X-Force #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
PAGE 1 / COVER. Black Tom Cassidy in attacking mode. This is another issue which doesn’t call for much in the way of annotation since it’s mainly the climax of plot threads from X-Force itself, but we’ll run through it quickly anyway.
PAGES 2-5. Wolverine, Domino and Kid Omega enter a Terra Verden temple and get separated by the evil plants.
Wolverine and Domino discuss her apparent decision to be restored to life without traumatic memories. Regular readers will know that this isn’t what happened – in issue #8, the dying Domino specifically told Colossus that she wanted to “remember everything” when she was revived. Colossus clearly lied about her instructions. Wolverine does, however, remember her expressing a different opinion previously – but whether he’s suspicious about how this came to pass, or simply doubting the wisdom of the decision from someone who must have been changing her mind frequently, is less clear.
Interestingly, Domino also knows she was telling people that she wanted to keep her memories – though it’s not clear whether she remembers these conversations or has simply been told about them. At any rate, Domino rationalises these decisions away by arguing that her desire to remember her trauma could itself have been a symptom of the trauma – which may even be right.
Wolverine’s quest to recover his lost memories was a recurring plot point in the 80s and 90s. It was finally closed off when he got all of his memories back in House of M in 2005. Evidently he doesn’t regret getting them back, and sees them as helping to ground his sense of identity.
PAGES 6-7. Recap and credits. This is “The Deadly Garden” by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara and Guru-eFX.
PAGE 8. Data page. The Beast tries to convince himself that his botched attempt to disrupt Terra Verde’s telefloronic technology was definitely a good thing, because they’ll learn from the experience. (As we’ll see later on, he seems to be clinging to the belief that he’s only killed one person, though this surely has to be denial, given the information that prompted X-Force to go back to Terra Verde in the first place.)
Beast is now telling us that telefloronics are now based on some sort of indigenous plant-control system dating back thousands of years, the knowledge of which was largely lost during colonisation. Apparently the local plants were somehow symbiotic with humans, or could be made to be so. Beast tries to make the plants dominant in the expectation that this would turn the human host into a vegetable; the result has been to give dominance to the plants’ collective intelligence.
“Ak’ – the punishing Olmec deity”. The Olmec were a Mexican civilisation a couple of thousand years ago. As best as I can tell, the name Ak’ is an invention; relatively little is known about the Olmec religion, beyond visual depictions of supernatural entities in some surviving artwork. Beast seems to know more about this religion than real-world experts.
PAGE 9. Black Tom psyches himself up to leave Krakoa.
We already know that his bonding with Krakoa is destabilising his mind, but clearly he’s becoming increasingly reluctant to be separated from the place – though he does ultimately go through the portal to help X-Force.
PAGES 10-13. Domino in the temple.
Speaks for itself.
PAGES 14-15. Marvel Girl confronts the Beast.
Beast attempts to justify his actions on the basis that he’s only harmed one person, which must surely be wishful thinking by this point in the story. More fundamentally, Beast is trying to rationalise his behaviour by taking X-Force’s very remit as a licence for dishonesty. Jean (correctly) rejects this on the grounds that X-Force’s set-up calls for mutual trust and candour – but she seems uncomfortable enough with the entire thing that she quits the team later in the issue. (It’s a little unclear why she even joined, given what the book has done with her, but perhaps she isn’t out of the cast just yet.)
Note, by the way, that Jean says that the lies are “for the humans” – given X-Force’s role, surely they’re for the entire civilian population of Krakoa too, but that’s not what comes to mind for her.
PAGE 16. Another data page, which is simply a prose section explaining what Jean telepathically conveys to Beast.
The word at the bottom of the page, Летописец, means “chronicler” or “scribe”. In issue #7, the Beast noted in his logbook that he had found a scrap of artisan paper on his desk with that same word written on it.
“Before, when the mutants lost Xavier and Cerebro…” The assassination of Professor X in issue #1. He got better.
PAGES 17-23. Marvel Girl and Sage arrive in Terra Verde to help the rest of X-Force defeat the plants.
Black Tom turns out to be ineffective against these plants, presumably because they have a mind of their own anyway. Jean points out that his hope for a redemption arc is severely misplaced in X-Force, given the sort of team that it is.
It’s not very clearly explained, but the idea seems to be that Jean telepathically combines Black Tom’s powers with Sage’s programming capability to regain control of the plants for real, but this all seems very hand-waving. Even the status of the Terra Verdan public is left unclear at the end of the issue – Jean says that “maybe they can be free now”, but for some reason we’re never told.
“Krakoa feeds on the few for the benefit of the many.” Does it? We were told back in X-Men #3 that it feeds a small amount from each mutant, so that across the whole population, nobody notices. But we were also told that it needs the equivalent of two mutant lives a year.
PAGES 24-25. Logan and Jean in the hot tub.
Jean makes the point that X-Force’s set-up seems inconsistent with the idea that mutants are meant to be evolving into a new and better society. Logan doesn’t appear to buy in to all that stuff.
PAGES 26-27. Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: CODE RED, presumably referring to Omega Red.
Is this the first actual coupling of Jean and Wolverine?
Their relationship status has been made pretty clear from the start of the Krakoa era but I think this is the first time we’ve actually SEEN them together, yes.
This is my favourite of the HOX line. The plot is engaging, the characters feel like themselves, and the artwork and colouring is gorgeous (and gross, at the same time).
