Death of X/Inhumans vs. X-Men [Marvel]

[X-SOLDIER]

What an appropriate title for the four-part miniseries, where we FINALLY find out what in the sweet holy hell happened with Cyclops. Two issues in October and the other two in November. Now I have my time set for potential rage/comfortable understanding of where ANAD has left things.

It's being written by Jeff Lemire who's doing the new Moon Knight (which I love) and Extraordinary X-Men (which has had lots of SUPER anti-Cyclops stuff in it from the other X-Men and makes me a little bit hesitant, but it has also teased at what happened the most, so…).

EDIT: Looks like it's ALSO being written by Charles Soule who wrote Death of Wolverine (another four-part miniseries which I liked), is writing Uncanny Inhumans (which I greatly enjoy and has the other Cyclops teases in it), as well as Daredevil, Poe Dameron, Lando and Obi-Wan & Anakin – which are ALL fantastic - especially with the last two being really damn good 5 issue series.



Via: http://www.ew.com/article/2016/07/07/marvels-death-x-mutants-inhuman




X

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Spoiler: Things from "Extraordinary X-Men" & "Uncanny Inhumans" that I expect to play HEAVILY into this:

I'm willing to bet that the reason he's heavily vilified now and the whole Sinister dialogue foreshadowing thing is going to be that he's tied to something with the Mists affecting Mutants the way that they do now as a result of the actions that he took. I'm kinda doubting that he'll (be/stay) dead by the end of this series though, because there's way too much potential for using his character like that. (Plus, he'd make an awesome foil to Black Bolt).

Additionally, the current Apocalypse Wars event of sorts are looking at all of Mutant kind's future, and this makes sense as a point to direct that change by finally revealing how it started as a way to start a REAL fight against the Mutants' seemingly inevitable fate.

Also, there'll be lots of variant covers over several series: http://comicbook.com/marvel/2016/06...th-of-x-comes-for-deadpool-cyclops-and-warpa/




X

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Marvel made a post on the matter with the new above image: http://marvel.com/news/comics/26400/death_of_x_ignites_the_mutantinhuman_feud

I made a tl;dr tumblr post about the whole thing: http://xsoldier.tumblr.com/post/147104106220/death-of-x-just-a-quick-reminder-that-the-last

Does need.




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Wait, what?

"Did Marvel Just Silently Kill the X-Men?"

Apparently this much is true at least: Marvel's post-"Civil War II" lineup doesn't include any X-books!

(Unless you want to count "Deadpool," and that's a stretch and a half these days.)

 

[Charles Xavier]

Wait, what?

"Did Marvel Just Silently Kill the X-Men?"

Apparently this much is true at least: Marvel's post-"Civil War II" lineup doesn't include any X-books!

(Unless you want to count "Deadpool," and that's a stretch and a half these days.)

Now I feel bad...

 

[X-SOLDIER]

There is an unnamed series with Thanos and reflections of the Phoenix in his eyes, so it really just seems like there's some sort of thing with the event being an impact on them, and an as-of-yet-unrevealed path to bring them back from that cataclysmic event.

Overall, I'm just waiting ta see what happens with them at this point, since FWIW, Cyclops and the X-Men really hit the end of their arc that I cared about in UXM#600.




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Looks like the X-books being canceled was a false alarm -- but certainly one Marvel wanted fans to at least think was happening when you consider the timing of everything this month.

I get that they have beef with Fox, but they really don't have to jerk the fans of those books around along with them.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Some SDCC chatter about "Death of X" (and confirmation that Marvel was trying to scare X-Men fans with the possibility of cancelation). Nothing too substantial here, but for those who need to read every morsel in the lead-up to release, there it is.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I could create a separate thread, but it seems related enough to live here for now. IvX is happening: http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-inhumans-and-x-men-are-finally-going-to-war-1784180397




X

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Not huge on the art, but this issue was essentially just a recap of the starting point. Terrigen fucks up Mutants. Interesting things of note: Golden Balls was exposed, but he's been shown alive and well in the Spider-Man comics. Also, Beast hasn't yet joined up with the Inhumans, so this is likely that catalyst.

