab set up in the Bronx that’s been experimenting on mutant kids.” Peter explains, scowling now. “Officially, it’s a gene lab where volunteers donate samples to be studied for cures to various diseases. There’s about twenty kids there now from what I can tell. Remy can’t blow it to hell himself without attracting attention to Xavier but if we free the kids and then happen to torch it, people won’t question our violence.” He finishes.

Johnny is frowning now too. “What excuse are we giving for the attack though?” He asks and Peter laughs. “That’s the best bit. We’re not giving an excuse, we’re telling everyone they were experimenting on children. Their encryptions are ridiculously bad and there’s already been a call for an inquiry into them by S.I. They’re subsidised by Oscorp and it’ll damage their stocks once it gets out that not only did they block the investigation, they funded the lab too.” He explains and Johnny grins.

“Two birds with one stone. Save the kids and piss off Green Goblin. I’m down.” He says and Peter stands. Johnny does too and Peter challenges him to a race across the city. They may be supervillains but they can still have fun.

The building is near deserted when they get there, other than a few dedicated workers and the overnight security guards. The employees aren’t aware of where their samples come from, only the top scientists know about the mutants and the security guards were never told they were guarding people instead of chemicals so they’ve agreed to leave them mostly alone.

Johnny silently melts a window on the top floor and they sneak into the building, avoiding the admittedly meagre defences.

 They soon find a bright red door labelled DANGER and according to the blueprints that Peter acquired, the kids should be behind it.

They crumple easily under Peter’s enhanced strength and Johnny groans at the display. “I love it when you break metal with your bare hands.” He whispers and Peter smothers a laugh. They step over the ruined doors to find the kids in chains.

“Oh I can’t wait to set this place on fire.” Johnny growls harshly and Peter shushes him. There’s a computer terminal by the door so he plugs in a device he built himself that will copy the information on the mainframe to his personal store while deleting every other existing copy. He’ll probably delete his own copy once he goes through it, but he’d prefer to know if some sort of power-killing virus was made before he gets hit with it. Probably by Ross, may he die in agony.

The two of them set to work on the chains, Peter snapping them and Johnny turning them to molten slag. The kids are utterly silent, even when the two villains are reassuring them softly and Peter vows to hunt down every last disgrace to science that was involved in the lab.

Finally, the last chain clatters to the floor and all the kids are free. Remy had promised them assistance from two X-men who would be able to get the kids out of the lab so Peter and Johnny could get to burning it down.

They herd the kids to the window they broke in through and are met by the dark form of Archangel. The mutant’s normally pure white wings are covered in dark metal to blend in with the night but he’s still gentle with the children and they seem a bit less scared to see someone who’s so obviously like them.

Peter watches one little girl with red, scaly wings looking in awe between herself and the hero and smiles. He glances at Johnny and a thought comes to him. He wants that. Him and Johnny, with a kid each, maybe one girl and one boy or two of the same gender.

Hmm. That’s something to consider later. For now, he watches Archangel fly the kids one-by-one to a nearby safehouse where Nightcrawler is waiting to bring the kids to Xavier’s mansion the next morning. They deserve a good nights rest before moving somewhere completely different to everything they’ve ever known.

Archangel returns after the last child has been delivered to Nightcrawler and perches on the windowsill, regarding Peter and Johnny with a slight measure of respect.

“I met Nightcrawler in a mutant fighting ring. Neither of us wanted to be there but we never got the chance to escape. I got hurt and Mystique spirited him away but we never knew what happened to the ring. These kids though, they’re not gonna have that.” He plucks a metal feather from the edge of his wings, the edges razor sharp.

“Hurt those monsters and hurt them well. Maybe some of the more sheltered mutants at home won’t understand but I do. Slit their throats with that and leave them to choke. It’s more than they deserve.” Archangel says solemnly, rage glinting in his eyes. Peter exchanges looks with Johnny and then grins.

“Maybe heroes can’t be caught torturing people but there’s a reason I walk the other side of the line. We won’t make it quick.” Peter promises and Archangel returns the smile. Peter has no doubt that any scientists he and Johnny fail to find will turn up with mysterious wounds soon enough.

Archangel flies off to join Nightcrawler and Wolf Spider and Morning Star stalk back into the labs. The head scientists have been staying in a penthouse apartment above the labs while they run their tests and that’s their destination.

The elevator lets them up after a few key strokes from the Spider and they emerge into a wide-open space, the complete opposite of the small room the kids had been chained in. There are doors off of the main room and the Spider quickly matches them up with what he found in their database.

The third door to the right should belong to Henry Lawson, the torturer in chief. Morning Star melts the lock and they slip into his room silently. The bastard is sleeping peacefully in his bed but it won’t be long before that changes.

Morning Star fingers the metal feather Archangel gave them and slowly starts to heat it up. It’s made of strong stuff and even though the metal is glowing red it’s not metal. It serves as a rude wake-up call when it’s pressed to Lawson’s jaw.

He squeals like a stuck pig and the Spider thanks God for soundproofing. They’re nowhere near done with Lawson just yet.

An hour later, Lawson is thoroughly deceased and they move onto their next target. All six die painfully and Wolf Spider takes a twisted pleasure in it. Still, they have a job to do and they can’t spend as much time on their other targets as they did on Lawson.

Johnny plants his favourite explosives and Peter carelessly pulls the fire alarm. They find a good vantage point on the building across from the lab and wait until the last heat signature leaves the building and emergency services are seconds from the scene to trigger the bombs.

Johnny floats in front of the lab for a few seconds before he unleashes a torrent of flames into the already-blazing building. It only feeds the raging fire and Peter knows it will take quite some time to put it out, Not his problem. He’s too busy planning their next hits on the scientists that hadn’t lived above the lab.

Johnny lands on the roof next to him with a sharp exhale and Peter drapes himself over his back. “Twelve people left on the list, starlight. I vote we eat, have a fantastic night in bed and then brutally murder them all. Their dirty secrets are set to be released to the public in four and a half hours, just in time for the news cycle.” Peter says, tracing letters on Johnny’s back.

“You give the best presents, my Spider. I can’t wait to hunt.” Morning Star replies.

[bigskydreaming]

co-superman@work; MYSTIQUE: *walks in* PERSON: "i can't believe she's someone's mother" MYSTIQUE: *shapeshifts* PERSON: *gasps* "MY MOTHER?!?!?!"

shakljhfalkfhaklfhal

Okay so this is reminding me that @zee-gee was asking the other day about if Xavier and Mystique ever had any romantic history in the comics, and the answer is sorta-kinda? Like, yes, but it was Bendis style romance which means not-very.

Like, basically, for reasons unknown because Bendis’ writing style in the X-books tended to be like less “here is a plot point because Reasons” and more “here is a plot point, NO Reasons, NO explanations, just GO WITH IT and then forget it ever happened, YOU’RE WELCOME”.....

But yeah so for whatever reason, at some point like twenty years ago in-universe or whatever, Mystique just decided, oh hey, I’m gonna pretend to be Moira MacTaggert and get married to Xavier as Moira and we’re gonna have a baby because why not!

And Xavier, who of course is a telepath who knew she was really Mystique the whole time, plus was already good friends with the real Moira and so he was probably already on the phone with her in Scotland when Mystique showed up on his doorstep as Moira and then stuck around for a year, lol what is logic though, its not real.....

Like, Xavier for whatever reason of his own (aka no reasons, no explanations, just go with it), like just....never said anything about the fact that he knew damn well that it was Mystique the whole time and just went with it and they got married even though in his last will and testament he named her as ‘his ex-wife, Raven,’ not Moira.....and so yeah. For about a year, Xavier and Mystique-pretending-to-be-Moira-but-not-well-cuz-he-knew-she-was-never-Moira were married and shacking up together and then Mystique got pregnant with a second generation cue-ball of a baby, and she skipped town, had the kid, dropped him off in foster care as is her patented go-to parenting move, and twenty years later a prematurely bald telepath virtually identical to Xavier in every way showed up whilst leading a new brotherhood of (unironically) evil mutants and said HI I’M HERE TO TAKE MY DAD’S HOUSE AND ALSO KILL YOU ALL FOR KILLING HIM EVEN THOUGH I HATED THAT DUDE LIKE SERIOUSLY FUCK THAT GUY, LOOK I HAVE COMPLEX MOTIVATIONS HERE I AM A COMPLICATED DUDE!

He wasn’t really. At all. He was basically an evil clone of not-all-that-great-to-start-with Xavier, except why make evil clones when you can resort to just acting like Raven has nothing better to do with her time than to be a baby-making factory who births new characters and then dumps them off on other people because she never even wanted them in the first place and writer-bros like Bendis just think THIS IS GOOD BACKSTORY NO?

Fun follow-up on that particular note, one of Chrome-Dome the Sequel’s minions in his new Brotherhood of Unironically Evil Mutants was his younger half-brother Raze.....who basically was a red-haired, blue-skinned shapeshifting Wolverine, cuz you guessed it, like a year or so after playing the Bride of Chucky and giving birth to his unholy spawn, Mystique, who still had not come up with a hobby by then, decides hey what if I go fake being one of Logan’s old lovers (not that he can even remember who half of them are lol so “Faking It” is a bit strong, maybe)....and then WE can get married and I can have his baby that I don’t really want and will just dump into foster care to fast-track his descent into inevitable villainny because hahaha that’s just what happens to mutants whose mommies never loved them DUH.

And thus, after giving it a whole ten seconds of thought and not coming up with any reasons NOT to commit the next year or two of her life to THIS new idea(ish).....Raven then shacked up with Logan for an indeterminate period of time before running off and having Raze and dropping him off at daycare with a LOL see you never kiddo, grow up to be gay do crime and make mumsy proud of you, not that I’ll ever tell you that hahaha I’m such a good mom, take that Kurt and Rogue and your “YOU’RE THE WORST MOM” hot takes, YOU KNOW NOTHING.

And yeah, so Xavier 2.0 and Hi My Name Is Raze, Yes Its A Real Name Real People Have, We Exist grew up to be evil bad guys who are so good at it that despite their fancy pedigrees they made all of one and a half story’s worth of impact before fading into obscurity and never to be heard from again, OH NO, HOW SAD, MUCH WASTEFULNESS.

So in conclusion, do Mystique and Xavier have any romantic history in the comics?

....eh. *shrugs*

[aion-rsa]

House of X and Powers of X: Key X-Men Comics to Read

https://ift.tt/306iu50

We picked out some key books from Marvel's history to help you understand the big X-Men reboot.