I’m glad Jean is ‘out’, but I feel it will be temporary. She’s too powerful and also not a wetworks character. Everyone else’s moral compass is going to fall over sooner or later. I’d argue Colossus also doesn’t fit for the same reason, but he’s around for Domino.
I still feel icky around the casual partner swapping that appears to be encouraged on Krakoa (my archaic non-mutant morals, I guess that’s the point!). But I do wonder when jealousy as a plot point should rear its head. Surely it has to!
I was expecting the Olmec link to be the statue head in the Simpsons basement
Ak’ is definitely an invention. As Paul said, very little is known about Olmec beliefs beyond visual representations, objects thrown into swamps, and analogy with later cultures, like the Maya. Moreover, we don’t know anything about the Olmec language – hell, we don’t even know if they had writing – so “Ak'” can’t be an Olmec word. The closest I can find is “ak” which means “playing in many places”.
I suspect that’s just coincidence.
It’s very firmly suspected now that the Olmec people did have writing, although nothing is known about it currently.
Evilgus: I still feel icky around the casual partner swapping that appears to be encouraged on Krakoa (my archaic non-mutant morals, I guess that’s the point!). But I do wonder when jealousy as a plot point should rear its head. Surely it has to!
I doubt it, at least in the near-term. It’s pretty clear that Scott, Jean, and Logan are a consensual, polyamorous “throuple”. Though I don’t recall if it’s been explicitly shown yet, I expect Jean is “sharing” Scott with Emma as well.
On a meta-level, polyamory fits with Hickman’s theme of mutant society as post-human, unbound by traditional human social customs. Depending on what Hickman’s long-term plan is, there may also be an intended subtext of decadence and debauchery. For now, I doubt it because Hickman strikes me as having transgressive, countercultural leanings.
This use of polyamory also end runs the traditionally soapy, melodramatic X-Men storytelling formula. Popular romantic pairings now exist simultaneously, taking the relationship rivalries out of the equation and enabling Hickman to focus on his high-concept sci-fi ideas instead. On a meta-meta level, it enables him to satisfy and irk purist shippers at the same time, fitting with Hickman’s stated preference for putting his readers “in a hard position” and with Marvel editorial’s strategy since the Jemas years of deliberately trolling its readership.
I share your ick factor. Polyamory isn’t something I’d do myself, and I’m extremely skeptical of it as a healthy, sustainable arrangement for most people, so it makes the characters less relatable, more emotionally distant, and more alien to me. But, since it’s been portrayed so far as entirely consensual—everybody involved is an adult and knows the deal so there’s no cheating—I can’t object to it on moral grounds.
When combined with all of Hickman’s retcons, the lack of continuation of pre-Hickman plot threads, the cloning/”resurrection” stuff, and the massive changes in characterization, I take the polyamory as one more bit of proof that this era is a soft reboot of the franchise. The Scott, Jean, and Logan we’ve known wouldn’t do this, but that’s because these aren’t the Scott, Jean, and Logan we’ve known. They’re new versions of the characters starting from a new baseline.
It doesn’t seem that this applies to all characters though.
So far, it’s mainly been Scott/Logan/Jean/Emma who have been portrayed in this manner.
It’s interesting when you consider it in the context of the long-term rivalry between Scott and Logan, and then the issues that have plagued Jean and Emma for years.
Almost as if this were a way to overcome inherent rivalries between different characters for the sake of mutantdom as a whole.
Compare that with how Gambit and Rogue have been presented. In a monogamous marriage, talking about starting a family. Much more conservative in presentation.
There are still open questions, which may or may not have answers.
The fact that a 30-something year old woman is choosing to call herself “Marvel Girl” is highly questionable.
There should be a reason.
Also, Scott might be acting more like a younger-version of himself. One who is a good soldier, and willing to follow any orders from his father-figure (Xavier), rather than the version of Scott who was willing to question everything about Xavier’s dream that we were once familiar.
Plus, we don’t exactly know how Scott feels about any of this. He seems skeptical of aspects about Krakoa, but also seems like he is willing to go along with the Quiet Council’s orders and not ask questions.
In X-Men #1, we saw that Scott didn’t really seem to believe in everything on Krakoa, but that he was willing to pretend. He gave a quite ambiguous response to (I think it was) Storm.
It makes you wonder if some characters have chosen to be resurrected at an earlier stage of their lives.
I have no problem whatsoever with polyamory being the norm in Krakoa.
I have a very big problem with pairing Jean with Wolverine. It is just out of character for her, despite the insistence of some, including Claremont.
I’d like to see polyamory explored more also. I’d like to see something like Stranger in a Strange Land.
I think that there are limitations in mainstream comics that prohibit this area of Krakoa from being explored very in-depth.
I’d love to see this new direction be about ideas and exploring possibilities with Krakoa, but instead, most of the time will be spent with Iceman fighting Yellowjacket, or what-have-you.
Besides which, I don’t foresee Marvel allowing orgies with the cast of the X-Men.
Chris V: It’s interesting when you consider it in the context of the long-term rivalry between Scott and Logan, and then the issues that have plagued Jean and Emma for years.
That’s just it. That context no longer applies.
Plus, we don’t exactly know how Scott feels about any of this.
Per Hickman’s X-Men #1, he appears to be quite happy with it. Logan lives with him and Jean.
Luis Dantas: I have a very big problem with pairing Jean with Wolverine. It is just out of character for her, despite the insistence of some, including Claremont.
At this point, what is in or out of character for Jean, Logan, and the rest is whatever Hickman & co. decide it is. Historical characterization is no longer relevant.
