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

[The Twilight Mexican]

So, I just got myself caught up on the latest Spidey event, "Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy." Hot damn, now that's how you write a story where the reader doesn't know what to feel or who to call a villain.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Took the liberty of changing the thread title since this seems like a logical spot to begin properly discussing "Inhumans vs. X-Men" now that the first two issues (#0 and #1) are out.

Though I absolutely detested "Death of X" and the whole setup that got us to the here and now, I must say this event itself is mostly a well-executed affair so far. The writers suddenly remember that continuity is a thing (e.g.

Spoiler

referencing that Black Bolt has hit Dazzler with his scream before was pretty awesome -- that happened waaaay back in "Dazzler" #19 from 1982!

) and have characters doing what should have been going on a long time ago: Having conversations to assess the situation, weighing pros and cons, and largely trying to be reasonable.

Granted, they still fall short of that in that

Spoiler

the X-Men don't allow Hank to present his findings to Queen Medusa before their attacks begin. They really should have given her one last chance to decide in favor of neutralizing the Terrigen Cloud now that Beast knows for certain that it will kill the mutants anywhere they reside on Earth (I had thought it was already understood all the way back in "Extraordinary X-Men" #1 that it was diffusing into the whole atmosphere since it had sterilized all the mutants? It's definitely obvious in the recent "Uncanny Avengers" #17, where Rogue suddenly feels weak during a battle far from the main cloud).

I still like to think Medusa and Crystal of all the Inhuman royalty would be reasonable about this situation in the end. And if they weren't? Well, then that would be the time to jump into this other plan.

It doesn't sound like it would mean much, but it goes a long way toward making the inevitable conflict promised in the title easier to accept. Still, at least some effort was made in this regard here.

And as for that conflict itself, well now. They got things off to a very promising start in so far as entertainment goes. It's not been often lately that I've been impressed by the ingenuity of any of these characters, but I do like most of what I'm seeing here.

Spoiler

Even Storm was clever in how she went about things here with Beast.

The X-Men have thus far done a very serviceable job of taking out Inhumans who would be a major problem, and done so without trying to kill them -- though I have a very hard time believing Emma wouldn't have taken the opportunity to kill Black Bolt once she had him incapacitated. What plan could she have to eliminate the remaining Terrigen Cloud that won't give him of all people enough time to wake up and heal from the damage she did to his throat? Seems like that was an odd oversight strategically, but even more so because I wouldn't expect Emma to hesitate to kill him under these circumstances.

Other than that, the mutants' plans are clever for the most part and being carried out well. I'm not sure how clever attacking New Attilan head on is supposed to be, though. We recently saw Gambit and Fantomex both sneak in there and leave undetected in "Civil War II: X-Men" #2, so I question the wisdom and necessity of this approach -- but with a title like "Inhumans vs. X-Men," I suppose you don't want to wait too long to deliver on it. At least it's shaping up to be engaging, unlike the shit conflict of "Civil War II."

Also, unlike "Death of X," the art has been really fantastic so far. At the very least it's going to be a good book to look at.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I got around to this and agreed that it's good. Wondering if it's related to Ulysses' last vision in CWII, because then we know how it's gonna wrap up.




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[X-SOLDIER]

The end of this issue reaffirms my love of how these events have been doing SUCH great things for the new generation heroes. It just sucks that it involves setting up such blockheaded moves by the older generations, but I am quite pleased at where this issue ended.





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[The Twilight Mexican]

Agreed, actually.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

It's kind of all Beast's fault again, but tbqh, I find Medusa's heel turn a little odd, at least in her speech where she says Terrigen isn't worth one mutant death — you know, except for the fact that you've been shrugging that off for months.

All in all, it just seemed like the end goal was to turn Emma into a weird 90s-style supervillain for god knows why. Probably because no one at all got on board the "Cyclops are bad for realz" narrative and they just tried anything they could come up with to appear to maintain narrative coherence, which fell to Emma, but whatever. It's over now and maybe we can finally get back to regular X-Men comics again.





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[The Twilight Mexican]

What a stupid story.

Setting aside what they did to Emma for a minute, how the hell did what Medusa learn in this issue differ significantly from what Beast told her in issue #0? From what she's been knowing for a while now? For that matter, we saw her reacting to the bad news he gave her in that issue with the understanding -- the expectation even -- that a cure would not be found, and that the Inhumans would instead have to fight the mutants again to save their dumb cloud.

And then, yeah, there's what this did to Emma. Just an awful, awful storyline.