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House of X and Powers of X have done the unthinkable: they’ve made having an encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel X-Men continuity minutiae an asset. Now I have a reason to talk about Xorn’s brother Xorn who was posing as Magneto pretending to be Xorn OTHER than to make someone go away.

This is, of course, a joke. HoX/PoX is remarkably accessible for anyone with any level of background knowledge of the X-Men, from “I like Hugh Jackman” to “remember the time the Sentinels tried to kill the sun because it was causing mutations?” But there is certainly a lot in here that rewards deeper knowledge. And to help you understand it all, we put together a reading list that might help you see the throughlines from Marvel Comics history that help create the comics sensation revitalizing the X-Men books. 

For this reading guide, we’re not only going to tell you what’s good and why we like it. We’re also going to try and piece together how it fits into what Jonathan Hickman and crew are doing in today’s series. Because of that, we’re slapping a big ol’ SPOILER WARNING here: proceeding beyond this point risks spoiling big twists from the first half of the HoX/PoX epic.

  FOR GENERAL BACKGROUND: X-Men: Grand Design

Ed Piskor is the indie comix guy who, prior to this book, was best known for a webcomic-turned-prestige-series, Hip-Hop Family Tree, which told the story of the origins of the biggest genre in music (it’s fantastic, by the way). His acclaim for that book, where he would quite frequently homage superhero covers, eventually garnered enough attention from Marvel for them to take a risk on him. In a fit of uncharacteristic ambition, they allowed Piskor to rework thirty years and 300 issues of X-Men or X-adjacent comics into one miniseries. The result is absolutely stunning.

There are retcons involved, but Piskor manages to turn several eras of comics history into one coherent narrative. Retcons become plot points, characters move rationally instead of for post-hoc rationales and slow-burn payoffs are seeded even earlier. It’s all done with a distinctly underground style, which is refreshing and appropriate, since this is the era when the X-Men became counterculture iconography. 

In other words, if you need the best X-Men comics history lesson imaginable, this is the book for you.

Pay close attention to: Anything with Moira Mactaggert. The revelation in House of X #2 that current Marvel continuity was the tenth time Moira had been resurrected and that she had been planning for six lives to protect the mutant race casts literally the entirety of X-Men history in a new light. So now any interaction with the Professor or his students, like, say, when she was watching Jean Grey become the Phoenix on Muir Island, has potentially new meaning. Grand Design is particularly valuable here because Piskor started before the planning for Hickman’s relaunch did, so you are reading source material that the rebooter himself was probably working off of.

read more - The Best Episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series

You may also like: For tone and craft, X-Men: Grand Design is unique. Despite countless reboots and cleanups attempted in the almost 50 years the X-Men have been published, nothing to my knowledge has been this comprehensive or accessible. However, if you like the characters and the idea of a modernized, streamlined origin-esque story, Jeff Parker and Roger Cruz’s mid-aughts series, X-Men First Class, which tells new stories with the original team of X-Men, is worth checking out. It’s a lot of fun, certainly a lot more fun than reading the original Silver Age issues themselves.

start with the first volume of X-Men: Grand Design here.

TO UNDERSTAND THE BIG THEMES: Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye 

No, I’m not kidding. I am absolutely recommending an alternate universe Hawkeye miniseries in an article about X-Men comics. 

On his way to destroying it, Jonathan Hickman was given space to play around with the Ultimate Universe, and he used it, writing a Thor miniseries and relaunching the Ultimates. Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye was the third prong of his overall story and it focused on a fictional country - the Southeast Asian Republic - as Hawkeye and a team of SHIELD agents arrive on site to deal with a civil war. We quickly find out that SEAR scientists have created a virus to eliminate the X-gene, and a serum that gives their own people a virus-resistant mutation. A “paradigm shift,” as one of the SEAR officials calls it.

That government unleashes both prongs of the plan and promptly loses control of the situation, setting up SEAR as a mutant haven for people taking their serum and thus one of the three prongs of a global conflict that plays out in Ultimate Comics: Ultimates.

Pay close attention to: The Xorns. Not because they’re anything like the ones who have shown up in HoX/PoX - the ones in House of X have only thus far been glimpsed, and the millennial nihilist icon from Powers of X is a corpse in an alternate timeline (probably).

read more - Pryde of the X-Men: The Animated Series We Almost Got

No, we’re watching the Xorns in Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye because the idea of mutants as resources in a geopolitical struggle seems central to the conflict playing out between the Krakoan mutants and the humans in the X^1 timeline of today’s series. With all the talk of omega mutants and alignments, you should be able to get a very good sense of what is to come in the mutant conflict by reading this.

You may also like: Ultimate Comics: Ultimates, Hickman and eventual Secret Wars collaborator Esad Ribic’s story of what else is going on in the world while SEAR blows up. That story is mainly concerned with SHIELD being woefully outgunned by the mutants on one side, and evil Reed Richards’ Asgard- and Europe- destroying hyper evolved Children. It’s really good.

read Ultimate Comics Hawkeye here.

FOR A SENSE OF THE TONE: “Days of Future Past”

“Days of Future Past” is right smack in the middle of what Piskor covers in Grand Design. So why read it separately? Because I strongly suspect this is the foundational text of what Hickman is trying to do with his story.

This is one of the all-time classic X-Men stories by maybe the most well liked team in the franchise’s history. In the far future of 2013, Sentinels have taken control of the US and are on their way to taking over the world, because they see human existence as the flaw causing mutation that they are programmed to wipe out. So they kill most of the heroes and round up the remaining ones into camps. Wolverine, Rachel Summers (in her first appearance), Katherine Pryde (not long after her debut), Colossus, Storm and Magneto all team up so Rachel can send Kitty’s consciousness back in time, take over her younger body and prevent the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (led by Mystique and Destiny) from killing Senator Robert Kelly, sending the future spiralling towards extinction.

These two issues function as an effective preview of the conflict that HoX/PoX explores. Humans are irrationally afraid of Mutants, who alternate between trying to be left alone and trying to dominate their progenitors. Meanwhile, the robots say “you both suck” and (presumably before falling into the sun in the case of Mothermold) just start killing.

read more: X-Men Movies Watch Order

Furthermore, “Days of Future Past” is precisely the kind of dystopia that PoX is pushing. The X^2 future has lot of Age of Apocalypse trappings, but its central conflict is between mutants trying desperately to survive and robots who hate everything biological trying to destroy everyone. Surprisingly, though Nimrod is closely associated with this dark future, he doesn’t actually appear in these issues. He comes back in time about 50 issues later, from that future but not seen in it. 

Pay close attention to: The mood and milieu of this story are the important factors, but it’s also probably worth keeping an eye on Destiny and Moira Mactaggart here. The mutant precog had one very...pointed...run in with Groundhog Lady in her third life, and they come very close to each other here. This may be fertile territory for a retcon.

You may also like: Uncanny X-Men #208-209. This is Nimrod’s big battle with the X-Men and the Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle, as Rachel Summers lays dying in Central Park. It’s nowhere near the bleak, oppressive tone that “Days of Future Past” has, but you get some sense here of the sheer power that Nimrod has at his disposal. Also, he’s clearly insane, and as far as things you want from your robots, insanity is not high on the list.

read Days of Future Past here.

TO UNDERSTAND THE MAIN VILLAIN: “The Phalanx Covenant”

The X-Men crossover that introduced Generation X, the second wave of mutant students after the New Mutants/X-Force, also seems surprisingly important. Originally presented as an offshoot of the techno-organic space mutant Warlock’s race, the Phalanx are half Borg, half grey goo nightmare. In this story, they invade Earth to assimilate and destroy it, but find that they can’t assimilate mutants, so they start trying to figure out why by kidnapping the X-Men and a group of teens identified as potential students. They fail, of course, but not before planting phalanx eggs around the planet and killing off a character who became inexplicably popular a year and a half later (Blink, who existed in the 616 for a grand total of 20 minutes before dying. She’s great, but I don’t get why she endured and not someone like Synch). 

read more: The Many Different Versions of the X-Men Dark Phoenix Saga

The Phalanx are the hive galaxy in the X^3 future being called down by the Librarian to assimilate humanity, and it looks like (at least in whatever life of Moira’s this is), they’re finally successful. 

Pay close attention to: Husk and M. I went back and forth on whether to prioritize this or the other comics you might like, trying to figure out which is more important to the narrative, and what sold me on The Phalanx Covenant is the fact that Husk and M are part of the X-Men strike force attacking Mothermold in space in House of X. They’re also two of the more plot-relevant members of Generation X during this crossover - Monet is the one who finally breaks them out of captivity, and Husk’s powers are revealed because one shell is infected with TO virus. That doesn’t feel like a coincidence.

You may also like: Annihilation: Conquest. This is the second mid-aughts Marvel Space crossover, the first helmed by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning exclusively, and the one that launched this line of books into what would eventually give us the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. The galaxy is reeling from the events of Annihilation, and as it recovers, the Phalanx take over Hala and the remains of the Kree empire. This series is good, pure Marvel Space fun. It’s the exact moment where I fell in love with this line of books. It’s also very thorough in laying out the mythology and rules of the Phalanx. 

read The Phalanx Covenant here.

TO TAKE A WILD GUESS ON WHAT IS YET TO COME: “The Dark Angel Saga”

This run on Uncanny X-Force, ostensibly a side book full of stabby mutants (and Deathlok) brought together first as Cyclops’ wetworks squad, then held together by Angel’s money, is without a doubt the best X-Men comic of the last 15 years. It’s also brimming with Apocalypse lore, which feels like one of a couple things left deliberately unstated by the events of HoX/PoX. 

The gang finds an Akkaba enclave in the desert, discovering that they’ve resurrected Apocalypse and are training the now six year old kid to be the evolutionary destroyer they believe he’s destined to become. So Fantomex shoots the kid in the head.

read more: The X-Men Movies You Never Saw

What follows is an extended superhero musing on nature vs. nurture, while at the same time the Death Seed Apocalypse planted in Angel’s back to turn him into Archangel takes over Warren’s mind, turning him into the new Apocalypse. The story goes through all the reasons for it and has Warren reassemble his horsemen. It functions essentially as a deep dive into the reasons for Apocalypse’s ascension and the role that he plays in the galactic ecosystem of the Marvel Universe.

That’s noticeably missing from Apocalypse’s scenes in the new series.

Pay close attention to: The Celestial stuff. Apocalypse in Powers of X was a heroic figure, leading a suicide mission against Nimrod and the robots to get Moira information on Nimrod’s emergence so she could stop it in life 10. There’s no mention of the role he was originally created for, one that exists separate from the Moira cycle because it started thousands of years before she was born: to guide evolution on Earth so the Celestials don’t return and destroy it. How that plays into the man-mutant-machine war seems like a clear fit, but also completely unmentioned.