The context does still apply to a certain extent. There were certainly hints as to the history between Jean and Emma in that Giant Size issue.
We’re not supposed to be coming in to these characters as blank-slates.
Otherwise, the fact that Scott, Logan, and Jean are sharing each other is meaningless.
I think the fact that Scott/Logan/Jean/Emma are all playing nice is supposed to be a signal about the importance of mutants putting aside their individualism for the sake of the collective whole.
I like the idea of mutants having post-human morals, polyamory being one of them. I’ve always been a fan of portraying mutants as kind of weird and distant.
But I think it’s more likely that the death of these romantic rivalries has more to do with how anesthetized all of the characters are in general.
They don’t care about who’s sleeping with whom in the same way they don’t care about all of the weird decisions Xavier is making. Krakoa is drugging them.
Chris V: We’re not supposed to be coming in to these characters as blank-slates.
Otherwise, the fact that Scott, Logan, and Jean are sharing each other is meaningless.
On a meta level, yes, Hickman is playing off readers’ expectations.
In-universe, I don’t think so. It’s all too dissonant with the characters’ past behavior. Which tells me that past behavior no longer counts.
I think the fact that Scott/Logan/Jean/Emma are all playing nice is supposed to be a signal about the importance of mutants putting aside their individualism for the sake of the collective whole.
Perhaps as a metaphorical parallel. Strictly speaking, their relationship status has little to no bearing on the broader Krakoan project. It would all be playing out more or less the same if Scott and Jean or Scott and Emma were still a monogamous couple.
Thom H.: But I think it’s more likely that the death of these romantic rivalries has more to do with how anesthetized all of the characters are in general.
They don’t care about who’s sleeping with whom in the same way they don’t care about all of the weird decisions Xavier is making. Krakoa is drugging them.
Good point. There’s also the matter that these people are clones with back-up copies for minds. The originals are all either dead or molding in a stasis tube somewhere.
Of course, all of this will likely be moot once the Chekhov’s Gun of Moira’s 11th life goes off.
It would probably play out roughly the same, but if Logan was jealous of Scott or Jean was jealous of Emma it would hurt the cohesiveness of Krakoa, that there should no longer be any antagonism between mutants. All mutants should be pursuing the same agenda.
We did see a major schism between Wolverine and Cyclops over the direction of mutantkind. Sure, it had nothing to do with relationships, but it was an issue of two alpha males continuing their long-running feud.
Professor X doesn’t want mutants fighting with each other and choosing sides.
Everyone should be conforming to the wider goals of Krakoa.
I don’t see the polyamorous relationship as all that unlikely. Scott and Jean were happy to be reunited at the end of Age of X-Man, but that doesn’t mean their past marital issues were necessarily resolved. An open relationship may have seemed like the best way forward.
Benjamin: I don’t see the polyamorous relationship as all that unlikely. Scott and Jean were happy to be reunited at the end of Age of X-Man, but that doesn’t mean their past marital issues were necessarily resolved. An open relationship may have seemed like the best way forward.
Scott and Jean’s marital issues had nothing to do with wanting to sleep with other people. So, an open relationship resolves none of those issues.
Scott wanted to sleep with Jean but refused to because, following his possession by Apocalypse, he didn’t think he was good enough for her anymore. So, he turned to Emma for counseling. Who then seduced him by LARPing as Jean.
Jean wanted to sleep with Scott but couldn’t because he was having a nervous breakdown and wouldn’t let her. So, she threw herself at Logan. Who turned her down.
Scott and Jean wanted to be with each other but wouldn’t because they were too neurotic and immature to get proper therapy.
Since their reunion at the end of the Rosenberg run, neither Scott, Jean, or anyone else has referred to their past marital problems at all. All we got was Scott’s brief apology during the Phoenix Resurrection mini. Hickman hasn’t brought up the subject at all, even retroactively, which tells me it’s a dead letter and a non-factor in the current status quo.
Chris V: Not quite. There are only three artifacts that provide clear evidence for Olmec writing, one of which is of dubious provenance.
The other two are fairly short. One of them, the so-called “ambassador” statue, consists of only a single glyph. That’s not enough evidence to suggest that the Olmec had a coherent writing system. The evidence is so fragmentary and the lack of any kind of evidence for structure in the writing suggests it could be a form of proto-writing that was only capable of recording a limited number of concepts.
That said, there are objects that contain decorative motifs similar to the glyphs we see in later Mesoamerican writing systems. The problem there is that these later writing systems were pictoral scripts. That means we can’t tell if it’s actually supposed to represent words or if they’re just repeated pictures.
Finally, there is the Epi-Olmec script that shows up in the 6th century BC. The problem there is that it shows up in the archaeological record right about the time Olmec civilization collapsed. Because of that, it’s not clear if it represents the Olmec language or something else entirely.
@FUBAR007:
I really like your points about Hickman’s meta level themes, of mutants as a post-human society while also subverting reader expectations of the characters.
I can accept all that – it’s part of the fun of the reboot and fits in with the distinctly weird vibe.
My problem with it remains that it relies so much on our previous read of the characters for ‘shock value’. It’s been commented here many times before how Hickman is good at grand themes, but less so at individual characterisation. I highly doubt we’re ever going to get Scott, Jean, Logan or Emma having a meaningful conversation about how they feel about this quadruple. Just oblique references. (Unless a writer in a satellite book takes it on themselves).