As expected, Cyclops treats it like an act of war (which isn't made clear if it's done because the evidence made it clear that the Inhumans knew and released the Terrigen anyway, or just because they want to manufacture a conflict).

Basically we learned nearly nothing new in this issue (aside from seeing some Inhumans fighting Hydra in Japan), which is surprising for a four part series. Here's to hoping for something more substantial in two weeks.




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Yeah, this was pretty underwhelming. This whole issue could have easily been established in one or two pages of flashback panels in any of the other comics that have referenced it over the past year.

Pretty lame way of

Spoiler

killing off Madrox too.

I'm also not sure that this fits within the established timeline either -- following "Uncanny X-Men" #600, it was supposed to be eight months from there to "Secret Wars," with the All-New, All-Different Marvel imprint we're now under picking up another eight months after that. That's sixteen months. "Death of X" begins "one year ago," so at least 12 months prior then? That's before "Secret Wars," where

Spoiler

Cyclops is still alive, and the X-Men are fighting the denizens of Earth-1610 alongside the Inhumans and Avengers.

So, that doesn't quite fit. Unless it's been more than four months within the stories themselves since ANAD started, which doesn't sound right either.

It also doesn't make much sense (to me, at least) that

Spoiler

Cyclops jumps straight into assuming the Inhumans knew the Terrigen Mist would kill mutants. He also seems to be of the understanding that detonating that Terrigen Bomb in the atmosphere was something the Inhumans were wholesale behind rather than something Black Bolt did unilaterally.

Basically, he's afflicted with a similar strain of the Plot-Induced Stupidity that got ahold of Tony Stark and Carol Danvers for "Civil War II," just so there's an excuse for more hero-on-hero battles.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I know the artist for this series is supposed to be well known, but the artwork in both of these issues is just garbage. Everyone looks like awkward plastic models. Also, it's odd that Emma and Scott are close friends again given where things had left off, not to mention that they're not explaining things to their own team (or the audience) about their intentions or motivations, which basically just makes it seem like every character is just setting up a Jump To Conclusions mat and going in for the extreme solution from the get-go, which is out of character. There's no way he'd be announcing the Inhumans are terrible and starting riots, rather than mobilizing his forces to save the Mutants in Madrid, and leaving Storm & Co. to play savior.

For a series with 4 issues to give explanation and backstory to this whole thing, they're 0 for 2.




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Yeah, this is awful for all the reasons you said.

To add to what you mentioned about Scott and Emma, why is Beast suddenly on good relations with everyone to even be in a position to be donated to the Inhumans by Storm?

And, uh, Guido consoling Rahne? Really? After he, ya know, killed her kid near the end of the "X-Factor" run starring Jamie and his team a few years ago? Ha. Ha. No.

For that matter, why would we be more concerned with some of Jamie's old teammates' grief than with seeing his wife's reaction to all of this? Where is Layla Miller?

For these and the timeline issues I mentioned in my previous post a couple of weeks ago, I'm taking all of this as just further confirmation that the Marvel Universe we're now reading about is not a perfect reconstruction of the universe that existed before. I mean, that would have already had to be the case with changes to things like Piotr and Illyana's origins, but at this point, it's pretty much clearly the case.

I'll also say that this story -- if they were bound and determined to tell it -- should have been what they started the "All-New, All-Different" imprint with. Telling it now takes all the momentum and suspense out of what could have been a more interesting event.

It would still have all the same flaws, but at this point, I just want them to put this thing out of its misery.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Oh my gods, could this series possibly be any more drawn out, obfuscated, and obnoxiously character plot devicey? Ugh. I'll also be glad when it's over to just know that I'm finally done with the atrocity that is the artwork of this series. Seriously, nothing of interest has happened yet that couldn't've been contextually gleaned from the first few issues of Extraordinary X-Men. What is the point of this event?

