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racefortheironthrone · 5 months

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What did you think of X-Men Blue Origins?

(I may turn this into a People's History of the Marvel Universe later today, so keep an eye on this space.)

X-Men Blue: Origins and the Power of the Additive Retcon

(WARNING: heavy spoilers under the cut)

Introduction

If you've been a long-time X-Men reader, or you're a listener of Jay & Miles or Cerebrocast or any number of other LGBT+ X-Men podcasts, you probably know the story about how Chris Claremont wrote Mystique and Destiny as a lesbian couple, but had to use obscure verbiage and subtextual coding to get past Jim Shooter's blanket ban on LGBT+ characters in the Marvel Universe.

Likewise, you're probably also familiar with the story that, when Chris Claremont came up with the idea that Raven Darkholme and Kurt Wagner were related (a plot point set up all the way back in Uncanny X-Men #142), he intended that Mystique was Nightcrawler's father, having used her shapeshifting powers to take on a male body and impregnate (her one true love) Irene. This would have moved far beyond subtext - but it proved to be a bridge too far for Marvel editorial, and Claremont was never able to get it past S&P.

This lacuna in the backstories of Kurt and Raven - who was Kurt's father? - would remain one of the enduring mysteries of the X-Men mythos...and if there's one thing that comic writers like, it's filling in these gaps with a retcon.

Enter the Draco

Before I get into the most infamous story in all of X-Men history, I want to talk about retcons a bit. As I've written before:

"As long as there have been comic books, there have been retcons. For all that they have acquired a bad reputation, retcons can be an incredibly useful tool in comics writing and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Done right, retcons can add an enormous amount of depth and breadth to a character, making their worlds far richer than they were before. Instead, I would argue that retcons should be judged on the basis of whether they’re additive (bringing something new to the character by showing us a previously unknown aspect of their lives we never knew existed before) or subtractive (taking away something from the character that had previously been an important part of their identity), and how well those changes suit the character."

For a good example of an additive retcon, I would point to Chris Claremont re-writing Magneto's entire personality by revealing that he was a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. As I have argued at some length, this transformed Magneto from a Doctor Doom knockoff into a complex and sympathetic character who could now work as a villain, anti-villain, anti-hero, or hero depending on the needs of the story.

For a good example of a subtractive retcon, I would point to...the Draco. If you're not familiar with this story, the TLDR is that it was revealed that Kurt's father was Azazel - an evil ancient mutant with the same powers and the same appearance (albeit color-shifted) as Kurt, who claims to be the devil and is part of a tribe of demonic-looking mutants who were banished to the Brimstone Dimension, and who fathered Nightcrawler as part of a plot to end this banishment.

I don't want to belabor Chuck Austen, because I think that Connor Goldsmith is right about his run actually being a camp cult classic in retrospect. However, I think we both agree that the Draco was a misfire, because of how the retcon undermined Kurt's entire thematic purpose as established in Giant-Size X-Men that Nightcrawler was actually a noble and arguably saintly man who suffered from unjust prejudice due to the random accident that his mutation made him appear to be a demon, and because of how the retcon undermined the centrality of Mystique and Destiny's relationship.

X-Men Blue Origins

This brings us to the Krakoan era. In HOXPOX and X-Men and Inferno, Jonathan Hickman had made Mystique and Destiny a crucial part of the story in a way that they hadn't been in decades: they were the great nemeses of Moira X, they were the force that threatened to burn Krakoa to the ground by revealing the devil's bargain that Xavier had struck with Sinister (and Moira), they were the lens through which the potential futures of Krakoa were explored, and they ultimately reshaped the Quiet Council and the Five in incredibly consequential ways.

This throughline was furthered after Hickman's departure, with Kieron Gillen exploring the backstories of Mystique and Destiny in Immortal X-Men and Sins of Sinister, and both Gillen and Si Spurrier exploring their relationship with Nightcrawler in AXE Judgement Day, Sins of Sinister, Way of X, Legion of X, Nightcrawlers, and Sons of X. One of the threads that wove through the interconnected fabric of these books was an increasing closeness between Kurt and Irene that needed an explanation. Many long-time readers began to anticipate that a retcon about Kurt's parentage was coming - and then we got X-Men Blue: Origins.