You may also like: Uncanny X-Men vol. 2 #14-17. Even though it takes place during the utterly dreadful A vs. X, Kieron Gillen’s Mr. Sinister story is the definitive recent take on the master genetic manipulator, and he’s DEFINITELY coming.

read The Dark Angel Saga here.

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Feature Jim Dandy

Sep 10, 2019

Marvel

X-Men

Jonathan Hickman

from Books https://ift.tt/2ZPW4sO

[mistahstroke]

Spotted at Grand Central, bags in hand, {LUPITA NYONG’O}. No, that’s a mistake. It’s {ORORO MUNROE}, they are a {CANON CHARACTER} and come from {X-MEN}. They are {THIRTY-FOUR} and I’ve heard they are {EMPOWERING}, as well {REBELLIOUS}. They happen to hold {THEIR} memories. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.

Hi everybody! I’m Mipsy and this is my LIL INTRO about me: I’ve probs been rping for about 10 years now, so I’ve been around the block, and I love writing! I’m 27, I’ll be honest, I just feel old, in the central timezone! I use she/her pronouns, but you can call me ‘dude’ honestly, if you want to, dude. I don’t mind, I use it all the time. I’m nocturnal, so nighttime in the central is the best time to catch me! Despite me slowly becoming a morning person, I LIVE at night! I also really enjoy writing, so much, I like to write a lot, but please don’t be intimated! It’s just how I get my muse going, and a big reason why I joined this group, cause literate.  But longer replies require some time, so I’m a little bit slow too, with longer ones. So chill activity works for me. Speaking of chill, I’m chill af, and friendly as a cucumber, is that a thing? It sounded better in my head. Anyway, enough of that, in this house we stan one queen™, and that is Ororo Munroe, aka Storm! She’s first of my six babies, and probably the one I love the most, so she could be considered my main. I’ll finish the others within the next couples days, maybe over the weekend, but If you’d like to plot with any, hmu on IMs! And I’ll do my best to explain their changed lives or kept memories. I have them all worked out in my head pretty much, so plot away! Reminder the others are: Haymitch Abernathy, Jane Volturi, Clint Barton, Mera, and Hank Pym! Did I mention I’m a hoe for dem dc/marvel comic book characters? Let’s PAUSE, I think I said enough, and move onto Storm, shall we?:

Welcome to New York, what is your character’s name?

Ororo Munroe, but many people like to call her Storm. Among other things...

Where have they been pulled from in their fandom?

Ororo is being pulled from various X-men comics, but primarily from STORM (2014) the comic, which I can send any of you the link if you’d like to read it too, all you have to do is ask. It’s basically a stand-alone comic that focuses on Storm and her time as an X-Men, as well as what she does outside of it, as she travels the world (no spoilers). She can be pulled from the end of the comic, since I read all the Issues, so she’s familiar with a number of X-Men and mutants. In this New York, she’s been here for three years now, and she’s become comfortable. Too comfortable for her liking, but she can’t leave, so she continues to do her best with the people here. Ororo retains her memories, and her abilities, so she continues to be a humanitarian to the world, mutant and human-alike, because she shares the same ideals as Charles Xavier: that we all must work together to achieve peace. Anything or anyone that disturbs that, Ororo feels she must challenge (just as she does in the comic).

Do they have a job, and if so what is it? 

Storm works as a teacher or, particularly, as Professor Munroe at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Because Xavier’s School exist here, it only makes sense to her, to teach here as well. 

Is there any other information about your character that members might find helpful?

aiight, so just IN CASE any of ya’ll don’t know who my girl storm is, i’ll give you a lil background on her ( before the comics go all off into different universes and get all confusing )

ororo is a descendant of an ancient royal line of white-haired, blue-eyed sorceresses ( possibly mutants ). it’s the most distinguishable feature about her, other than her eyes turning white. here and here is an example of what she’ll look like in the rpg. tight, right?? she’s a part of the oldest royal family on the face of the earth, at least in her universe. her family’s kingdom lies in africa.

since her mother was a princess, technically, storm should be a princess / queen, she’s royalty basically. her mother, princess n’dare, rebelled against the responsibilities of their title and traditions, feeling the role was forced on her. she instead chose to marry an american photojournalist by the name, david munroe, and moved with him to manhattan. this is where ororo was born.

while she was still an infant, they moved to cairo, egypt. but when she was five, her family was caught in an arab-israeli conflict. a plane crash destroyed their home and killed her parents. ororo was left buried under the rubble, next to her mother’s body. after fighting it, she managed to escape the rubble with nothing but the clothes on her back. the trauma left her with severe claustrophobia.

homeless and orphaned, storm was forced to live on the streets. her childhood, or lack thereof, forced her to grow up fast in order to survive. her maturity now, is thanks to those severe hardships she faced, as a child. though she also learned a trick, to survive.

ororo was taken in by a band of thieves in cairo, who taught her the art of thievery and hand to hand combat, both of which she still uses to this day. thievery more so for picking locks.

she stuck with the gang and thievery life for years, until around twelve when she felt a strong urge to wander south and left cairo. it’s while traveling, ororo accepted a ride from a stranger, a man, who attempts to rape her. ororo kills the man with a knife, but from that moment on, she swears to never take a life again.

that’s the basics of ororo, i can tell ya. she meets charles for a second time ( she’s met him twice, first trying to steal from him ), and the rest is history.

abilities: storm controls the weather, hint her name “storm”. and because she also retains her powers, she can also use them here in this nyc. she can control all different aspects to the weather, even atmospheric forces, but to simplify it: she’s the natural disaster queen™. she can cause all sorts of catastrophes, kill hundreds of thousands of people, all based on her power and emotions, and that’s another thing! her abilities are emotion-based, which is why she tends to detach herself from her stronger emotions in order to protect the people around her / not hurt anyone. but i’m thinking i’d play with the much lesser version of this in the rpg, like it’s raining let’s make it sunshine, so don’t worry guys.

but i’m not lying about this, she literally had to get on the x-jet and leave the planet in order to mourn a dear friend’s death. my poor bby </3

storm has yet to do more than dab into magic. her ancestors used magic, and storm does possess the signature markings of a witch ( her blue eyes and white hair from her mother’s side ) as well as her mutant abilities.

i’d love if we got some more x-men here! or any from xmcu! or the gifted! wolverine, charles, jean, forge ( comics ), callisto ( comics ), hank mccoy, erik, mystique, jubilee, lorna dane, emma frost, yeah! even time-displaced i’ll take! i love me some mutants.

storm: “i go by many names.” haha, naw, well, yeah? ororo has gone by many titles and she’s really not defined by a single one: goddess, queen, professor, windrider, witch, high priestess, and there’s plenty more. but ororo would rather help others, than to be a queen or all powerful.

storm does feel a kind of emphatic connection to not only the weather, but to nature itself. she does care about the environment in a way. it comes from the same connection she feels from the weather.

i will interchangeably call ororo, storm and vice versa, since many of her friends call her storm. although her name is ororo. even ororo has said many people have called her storm ( comics )

okay just hmu on IMs if you’d like to plot!

[robitfan]

I started watching dvds to help me sleep recently.

I had been planning this for a while since I am moving soon and planing on not having any internet connected devices in my bedroom aside from maybe my phone but I have an old TV with a built in dvd player I plan to have in that room to watch stuff before going to sleep. Recently though I decided to just start last week with a few breaks like tonight. Anyways I thought this would be a good writing practice opportunity and no one uses this cursed website anymore so it's not like people can see my shitty media takes.

So anyways here are my ideas about last night's dvd: X-Men first class.

So X-Men as a serries has always been about civil rights with people hating mutants in the marvel universe for being different, this theme has been done to a varying degree but remains a big part of the conflict as mutants in the marvel universe are a marginalized group looking for a place in our world. I also find that the movies tend to focus more on being queer rather than anything race related, although I might be wrong as I am a white queer so I might not be able to identify elements that don't relate to queer themes. So the majority of the cast has mutations that people can't see day to day with the exception of the villain Azazal but we don't see much about him other than him teleporting and killing non mutants, then we have beast and mystique who both can hide themselves at the beginning and chose to do so with Hank actively working on a cure only to have it backfire but then finding out that his peers accept him and even like him more when he is forced to have his mutant identity exposed, meanwhile Raven's arch is about learning to accept herself and her mutant identity as she spends most of the movie looking like a pretty human to fit in out of fear and because she has internalised that identity as her own out of safety concerns.

Also Charles outs beast in a great couple of scenes where he immediately apologies to Hank and then Hank uses the line "you didn't ask, I didn't tell" which is a very obvious line but being early in the film primes you to look for those themes, specially in his story so while most of the arcs are just about the characters learning about their abilities Beast has to accept his identity to unlock his full potential.

Now the main conflict is about Charles and his buddies trying to stop the hellfire club who are trying to get the us and USSR to go do a war so that they the "children of the atom" can be on top and we see time and time again that none of the human characters want this to happen because mutually assured destruction is a thing but that's not the most interesting relationship which is Magneto's and professorX's friendship where Charles had to help Erik reach his full potential by helping him let go of his pain which has been his motivation to hunt down Nazis and specifically Shaw who did experiments on him in his youth but there is the idealogical conflict between the two where Magneto wants to react harshly and fight for his and his fellow mutants right to exist ProffesorX wants to coexist with humanity and whishes for them to understand mutants as a people who's existence is valid and good.

So these elements make this the best X-Men movie so far and one of the best superhero movies out there.

Other points

Aircraft designers don't fly their creations anymore Beast

I would not be against a full movie about Eric the Nazi hunter.

While thematically appropriate the whole mutants are discriminated against thing does rely a bit on fridge logic.

If all goes well I will do more writing tomorrow night or Friday night, haven't decided yet on how I want to do this.

[jimmy-o-face]

People need to give up on the Deadpool films being a part of the MCU timeline

After the release of Deadpool many people have been hoping that the film and it’s sequel could be retroactively retconned as a part of the MCU canon. As it had no blatant connections to the X-Men and Wolverine films besides the X-Mansion being the same and a reference to the mansion blowing up in the past like in X-Men: Apocalypse. It had a recasted Colossus and the film seemly takes place within modern times despite Wade appearing as an adult during the 1970s in X-Men Origins: Wolverine(though Deadpool noted that the timeline was confusing).

