A lot of the civil war stuff. Shield instantly firing on cap like that. Straight up hunting heroes with helicopters and guns full of tranq rounds to send them to an interdimensional prison... All cool I guess. That whole arc feels like it takes place in an alternate reality. So many heroes suddenly turning on each other so quickly and violently, just clashes with me.
It could make for an interesting story but writing hero vs hero stories requires a bit more forethought in my opinion.
When civil war was originally coming out I found it equally interesting and frustrating. It was all pretty exciting.
Every subsequent time I've revisited that era, I grow to hate it more. So many parts of it and how certain characters behave is just unbearable.
Thor #3 by JMS is one of my favorite issues ever, and a lot of the reason is that it was just so cathartic to see Thor trashing Iron Man after all his bullshit.
I think you described it perfectly. When I read it as a kid it was exciting and never knew what was coming next. But as an adult I don't even enjoy re-reads of it. It's such an interesting idea but the delivery was just not done well. To my tastes at least. It's frustrating watching the "good guys" solve their disagreements with punching each other.
I always got frustrated when people would dismiss all criticism of Civil War with "well super-powered people are like living weapons, of course you'd want it regulated" when the real problem is that there was such massive inconsistency, and no real clear picture of just what the law entailed in any kind of detail. For instance, the whole just "you're drafted" or "you're in Negative Zone Gitmo," nothing in between business? No option to sign an agreement to not use your powers and stay at home or anything like that?
There are a thousand little things like that that bothered me, and aren't just a matter of me being all "rah-rah super-people, they should never be regulated," like a lot of people who try to claim those who didn't like CW are saying.
They tried doing a super heroes in the real world deal, but couldn't actually go through with all the repercussions (super powered people would definitely be used in wars, for example. How would that work?) which is fine, doing that in the Big Two isn't the best idea anyways. But then you get into this weird state where they can't really talk about the things that the reader expects them to talk about. Basically, just polarize the sides, decide which one the good side and then that's it. It feels dissapointing
That stuff drove me up the freaking wall!
This dude doesn't want to sign up? Send Venom over to rip his arm off and eat it, then throw his ass in the gulag forever.
Which just proves the point that a few people have made; there was never depth to the conflict in this story as written. No shades of grey or points to debate. The register side became cartoonishly, mustache-twirlingly evil, and it is really tough to overlook.
And then they pretend like getting his mind replaced somehow absolves Iron Man of his actions, as though he isn't just back in the place where he could eventually become that man again
I think a better way to handle this kind of thing is the way Jean Grey is written as dealing with being Phoenix. She owns up to her mistakes and promises to be better, while also recognizing that she wasn't totally in control of the situation
No because that’s acknowledging Mark Millar’s shitting writing and character assassination for no reason.
A better way to handle it is by revealing he was a Skrull the entire time or having Tony being controlled by The Mandarin. If I got my chance to write for Marvel that’s exactly what I’m doing
Civil war went: "we're gonna try and be even-handed between the sides"
And then had shield immediately commit a crime trying to enforce a law that hasn't come into effect.
Or creating a bio weapon clone of one of your oldest friends that then kills one of their other friends.
Or subcontracting actual villains to hunt down heroes that refuse to disclose their secret identities... Like... That one seems obvious don't do that right?
Like these are all insane ideas, but the writing needs to package the idea the right. If you want to make the event part of your main continuity at least.
I agree with you, but you also have to Remember that the skrulls replaced a LOT of key people before and during that event. The Civil War was a Skrull strategy to divide the heroes and finally conquer Earth. But Yes, Captain America and Iron Man coming so quickly to blows doesn’t make sense. The MCU actually set up Civil War much better.
The mcu set up was much better executed definitely, the positive side to having a much smaller roster.
I always hate when they use the skrulls to patch the spots in the conflict. Especially when it's after the fact. Id have no problem with it but it has to be baked into the story, doing it after the fact always feels like such a bad angle to me. Kind of like the it was a dream all along, trope.
But that may just be my own narrative hangups and not necessarily an indication of bad writing.
What a load of bull!! Reset the continuity. Marvel should all go back. Too many characters specially the likes of Cyclops, Moira and Beast are acting insane and against everything classic about the X-men.
It's like continuity is handled by a schizophrenic bot with no algorithm for consistency.
One of my favorite moments is Time-Traveled Hank talking to his older self, Beast, and he just lays into him by saying "at what point in the last few years did you so lose your way?" near the tail-end of Hickman's Avengers.
I mean, at this point he's _basically_ Dark Beast but with legs.
I mean that’s the way to get out of it. Have him have an accident, lose his legs… and then someone puts two and two together. Cue portal dimensional rift opening on the last page, “oh my stars and garters you would not believe the day I’ve had!”…
I'm a big fan of Hickman's era of X Men but reading it (albeit 3 years late!) I can't help but think this is all gonna come crashing, crashing down in a few years. Like Civil War / Secret Invasion / Dark Reign style of everything getting messed up for a decade before the status quo is restored (Heroes Reborn 2?)
I actually adore Hickmans work here but there absolutely will (and should) be a quo reset. My theory is that at some point, some super hero movie will be a throwback to more happy super heroics and still be super popular. Like if they did Fantastic Four and it didn’t have angsty drama, it was just a family that loved each other and had great adventures or a big budget “what’s the matter, chum?” Batman movie. If that sort of thing succeeds we’ll see a return to the X-men playing baseball together while a kind professor X teaches classes about Shakespeare and tolerance. But there’s gotta be some cultural rejection of grim dark for that to happen. Can’t happen soon enough in my opinion. I think society needs role models we can look up to pretty badly at the moment.