In this one issue, Si Spurrier had the difficult assignment of figuring out a way to "fix" the Draco and restore Claremont's intended backstory in a way that was surgical and elegant, that served the character arcs of Kurt, Raven, and Irene, and that dealt with complicated issues of trans and nonbinary representation, lesbian representation, disability representation, and the protean nature of the mutant metaphor. Thanks to help from Charlie Jane Anders and Steve Foxe, I think Spurrier succeeded tremendously.

I don't want to go through the issue beat-by-beat, because you should all read it, but the major retcon is that Mystique turns out to be a near-Omega level shapeshifter, who can rewrite themselves on a molecular level. Raven transformed into a male body and impregnated Irene, using bits of Azazel and many other men's DNA as her "pigments." In addition to being a deeply felt desire on both their parts to have a family together, this was part of Irene's plan to save them both (and the entire world) from Azazel's schemes, a plan that required them to abandon Kurt as a scapegoat-savior (a la Robert Graves' King Jesus), and to have Xavier wipe both their memories.

Now, I'm not the right person to write about what this story means on a representational level; I'll leave it to my LGBT+ colleagues on the Cerebrocast discord and elsewhere to discuss the personal resonances the story had for them.

What I will say, however, is that I thought this issue threaded the needle of all of these competing imperatives very deftly. It "fixed" the Draco without completely negating it, it really deepened and complicated the characters and relationships of both Raven and Irene (by showing that, in a lot of ways, Destiny is the more ruthless and manipulative of the two), and it honored Kurt's core identity as a man of hope and compassion (even if it did put him in a rather thankless ingénue role for much of the book).

It is the very acme of an additive retcon; nothing was lost, everything was gained.

I still think the baby Nightcrawler is just a bad bit, but then again I don't really vibe with Spurrier's comedic stylings.

#xmen #xmen meta #raven darkholme #kurt wagner #irene adler #xmen blue #nightcrawler #mystique #destiny #chris claremont #si spurrier #krakoa #retcons #xmen spoilers #hoxpox

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vertigoartgore · 6 months

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Krakoa's Quiet Council by Mike Deodato Jr. (Powers of X #1 cover).

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corsairesix · 5 months

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If I was Jonathan Hickman writing the Omega Level list in 2019, I'd write "any character you think should be on here can't access their Omega Level power because they're repressing the fact that they're gay" and then quit and turn off my phone

#x men #hoxpox

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laurajameskinney · 1 month

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something to be said here about making the great replacement theory (allegorically) true. which is a Decision to make for sure

#gg og #krakoa readthrough #hoxpox #hickman. you cant say that.

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magnetosfavorite · 1 year

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when they see each other again, fireworks are going to ensue

#just need these together on the TL #'non-couple couple'#yeah they're it #otp: i’m sorry i can’t leave him #hoxpox #cherik #charles/erik #magneto #professor x

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haveyoureadthiscomic-poll · 4 months

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#powers of x #hoxpox #x-men #xmen #x men comics #marvel #marvel 616 #marvel comics #poll

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alfietalksaboutcomics · 5 months

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Some Thoughts On First Pages

I have this theory that you can identify a great comic from its first page, or first two pages really since frankly that’s how most of us end up reading these things, in physical. The first page is an opportunity to not only draw the reader into the narrative of a comic but to make a thesis statement about the broader comic. First impressions have a lasting impact in the mind, the best comics creators know this and use the prime real estate of the first page (or two) to hook the audience right off the bat. I’d like to go over a few examples to illustrate what I mean, starting with New X-Men by Grant Morrison.

New X-Men #1 By Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

I’m vaguely aware that Patrick (H) Willems talked about this page and how excellent it is in his video One X-Cellent Scene - It's Time For X-Men to Evolve, I haven’t seen the video but I would feel remiss not to mention it since Willems no doubt discussed this brilliant page with more insight then I will provide. That being said I will still try and give my thoughts on what makes this page so instantly iconic and what it says more broadly about Morrison’s New X-Men.

New X-Men was my second X-Men comic, after reading Joss Weadon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men, and let me tell you that the second I saw this first page I knew I was in for something special. First off Quitely’s art is just spectacular, the composition is one thing but my god is it just a beautiful page overall. There’s just something about this page, something indescribable for me, something that just makes me want to frame it and hang it up on my wall. In one page Morrison and Quitely give glimpses into the characters of Wolverine and Cyclops (alongside the new character of Ugly John). Morrison and Quitely also show off their bold new vision for the X-Men in this page. The sentinel being a symbol of the teams past, while Wolverine and Cyclops’s new costumes are a symbol of this all new all different take on the X-Men. It's forward looking while also being firmly rooted in the franchise's history.