What’s weirder is the tangential stuff like Logan saying Colossus is ‘big everywhere’, or inferences Scott and Logan have hooked up! Are all the X-characters sexually fluid now? To me it feels treading close to fan service.
My big problem is that if everyone is hooking up regardless, it undoes a lot of tension that drives character dynamics. Where’s the tension? Sure its an interesting concept but it does get Hickman a get out of jail card to blanket write everyone as lustful pod people, rather than developing their character reactions, which is lazy.
Also for readers who identify with the X-Men as outsiders (always a mainstay theme of the series), it was because they had identifiable *human* problems and interpersonal relationships, even in other reboots. Remove that and a lot of the heart goes out the series.
I have faith we’ll see this some of this tension addresses in the satellite books. Rogue and Gambit are depicted as happily monogamous – what if they can’t conceive, what if Krakoan society pressurises them to sleep with other mutants? What of ugly or gross mutants, or with inhuman forms – Blob or Glob, or Rockslide – do they get frozen out of this sexual jamboree? Are the teen mutants being pressurised into sex? Is there the concept of rape on the island, if consent is given or presumed by all? (Apologies for getting heavy there, but I’m just extrapolating – I very much don’t want to see a clumsy storyline go down that path!).
It’s not enough of a misstep for me to stop reading, but hey I’m an addict and there’s fun ideas here. As you say, this can all be undone with Moira’s Chekhov’s gun.
I don’t think that we are supposed to read Hickman’s take on the X-Men as having significantly different emotional drives than whatever their baselines would otherwise be these days.
Scott and Kurt, at least, have been shown to have a wide enough range of mental states at all the proper times. Scott seems to be as mentally and emotionally sound as he has ever been in at least ten years. But they are the exceptions.
A few other characters, particularly in Marauders, seem to have changed their personalities somewhat, becoming far more violent or clownish. It may be a plot to be developed in that particular book.
Still, for the most part we simply do not have much of a focus on characterization in this era. The stories are very plot-driven and may be intentionally avoiding giving us much of a peek into the current personalities of most characters.
To this day I don’t really know if we are expected to believe that this is the real Xavier as opposed to, say, John Sublime, the Shadow King, Cassandra Nova or even Onslaught.
On another note, I actually hope Krakoa’s take on polyamory (whichever it may be; not very clear so far) to be shown as a contrast to human morality, a take that would besides disappoint me if presented. As something of a next step, I suppose, but not as a contrast.
Come to think of it, the very fact that Mr. Sinister’s gossip columns seem to be directed towards Krakoans strongly hints that their “normal” is not very different from that of baseline humans.
Scott does seem to be the one character with a broad range of emotional reactions, but I’m not sure I’d call them appropriate to his circumstances at all times.
He’s seemed almost manic at times, like that early issue of X-Men with Rachel and Cable. And other times he seems weirdly subdued, like in the issue where he and Kurt are discussing the barbaric death and resurrection protocols on Krakoa. Wouldn’t he normally be the one to step in and stop something like that? Or voice his concerns directly to Xavier? Instead, he has a meandering, inconclusive discussion with the teams’s moral conscience. Odd.
Enough characters have called back to previous stories that I don’t think they are different characters, pod people, or being rebooted.
And the languid pace of the main books is almost dreamlike. Nearly nothing is followed up on in X-Men, for example. Each new issue introduces something the team would normally investigate or at least mention again, but they don’t. The black-and-white guy, the Children of the Vault, the Hordeculturalists (ugh), the building Kurt found that only he can enter, etc. No one seems to have an attention span long enough to get to the bottom of anything. And that’s not even mentioning all the crazy behavior in New Mutants.
I’m convinced that there’s something drugging the mutants (or draining them or subduing them in some way), which could explain a lot of the weird behavior: the reactive rather than proactive stance of the main mutants living on Krakoa, the general accepting attitude of some weird and creepy ideas, the casual sexiness of it all. It’s like they’re all perpetually stoned.
Scott has even said things like (to Wolverine): “You and I’ve never had trouble making judgment calls in the past – or deciding what’s right and what’s wrong.” Possibly indicating that he is having difficulty doing just that in the present. And — to be clear — I don’t think he’s confused or trying to grapple with the philosophical challenges of his new reality. I think he’s literally having cognitive trouble making judgment calls.
Or the writing could just be faulty. But that’s a much less satisfying conclusion. And as long as there are about 100 other shoes left to drop, I prefer to think that “they’re all being drugged” is one of them.
“Scott and Jean and Logan and Emma”
One for the teenagers.
You would hope that, at the very least, the concept of “beauty” and “ugliness” would be upended amongst Krakoan society.
If mutants are judged for being born a certain way, how much more disgusting to see mutants born with certain physical characteristics facing prejudice and rejection in a society devoted to mutant culture.
I would think that Glob’s being born that way would make him seem beautiful to Krakoan culture, as much as someone like Warren (before the Apocalypse transformation, when he was portrayed as a playboy type).
“Wolverine’s quest to recover his lost memories was a recurring plot point in the 80s and 90s.”
Was this an 80s plot point? I can’t remember Claremont ever saying that Wolverine couldn’t remember his past. I associate that as being purely post-Claremont.
Claremont and Hama both write Wolverine with memory gaps rather than a complete blank, though under Claremont the blank period pretty much relates to how he got his adamantium skeleton and what he was doing before the Hudsons found him. (Claremont’s Wolverine clearly does recall his time with Silver Fox and Ogun, for example.)