• Ranting: http://xsoldier.tumblr.com/post/152637795435/twitter-rant-of-mine-about-how-utterly
• More Ranting: http://xsoldier.tumblr.com/post/152643875395/remember-the-conclusion-of-death-of-x-has-to-be



X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Oh my gods, could this series possibly be any more drawn out, obfuscated, and obnoxiously character plot devicey?

Not in my imagination at least.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

The last issue of this comes out in 11 hours. I will be posting about it as soon as I read it tonight. I am preparing for the worst. (Blackbolt is getting his own comic, so obviously this will have SOMEthing to do with that).





X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Dear Marvel,

The Inhumans are like Marvel's "fetch." They need to let it go. It ain't happening.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Well, holy shit.

Issue 4 was it.

They did it.


They gave us a proper, satisfying conclusion.


It's insanely inconsistent with how Storm seems to talk about things and what sort of insane bullshit everyone seems to believe, but I think that that's sort of the whole, "V for Vendetta"-esque message from the whole thing.

I really want to have Young!Cyke learn the whole truth right now and see what he thinks, because I think we've been seeing things through a filter that's finally been stripped away from the readers and I want to see more characters get that perspective.




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Okay, this mini-series is better than it seemed like it was going to be these past few issues. The real story being told was way better than the one the writers wanted us to think they were telling, so kudos to Charles Soule and Jeff Lemire for that -- but it makes no sense in the wider context of the All-New, All-Different Marvel landscape we've been reading about for the past year. Especially the story Lemire has been telling in "Extraordinary X-Men."

Not only would the big reveals of this ending have been way more effective a year ago, but maybe the road map to getting here wouldn't have had coke spilled all over it, gotten pissed on, lost out the window, stuck in the grill of a semi-truck for a while, ran over, rained on, washed down a storm drain -- and then randomly set on fire at the end.

Spoiler

In this scenario Emma orchestrated/fabricated in "Death of X" with Alchemy neutralizing a Terrigen Cloud and making it look like Cyclops went out a martyr, there wasn't a single Inhuman harmed. Meanwhile, two X-Men got shot out of the sky by an Inhuman in this last issue (one of whom was seriously injured and then died to the Terrigen Cloud a few moments later) -- and Cyclops, of course, appeared to die here to the force of Black Bolt's scream as far as the world at large knows.

Yet everyone was afraid of mutants again "after what Scott did"? Or, as Illyana put it in "Extraordinary X-Men" #1, "They used to fear and hate us, but after what Scott did, they just hate us!"?

Young Jean even described what happened as "Scott attacked the Inhumans" in "Extraordinary X-Men" #3. Where? She said "It was bad." How?

For that matter, in issue #4 of that series, the Marauder Azimuth rejected Storm's offer of sanctuary, telling her, "I saw what Cyclops did. I don't want your kind of help" -- implying Mister Sinister's kind of help was somehow better. Azimuth had just seen the villain geneticist subject a fellow mutant to an excruciating death in an experiment that melted them alive by exposing them to a large dose of Terrigen Mist!

By comparison, in the course of this mini, several mutants died to the Inhumans' sacred cloud of pea soup, and the leader of the X-Men was seemingly murdered by the (former) Inhuman king acting on the command of the Inhuman queen. Meanwhile, there were more Inhumans at the end of "Death of X" than there were at the beginning, with none lost along the way.

Nevertheless, the mutants still came out of this as the whipping boy? Just what the fuck?

The sloppy art in this mini-series makes it unclear whether Emma's illusion of Scott was supposed to be trying to fire an optic blast at the Inhuman royals before Black Bolt unleashed his scream, but it doesn't matter for two reasons:

1) Medusa had already given Black Bolt the order to kill Cyclops in the panel before that

&

2) The altercation between the mutants and Inhumans wasn't even televised, so the rest of the world would not have seen the moment of Cyclops's "death"

All the rest of the world knows to think of Cyclops after his peaceful demonstration in Washington D.C. in "Uncanny X-Men" #600 is what Emma had "Scott" tell them in her telepathic broadcast in issue #2 -- this being that the Terrigen Clouds are deadly to mutants, as well as possibly baseline humans, and that the X-Men were going to try to stop it. The next thing the world will learn is that one of the Terrigen Clouds was neutralized, the X-Man who performed the task sacrificed himself to achieve it, and Cyclops was blown away by Black Bolt while not a single Inhuman suffered anything they couldn't walk off.