Immortal Hulk #1 by Al Ewing and Joe Bennett

Immortal Hulk #1’s first two pages are simple but say magnitudes, the real thing it conveys is theme. The narration spells it out plainly “There are two people in every mirror. There’s the one you can see. And then there’s the other one. The one you don’t want to." This is the entirety of Immortal Hulk summed up in just two pages. The idea of duality, man and monster, Keter and Thaumiel, Banner and Hulk. Throughout the series this concept of the opposite reflection is brought up again and again, it’s the very essence of Immortal Hulk. This first page is also an excellent example of set up and pay off, the very first page of this comic has a man looking into his own reflection, likewise to reinforce the theme the comic ends with Banner looking into a mirror and looking back at him is the Hulk.

House of X #1 by Jonathan Hickman and Pepe Larraz

Let’s end with another X-Men comic, the franchise redefining House of X #1 by Johnthan Hickman and Pepe Larraz. House Of X #1 opens on a panel of these cocoon-like eggs, then a wide shot of the eggs as far as the eye can see, all the while a silhouette of a man stands in the foreground. Then we cut to a hand emerging from an egg and then to people crawling out of them towards the man. On the next page we get a glimpse of one of the people, a man with red energy coming out of his eyes having his chin lifted up by the mysterious man. The next panel is a shot of the people reaching up to the man, a boldly redesigned professor X, finally the last panel cuts to a close up of his face where he proudly proclaims the iconic line “To me, my X-Men.”

The first time I saw this page I had that same feeling I had with New X-Men #1, I knew I was in for something special. House of X and Powers of X radically redefined the X-Men and it all started here with these first two pages. Larraz’s art is spectacular and breathes life into this bold new world for the X-franchise, it’s simple yet profound. It invites so many questions, what are these eggs? Where are we? What is different with Professor X? And many, many more all within the confines of two pages. The icing on the cake is the invoking of that iconic line “To me, my X-Men.”. This page has become iconic and has been mimicked throughout the Krakoa era many times. It’s truly something special.

I could list many, many more examples of great first pages but I hope by now you get the general idea. First pages offer a unique opportunity for comic book creators to introduce us to their worlds, characters, and themes all within those first two pages. I should clarify that this isn’t a requirement for a great comic, plenty of amazing comics have forgettable first pages but by god is it effective when the stars align and creators craft a memorable first page (or two).

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louiejoyce · 1 year

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I’ve been wanting to draw Rasputin IV for ages so was stoked with this commission request! Really enjoyed this one! I’m behind on my X books but i know she’s appearing in Sins of Sinister so I’m very excited to catch up on her return. ❌🤙🖊️✍️

(If you’re interested in getting a sketch commission hit me up via dm for more info!)

www.louiejoyce.com

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fagdyk · 8 months

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See you on the other side

#this got me a little teary-eyed #Krakoan era has been such an important part of my 20's #but on the other side it has grown a bit stale over the last two years #and nobody other than ewing ayala and lavalle (and Gillen but less) has been trying to breathe in fresh air #X-Men #wednesday spoilers #hoxpox #krakoa era

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omniversecomicsguide · 9 months

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Marvel’s artistic grandmaster @PepeLarraz is ready to play on pods/video! The man’s a champ!

PLAY: Quick Catch-Up - Pepe Larraz

#pepe larraz #x of swords #house of x #marvel comics #jonathan hickman #hoxpox

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samsonet3 · 2 years

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Krakoa is eugenicist but not in the way you think

Marvel doesn’t understand Moira but I do. I’m here to tell you why Moira would help establish Krakoa if her goal from the beginning was to cure mutants.

Content note: this post discusses eugenics, genocide, reproductive issues, racism, ableism.

To begin, I want to draw your attention to a bit of specific terminology in the Marvel Universe: “mutant” vs “mutate.” While in our world a “mutant” is any individual with any kind of mutation, in the 616 a mutant is only a person whose mutation is caused by an x-gene. When people talk about “curing mutants,” they’re specifically talking about getting rid of individuals with that specific gene.

People have invented these kind of “cures” before. They focus on the individual: removing one person’s x-gene, or repressing it, or covering it. This is violence. The X-Men fight against this... or at least they did, before Krakoa.