Larry Hama complicates matters enormously by establishing that many of Wolverine’s earlier memories have been tampered with, so strictly speaking it’s not so much that Logan doesn’t remember things as that he knows his memories are unreliable.
Doesn’t Wolverine also refer to his father in the Claremont/Miller Wolverine mini-series?
Yes. He says that Mariko can trace her family back generations, but he only knows his father. Later stories have effectively retconned that comment out.
Claremont wrote Logan like he knew most of his past, except for the exact details of who was responsible for the experiment which turned him in to Weapon X. It was more a matter of him being secretive and not wanting to share more about his past with anyone.
Yes, the Windsor Smith Weapon X serial was originally meant to be the final word on Wolverine’s origin. Instead, it (paradoxically) somehow opened the floodgates for the opposite.
Now that the reader saw how Logan became Weapon X, it seemed like writers wanted to make Logan’s past even more mysterious.
Paul-Are you going to review the God Loves, Man Kills Extended Cut book?
The synopsis said that Claremont wrote some new scenes to place the story in the context of Dawn of X.
I own the graphic novel, and didn’t want to spend money on the comic again for a couple of extra pages.
I do wonder what Claremont added though.
Chris V: “It makes you wonder if some characters have chosen to be resurrected at an earlier stage of their lives.”
Who says they’ve chosen?
The new pages are five at the beginning and five at the end. Kitty meets Kate from the X-Men: Black Magneto one-shot, and they discuss Magneto because she became friends with him.
The interview with Claremont is interesting. He says “And, for better or worse, Charlie’s teachings have gotten Scott to the point where Scott can say, “It is not whether we win or lose, it is making the attempt.” Trying makes the difference. That is ultimately what matters. If we don’t try, we are just more bad guys in disguise…”
“That, I guess, has always been my vision of what Scott is all about: incredibly straight arrow but incredibly right. He knows, for want of a better term, the true path. He is following it, and that is why at his bedrock, he is the good guy, he is the leader and he is the fulcrum around which everyone else revolves. More so, oddly enough, than Logan.”
I wish Marvel would clarify if we’re supposed to view the Cyclops/Jean/Cyclops/Emma relationship as off-putting or normal. Like is this something that we’re expected to take note of as a future plot point, or just a background element? Hickmans ‘Idea before Story before Character’ approach makes this sort of thing kind of hard to parse.
Well… what if it’s intended to be up to the reader to decide?
Sorry that this is such a long post. I’d like to comment on some of the comments since some of them bug me. I really believe that no one I commented on has any ill intent and it’s not my intention to shame anyone or make anyone feel bad but I’ve been reading this blog and the comments for a long time and some of the stuff is just a but hurtful, even if it’s not meant to be hurtful.
As a gay man who’s been reading X-men since his teens it is very nice to see more clearly stated queerness in the comics. For years and years I’ve had to make do with mostly subtext and it just has an impact to constantly feel that what you are should be hidden and can only be hinted at.
Thank god for people like Gillen (who wrote Young Avengers which consisted of mainly queer characters without that being the point of the comic) and Bendis (who actually found a way to make one of the original X-men queer and took a risk with that).
Now Hickman has gone a step further by normalising polyamory. I’m not saying that that is inherently queer but it is something that tends to be adopted by queer people more.
I am polyamorous and maybe some of the people who responded here can imagine that it might feel pretty shitty to read things like:
“I still feel icky around the casual partner swapping that appears to be encouraged on Krakoa (my archaic non-mutant morals, I guess that’s the point!). But I do wonder when jealousy as a plot point should rear its head. Surely it has to!”
I’m not sure why you’d frame it as “casual partner swapping” instead of consensual polyamory. I’m also not sure why you feel the need to say it feels ‘icky’ which is hard not to interpret as judgemental (even if that’s not your intention). I’m not sure how I feel about assuming that there would be jealousy but I guess that might be a common misconception about polyamory.
The following also does not feel that nice to read:
“On a meta-level, polyamory fits with Hickman’s theme of mutant society as post-human, unbound by traditional human social customs. Depending on what Hickman’s long-term plan is, there may also be an intended subtext of decadence and debauchery. For now, I doubt it because Hickman strikes me as having transgressive, countercultural leanings.”
I get what you mean but associating consensual polyamory with ‘decadence and debauchery’ is just an unnecessarily negative way of framing it. It seems quite clear to me that Hickman is quite casual in his depiction of polyamory and it really doesn’t feel like he is showing it as something to be viewed negatively or something that’s very extreme.
Then there’s the following:
“I share your ick factor. Polyamory isn’t something I’d do myself, and I’m extremely skeptical of it as a healthy, sustainable arrangement for most people, so it makes the characters less relatable, more emotionally distant, and more alien to me. But, since it’s been portrayed so far as entirely consensual—everybody involved is an adult and knows the deal so there’s no cheating—I can’t object to it on moral grounds.”
You can be sceptical all you want but maybe it’s time to consider the following; as a gay man I have had to wait a long time to see myself represented. Now I see my type of relationship represented and now people say they find it hard to relate to since it’s not their preferred type of relationship. Maybe it’s fine if you don’t constantly feel represented. What if I would have said ‘I don;’t feel represented by monogamous relationships?’ Then there’d be little left to enjoy. Maybe not everything has to be geared towards the mainstream.
I’ll continue because it bugs me to read the following on a blog where I tend to actually like reading the comments:
“What’s weirder is the tangential stuff like Logan saying Colossus is ‘big everywhere’, or inferences Scott and Logan have hooked up! Are all the X-characters sexually fluid now? To me it feels treading close to fan service.”