Yet still ... "die muties!"?

And what about the borderline insane inconsistencies in how Ororo Munroe talks about Cyclops? In "Extraordinary X-Men" #5, while leading her team into battle against a monstrous clone of Scott created by Mister Sinister, she says, "After everything Scott did, we can't let this thing hurt anyone." Later that same issue, she tells a crowd of civilians and news reporters, "Cyclops did something terrible. There is no excuse for his actions. But we are not all Scott Summers."

Here in "Death of X" #4, though, Storm delivers Cyclops's eulogy with praise for him, and his epitaph calls him a hero.

Let's also not forget the otherwise excellently written recent "Champions" #2 by Mark Waid, in which we saw a member of its cast quickly invoke Godwin's Law while discussing the teenage version of Cyclops from the past. While debating whether this "alternate Cyclops" should be allowed to join the team, the notion was compared to "drafting teenage Hitler."

Really now? Come on.

It just gets better, though, because, according to Ororo, Sunfire is "Someone who allied himself closely with Cyclops when he -- when he crossed the lines that he did" ("Extraordinary X-Men" #6). Does she not then consider Illyana, who is a central figure of her team and a vital component in maintaining X-Haven's security, as having "allied herself closely with Cyclops when he crossed the lines that he did"? Even though Illyana was just as important to the success of the plan in "Death of X"?

Storm, still discussing Sunfire in issue #6: "I will not turn any mutant away from X-Haven, Logan. I made that promise and I intend to keep it. But that does not mean that I will trust him. I need to know I can count on you, Logan. If this mutant crosses the line... ...if he threatens what we're building here... ...I need to know you'll take care of him."

The absolute best part of all this comes from Illyana, though, when she attempts to straight-up murder Sunfire in the very next issue: "I will show you horrors, traitor!" "If you and Cyclops hadn't acted like you did, there wouldn't have been any anti-mutant riots, Sunfire!"

Were the All-New, All-Different Marvel imprint only just beginning now that the 2016 Presidential election is over, I would almost think that this Terrigen Cloud storyline was meant as commentary on the debilitating effect of identity politics in liberalism today -- i.e. the whole thing could be seen as an exploration of the narrow range of considerations and oblivious hypocrisy that so often pervades this paradigm, illustrated by:

a1) the world at large turning against Cyclops for "desecrating" the most sacred element of a minority population's quasi-religious culture when said sacred element was killing and sterilizing his own population,
even though
a2) the Inhuman race would be able to continue to survive and procreate without the Terrigen Mist (it simply grants them their superhuman abilities and oftentimes "inhuman" mutations);

and

b1) Illyana being the most enraged X-Man of all toward Sunfire over his playing a key role in Scott's (i.e. Emma's) plan, to the point of trying to kill him unprovoked,
even though
b2) Illyana herself played just as key a role by acting on Emma's orders to temporarily take the Inhuman Daisuke/Downer off the field.

I'm simply boggled here. What an absolute catastrophe of long-term plotting. Was there even a plan mapped out a year ago for what Cyclops was supposed to have done? Does even one of the seven editors whose name appears on this book do anything other than scout for new talent or act smug in interviews?

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Some additional stray thoughts I had:

Spoiler

—Wrap-up interview with Charles Soule

By and large, I respect Soule as a writer, but he's way off base that saving "Death of X" until now made the past year's comics more fun or made for a better story. Also, his claim about re-reading all the Inhumans and X-Men issues since "Secret Wars" as research for writing "Death of X" doesn't ring true for reasons I went over in my previous post.

One also gets the impression from this interview that he actually thinks what "Scott" did here was bad. Which ... I don't know what to say to that kind of delusional stance. Suffice to say, I think he's going to be terribly surprised at how wildly reader reaction differs from his idea.