But these aren’t the kind of cures Moira seems to have been thinking of. As we see in Inferno (2021) 4:

How is this cure meant to work? I’ve seen speculation that the Krakoan medicines were tampered with. This is possible, but I don’t think it’s what Moira is referring to here. Let me explain.

Moira’s cure is not meant for individual mutants. Moira’s cure is for the human race as a whole.

From House of X 2:

To Moira, the x-gene is not a simple variation in the human population. It is something “other,” something to be removed.

From the narrator of that issue: "When two aggressive species share the same environment, evolution demands either adaptation or dominance."

To which I would ask her: are mutants another species?

From an evolutionary standpoint, mutants and humans are one species.

This is an area where the mutant metaphor cannot be applied to any real-world marginalized identity. I’m a person of color. I have a chronic illness. I am obviously not a different species.

So I’m putting the metaphor aside for now, and focusing on the origin of species in the Marvel Universe. Of course, Marvel evolution is science fiction; it’s not going to match exactly with the real world. However, Marvel evolution is inspired by real-world evolution. Moira is also noted as a geneticist, so I feel like it’s reasonable to assume she is familiar with evolutionary theory. I’m going to be quoting and linking to places because I’m not going too deeply into science in this post.

First: speciation. Nature.com: “new species form when individuals from diverging populations no longer recognize one another as potential mates, or opportunities for mating become limited by differences in habitat use or reproductive schedules.“

Second: gene frequency. Wikipedia defines it as “the relative frequency of an allele (variant of a gene) at a particular locus in a population, expressed as a fraction or percentage.”

Third: gene fixation and gene loss. Wikipedia again: fixation is the state of a gene being present in 100% of a population; loss is when it is present in 0% of the population.

In Moira’s Krakoa -- at the beginning of the Dawn of X, when entry was at its strictest -- only allowing mutants on the island meant that the x-gene was fixed in the Krakoan population.

Note that this doesn’t automatically mean that the x-gene is lost in the population of the rest of the world. Here’s one more term to explain why:

Fourth: the Hardy–Weinberg principle. Here’s the Wikipedia page. Basically: the frequency of a gene in a given population will remain constant unless something influences the population. Some of those influences: selective breeding; migration; mutation.

Remember how I showed you earlier that Moira thought of mutation as a cancer? Here’s what’s so difficult about treating cancer: it metastasizes. That is, it reappears in other parts of the body, sometimes without warning.

People have tried to depower mutants individually. They’ve tried to kill all the mutants -- they’re still trying to kill all the mutants. But even if all the known mutants in the Marvel Universe disappeared, there would still be mutants born the next day.

Non-mutant humans can still give birth to mutant children.

From Inferno 4:

"Us” is not Moira and Destiny. It’s not even mutants as a whole. It’s the human population that the mutants were once a part of.

That is who she is attempting to cure: not the currently existing mutants, nor any mutant children they could potentially have. She is curing the human population of Earth by removing the x-gene. She is preventing their children from being born with an x-gene.

Alright, I promised you that I’d explain how Krakoa would further this goal. I’ve seen speculation that it’s meant to be a trap for mutants. I agree. A place where mutants -- especially those with visible mutations -- can live in safety? A place where their needs are provided for? Nobody can be blamed for wanting to live there permanently.

It seems most Krakoans are living there permanently. Note how big of a deal it was that Cyclops took the X-Men back to New York, for example. Or for a less positive light, look at Firestar. She is one of the few mutants who does not live on the island and says why: she wants to stay close to her human father. She’s treated as suspicious by mutants on Krakoa. While many mutants were formerly close to their human friends and family, such relationships are now scorned by Krakoans.

(I also want to note that some of the other mutants who were living off-island -- Beak and Angel -- were also staying with human parents. Said parents were then killed by other humans, allowing the mutants to move to Krakoa with no problems. I don’t blame Moira for that, of course. I just think it was an interesting choice from the writers.)

So: removing a population from a larger population. Encouraging the separation of those with an x-gene away from those without.

From Way of X 3:

Then there’s the focus on “making more mutants.” Moira didn’t have anything to do with that law (...that we know of). Kurt himself makes it clear that compulsory reproduction is not what the law should mean. I have a lot of thoughts on the subject, but because this post is already getting long, let’s just assume that everyone on Krakoa who gets pregnant wants to be pregnant and wants a baby.