Maybe it could have been retconned to have taken place in the future of MCU timeline where mutants have already been revealed to the public. There was a Helicarrier Easter Egg in the first film. But Deadpool 2 came out and crashed that possibility by having cameos and major plot points that blatantly connected to the X-Men and Wolverine films. At this point, making the Deadpool films apart of the MCU timeline would just make it ridiculously convoluted and confusing, more so than the X-Men timeline. To understand why you have to rewatch the post-credit scene of the first Iron Man film and listen to what Nick Fury said.

Nick Fury: “I am Iron Man”. You think you’re the only superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you’ve become part of a bigger universe. You just don’t know it yet.

This means that Tony Stark is the first superhero known to the public in the MCU timeline. Captain America doesn’t count as he wasn’t really a superhero in The First Avenger but an enhanced soldier serving his country. And this notion that superheroes are a very recent phenomenon in the MCU goes beyond this post credit scene and is actually a major plot point in several films. Such as in the Avengers where SHEILD used the Tesseract to create weapons in response to the appearance of Thor because they realized that the world is bigger than they know and they are outgunned. Tony’s character arc in Iron Man 3 is that he has anxiety attacks due to the realization of Gods, Aliens, and other things that threaten the world that he couldn’t protect it from and it’s this fear that caused him to create Ultron in the second Avengers film. And during Civil War one of the arguments for the Accords is that that the number of superpowered people have risen and as a result the world has become more dangerous.

In contrast, superheroes and superpowered beings have been known for decades in the X-Men universe and that’s even established in Deadpool 2 with Dominio growing up in the Essex home for mutants. Deadpool 2 also shows that aliens casually live on Earth and Dark Phoenix is apparently going to show aliens being revealed to the public during 1991 and feature the X-Men as an government sanctioned team similar to the Avengers.

What would be the point of SHEILD even forming the Avengers when the government already have the X-Men fighting the battles they never could since the 80s? Why is Tony and the rest of world flipping out over stuff that has been known for decades? These two franchises just don’t work together at all. To retcon them as one of the same would ruin the MCU’s overarching storyline of a people panicking over their world becoming a superhero comic. So it’s not just nonsensical but just straight up bad storytelling.

Most fans have given up supporting this retcon. But of course there are still those that hold on to this idea and try to argue that Deadpool is still not connected to the X-Men films and is in its own universe. Such arguments being that there are timeline inconsistencies in the Deadpool films between the X-Men films. But this isn’t hard evidence at all considering that timeline errors are common in the X-Men franchise and the film makers have explained that they have a very loose approach to the continuity of these films.

Examples:

-Moria MacTaggert appears in X3 which is set in 2006 and she is a Scottish women in her 30s. Yet she appears in X-Men: First Class which is set in the 1963 as an American woman in her 30s.

-Angel appears in X3 during the mid-2000s as man in his 20s, also appears as man in his 20s in X-Men: Apocalypse which is set in 1983.

-The First Class cast doesn’t seem to age much between the decade long time skips. The only character that is stated to have the ability to age slower is Mystique.

So the Deadpool films are just playing fast and loose with the continuity just like other films in the X-Men franchise before and after it. The only difference is that Deadpool points out how confusing it all is. Which brings me to the other argument that many people use to justify a retcon, which that Marvel Studios could just have Deadpool make a meta joke about how none of this makes sense so people can laugh it off. Problem that didn’t stop people from complaining the X-Men timeline being messing after he said it was confusing in his first film. So why would this work with the MCU timeline being an even bigger mess? Especially when such a franchise has the mantra that is “it’s all connected” and have this rigid continuity which is the complete opposite of the X-Men franchise’s approach to its canon. Afterall these are the same guys that went out of their way to retcon the “blink or you miss it” easter egg of the Infinity Gauntlet in the first Thor and made a scene in Thor 3 to establish it as fake.

Yes, Marvel Studio can just say “fuck it”, adopt a loose canon approach like the X-Men films anyway, and tell it’s critics to go fuck themselves. But I don’t think they would due to how touchy they have been with details and it’s just unnecessary. When they could just go down the multiverse crossover route as they already confirmed that exists in Doctor Strange, but outside of that I don’t see them keeping the current Deadpool franchise around. They would at best have Ryan Reynolds play a different version of the character like the Bond reboot did by keeping Judi Dench as M and reference the old franchise. But retrospectively setting the events of Deadpool in the MCU seems unlikely at this point.

[thecorteztwins]

The Red Guard is an elite division of SHIELD in the House of M universe who serve Magneto to combat both human and superhuman threats to the safety of the public...and to Magneto’s rule. The team is led by Sebastian Shaw, and includes Wolverine, Mystique, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Toad, and Jessica Drew, among others. At this point I’ve drawn Fabian, Anne Marie, and one of the Kleinstocks all in the Red Guard uniform, just because I really fucking love it. So I couldn’t help but start thinking, what if they were on their own Red Guard team? Shaw’s can be the local one, as it seems to be comprised mainly of Genoshan citizens, whereas Fabian’s could specialize in international threats and have a more cosmopolitan membership lineup combining the counterparts of both Acolytes and X-Men characters. I’m thinking: Fabian Cortez (leader) & Anne Marie Cortez - Spain The Kleinstock Brothers (Harlan, Sven, Eric) - Switzerland Carmella Unuscione - Italy Monet St. Croix - Monaco Neal Shaara - India Heather Cameron - Australia And maybe Kwannon from Japan? Chrome and Delgado, I think, I’d have doing other things, part of the appeal of alternate universes is the opportunity to make new teams and break up the standard ones and even put them on opposite sides to see how things go! Chrome might be a rebel cuz ain’t he always, Delgado is probably having a nice normal life like he deserves. Of course, if the House of M were an organic reality, I don’t think Fabian and Anne Marie would be serving Emperor Magnus. Maybe Fabian for the power, but not Anne Marie. She believed in Magneto because she saw the world was “bad” and wanted to fix it, saw how other mutants were treated and wanted to change that. In House of M, that’s all already happened, so she’d have no motivation. She might even end up on the side of the humans if they were oppressed badly enough. But, House of M is not an organic reality. It was artificially created by the Scarlet Witch to give her father everything that she thought he wanted. And I could see her wanting to give him his Acolytes alive again (Anne Marie) and actually loyal (Fabian). Of course, we see that while she could change the world around people and their memories with it, she could not change human nature, hence the discontent of many rebels and the villainous actions of individuals (crime and corruption and domestic abuse and all of that still exists, which Mags and Wanda surely don’t want) so I wouldn’t count on Fabian staying loyal...

[klstheword]

As FX’s Legion marks the arrival of a new breed of superhero show, we spoke to star Rachel Keller about playing opposite Dan Stevens and bringing light to mental health. Created by Fargo’s Noah Hawley, X-Men spin-off Legion follows diagnosed schizophrenic David Haller who’s confined to mental hospital Clockworks, before a chance meeting with Rachel Keller’s Sydney Barrett starts to open his eyes to his untapped mutant powers. While Legion is based on the Marvel character of the same name, the rest of the world isn’t based on any previous comic or series source material – with Rachel’s character ‘Syd’ Barrett being an entirely new creation. It’s part of the reason why she was initially attracted to the role, along with having the chance to work with creator Noah Hawley again after playing Simone Gerhardt in Fargo. Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Rachel said: ‘If you trust someone [Noah] explicitly with their brain and and their pen, that’s all you need to buy into it. ‘We got to have a lot of freedom. I’m not living up to any expectation of Syd Barrett that exists. I’m not filling out Mystique or Rogue. This is a brand new woman. ‘When you’re building a show from the ground up, there are no answers or wrong move because there’s no bible. So it was a lot of people throwing up all these questions in the air and going “oh my goodness” – so I think that’s what’s going to give the show a different flair.’ The majority of Rachel’s screen-time is spent opposite Dan Stevens, who alongside Legion, is about to star in the title role in Disney’s live action remake of Beauty And The Beast. ‘The true Beast,’ Rachel says. ‘The fact my friend Dan is in a Disney movie and is the Beast is kind of amazing. ‘He’s a committed, talented actor and more than that, he’s sensitive and thoughtful. When you’re doing work that’s sensitive like this and kind of tricky, you just hope someone will be open and flexible and forgiving, non-judgmental and he was all of those things.’ The referred sensitivity is over Legion’s handling of mental illness, which forms an intrinsic part of the show as viewers explore David’s complex mind to unlock suppressed memories. These are often played out in hallucinatory, light-hearted sequences, which Rachel believes is necessary when dealing with the issue. ‘That gives the charm. whimsy and mischievious levity to it all which you need when you’re dealing with material like mental illness,’ she said. ‘We wanted to make a show that was a little more fun and playful while it was saying, “these things are happening to people”. ‘In no shape or form did we want to use it as a gimmick. We wanted to say how there is a group of people that is misunderstood and maybe mistreated, and that extends beyond someone who is even deemed mentally ill. And ask what does it mean to be a little different and special? and why are we trying to ‘handle’ those people instead of giving them a space to express themselves and be who they are?’ The show itself is situated within the X-Men universe, but Rachel’s remaining coy on whether it will eventually link back to characters we’ve come to know in the blockbuster films. ‘As far as I know we’re going to fill out our world separate from the other X-Men stories. But, you know, Noah doesn’t say no to many things. It’s hard to be like that’s never going to happen, because everything is possible.’ As David Haller is Professor Charles Xavier’s son in the Marvel comics, could we see a potential cameo from Patrick Stewart? ‘I don’t know,’ she laughs. ‘I didn’t film anything with him. You’ll just have to wait and see.’ While remaining cagey on the X-Men connections, it’s certainly sounding like this won’t be the last we’ll see from Legion. ‘I think we must make season 2. This is the tip of the iceberg,’ Rachel says. ‘It’s an introduction. It just scratches at what this really is – this whole universe and the world we’re building and the threat that’s there. So I definitely would love to do it again.’ You can catch Legion in the US on FX February 8, and February 9 in the UK on Fox at 9pm.

Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/08/legions-rachel-keller-talks-x-men-cameos-dan-stevens-and-finding-the-light-in-mental-illness-6434096/#ixzz4Y8TGlsQB

[sebastianshaw]

9, 12, 33.