—Interesting that the "Ideas never die" last words Emma gave Cyclops seem to reference the "You can't kill an idea" thing he actually said toward the end of Hickman's "Secret Wars" #1

—Today I was reminded of fan comments from back in February that are hilarious now in hindsight -- e.g.

Really, the whole thing comes off as "Endure the "Flagship" for a year or so and we'll tell you what reeeaaallly happened... even though we didn't actually tell you what allegedly happened! That's how mystery stories work! Even though no one's actually investigating anything!"

The reason is that everyone supposedly knows what happened, but I'm sure not even lemire know what happened and it's pretty muh bound to change last minute if editorial mandates it to

Nothing. That's what he did. Just like his massive Bendis revolution that never happened. He did nothing then everyone got offended and called him a monster. Because that's what the x-books do where he is concerned.

No real news on what Cyclops did today. Extraordinary X-men #7 offered just another vague burst of outrage. Magik yelled at Sunfire for him and Cyclops, "doing what they did." That's as specific as it got. So overall, we still don't have any answers. That said, this question did come up during this week's X-POSITION wherein Jeff Lemire said this:

The Cyclops Mystery is clearly a very big part of the series and a very big part of what Cullen [Bunn], Dennis [Hopeless] and I have planned for the X-books moving forward. I also realize we may be testing the patience of some fans in prolonging the reveal of what exactly he did, and what exactly happened to him. All I can say at this point is that we have a plan, a very carefully thought out plan, for the Cyclops story and while it may seem like a long time to wait at the moment, I promise that when we do reveal all the pieces, it will make sense and be worth it.

This still begs the question as to what Lemire thinks is "worth it." Right now, the only scenario I can imagine that doesn't completely ruin Cyclops' character and turn him into a complete villain is that there was some sort of mass psychic manipulation.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Lemme break things down on this as much as I can:

Spoiler

Storm is notoriously uncool with Cyclops at literally every opportunity ever since AvX and was even still being that way in UXM #600, even when everybody else pulls their collective heads out of their asses and looks at the big picture of why Scott's ACTUALLY doing. She's also not gonna be cool about this because, in addition to that lasting chip on her shoulder, Cyclops and Magneto basically intervene and do things their own way while blocking her out of it, and as the current leader of the X-Men she's especially not good about anyone 1upping her.

Insofar as the event not being televised – that doesn't matter, and in fact makes things even more clear. From the outside, all anyone knows what "really" happened is that Cyclops destroyed a Terrigen cloud and was killed by Blackbolt. The only people who were directly there are Blackbolt, Medusa, Lockjaw, & Emma (since Cyclops wasn't actually there). Basically this means that the story of what happened is down to the Inhumans since they:
a) Have better PR than the Mutants.
b) Still live alongside the humans, whereas the mutants are in Limbo.
c) Cyclops' character to the media is still pretty negative.

So, basically Cyclops neutralized a Terrigen cloud, said he was going to continue to destroy the other one, and was ready to die for it and was going to attack the Inhuman royalty when Blackbolt killed him (because it'd be a terrible idea to let him strike first what with the proper power of his optic blast and all).

You can absolutely paint that as the necessary death of a known mutant terrorist who was attempting assassination of the Inhuman leadership while undertaking a quest to commit genocide of the Inhumans by wiping out all Terrigen from the Earth. Given how we've heard everyone talk about it, I'm pretty sure that this is the angle that most people were given for the events there, and the reasons for the Hitler comparisons becomes pretty apparent.

That further pushes away any cooperation between the Mutants and Inhumans (Beast notwithstanding), and because Storm was somewhat cooperative with them, it just sets her off the deep end about being perpetually uncool about it, especially because it throws them all into the mix since the average Joe is gonna assume any Mutants present were actively involved or complicit with the whole thing – thus worsening everyone's views of Mutants overall on top of everything.

Insofar as Magik & Sunfire – I'm not sure. We know Magik is with the X-Men now (helping them stay in Limbo), and I can only assume that the various Mutants' views on what Cyclops did after it happened were... mixed. That should absolutely have been clarified, but it's also something that'd've shifted just after the end of this issue, so I don't really have anything other than speculation on all that since we don't have specifics.