Consider why it feels like a big deal for you that two male characters might have hooked up. Why the leap from one comment about two characters to all the x-characters being sexually fluid? Trust me, Marvel is not going there anytime soon.
“My big problem is that if everyone is hooking up regardless, it undoes a lot of tension that drives character dynamics. Where’s the tension? Sure its an interesting concept but it does get Hickman a get out of jail card to blanket write everyone as lustful pod people, rather than developing their character reactions, which is lazy.”
I applaud Hickman for removing death and relationship jealousy as easy ways to bring tension. Considering how overused both have been I think it’s quite daring to remove them and basically tell all x-writers they have to be a bit more creative than constantly killing characters or introducing love triangles.
Plus: ‘lustful pod people’!? Sounds a bit dehumanising to me.
Almost done, I promise.
“Also for readers who identify with the X-Men as outsiders (always a mainstay theme of the series), it was because they had identifiable *human* problems and interpersonal relationships, even in other reboots. Remove that and a lot of the heart goes out the series.”
Saying ‘Identifiable *human* problems and interpersonal relationships’ makes it hard not to read that as queer and/or polyamorous relationships are not human. I’m sure that’s not what you meant but I’ll say it again: maybe you can try to relate to people who live their lives differently than you. Maybe you don’t need to see yourself perfectly represented all the time and if you can relate to time-travellers/aliens/omega level telepaths then maybe someone who is polyamorous doesn’t need to be such a stretch. The argument that something is not *human* is a very iffy one and it usually hinges on someone else deciding what is and what isn’t human.
Last one:
“I wish Marvel would clarify if we’re supposed to view the Cyclops/Jean/Cyclops/Emma relationship as off-putting or normal. Like is this something that we’re expected to take note of as a future plot point, or just a background element? Hickmans ‘Idea before Story before Character’ approach makes this sort of thing kind of hard to parse.”
Obviously you tend to view it as off-putting. There really is no indication that it should be viewed negatively so consider asking yourself why you even ask that question.
Again: it’s not my intent to make anyone feel bad but if you wrote any of the comments I mentioned then you could consider thinking on how the words you choose and how you frame something might be interpreted. If you feel uncomfortable by queerness or sex or relationship of a different kind than the one you know, consider asking yourself why that is.
@Willem no, It is not obvious that I view it as off putting, but I do find your willingness to jump to conclusions about strangers very off putting.
If Hickman means for these characters who have never expressed even the most remote interest in a Polly relationship to suddenly be gung-ho about it I think asking if that’s a plot point is a very valid question. And yes, an abrupt shift in motivation like that ought to be seen in-story as very off putting.
@Willem
Sorry for any offense cause, and I did worry that my remarks could be misconstrued. I’m really sorry for that.
I’m gay, and in a monogamous relationship. I have friends who are in poly relationships. But all relationships, be they gay, straight, queer, often require work. And I read the X-books for the inter personal conflict of characters I care about.
What I’m trying to say is, the book is presenting a lot of the queer subtext as ‘here you go!’ to the reader with very little honest character reaction to it. And that annoys me, as sometimes it feels tokenistic (like the throwaway Colossus line). By way of comparison, Iceman’s coming out had a lot of page time devoted to it (and we can debate how well that was handled – but at least an honest attempt was made to handle it). And that created some interesting drama. The poly relationship feels strange in the context of what we have understood about the characters before. I appreciate it’s presented matter of factly, and it’s something of a gradual reveal, but it doesn’t feel true to the characters as we have historically known them.
So I stand by the lustful pod people comment, as I think Hickman in the main books can’t write dialogue that gets to the heart of a character worth a damn. However, this issue of X-Force at least meant Percy could write Jean and Logan as people I could recognise, exploring how they feel. I want to see more of this. Show not tell via data page! 🙂
Willem: That’s a fair point. I think what people find unsettling about the Scott/Jean/Logan trio is not the polyamory AS SUCH, but rather the sudden and otherwise-unexplained shift in attitude from the characters. Conventional story structure suggests there’s likely to be an explanation of some sort for this coming down the line, and there are enough hints about a dark undercurrent to Krakoa – the weird gladiatorial rituals, Moira being kept secret, the exploitation of Mystique, the occasional mention of the island feeding on mutants – to make it a reasonable speculation that something isn’t quite right here.
More generally, Hickman’s overall arc is unlikely to be “the X-Men establish a utopian society as a fait accompli in the first scene, and it stays that way”. These stories usually involve something turning out to be rotten beneath the surface, and we’re seeing the usual sort of hints to that effect. That story usually ends with “well, it was a lovely idea but we have to get there the hard way”.
It’s always possible that Hickman is going to take the lesser-travelled route where Krakoa ultimately falls because it was too good for this world, but it doesn’t feel to me like that’s where he’s going.
@Willem: There’s also a broader context here of Marvel’s unpleasant tendency to do the absolute bare minimum when it comes to LGBTQ representation. You mention Bendis outing Iceman, but setting aside how it was executed, there’s something telling about the fact that in the five years since, the *only* story Bobby Drake has had is “who’s Iceman hooking up with now?”
By the same token, we have to recognize that if any of the current X-book writers actually wanted to tell a story about a polyamorous relationship – *especially* when it involves one of the most famous triangles in Marvel history – that’s what they’d be doing. The reason it’s all subtext and innuendo is because no one has any kind of real interest in exploring that in the first place.