I'm officially done with X-Men comics. So close to being done with Marvel altogether. All I have left is my Silver Surfer, Squirrel Girl and Thor.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

All I have left is my Silver Surfer, Squirrel Girl and Thor.

Which Thor, btw? Both of the Thor comics have been great, imo.





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[The Twilight Mexican]

Both.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

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[jazzflower92]

Yeah, they been treating the X-Men like crud and they deserve better respect.

 

[Roger]

It's kind of all Beast's fault again, but tbqh, I find Medusa's heel turn a little odd, at least in her speech where she says Terrigen isn't worth one mutant death — you know, except for the fact that you've been shrugging that off for months.

All in all, it just seemed like the end goal was to turn Emma into a weird 90s-style supervillain for god knows why. Probably because no one at all got on board the "Cyclops are bad for realz" narrative and they just tried anything they could come up with to appear to maintain narrative coherence, which fell to Emma, but whatever. It's over now and maybe we can finally get back to regular X-Men comics again.





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The reason Beast didn't tell Medusa is that Storm attacked him when his back was turned on his way to informing. After that he was imprisoned and Rogue, Logan and Forge all thought this was cool and kept their circumstances a secret too. The only mistake Beast made was feeling the X-Men deserved to be informed first But since this war was just about Emma's lie all the X-men cared about was exacting bloody revenge for Cyclops supposed murder even though Storm was the one slandering him in the press and ordering the imprisonment of those that followed him not the Imnhumans.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Well, that bit with Beast is only assuming that Medusa didn't have a totally baseless heel turn and change character for the sake of plot convenience to become the benevolent Inhuman Queen that everyone's meant to love. Medusa went from someone who was cool with murdering Cyclops for destroying one Terrigen cloud and in theisissue when Havok confronts her says, "I gave the order -- but your brother left me no choice." which is in and of itself pretty bullshit.

HOWEVER, when you look that in addition to that, she's been letting mutants suffer and die for EIGHT MONTHS, and had prepared explicitly for waging war against the Mutants if they retaliated (which Beast overheard which is why he went to the X-Men in the first place rather than tell her) she went from this—

…to this

Who says in the afterwards,

"There's no question in my kind that I did the right thing. Our species ability to transform through Terrigenesis does not outweigh the lives of even a single Mutant, much less ALL of them."


One Mutant?

Jamie Maddox? Cyclops? Alchemy?

Because when three Mutants died and tried to do the exact same thing as pushing that fucking button, she was a completely different person.





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[jazzflower92]

Well, that bit with Beast is only assuming that Medusa didn't have a totally baseless heel turn and change character for the sake of plot convenience to become the benevolent Inhuman Queen that everyone's meant to love. Medusa went from someone who was cool with murdering Cyclops for destroying one Terrigen cloud and in theisissue when Havok confronts her says, "I gave the order -- but your brother left me no choice." which is in and of itself pretty bullshit.

HOWEVER, when you look that in addition to that, she's been letting mutants suffer and die for EIGHT MONTHS, and had prepared explicitly for waging war against the Mutants if they retaliated (which Beast overheard which is why he went to the X-Men in the first place rather than tell her) she went from this—

…to this

Who says in the afterwards,

"There's no question in my kind that I did the right thing. Our species ability to transform through Terrigenesis does not outweigh the lives of even a single Mutant, much less ALL of them."


One Mutant?

Jamie Maddox? Cyclops? Alchemy?

Because when three Mutants died and tried to do the exact same thing as pushing that fucking button, she was a completely different person.





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That is asspull development made to prevent her from being portrayed as wrong, and continue to shill her as this wise and noble leader.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

That is asspull development made to prevent her from being portrayed as wrong, and continue to shill her as this wise and noble leader.

Seriously. It's SUCH garbage.

Medusa somehow comes out of this as the all-around do-gooder leader who has done no wrong (they even put in a line between her and Havok to wash her hands of Cyclops being portrayed as Hitler, meaning that that whole plot is just outright trash that they refused to own up to at all).

AND Emma Frost got turned into some sort of psychotic idiot Supervillain, because SOMEBODY needed to go full crazy psychotic jerk and wage war against the X-Men, but it couldn't be the now-oh-so-perfect-and-untouchably-benevolent-Queen-Medusa who even reunited with Blackbolt as the absolute picture of blameless inspiration and selflessness, so let's instead take Emma who was literally going crazy doing everything in her power to motivate the Mutants and everyone to destroy the last Terrigen cloud for 8 months, and instead have HER be the bad guy who actually just wants to wipe everyone out with mega super sentinels that she conveniently had built.

Fucking bullshit.





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