9: What power do you wish you had?Reality warping. I could just make myself and my life be exactly how I want to be, and fix lots of other problems in the world too. And if I wanted any other powers, like flight or time-relapse, I could just change reality so I had those.12: What character do you dislike the most?I really, really hate Sabretooth. He’s one of the few characters that I just full-stop won’t even RP with, and I frankly can barely read anything with him in it. 33: Which character deserves more attention than they get?So many! Probably more than I know! These are a few of my own underrated faves though (and it’s a very biased list, I RP as several of these characters)Fabian Cortez - Fabian was a major villain during the first half of the 90s, and remained an important character in relation to Quicksilver and Magneto even after he lost his “major villain” status overall. He’s the asshole that manipulated the retired Magneto back into villainy for his own ends before then killing him off so he could use his image as a martyr to lead a cult, and he also was a constant thorn in the side of Quicksilver, even kidnapping his daughter during the Blood Ties event. He’s very devious, very competent, and very…hilarious? The guy is definitely intelligent and dangerous, but he’s also RIDICULOUS. Like he’s the thirstiest fucker alive, he does shit like lying to birds and wrapping his cape around himself when he’s scared, he’s a huge diva, he’s just super duper awful with no redeeming qualities whatsoever and he’s so much fun to read. Add that to being a part of some major stories and connected to such popular characters (Magneto and Quicksilver, plus Apocalypse in the cartoon series) and I think more people should be aware of this guy.Madelyne Pryor- She’s not what I’d call unknown, but I’d like to see a bigger tumblr fandom for her. Most of tumblr is only familiar with the movies, but Maddy’s tragedy and pathos and spiral downwards are all super compelling and something I think a lot of people would find engaging. Claudette St. Croix- There’s a lot of demand on tumblr for autistic representation. Claudette is the only canonically autistic mutant in the X-Men series. What’s more, she’s also female and POC, and I’ve never seen someone with autism in media before who wasn’t white and male. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have much of a character/personality, and her “autism” was written as just being completely non-verbal (not that there’s anything wrong with that, some autistic people are, but she never really communicates in any way and we never see her thoughts either, so her personality never gets shown) and staring at nothing, but I feel like if a new writer picked her back up and expanded on her with care and accuracy, she could become a really good character, both in terms of autistic representation and in general. Haven- Haven was a seven-issue X-Factor villain in the 90s and she’s unique for being the kindest, most benevolent “villain” that any X-Men team ever faced. Her story and design are very interesting and unusual, and also stuff that happened to her is actually pretty relevant to things going on now (government team gets sent after a brown woman with a funny religion because well she MUST be a terrorist, and of course they turn out to be right so that makes it okay they opened fire on her immediately before even telling her she was under arrest)Shinobi Shaw- Sebastian’s illegitimate son, and a barrel of laughs. Exploits include trying to drunkenly seduce a yakuza boss and the X-men bursting in on him TWICE while he’s in the bath. He’s not competent or threatening at all, but his flamboyancy and stupidity are just wonderful to read. He also has some unexpected pathos due to his abuse by Shaw, and the glimpses we get of what’s going on under his shallow stupid playboy surface are really profoundly painful. Also, he’s very openly bisexual. Like, blatantly. It’s not GOOD bisexual representation, as it’s used to play up how decadent he is and relies on some nasty stereotypes of bisexuals as sex-crazed hedonists who are probably evil, but, well, it was the 90s. The Hellions - These were a team of young mutants being trained by Emma Frost in the 80s while she was still with the Hellfire Club, but most of them weren’t evil. They were just kids that she got to before Xavier. They were really great, engaging characters with lots of potential, and it was a shame they were killed off. There was surprising complexity and depth to them, and there was surely even more going on we weren’t aware of because they weren’t the focal characters. Between this and their connection to a majorly popular canon like Emma, I think more people should know about them.Zaladane- Given how popular Magneto’s family is, how much fanart I see of them, I think more people should know Zaladane/ Zala Dane. She’s a sorceress from the Savage Land who claimed to be the long lost sister of Lorna Dane aka Polaris, and she used a machine to steal her powers. Lorna dismissed her claims, but Moira MacTaggert confirmed that the machine could only have been used to transfer powers between genetic relatives. Zala then later used the same machine on Magneto to add his powers to what she already took from Lorna. Meaning, she must be related to BOTH of them. The math kinda does itself—she’s got to be Magneto’s daughter. Later changes to continuity makes that impossible, however, but who knows, maybe she came from an alternate universe or something and that’s why Lorna didn’t know about her, how she wound up in the Savage Land, etc. Zala’s admittedly not really noteworthy in her own right, but she intrigues me as a long-lost-Magneto-spawn, and given how much fandom loves the Magnet clan, I think she oughta get some attention.Selene- Like Maddy, she’s not what I’d call unknown, but there’s not a lot of love for her in the tumblr fandom. She’s not really a compelling character as a person, but she’s a lot of fun as a villain who just relishes in being evil. Her ridiculously overt predatory lesbianism is also downright hilarious in terms of how much Claremont was clearly enjoying writing her.Kwannon- Everything Psylocke is today is due to Kwannon. Psylocke was originally a white British woman, a model and not much of a fighter, but a body-swap with a Japanese ninja asassin named Kwannon turned her into the Psylocke we know today. Kwannon suffered tragically for this, and I think she ought to be remembered, especially by any fan of Psylocke. Moira MacTaggert - If you’re imagining a sexy young American CIA agent, stop it right now. I’m talking about comics Moira. Comics Moira is around Charle’s age, very Scottish, and she is actually DOCTOR MacTaggert, a world-renowned leading geneticist whose area of specialty is mutants. She’s badass, she’s smart, she calls Charles out on his shit when no one else does, she has dark issues of her own, and she goes after a kelpie with a giant gun. She’s a longtime ally of the X-Men and friend to mutantkind, she lives at the mansion and forms a relationship with each team member of the time, and even forms/leads her own team of X-Men on Muir Island (the site of her research center) when it appears the original team has been killed. Moira debuts at an early point in the comics, and is an important player in numerous stories for years to come up until her death at the hands of Mystique, but not before she discovered the cure to the Legacy Virus, saving the lives of countless mutants. Moira definitely needs more appreciation, and I’m not even a Moira fan. (I don’t dislike her, obviously, she’s just not an area of focus for me)Exodus- A super powerful mutant from the 11th century awoken by Magneto in modern era, Exodus was a Crusader during his own time and remains one today for Magneto’s cause. He’s so powerful, writers tend to just...ignore he exists, because he can do SO MUCH it’s hard to write him. But I really love his well-intentioned extremism, the fact he really means so well, is often noble, and his really unsubtle gay crush on Mags.And, of course, Sebastian Shaw here. He’s hardly a D-lister in the comics, but all fandom seems to be aware of is movie Shaw and it makes me sad :C

[rubychan228]

Agents of Hydra and the House of M

Agents of Hydra is clearly the MCU version of House of M.

Comics Background: Scarlett Witch fell in love with and married the vision and used her magic to make herself pregnant with their children, twin boys. Unfortunately, she accidentally drew on the magic of a demon to do it, and when the demon took his power back, the children were destroyed. Parallel to all this, Wanda's magic had been growing at an exponential rate, becoming reality warping, but also driving her progressively insane (the Young Avengers storyline, "Avengers: Children's Crusade", later revealed that this was due to the machinations of Doctor Doom).

For complicated reasons, Wanda came to blame the Avengers for the deaths of her children and attacked them, killing Ant-Man (Scott Lang), Hawkeye, and Vision. This is known as the "Avengers Disassembled" storyline.

Main Story: A bit after this, there was concern about what to do about Wanda's growing powers and insanity; both Xavier and Dr. Strange had tried in vain to help her, and soon neither would be able to hold back her devastating powers any longer. Emma Frost and Wolverine, in particular, wanted to kill her. Quicksilver overheard this and rushed to his sister to save her. At his urging, she used her powers to warp the world, granting everyone their heart's desire.

This resulted in a world where mutants ruled over humans, headed by Magneto's "House of M". Other changes included Peter Parker, now a rich celebrity, waking up in bed next to a still living Gwen Stacy, Dr. Emma Frost-Summers lives a quiet, domestic live with her husband, and Clint Barton is still alive.

Because Wolverine's desire was to remember his true past, he is still able to recall the world as it was (even though he has a role in the world, as a member of the mutant-controlled SHIELD, and also sleeping with his subordinate, Mystique). The story also introduces Layla Miller, a girl linked to Luke Cage's human resistance, that is also able to remember the real world and also restore the true memories of others.

Eventually, a confrontation with Scarlett Witch results in true world being restored…almost. On a minor note, Hawkeye is resurrected in the real world.

On a major note, Wanda furious at both Xavier, for not helping her, and Magneto, for prioritizing power and mutant-supremacy over her and her brother, decides to take vengeance on them by taking away the thing they value most.

As the world returns to normal, she utters the three words that would shake the Marvel Universe; "No more mutants".

(A couple hundred mutants however, most of which just so happen to be popular X-team members manage to keep their powers.)

In "Agents of SHIELD", the Framework is ostensible technology, but it's made abundantly clear there was Darkhold magic involved. Additionally, a key feature of the Framework is that it a world specifically created by wiping away one regret from every person put in it.

The result is, somehow, a world ruled over by Hydra.

Other elements include:

Daisy waking up in bed next to someone who is dead in the main universe.

Daisy, one of two people in the Framework that can remember the true world may a member of Hydra.

She is also in a relationship with a Hydra member and, if she's a member too, they may very well have a subordinate/superior relationship.

Coulson and Mack seems to live quiet lives, with Mack having a family. Radcliff is probably living happily with Agnes too.

Fitz is clearly rich and may be a celebrity of some sort.

Jemma is either dead or, more likely, in hiding as a member of an anti-Hydra resistance. She also remembers the real world.

Also, the existence of LMD's mean that anyone dead in the real world but alive in the Framework world could be "brought back to life".

AND, The Superior's goal is to use the Darkhold (the thing that created the Framework) to depower Inhumans (the MCU stand-in for humans).

That said, would "Agents of SHIELD" really depower all, or almost all, of the Inhumans?

Maybe.

So far, Inhumans don't exist in any part of the MCU other than AoS, and they are highly unlikely to bring them into the movies or Netflix. Additionally, AoS has NOT been renewed for a season five and there are very real fears that it won't be. I could see them resetting the status quo before they left the air by undoing season two's "Inhumanity" event.

The main reason they wouldn't is because of the upcoming "Inhumans" television show. However, prior the comic's version of "Inhumanity", Terrigenesis was VERY strictly controlled by the Royal Family. If things were changed so that the unauthorized Inhumans were removed and the Terrigen released into Earth's environment prevented from changing anyone anymore, but the Royal Family somehow kept their powers AND found a method (that they have control over) to continue to turn new Inhumans, that would be a far purer version of the Inhuman Royal Family dynamic. So I could see that really happening.