Storm giving the eulogy was something I was also really annoyed by. It absolutely should've been given by Emma, not to mention that what's said is woefully out of character for Storm's continued opinion of Cyclops overall – even if it's just words at a funeral without real conviction behind them. That part did annoy me quite a bit because it rang so false.



That said, it's clear that not the whole Mutant Community got lost in the smoke and mirrors. There're the Ghosts of Cyclops who seem to have a more accurate idea of what happened. I think that the point of releasing Death of X now rather than earlier is that it makes it apparently that what we've been told until now isn't the whole or even the real story at all. Much like with current media we've been shown and told a very specifically curated version of events. I think that that information coming to light and igniting sudden conflict is going to be related to IvX in the same way that a lot of people feel about this issue with Cyclops being equivalent to Hitler being revealed as total bullshit.

If that's how they're choosing to set off IvX, then I think there's a possibility of it being something worth seeing – especially if we learn something like the Inhumans actually knowing the Terrigen was no good for mutants before releasing it or other secrets that just muddies the waters even more. There's POTENTIAL for their conflict to be really good. No idea how it'll play out though.



Most of all though, now I'm curious how Sinister came by Cyclops' genetic material to clone him, since last we saw, Emma still had his body. I wanna know if he's actually buried somewhere or if Sinister was really attempting to bring him back. I want to know what went down there.

Lemme know if I missed any points or whatnot.



X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Spoiler

Insofar as the event not being televised – that doesn't matter, and in fact makes things even more clear. From the outside, all anyone knows what "really" happened is that Cyclops destroyed a Terrigen cloud and was killed by Blackbolt. The only people who were directly there are Blackbolt, Medusa, Lockjaw, & Emma (since Cyclops wasn't actually there). Basically this means that the story of what happened is down to the Inhumans since they:
a) Have better PR than the Mutants.
b) Still live alongside the humans, whereas the mutants are in Limbo.
c) Cyclops' character to the media is still pretty negative.

So, basically Cyclops neutralized a Terrigen cloud, said he was going to continue to destroy the other one, and was ready to die for it and was going to attack the Inhuman royalty when Blackbolt killed him (because it'd be a terrible idea to let him strike first what with the proper power of his optic blast and all).

Spoiler

In general, though, Inhumans aren't much better loved than the mutants. And I can't see Storm -- and especially not Magneto -- accepting a truce that included mutants taking all the blame.

Also, that bears asking what the blame would even be for. No one outside the mutant and Inhuman communities was affected by these events, and even there, it was only mutant lives lost, as I said yesterday.

Spoiler

You can absolutely paint that as the necessary death of a known mutant terrorist who was attempting assassination of the Inhuman leadership while undertaking a quest to commit genocide of the Inhumans by wiping out all Terrigen from the Earth. Given how we've heard everyone talk about it, I'm pretty sure that this is the angle that most people were given for the events there, and the reasons for the Hitler comparisons becomes pretty apparent.

Spoiler

There is no genocide inherent in neutralizing Terrigen. As I said in my first post after issue #4 came out, you take away the Terrigen Mists, all you've done is take away the most sacred element of the Inhumans' quasi-religious culture. Frankly, they can get over it. =P

They are not dependent on it for life, whereas it was actively building to the extinction of mutants. By no measure of common sense or compassion does the totem of a culture outweigh the lives of a whole race/sentient species in value.

Without the mists, Inhumans are still free to continue living and procreating. With the mists, mutants are free to do neither.

Spoiler

I think that the point of releasing Death of X now rather than earlier is that it makes it apparently that what we've been told until now isn't the whole or even the real story at all.

Spoiler

We were pretty much told nothing. As that one fan I quoted in my previous post observed, "Really, the whole thing comes off as 'Endure the Flagship for a year or so and we'll tell you what reeeaaallly happened... even though we didn't actually tell you what allegedly happened!'"