That seems quite right to me. Hickman’s polyamorous quad is, in terms of the structure of his story, only a signifier, and not something he seems interested in developing and integrating into the drama he’s setting up. I think the people in the comments section here are by and large trying to determine what kind of signifier the writer intends the relationship to be. And because Hickman is a writer who prefers to dangle a mystery and spread it over many issues, rather than tell a fully-developed story over the course of a single issue, it’s especially hard to know what his intentions are in setting up this character relationship and then denying it any substance. So a lot of inference needs to be made on the reader’s part; and I think, as do some of the people here, I imagine, that the writer’s motivations (or possibly editorial’s motivations––though it seems that Hickman is really interested in flashing this relationship before our eyes, but not getting into how it works, how it came about, or what it’s doing for the various characters involved) in setting this relationship up are not really to give polyamory fulsome representation in his story. Rather, I think some of us suspect it’s a kind of tokenism, which the author is using to some end other than representation or inclusion.
Hickman’s larger goal in Dawn of X seems to be to suggest that something is rotten in the state of Krakoa––that there is a sinister underbelly to the supposed mutant “paradise;” one which we can hardly see as of yet. There’s many hints that characters aren’t acting as they have in the past (within just this book there’s the suspicious way in which Domino’s memory wipe has been handled, for instance––we know she didn’t want it). It’s very likely Hickman is using the polyamorous relationship between the story’s perennial “leads” to further that sense of suspicion and unease. It’s not that I want it to be that way, or that anyone I’ve read here seems to want it that way. But it feels like a game is being played by the author, underneath the surface drama of the story, and that the relationship in question is being treated superficially, as a piece of this mystery, tailored to create a sense of unease amongst readers. What that suggests is that the architects of this series at Marvel view this polyamorous relationship as being a worthy signifier for creating suspicion that things aren’t “right” on Krakoa. They could think so for less lugubrious reasons than prejudice, even, because the characters in question have, up until this point in the ongoing X-men narrative, very jealously guarded their monogamy vis-a-vis one another. They’ve harangued one another, demanding exclusivity in their relationships. They’ve felt the guilt common to monogamous couples when they sleep with people outside of their monogamous relationships. Now, on Krakoa, they don’t feel that anger or that guilt, or any trepidation about having a more open, inclusive relationship. But there hasn’t been any character growth that we’ve seen to advance them to the point that they no longer think in purely monogamous terms. We’re told that is suddenly just how it is, and I think that the abruptness of the shift in their attitudes and behavior is meant to create a sort of cognitive dissonance, which is there to make readers suspect that this shift in their thinking has happened for some reason other than character growth. If that sounds like a cynical analysis of what the polyamorous relationship is being used for in the larger narrative, well, I agree. I hope that’s not the case, but I suspect that it will prove to be so for the authors of these comics. They have not done a great job so far indicating what we’re meant to understand about this relationship. It’s very different to what was presented in the past, and I, for one, have a lot of questions about it which have not been addressed yet.
There were some other comments earlier up the thread about “partner–swapping” and “casual debauchery,” which I think were meant to be extended a little more context than was perhaps presented on the page. I think that for some of us, the incessant background scenes in the X-books of the mutants having a sort of a forest rave on Krakoa are meant to imply a kind of casual, roving orgy is taking place on the island (this isn’t made explicit in the story or the art, but it does seem to be implied––we’re told Krakoa feeds off this positively-charged energy, so it seems as if it’s necessary to sustain the state of the island). It’s delicately implied that at least some of the mutants are being mind-controlled into participating in this activity; heroes and villains alike are present, seemingly casting off decades of grudges to party together. So again there’s meant to be a cognitive dissonance, and we’re meant to feel when reading that something is making these people, previously mortal enemies (some of whom have actually even killed one another in certain instances) get together like friends, bosom buddies, or even intimates. Again I think the same kind of presentation is being made as with the quad; we’re meant to read it as an event that wouldn’t happen under the parameters of the larger-scale X-men narrative, since, you know, it didn’t happen before now. In addition, there are some scenes of what I think you could call actual debauchery, to one extent or another, in the Green Lagoon scene in a previous X-force issue. In that scene the Wolverines are taking turns stabbing themselves in their own heads in a game of Russian roulette. There are people falling down drunk and others puking into the lagoon. So the way I see it there’s more to the context of some of these comments than what was spelled out on the page. I’m sure those commenters can defend themselves, but this is how I read those posts.
In the 80s, Chris Claremont was repeatedly sabotaged by editorial when he wanted to portray LGBTQ+ relationships in the comic, but it’s easy to imagine how he might have done so, because we’ve seen how he treated het romantic partners in the book; he gave the characters scenes in which their relationship was the focus. Sometimes he built entire issues around significant changes in the intimate relationships between characters. Always, he worked to weave the relationships of characters into the story in ways that made the relationships active parts of the plot (when the X-men fight Jean as Dark Phoenix, the fight is all about the different team members’ individual relationships to Jean, and how their feelings are part of the fight––the bar fight between Colossus and Juggernaut is all predicated on Peter dumping Kitty in a fairly selfish way). And in scenes of intimacy and in scenes of casual conversation, and even in scenes of action, Claremont labored to show what the intimate relationships were doing for the characters––what being in those relationships meant to them. That’s why, even though some intimate relationships in Claremont’s X-men get very little page-time, so many of them feel fully explicated––Claremont always got right to the point where intimacy was concerned.