[bigskydreaming]

Can I just say, I am so on board with Duggan showing that when Bobby is really mad, like icy rage kind of chilling mad, all puns intended, like....he is an elemental Terminator jacked up on steroids. He literally just dropped temps so low he smashed through the thick steel hull like he was here to huff and puff and blow their house down, and I personally found it very sexy the way he responded to them trying to kill him by simply making all their trigger fingers snap off from frostbite. What? I’m a very vindictive reader and they deserved it.

And after just ranting the other week about how they needed to just up and let Bobby use his teleportation power all the time without help.....*sobs* here we have him teleporting himself and Bishop across the world just minutes after teleporting himself there in the first place, all without any help or even breaking a sweat. FINALLY!!!!!!!

But that said, on another note, examining this all more seriously:

So, while all of us readers know that Kate’s return is inevitable, as this series has been literally telegraphing this story direction from issue one, with it clearly only being part of her over-all story in this book rather than the end of it.....the characters themselves have no reason to be confident she’ll come back at all, let alone soon, given their concerns about her not being able to interact with Krakoa the way other mutants do.

(Personally, I suspect the reason they’ve paced things the way they have is because Kate’s murder and the mystery of whether or not she can be brought back the same way as everyone else, like...I half suspect that’s going to be among the first things X-Factor deals with, given the premise of that book, and that’s why they’re lining things up for all of this storyline to lead into right around the time X-Factor debuts. But maybe its something else entirely. Who knows. There does seem to be something going on with Lockheed, given the way the last couple of issues have framed focus around him, though I’m completely baffled as to how that could be crucial to this story, but guess we’ll see).

ANYWAY, so we know Kate’s coming back, and likely pretty soon, but the characters don’t know that, not for sure. And when you consider that Bobby, as well as being one of Kate’s really good friends and even dated her in the past, has a kind of unique perspective here....it makes total sense for him to be the one that just goes stone-cold killer here. (Again, pun absolutely intended. Look its me. Its Bobby. Read the room. I’m gonna be doing this a lot here).

Of course, he doesn’t actually kill anyone, as Bishop’s there to remind him to cool it in time, but he is merciless in his own way, and calculated and deliberate. So again...one of Kate’s dearest friends, no doubt feels guilty for being away with Christian while Kate was murdered instead of with her and protecting her......and one other element:

Bobby’s one of the few mutants that already was facing the prospect of immortality before they came up with the resurrection process. Its been an underlying source of angst for him for a long time, and IMO the true cornerstone of why he’s so often been resistant to exploring his powers and examining the implications of them, and what they suggest about his future:

See, more than anything, Bobby fears being alone. He loves people, he loves the people who are dearest to him, he craves normalcy in the sense of things that are familiar and comfortable to him....and his powers are antagonistic to all of that. Because the many times they’ve proven able to bring him back from the brink of death without him even consciously using them, and the glimpses of futures where centuries from now he’s still around as this jaded, bitter ice wizard or elemental being.....force him to constantly be aware of the potential and even likelihood that he is going to VASTLY outlive pretty much every single person he’s ever loved and ever will love.

People often note Bobby’s tendency to be drawn to various villains or antiheroes, describing this as him having a thing for the bad boys (and girls, before his coming out)....but there’s never really been any sign of the usual hero/bad guy narrative with most of these. He doesn’t actually ever ‘try and change them’ or really think he can, and there’s never anything that suggests that he like, finds their ‘dark side’ itself appealing, nor does being around them make him act more uninhibited or less altruistic or anything, at least not to any strong degree I don’t think.

But IMO, the focus on the bad guy attraction is only one way to go with that. I’ve always noticed there’s another common element that can be found in the more unexpected people Bobby tends to be drawn to:

And that’s the fact that from Mystique to Daken to the occasional cosmic being or god.....they all tend to be people who have the potential to live as long or longer than Bobby himself. People he doesn’t have to worry as much about losing, if he were to fall in love with them.

So consider that Bobby has for so long consciously and subconsciously limited himself and his own development, avoided touching on or examining the many times and things that have foreshadowed his own longevity....because he’s afraid to face it, afraid to even contemplate the idea of there coming a time when most if not all of his closest friends and loved ones are all dead and gone, and he’s still here, still alive, because his powers kinda ensure he’s always among the last standing.

And then along comes Krakoa and all its changes and bounty, and the resurrection process which is almost too good to be believed, a gift for all mutantkind that offers the potential for longevity, even immortality for all of them....

Overnight, everything changed, not just for mutantkind as a whole, but for Bobby himself. Because the resurrection process doesn’t actually offer him anything he really needs HIMSELF. Its not likely he’ll ever need to use it, or that it would even work on him at all (since Bobby’s powers have fairly recently evolved to make him extremely hard for psychics to read, especially when in his ice form, but also even while flesh and blood....so its not a given that Xavier even COULD ‘back up’ his consciousness in Cerebro as easily or as frequently as he does other mutants).

So the resurrection process doesn’t change much for Bobby himself....but its existence and ramifications....they changed EVERYTHING for him. All of a sudden, everything he’s dreaded and feared about his future, everything that’s been underlying his fear and even hatred of his own powers at times.....just like that, its no longer relevant. Everything looks different to him now. The future is no longer something to avoid imagining whenever possible, its something to look FORWARD to......because now he can picture still having his friends and loved ones with him, far from now. He can PLAN for things, he can WISH for things. He can finally start to embrace his powers and thus himself, his full self, without fear of it taking him further and further away from everyone his own immortality has always threatened to leave behind. (I find it very interesting that its NOW of all times that Bobby finally unlocks his teleportation ability, for instance).

But just as Bobby’s started to finally be less cautious with his powers and his relationships, started to just...live, without being constantly afraid and waiting for the day his loved ones start to leave him for good....just when he begins to wrap his mind around that hopeful future.....

Kate, one of the people most important to him, dies.....and all of them are terrified she’s an exception to the new status quo, and resurrection won’t work on her.

So yeah. Bobby lost it this issue. Cold Snap was a particularly fitting title, and if ever there was a moment to showcase how dangerous the widespread death of X-Men and various of Bobby’s loved ones could be for the world and the future....it was this one. Because while I say “Bobby lost it” and you could see Bishop fearing that was exactly the case....I don’t think that means that Bobby was out of control, rather than just he lost sight or willingness to throw up barriers between his most vengeful impulses and reasons to hold himself back. I fully believe everything Bobby did this issue was willful and calculated....he knew exactly what he was doing, and he’s not remotely sorry for any of it, because they took away one of the people he can’t bear to lose JUST as he was starting to get used to the idea that now he might not ever have to actually lose them.

So. Iceberg dead ahead, indeed.

Below the cut: More about the specific ways Bobby and Bishop’s powers work almost exactly opposite, and what that implies for how vulnerable Kate’s true murderer Sebastian Shaw is to the specific friend of hers who appears to have taken point on avenging her death.

Also, me getting rambly again about Bobby’s ultimate potential as the Phoenix/Jean’s true thematic opposite - the inevitable heat death of the universe - and why their fire and ice dichotomy was never a coincidence when the two of them in specific were made the original omega mutants.

Also also, more puns. Because can’t stop won’t stop and they’re necessary. I have a mandate, back off.

So. It was also particularly fitting that Bishop was disturbed by what Bobby was doing because I mean.....again, this isn’t OOC for Bobby, its just he very very VERY rarely gets like this because he IS so aware of how destructive he can actually be and isn’t fully comfortable being a walking force of nature in human/twink form. He signed up to be a disaster gay, not a natural disaster gay. Okay enough with the puns. POINT BEING.....add to that the fact that Bishop, of all the X-Men, has always been the most conscious of the threats they could each be if unchecked, given his original focus on ferreting out who the X-Men traitor was that was destined to lead to the team’s early deaths.

Which means, although it comes up VERY rarely, Bishop has always kept in mind that despite how formidable he himself is, the precise nature of their powers makes him one of the people LEAST suited to deal with the possibility of an out-of-control Bobby Drake on a rampage.....because Bishop’s power is to absorb energy, any kind of energy, and turn it into something he can use offensively himself.

Problem is, despite how often Bobby’s depicted shooting ‘ice beams’....he doesn’t project any kind of energy at all. Its the exact opposite. Bobby’s power at its core is basically a middle finger to the laws of thermodynamics. Cold isn’t an energy after all, its just the absence of heat.....which in turn is really just energy produced by the frenetic kinetic motion of molecules.

Bobby doesn’t project energy, he takes it away. And not even by absorbing it himself, its more he just....makes it go bye-bye. Through some process nobody truly understands, least of all him, but there’s no transfer of energy from one source to another when he uses his powers. Its more that all that kinetic energy in the area he’s focusing on, no matter how small or large it is, the molecular activity responsible for the production of any amount of energy at all.....just....stops.

Again, its why I’ve always said that despite how he’s usually depicted compared to her, Bobby truly is the most ideal thematic opposite to Jean and the Phoenix Force, and its why it was a perfect choice to make him the other original omega mutant, alongside her.

After all, Jean as the Phoenix was always shown as a force of fire and light...and her ultimate potential/destiny was usually written as the reincarnation/resurrection force....essentially, the Phoenix is meant to be the spark that reignites creation, that begins everything again, once destroyed.

Bobby, in contrast, isn’t just the Iceman.....his ultimate potential and destiny could just as easily be described as the natural and NECESSARY counterpart to the Phoenix Force....the inevitable Heat Death of the Universe.

Since, much like global warming, the heat death of the universe is a somewhat misleading title. Because of the emphasis it puts on heat, most people hear it and tend to think of the end of the universe being an explosive thing, one last blaze of glory. But in actuality, another name for the heat death of the universe is The Big Chill or The Big Freeze. The whole theory behind it is that the ultimate fate of the universe is that it will someday reach a point where there is no untapped thermodynamic free energy LEFT to power entropic cycles. 

And as entropy is the natural state of the universe....no more entropy means no more universe. It doesn’t imply that the universe would be destroyed or explode, implode, cease to exist....its more that everything would just....stop. Not because it dropped to some specific temperature or anything, but simply because.....there’s no more molecular movement happening. Nothing in motion....and without that molecular motion to PRODUCE energy that in turn powers all the other natural forces/states of being in the universe....nothing can ever happen again, from that point on, basically....

At least not without an outside catalyst, an external force acting to restart, reignite molecular activity, a self-contained power source that could funnel enough external free energy back into the machinery to jumpstart it again....a fuel source for essentially...a Big Bang, an explosion so big that it produces so much free energy that everything starts up again, in whatever new configuration it all settles into in the wake of that primordial explosion. And thus, a universe is born anew, like a phoenix from the ashes, etc, etc.