Spoiler

If that's how they're choosing to set off IvX, then I think there's a possibility of it being something worth seeing – especially if we learn something like the Inhumans actually knowing the Terrigen was no good for mutants before releasing it or other secrets that just muddies the waters even more.

Spoiler

As I said earlier in this thread (are you in a rush today or something? =P), Black Bolt unilaterally chose to release the mists. No one except Maximus had any idea what was about to happen.

Medusa definitely had no idea what would happen to the mutants once the stuff was airborne, and I can't imagine Black Bolt had any reason to beforehand.

There's POTENTIAL for their conflict to be really good. No idea how it'll play out though.

Maybe good for action. I don't see any other potential it has right now, to be honest.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Oh my God, this just keeps getting worse. Charles Soule did an interview with CBR, and it confirms much of what I thought previously.

The general consensus from what I have seen is that “Death of X” did right by Emma and Scott. However many fans myself including are still confused as to why mutants became so hated after the destruction of the Terrigen Cloud? And why Scott himself was hated by his own teammates? Are we missing something?

Charles Soule: I’ve gotten this question a lot myself. The key here is in one of Scott’s (well, Emma’s, really) last lines: “You’ve got a story, I’ve got a story. It doesn’t matter which one is true. It matters which one is believed.” So, here’s what we know — the things that happened in “Death of X” happened as we saw. By the time the various “X” #1s began, public opinion had turned way against Scott. Remember that not every mutant was present, nor every Inhuman. The events were shaped by public opinion and through the viewpoints of people who saw them — or didn’t. In the world we live in today, this seems extremely plausible. People believe things firmly based on a single headline — they don’t even have to read the article. “Death of X” is already a tragedy on many levels — in part because Emma does so much in Scott’s memory that becomes increasingly terrible — but then when you realize that people end up believing whatever the hell they want to despite what seem to be the available facts… well, it’s even sadder.

First off, Soule seems to really believe "Scott" did something bad here ("Emma does so much in Scott's memory that becomes increasingly terrible").

No. He didn't. End of story.

Secondly, the mutants we see talking the most shit about Cyclops after this were ones who were there. Public opinion has jack all to do with why Storm, Illyana or Young Cyclops should be crapping on Scott after this. Even if they were mad at him for his very reasonable reaction to the Terrigen Clouds causing anti-mutant sentiment to crop up again, that wouldn't explain Young Scott referring to him as "a self-righteous, mass-murdering psychopath" in "All-New X-Men" vol. 2, #2.

What losses have the Inhumans suffered aside from the cloud? The “IvX” intro implies that they had multiple losses, but so far all we’ve seen is the destruction of the cloud. Did something happen off screen?

There’s been a fair amount of cold-war-esque conflict off screen, and there have been losses, yes.

But nothing Cyclops was responsible for then? Or even anything we've heard about up to now?

Sounds like bullshit to me.

Was it expected that the Inhumans would be perceived as having an equally valid, or even sympathetic, viewpoint after “Death of X,” when the stakes ultimately came down to their having to make significant cultural adjustments in a new environment vs. the slow, painful death of an established population?

The Terrigen clouds are not everywhere. There were two, now there’s just one. Their path is tracked on weather services — once the mutants realize they’re a problem, they’re easily avoidable. As soon as the Inhumans learn what’s happening, they immediately (like right that second) leap to help, moving mutants out of the cloud’s path. The mutants don’t have to touch Terrigen at all, which means the problem is really of a limited scale to them. So, the idea that the Inhumans should destroy their entire (20,000+ years) cultural legacy because mutants have a problem with Terrigen… I think it’s understandable that they would take a wait-and-see approach, and try to find another solution.

To explain another way — there are kids with deadly peanut allergies. We don’t implement a worldwide ban on peanut butter or Snickers. We just make sure those particular kids stay away from peanuts. This is that exact situation. Now, we’ll see what happens in “IvX”…

Kids with peanut allergies are not sterilized just by living on a planet with peanuts, nor are they forced to take refuge in an off-Earth hell dimension to avoid the deadly affects of peanuts. So, no, this is not "that exact situation."