Krakoan society looks down on humans. Human partners need permission to be on the island -- in fact, the only human partner we’ve seen in the Krakoan era is Northstar’s husband Kyle. Krakoa encourages sexual relationships on the island.

The result: babies with an x-gene being born to parents with x-genes. Parents who might have had children with non-x-gene humans instead having children with other mutants.

And in a few generations of mutants immigrating to Krakoa and staying there?

Nobody in the outside human population has an x-gene, nor is anyone a carrier of it. The gene is lost. Humanity is cured.

It’s genocide. It’s violence. It’s an evil that is difficult to illustrate, much less fight, and one even those who know about Moira don’t seem to be aware of.

Now.

How does this fit in with her post-X Deaths of Wolverine arc?

I don’t have a good answer for that. I’m just gonna blame that on Hickman’s departure and avoid thinking about this new Moira as much as possible. Thank you for reading through this!

#Krakoa #mutant theory #hoxpox #♠ | my writing

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racefortheironthrone · 5 months

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Any characters you feel got a big upgrade in the krakoan era? I just finished x men red and Ive really been impressed in Apocalypse aka Revelation’s story all across

So many characters.

Post-Hickman and Howard and Ewing Apocalypse is a fundamentally different (and more interesting) character than the one who's existed for almost fourty years. It's like pre- and post-Claremont Magneto.

Cypher has become a scheming political twink with a robot arm and a large wife enforcer.

Hope, Goldballs, Elixir, Tempus, and Proteus got a huge glow-up. Not only are they collective messiahs of their people in a power-boosted polycule, but Proteus is now a philosophical club kid with a manageable chronic illness and a therapist rather than a Nosferatu.

Jean is Phoenix again, that's a big shift. Also, the whole Summers polycule Brady Bunch thing really changed the whole Jean/Scott/Logan dynamic.

Mystique is Nightcrawler's dad and Destiny is his mom. Also Mystique is way more powerful now, quasi-omega level.

Moira is now an ex-mutant who's become a genocidal robot.

Kate Pryde is now canonically bi and incredibly violent and traumatized.

Storm is now a Main Character again, and arguably the most powerful mutant in the galaxy.

And so on.

#hoxpox #hoxpox doxroxdeox foxfothoxrotpox #krakoa #xmen #xmen meta

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vertigoartgore · 8 months

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House of X/Powers of X HC/TPB cover by Pepe Larraz & Marte Gracia.

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corsairesix · 29 days

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What is your X-Men Bad Future or Alternate Universe/Reality Warp dream team?

Bad Future: Possible future team of X-Men, 20 years from now to far future, warning of things yet to come (e.g. Days of Future Past, Powers of X, Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants)

Alternate Universe: another version of the X-Men, different enough to show "what could have been" (e.g. Age of Apocalypse, Age of X, House of M)

#x men #days of future past #age of x #hoxpox #age of apocalypse #sins of sinister #house of m

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proxy616 · 1 year

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when i reached that moment where it was revealed kurt did in fact die and go to the marvel heaven (meaning he had his pirate ship fight up there) i kinda had to pause because. besides the obvious immortality clashing with the protocol that you highlighted, if it's true then... why did he make that promise to logan of "seeing him on the other side" in hox when he technically can't ever do that? where are his blue bamfs? why didn't he react more upon seeing azazel's red bamfs in the astral plane??

As readers we could spend eternity scratching our heads and doing mental gymnastics to get all of this to make sense in universe. But there are too many unresolved questions and plot threads.

To be blunt I think it simply boils down to the writers not knowing enough about Nightcrawler’s history and cherry picking what they want to stick. Like marvel heaven being ret-conned until it isn’t. But immortality, Azazels absence on Krakoa and the bamfs, still being off the table.

I could go on a huge rant about much this bothers me but being charitable I will say that new writers seem to have no time and/or desire to research in depth history/lore/personalities when they only have six issues to work with at a time, never knowing if they’re going to be moved on, cancelled or if the book will continue. All short term ideas, no long term planning. Add to the mix writers personal preferences for their favorites and focus on their oc’s and we have a recipe for confusion.

#legion of x #hoxpox #nightcrawler #way of x

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tgirldarkholme · 2 years

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"If there’s a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 Nazis." but it's about the Quiet Council of Krakoa.

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