Anyway, got off on a tangent there, as I am wont to do, but in the vein of my fondness for usually super nice characters who are actually super dangerous if you go about pissing them off in just the right ways, and who could absolutely be the most villainous villains to end all villains if not for their willful and constant choosing of GOOD over self-service and prioritizing their own wants and needs over that of innocents.....

Well, in actuality, the goofy, eternal frat boy, pun-loving, deliberately and consciously immature ‘little brother’ of the X-Men, Bobby Drake....he’s not just an ice sculptor and snow cone maker, for all that he mostly uses his powers just for that stuff, by CHOICE. Because nobody’s more conscious than he that when he really puts his mind to it, there is literally not a more ideal killing machine in the entire Marvel Universe than Bobby himself.

Like, Thanos? Fuck that guy. Thanos would have Bobby-envy if he ever pulled his head out of his own ass long enough to notice someone other than himself. 

Plenty of other mutants, superhumans and even cosmic beings are extremely dangerous killers in all kinds of ways, capable of enormous destruction.

None of them are more suited to one specific part of the Celestial endgame than Bobby himself:

He’s the end result of the attempts to engineer a new generation of cosmic beings that could be the architects of a whole new universe, just as they were the architects of the current one. 

But in order for a new universe to someday begin, the current one has to someday end. 

And the X-Men’s goofy gay twink is the one being noted by Marvel’s current roster of cosmic beings, as being the potential killer of universes needed to make that part of the eternal universal cycle happen. 

The guy who one day, thousands or millions or even billions of years from now, in whatever form he exists in by then...

(since omega mutants were originally described as evolution incarnate, those mutants who are constantly evolving themselves even as they live, so that there is no upper limit to how their powers can grow, change, adapt, mutate, with a by-product of this being they all at some point evolve some way of transcending the limitations of physical bodies and mortality).....

....could just snap his fingers and make everything, all energy, all motion, all molecular activity, just.....stop.

Anyway! Obviously, most of that is just hypothetical and conjecture even within universe, and a long way from ever happening in-universe, if at all, and Bobby for all his power now is still nowhere near that point.

BUT....the reason I brought up Bishop’s disturbed reaction at the start of all this, and noted how Bishop himself is uniquely unsuited to dealing with the Iceman on a rampage....

Is that there’s one specific character whose powers work an awful lot like Bishop’s....which means he shares that specific vulnerability to Bobby in particular.

With that being...Sebastian Shaw, the man ultimately responsible for what happened to Kate, the one who actually killed her and set all of this in motion.

Because just as Bishop absorbs all forms of energy and reprocesses it into offensive energy blasts he fires back on his attackers....Sebastian Shaw absorbs all kinetic energy and converts it into superhuman strength. Making him an almost unstoppable tank, as pretty much everyone’s attempt to fight him only makes him stronger, while doing no actual harm to him.

Except...enter Bobby. Who doesn’t need to hit Sebastian to hurt him. Doesn’t need to feed him any energy he can use at all. All he needs to do, is take all the heat in Sebastian away, and he can shatter him into a million pieces, just like he did all those mercenaries’ trigger fingers. 

And when people find out Sebastian’s part in all this, he’s going to run, no doubt. He’ll probably slip off the island before anyone can manage to get their hands on him, and he’s got so many resources and connections of his own, he can easily flee to any part of the world without needing gate access, and buy his own private army to defend him.

But when you look at how Bobby was this issue, how relentless and implacable, and how little he cared or even acknowledged any of the armed men before him as any kind of threat at all....

Its very easy to remember that as long as he stays in his ice form, Bobby doesn’t need to eat or drink or sleep or ever stop. Period. And as shown in this issue, he can now teleport across the globe in an instant. There’s pretty much nowhere he can’t reach on his own now.

Like I said. An elemental Terminator jacked up on steroids. There’s nowhere Shaw can go that he can’t follow. No obstacle Shaw can throw up in his path that Bobby can’t shatter and just walk through without slowing. No amount of mercenaries Shaw could hire, that could actually pose any kind of threat to Bobby. And absolutely nothing Sebastian or his own mutant power could do to protect him from the specific advantage Bobby’s own abilities give him in any kind of direct confrontation between them.

In summation.....Bobby Drake, killer of universes, might be billions of years away from reality, if ever.

But even right now, at this point in time.....he’s already evolved into nature’s perfect Sebastian Shaw killing machine.

And I think after this issue, that’s particularly relevant.

[bigskydreaming]

princeescaluswords replied to your post:

Alex Summers, after the most recent of 128979889...

Why don’t you write Marvel? You couldn’t possibly do any worse and I could use the laughs!

Lol, its a nice dream, but realistically I don’t think there’s any universe in which Marvel would ever let me write the X-Men. 

Like, my very first story would probably have Bobby refreezing the Arctic while Storm heads up a team of elementals to combat climate change. And then a Republican senator and a Democrat senator would go on TV and make a bipartisan show of expressing their gratitude towards mutants for helping save the planet and this is the real future of humanity, this is them all building a world where they can live side by side in a mutually beneficial -

And then the broadcast would cut off because Cypher just hacked every satellite worldwide and said “all your binary codes belong to me now, resistance is futile, blah blah” before turning the camera to Sunspot who’s all decked out in his snazziest suit and dressed to the nines. Roberto yawns and flips the whole world off and says “LOL fuck you, the X-Men are done with respectability politics, we took a vote and our democratic process actually works, we don’t have a fucking electoral college. We only saved the planet because it happens to be the planet we live on, dipshits, nobody did it for you, you’re still cordially invited to go extinct. Or you can play nice and try getting along with the rest of us for a change but good luck trying to make Sentinels happen again, lmao, funding’s gonna be an issue for you pretty soon I think.”

He turns off the camera and goes back to planning his and Sam’s wedding, because look, I have my priorities, okay.

Then Mystique unleashes her new Fellowship of Evil (Same Name, But This Time Its Evil as in STFU, Its Ironic U Assholes) Mutants that she’s been recruiting from the ranks of the young and disenchanted. Overnight, the market is flooded with gold and gems transmuted from ordinary materials by mutant powers, as well as a bunch of shit ‘liberated’ from the coffers of the 1% via her Fellowship’s alliance with her son-in-law’s Thieves’ Guild. Value plummets instantly, and then technopaths join in the fun, crashing every banking system worldwide.

“Whoopsie, I broke capitalism, money’s worthless now, vive la revolution, everyone eat some fucking cake,” Raven sing-songs merrily from the chaise she’s lounging on while eating grapes. The city outside her window is burning. Meanwhile, a fiddler is playing nearby. She calls him Nero, because Aesthetic.

“Oh relax,” she rolls her eyes when Remy attempts to frown at her disapprovingly. “I had my teleporters evacuate the city before I set it on fire. I’m not a heartless monster, you know.”

“You mean you didn’t want to spend the next ten years dealing with your children yelling at you about innocent civilians and how could you,” Remy says dryly.

Mystique just shrugs and eats some more grapes. “Or that.”

Far-right dominated police forces and white supremacist militia groups attempt to forcibly establish martial law, except mostly they’re just standing around clutching their heads and trying to cope with the mother of all migraines as a gestalt of telepathic minds headed up by a Cerebro-powered octet of Jean, Emma, Betsy, Rachel, Quentin, and the Stepford Cuckoos psychically screams FAKE NEWS!!! into their brains every time their CO’s attempt to bark out new orders.

“Best school project ever,” Quire shouts. Emma smirks.

“Extra credit to the first person to psychically leak the full extent of just how extensively governments have invaded their citizens’ privacy with surveillance extremism in the name of national security.”

Jean attempts a half second of chastisement, but with them all linked this closely, there’s really no way to hide that she’s mostly just amused. Oh no, she and Emma are seeing eye to eye on something and there are witnesses and everything. The revolution was a mistake.

Atlanteans and mutant hydrokinetics team up to shove the worst oil and toxic waste and trash spills up onto the shores of every beach marked ‘privately owned’. The mile-wide ‘island’ of plastic debris that formerly sat in the middle of the Pacific is now parked off the coast of Malibu.

There’s a twenty foot demon from Limbo sitting in the Oval Office. It burps. Illyana beams and boops its nose. “Good boy.” It wags its tail and breaks the Oval Office.

Kitty and Kurt direct teams of similarly powered mutants in raiding the top secret R&D facilities of major pharmaceutical companies for all their research on diseases that never made it to mass production because they decided those treatments or cures wouldn’t be profitable in the long run because healthy people don’t need to spend a ton of money on medical care. Teams of healers are standing by to vet the viability of various research, while Hank, Cece and other mutant geniuses are already working on filling in the gaps on all the projects that were shutdown and Forge, Madison Jeffries and tech-based geniuses are converting existing infrastructure into the necessary machinery to take over mass production of these drugs, prosthetics, and sweatshop labor in general.

Speedsters and teleporters are redistributing food and stocking up the millions of properties worldwide that have just been sitting there empty for god knows how long, useless. Colossus is standing in the smashed remains of a mansion with his arms crossed sternly while a man who is definitely not meant to resemble the CEOs of either Tesla or Amazon or look like some kind of Musky Bozo hybrid cowers on the floor.

“You are a very stupid man,” Colossus says. “Why are you wasting billions funding research into space travel when there are aliens with a strong grasp of the technology in the ships that brought them here on every superhero team on Earth? You could have easily provided the Earth with working and widely accessible space travel by now if you weren’t so miserly.”

“Yeah,” Juggernaut says behind him, scratching his head. “Aliens have been coming and going from this planet for like fifty years. There are tons of fancy spaceships anyone could’ve just reverse engineered and mass produced by now. How come nobody’s ever done that and we’re all just acting like space travel is some far-off dream when everyone we know’s been to space like at least ten times?”

“Stupid people,” Colossus rumbles again. Musky Bozo wets himself and Piotr sighs and shakes his head. He didn’t even touch him.

Cyclops and Wolverine and their teams of bruisers are already done with the ICE facilities and have progressed to busting open prisons and liberating all nonviolent offenders. They inform everyone else that they can appeal to a panel of telepaths to read their minds and see for themselves that they’re innocent.

“Guilt determined by mind-reading?” Someone asks. “Lots of potential for sketchiness there.”

“Absolutely,” Scott says. “Which is why laws about boundaries and oversight have to be established. For now, its a volunteer basis only. Nobody has to get their mind read, but its an option available in the meanwhile as we sort out a better system for determining who’s been imprisoned for crimes of premeditated malice and abuse and who’s just been railroaded by an unjust and biased system.”

“So this is your new utopia, huh?” Sneers the prison warden, from the floor where he’s on his ass with a busted face because, idk, Reasons.