As I suspected, though, Marvel expected us to be more sympathetic with the Inhumans for their cultural sensibilities than with sterilized, poisoned mutants who "have a problem with Terrigen" -- that piddly "problem" being the getting sterilized and poisoned.

For that matter, if the Terrigen problem is "of a limited scale to them" and "easily avoidable," why the fuck are the X-Men living in fucking Limbo? Why did they feel it necessary to take as many mutants there to X-Haven as they could? Why is everyone saying things like "mutantkind is on the brink"?

And no, it's not understandable that the Inhumans would take a "wait-and-see" approach. Crystal and Medusa used to be unable to live in the world outside Attilan for long because humankind's pollution made the air poisonous to them. They should be extremely sympathetic here.


In closing, what a shit interview. For both its answers and non-answers.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

His first point is mostly what I’ve been saying the whole time about interpretation, which is validating to hear. I think that the, “did so much in his memory that becomes increasingly terrible“ it’s referring to the way that the memory of Scott ended up, and less to the actions that she took. It’s all a matter of interpretation.

Also, Storm, Ilyana, & Young!Scott were approaching the situation when (hologram) Scott was killed –

Spoiler

– So they didn’t hear any of what he said to Medusa & Blackbolt first hand inside the neutralized cloud. Everything said would be coming second-hand from one of them, or from Emma if she chose to share it.

Additionally, I do think that they VASTLY miscalculated the reaction of people not to Death of X still not siding with the Inhumans in all of this, which is nothing but interesting for me at this point. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes from here – especially as I catch up. Will write more as I read some more X-Comics this week & see what’s up. (Leaving work to do so right now)




X

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Spoiler: Since the Inhumans don't need Terrigen to live

, no account of what happened, whether by the Inhumans or the mutants in attendance, should logically arrive at "Cyclops was planning Inhuman genocide," much less that he actually attempted it. If the Inhumans are just outright lying about what happened, then that would not speak well of the Inhumans at all, so I can't imagine that's what we're supposed to think. Then again, with the way Captain Marvel has been ruined lately, who knows.

Even if so, I can't imagine Magneto letting that stand.

More to the point, though, and far more importantly, it's irrelevant what Storm, Young Scott and Illyana heard or saw of what took place within that red cloud because they know everything that happened up to that point. Absolutely no interpretation of those events (that doesn't involve schizophrenia) will arrive at Storm going from praising Cyclops in his eulogy to demonizing him; Young Cyke describing him as a "a mass-murdering psychopath"; and Illyana trying to murder a teammate from that mission (a mission that didn't kill even one Inhuman) in retribution for him participating in it just as much as she did.

And for that matter, this mini-series was not billed as "See the events that everyone will twist and distort and just be absolutely fucking insane about over until they arrive at 'Cyclops is Hitler'!"

If that's all that was to be shown here, you could have done that with literally any mission he ever conducted in his life since it would be as close to the truth as describing this mission that way. They might as well have just made some shit up altogether, since that's pretty much what seems to have happened anyway.

The mini-series was advertised as showing us what Cyclops did to make people hate mutants again. We were told shit like this:

Lemire’s book, “Extraordinary X-Men,” featured Storm rejecting Cyclop’s actions — actions we’ll see in “Death of X.” “We’re going back eight months before my first issue,” said Lemire. “It was a different landscape. We’ll see what caused the teams we have now to form. You’ll see Cyclops actions, which are more shocking and surprising than I think most readers could guess.”

That was not shown at all.

I think the events of this story changed as much as FFXV did in its development, and Marvel wrote themselves into a corner. So now, the story just amounts to people doing stupid shit for no reason.

As you said, it seems that, for whatever reason, the writers and editors really thought readers were going to come away thinking that "Scott" was a bad guy in this. I think they way overestimated the sympathy we see extended to cultural sensibilities in this day and age. No one in their right mind was going to prioritize that to the same extent as human lives.

Like you said, the miscalculated reaction to this story is interesting -- more interesting than the story itself. And really quite sad.