It’s not a romantic passage, but one of my favorite examples of the way Claremont did this is in the X-men/Alpha Flight crossover, The Gift, where Rachel and Kitty are sharing Rachel’s distress that her father’s child will be a boy, and so will never grow up to be her. In the midst of all that heavy drama, Claremont offhandedly adds in the perspective of Talisman, the Alpha Flighter who is observing the whole scene. “Rachel wants more than anything a family — a father — she can’t have,” she thinks to herself; “whereas I turned my back on mine. I’ve resented — even hated — my dad for so long, blaming him for mom’s death. But I wonder, in trying so hard to hurt him, if I’ve simply hurt myself more?” That, passage, which is two small panels at the bottom of a page, moved me as a kid and still moves me more than three decades later. This wasn’t even a character Claremont was in charge of writing beyond the crossover (I don’t think he ever wrote Talisman again, did he?). It shows how generous he could be in doling out growth for his charges. People often accuse Claremont of purple prose, of over-egging the pudding, but I think this is an exceptionally dextrous passage of hyper-concentrated character–work. One figure analyses what she sees in another––and, in doing so, self-reflexively identifies her own essential problem, because it is the very obverse of what she sees in her companion. What the interpersonal relationships are doing––or not doing––for the characters is given crystalline clarity. What Rachel and Talisman want from their father figures is made so plain, and in the conclusion of the story Claremont implies growth for both characters in those relationships (Talisman decides to be nicer to her dad, and Rachel decides that, even though she’s keeping her connection to Cyclops secret from him, she can have some semblance of a father/daughter relationship with him anyway––enough for her, for now). There are stakes made clear for the relationships, meanings assigned, situations assessed, character growth arranged and played out. The point I’m winding towards is that NONE of that is being done with Scott, Jean, Wolverine and Emma in the current books. I can’t see what any of them are getting out of any of this relationship we are told they now share (this issue of X-force provides the first tiny, tiny hint of any of that in the scene at the end where Jean tells Logan she’s quitting the team). I don’t know what they want from each other. And I see no way in which this could affect the Dawn of X plot except to suggest that things had been turned topsy-turvy to get these characters to this point. I do think it’s potentially admirable if Hickman intends to make this the first polyamorous relationship in the X-men (I believe one is depicted between some of the members of The Authority in The Wild Storm? But not a lot of others spring to mind in any of the comics I read), but as of now it seems to me to be only potential. There needs to be more development of this relationship for it to have enough meaning, to my mind. Otherwise it will remain something Hickman is using mostly to create a sense of unease, a sense that things aren’t the way they would generally be. And really, it would be a shame if things stayed that way.
I think everyone’s a little bit right about the polyamory issue:
— Hickman doesn’t seem to be that intent on exploring the actual relationship dynamics outside of “isn’t this neat/weird?” and is probably setting up the utopian ideals of polyamory (and Kraokoa in general) for a fall.
— And commenters on this board, myself included, could be less judgmental when writing about polyamorous relationships.
Thanks for the reality check, Willem!
There is the wider context, about many things on Krakoa seeming overtly creepy.
Within that framework, we see certain characters acting differently than they have in the past without any real examination of said circumstances.
Instead of an examination of how polyamory could play out in an utopian setting (ala Stranger in a Strange Land), it then becomes a question of if Hickman wants this to seem as another warning that something is wrong on Krakoa.
So, this becomes problematic.
As I said, perhaps mainstream comics aren’t the best outlet to examine such ideas.
Really enjoyed reading everyone’s thoughtful responses on this issue.
@AlanL
“People often accuse Claremont of purple prose, of over-egging the pudding, but I think this is an exceptionally dextrous passage of hyper-concentrated character–work. ”
What a great summary! I liked your dissection of Claremont’s writing, vice what is happening with the characters now.
Speaking of Claremont, I’m pretty sure he implied that Shadow King was forcing the inhabitants of Muir Island to engage in orgies and promiscuity.
Claremont portrayed Shadow King’s influence on those he possessed to involve them in decadent behaviour and debauchery.
Moira was portrayed as hyper-sexualized under Shadow King’s possession.
This was Claremont showing Shadow King forcing characters to be engaged in actions outside of their own control.
He did hint (as strongly as possible for comics at the time) that Wolverine and Storm were in a consensual polyamorous relationship.
While I agree with most commenters, I find the polyamory icky because it ignores the characters’ previously statuses, subtracts all drama from their relationships, and doesn’t really evolve them as it seems to think it does.
Having Logan pining after Jean…again is shallow, outdated, and just boring (especially since he wanted more than sex). Emma and Scott broke up over a betrayal that is just ignored. Scott and Jean were supposed to have rekindled their relationship. This is just for shock value, since we have to care about the characters past to care about this and it doesn’t engender any emotion in any new readers because it’s the most clinical polyamory ever depicted.
If there were connective tissue to the character sort of losing their emotions in regards to relationship, I would still find it sort of pointless and a devolution in many ways, but it might make narrative sense. At least they’re still trying to imply it instead of making it explicit, allowing it to be ignored in the future.
That’s the bottom line, I think: if we’re meant to take the implications and the subtext at face value, Logan’s sleeping with Scott and has had at least one intimate encounter with Piotr. That would be a really, *really* big deal for LGBT representation and the way Wolverine is portrayed (his alternate-universe hookup with Hercules wasn’t *that* long ago). But if that’s the case, nobody actually seems to have picked up on it.
And if the implications are throwaway lines and we’re *not* meant to come to that particular conclusion… then what’s the point of making these suggestions in the first place?