Scott just shakes his head. “No. It’s merely a start.”

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but if its broke and you wanna fix it, you gotta start somewhere,” Logan says gruffly. “Shit was broke. This is ‘starting somewhere.’”

He and Scott share a very Passionate look of camaraderie. Rogue sighs loudly.

“Just fuck already, jfc.”

Logan grunts. He already offered, but apparently all Personal Business must wait until after the Revolution was over, because a Scott Summers who put himself first was very clearly an impostor, so its not like Logan could even fucking get mad considering Scott putting in a pin in sucking each other’s faces after their We Were Both Dead But Now We’re Not and Also What the Fuck Was Up With Us For the Five Whole Years Before That reunion was what confirmed that it was definitely the Real Scott’s tongue in his mouth.

“Alright, let’s move it people,” Logan barks, clapping his hands. “There’s three more joints to hit before sundown. We got a timetable here.”

Jubilee squints at him suspiciously. “Since when are you efficient?”

“Mind your own fucking business.”

At no point does anyone suggest they erase the most sacred sites of all the world’s major religions and call them all fake or randomly resurrect a bunch of dinosaurs and release them on unsuspecting and innocent populations, because those are terrible ideas and make no sense and just because they’re stinkin’ commies now doesn’t mean they’re fucking morons.

Also, nobody grows a ridiculous beard or stops using shampoo or starts wearing flip flops or robes, because apparently those are not actually essential components of being a stinkin’ commie or even just a garden variety peace-aspiring socialist. They checked. Extensively. It was almost a dealbreaker. Emma, Monet and Roberto all threatened to side with the Capitalist Pigs if that was not thoroughly clarified before proceeding any further.

Thus ends my first issue. I email Marvel the script. They email it back, almost entirely redacted in red, with the note “This isn’t quite what we were looking for. Do you have anything about a new cure for mutants, maybe?”

I email them back: LOL NO. MAGNETO WAS RIGHT.

I am promptly fired.

I go back to ranting about how Marvel sucks on the internet.

[aion-rsa]

X-Men: Dark Phoenix - Easter Eggs and Reference Guide

http://bit.ly/2HXOvGu

X-Men: Dark Phoenix is here and we're putting together all the various Marvel Comics references hidden throughout.

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This article consists of lots of X-Men: Dark Phoenix spoilers. We have a spoiler free review here.

The X-Men Cinematic Universe has reached the finish line. After three initial core movies, four core movies from a rebooted sequel timeline, three Wolverine movies, two Deadpool movies, and a New Mutants fiasco that may or may not see the light of day, it’s time to pack it in. X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the last big showing of Fox’s genre-defining and, in all honesty, fascinating line of movies.

As always, being a superhero movie, there are a ton of comic book references throughout. Being an X-Men movie, that also means that throwaway heroes and villains are named after obscure comic book characters that they have very little to do with. Man, remember when "Psylocke" was in X-Men: The Last Stand? Yeah...

So let’s take a look at the various Easter eggs in Dark Phoenix before we have to rewrite a bunch of it for looking too much like our Captain Marvel Easter Eggs and Reference Guide. I’ll be here all week.

Dark Phoenix Villains

VUK AND THE D’BARI

The villains of the movie may be underdeveloped and feel tacked on, but they are actually a part of Marvel Comics’ history. The D’Bari are mainly remembered for their very brief and tragic appearance in Uncanny X-Men #135. After scuffling with the X-Men, Dark Phoenix flew off to space in need of a recharge. She ended up feasting on a star, which destroyed an entire solar system. The D’Bari were a race completely wiped out by the gesture.

This is also the reason why it was later retconned so that “Jean” in the Dark Phoenix Saga comic was not the real Jean Grey but the Phoenix itself after copying her appearance and personality. Before the retcon, Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter believed that Jean could never be allowed to live or come back to life as a hero after all that blood on her hands. This was a loophole to get past that.

read more: Best X-Men Movies Watch Order

Their appearance in the movie is far more reminiscent of the Skrulls between the shape-shifting and the desire to take Earth as their new home. That was kind of a big thing after Galactus ate the Skrull homeworld in the comics. It’s more than likely that these guys were supposed to be Skrulls from the beginning until legal issues screwed things around and the MCU got the rights to the characters. After all, before Captain Marvel, it was accepted by many that Skrulls were a Fantastic Four property, also under the Fox banner.

Jessica Chastain’s character is referred to as Vuk. Vuk, later known as Starhammer, actually appeared in the extremely notable Avengers #4, otherwise known as the issue where Captain America is thawed out and joins the team. Vuk, a male in the comics, used human disguises to sneak around and used his technology to turn most of the Avengers into stone. He’s appeared very sporadically since, eventually explained to be the last surviving D’Bari due to being off-world during the events of Dark Phoenix Saga. He’s since become obsessed with finding and killing Phoenix for her actions.

MAGNETO’S BROTHERHOOD

No longer a straight-up villain yet again, Magneto runs a refuge for mutants around the world. The credits list one actor as “Genosha Sentry,” confirming that, yep, this plot of land is the cinematic version of Genosha. In the comics, Genosha started as an island that captured and enslaved mutants. After it was toppled, Magneto took over and ruled it like his own mutant-only country. Even after its eventual destruction at the hands of Sentinels, Magneto has used it as a hideout from time to time.

Kota Eberhardt’s telepath character is Selene. Created by Chris Claremont and Sal Buscema in New Mutants #9 back in 1983, Selene has been a long-running antagonist for the X-Men. Mainly remembered for being the OTHER Black Queen from the Hellfire Club (and also the boss of the Gambit stage from that awful Arcade’s Revenge game for SNES), Selene is possibly the oldest known mutant in Marvel history, predating even Apocalypse. While she is a telepath in the comics, she also has a ton of other abilities, making her way more powerful than she is in the movie.

read more: Explaining the X-Men Movie Timeline(s)

Andrew Stehlin’s hair-puncher mutant character is listed as Ariki in the credits, who is not an existing X-Men character before this. During the making of the movie, he was identified as Red Lotus, an obscure martial artist mutant from X-Treme X-Men. Considering there are absolutely no similarities between the two, it makes sense that they’d change that part for once.

OTHER X-MEN REFERENCES

- During the party in the woods, Halston Sage plays Dazzler. The disco queen superhero made her comic debut in Uncanny X-Men #130, notably during Dark Phoenix Saga, albeit not having a major role. Funny that she finally got to make her movie debut considering she was originally created for the sake of starring in her own movie in the early '80s, which would have featured various Marvel heroes, high-profile musical acts, Robin Williams, and Rodney Dangerfield. Crazy stuff.

- The narration that Jean gives at the beginning is the same one Xavier did at the beginning of X2: X-Men United.

- The movie takes place in 1992. The same year when X-Men jumped into the mainstream with X-Men: The Animated Series. Coincidence? Probably! Maybe! Maybe not! Why am I yelling?!

- The shot of the jet flying out through the school’s basketball court is an exact copy of the same shot from the first X-Men movie, right down to the loose basketball being discarded.

- The cracks on Jean’s face are very similar to the weird scars on Rachel Summers’ face. Rachel herself a wielder of the Phoenix Force in the comics.

- Mystique complains to Xavier about how they have to “wear matching costumes and smile.” After Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s legendary run on New X-Men had the team wearing the black leather that the original movies were so fond of, Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men brought back uniforms with Cyclops citing the same concept that Mystique bemoans. The team’s costumes are also reminiscent of the original issues of Uncanny X-Men from the 1960s.

read more: The X-Men Movies You Never Saw

- Anyone else think it’s weird that they sell naked Mystique action figures in this reality? I guess Mystique is really, REALLY against uniforms more than anyone realized. Coincidentally, in real life, Jennifer Lawrence put the kibosh on them releasing a nude Mystique figure with her likeness.

- During Xavier’s speech at the White House, Chris Claremont makes a cameo. While Claremont didn’t create the X-Men, he was the one who made them a household name and added the defining minority dynamic to the comic. Plus, you know, he wrote Dark Phoenix Saga.

- John Grey’s hatred for Jean is a product of the movie only. In the comics, he loved Jean and didn’t even know about her abilities or the truth of the Xavier School for a long time.

read more - X-Men: Dark Phoenix Ending Explained

- During the X-Men confrontation with Jean by her house, there’s a truck in the background labeled “BISHOP POWER.” A sly reference to Bishop, the X-Men member with the ability to absorb energy and use it against others.

- Mystique is impaled thrice through the midsection. Probably a bookend to her fake death in the first movie at Wolverine’s hands.

- Xavier’s role in the movie ties into how the mid-00s treated him in the comics. Various incidents were uncovered, which painted Xavier as a man who went too far due to the ends justifying the means. When a rescue team of mutants failed a mission and seemed to die, he mind-wiped everyone to make them forget they ever existed (this included Cyclops’ brother Vulcan, so Cyclops was understandably pissed when this came to light). He also forced a confused, sentient AI to act as the Danger Room against its will. Like in the movie, this eventually cost him his spot as the school’s headmaster.

- By the end of the movie, Phoenix is straight-up dusting her enemies, which is how she took care of business in X3: The Last Stand.

- When Jean flies off to space to blow up, Cyclops says, “She’s gone.” In X-Men 2, when Jean died, Wolverine said the same line, only for Cyclops to immediately and tearfully yell at him for saying that.

read more - How Dark Phoenix Fixes X-Men Continuity

- Jean’s narration at the end: “This is not the end of me or the X-Men. This is a new beginning.” That sounds...very meta considering the future of the cinematic X-Men.

- Naming the school after Jean Grey is also from the comics. Wolverine renamed it the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning after he took over. If they’ve truly cut ties with Xavier, it’s probably for the better. For one thing, it’ll sidestep the X-Men’s fate from Logan.

Hopefully, when the MCU starts dealing with X-Men stuff, they can refrain from all the chess. I never want to see another chess game in a superhero movie again as long as I live.

MISCELLANEOUS

- The song that Jean wants to change on the radio is Jimmy Webb’s “By the Time I get to Phoenix.” Funny enough, she changes it to Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” a nod to the duality and dangerous nature of Jean and the Phoenix Force.

- Jean trying to scrub Mystique’s blood out of her shirt is the lamest, most on-the-nose Macbeth reference in recent cinematic memory.

- Jean opening her eyes as a new fire being and flying off into the cosmos is pretty intentionally evoking David going “Star-Child” at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

See any other fun references? Sound off in the comments below!

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Gavin Jasper

Jun 6, 2019

Marvel

X-Men

Dark Phoenix

from Books http://bit.ly/2IsQMZt