Opinion: From The Ashes, An Old Beginning

Krakoa was a paradise (with serious flaws) for mutants. A chance to be something more, and to (mostly) escape oppression. For almost five years, it was the status quo for Marvel’s Merry Mutants.

It’s one that was greatly liked (at least by many online) and spawned a number of new relationships, communities, character developments, and ideas.

Unfortunately, that is all at an end now and what is promising to take its place is vastly different (yet far too familiar) in a way that’s jarring.

Right now I bet you’re thinking, “But Scott, you said you were saying goodbye to the X-Men, do you really need to write more about it?”

First of all, thanks for reading my previous piece (or my posts about it) and for being concerned. Secondly, my need to write about and like the X-Men as a whole will never go away entirely. I’m just choosing not to watch the current cartoon or read the upcoming comics.

My reasons actually stem from where I was going with this piece set up in that intro above. So let’s dial it back and bit and explain what this change is.

From what we’ve seen so far from the shared concepts, the art, the interviews, and more things are going to be pretty terrible for mutants. Krakoa is gone, and everyone has been forced to return to the nations and homes that they fled for Krakoa. Mutants are even more hated and feared, blame being placed on them daring to do something like Krakoa, and apparently, the new mutant code is something about staying hidden, shutting up, and staying out of trouble (I only semi paraphrased).

If you know my feelings on Krakoa (easy to parse from the intro), I bet you can get why this new status quo bothers me.

I’ll make it clear if not: the bigots won.

Yes, Orchis, the entity, apparently will be defeated before Krakoa ends, but they and the other bigot humans won. Mutants had not only their nation stripped away but their community and culture are now dust again. They are being forced to assimilate back into human controlled and created society, often trying to hide that they are mutants for fear of the bigots coming for them or those they love.

In comics, heroes don’t always win. Drama rules dictate that they must tumble at times so that tension and greater drama can be extracted. We all know this and have witnessed it, especially when it comes to Marvel and DC Comics and their decades long ongoing storytelling. Reversions to the most “known” or “popular” status quos are common, characters like Batman and Spider-Man getting that semi-reset at least every few years.

So then why does the X-Men one sting more than others?

Because Spider-Man losing his marriage or Batman switching between high concept or street level doesn’t include bigotry. With the X-Men, being shoved back into this “status quo” box means a marginalized group being put through horrible wringers of bigotry, hatred, and worse just for drama’s sake. It speaks to the overall idea that to many the only way the X-Men are good is when they are fighting back against oppression that threatens to wipe them out at any second.

While yes, this is what the title began as, it’s tied too much to the idea of what we see in reality: marginalized groups struggling against ever worsening bigotry every second.

I’m not going to pretend we all don’t know they’ll have “wins” or that the status quo won’t change again at some point (see above), but to strip the fictional group of any victory and throw them back into the raging fire just for whatever media synergy the company is set on just feels gross.

Yes, these are not real people and its fiction, but that doesn’t change what that fiction means. One cannot state that people can relate to and be inspired by these stories only to then claim that there can’t be the opposite feelings from the same medium.

As a member of two marginalized groups, I just can’t vibe with a story that is apparently going to center itself on making things as cruel as possible for these characters. Especially since there was numerous ways to still allow the mutants to have their “win” while also moving things closer to whatever vibe they seem to want to match the cartoon and upcoming films.

Really quick aside, no matter what Tom Brevoort and company say, the fact that all the logos and many of the series concepts are straight ripped from the 1980s and ’90s betrays their intentions. Not saying that the creators don’t have things to say or new things to do, but it’s clear that Dan Buckley directly asking Brevoort to take over (something confirmed by Brevoort himself in AIPT’s X-Men Mondays) was not just for shits and giggles. They wanted their top long-term full company guy to lead the line in a specific direction, for good or ill, that surely has to do with where the X-Men are going in the bigger picture (and TV/movies are far bigger than comics to the company).

Essentially the TL,DR is that as long as the X-Men’s current status quo is about (even some) mutants playing model minority to please their oppressors, I’m not that interested any more. Ten-years-ago-me would have been all over it, take from that whatever you want.

I’ll never say never because as much as I (rightfully) criticize them, I’m a Marvel zombie and always have been. They find ways to keep me interested even when my favorite characters or books become ones that I don’t want to really read (Hey there Peter Parker). There is a (tiny) chance that some book Tom B pulls out of his constantly worn hat that will pique my interest and make my goodbye to the X-Line seem premature or laughable (not to me though).

As noted, it’s doubtful after seeing how much Brevoort decided to openly crap on everything Krakoa (while claiming to cast no aspersions) recently. Even pointing in a way to the idea that mutants brought this upon themselves (real language of the oppressors right there). Yes, again, they are fictional, but if Marvel is going to ride on the idea of the book being a metaphor for what minorities go through these things matter.

At the end of the day, my first glance goodbye feels more freeing by the day.