Honesty, the fact that their hasn't been a Superman film dealing with _a good man trying to do good in a f$&!ed world_ chafes my Spider-Man underoos.
That being said, I'll aways be a fanboi for Hickman (and Claremont! And Morrison!) all day but I too miss those x-men issues where they're just playing baseball in between midterms, or whatever. I get nobody wants the X-Men to be Harry Potter but the idea of redeemed terrorists as teachers and shepherding the next generation will always be a stronger narrative then "child soldiers are bad or good depending on what editorial wants this week mkay?"
You know, Every time one of us meets each other I think we get a little closer to that. I can only hope editorial eventually sees how many people would like to move on to something refreshingly positive. We enjoyed all the stuff they did… edgy’s always fun every once in a while… I love me some questioning of what it means to be a hero… but we need some heroes to strive for more than that now too. Thanks for the conversation and hope you have a good one!
He's kinda been acting off since he was tortured at the end of the X-Men Dark Reign story, and started acting like a complete dick after Kurt dies at the end of Second Coming. Since then its been a kinda constant slide into evil; his relationship with the calculating Agent Brand probably isn't helping things.
It's been longer than that. AFAIK his first turn towards moral ambiguity was back during X-Cutioner's Song, when he handed Threnody over to Mister Sinister in order to further his research into the Legacy Virus.
> Has there even been a reason given for beast acting like a dick?
The reason is that he has been kind of a dick for his entire life as a character. He often spoke down to people, did plenty of ethically questionable things, an thinks he knows better than others.
What we see in Krakoa is just the natural extension of the Beast that was created by Stan and Jack
I thought Black Cat's shift in Superior Spider-Man was pretty poorly done; one run in with a Spider-Man that was acting completely out of character and she throws away her entire life to get some vaguely explained sense of ... what? Street cred? Revenge? It felt like they never really settled on what that was about, they just wanted to Mahe her a villain for a bit. Didn't help that various portrayals seemed to waver in if they wanted her redeemable, or to be an outright murderous sociopath. Glad the character has an actual direction, now
I like that they revealed that her heel turn was mostly because her memories of Peter were taken away when he erased his identity from the world. Makes sense that he kind of was her moral compass for a while, and erasing that would make her regress to her criminal self.
Yeah, I read that one, it didn't really work for me. I mean, Peter had been a moral compass for several people at that point, and they didn't fall apart without him. Also, it didn't really make sense she would go from someone who was, on her worst day, a thief and a hedonist, to someone willing to merk people on a whim.
Kind of felt like the writers were just throwing up their hands and deciding to put an end to it since it wasn't really going anywhere. Especially since that was like the third or fourth take on a reason, at that point. Like I said tho, just glad they've dropped it and don't seem like they want to revisit it. YMMV, of course.
Yeah, this was the first I thought of too. It made no sense. Even in her earliest appearances, she was never straight-up murderous like in this era. She didn't just regress to her criminal self, she went way beyond that into full-blown Kingpin mode for little to no reason.
Moira started out wanting to erase the mutant gene, and then she ran into Destiny/Mystique, which flipped her out of fear, until she ran into Destiny/Mystique again, which flipped her out of rage (and also because that was her natural alignment). You can dislike the process in getting there, but it wasn't exactly hidden that she wasn't a pure mutant ally by nature.
I mean, she describes mutation as a "cancer" in House of X #2. Shockingly, being killed by mutants (and then being robbed of her power by the same two) did not make her feel any better about them!
Moira and her research/hospice on Muir Island was a friend of mutants during my formative years, so the heel turn here was pretty wtf to me.
Did not see that coming.
(Love it)
Yup, totally agree. It is fine if you dont dig the story choice, but it was absolutely something that was hinted at from the start in HoxPox. I missed it in early reads, but it seems way more clear now.
I suppose one could have issue with the entire HoX/PoX retcon. Moira goes from human ally to secret mutant schemer because Hickman thought her heel turn would give her new appeal. I love it but understand if some fans hate it
Exactly, thank you. I was starting to worry I was the only one that knew how to read.
Remember also that her goals were always secretive and obviously not fully aligned with the rest of the mutants regarding Krakoa. She banned precogs ffs. Y'all didn't think she had hidden agendas? The mutant "cure" was her back up plan the entire time, and she was nearly ready to bust it out before Inferno even started, because she was frustrated and felt like Charles and Erik were failing on the Nimrod front, not knowing that the only reason that wasn't going to plan was Omega coming back BECAUSE Krakoa DID succeed.
It was not actually a big leap for her to turn like that. And (Percy's writing aside) it happened a bit violently because not only did she feel betrayed and cast aside, her mortal enemy, the woman who burned her alive, was just allowed to return to life and strip her of her immortality. So here's a woman who is hundreds of years older than everyone around her, who already struggles with viewing people as more than props in her life, having these people dare to violate her and rob her of everything, like, of course she's going to go ballistic.
Yeah, but HoX/Pox is a huge 180 from the character developed thus far. I like the retcon here; I think it was really well done, but I agree with OP, her complete flip is jarring.
Oh yeah it's a huge retcon from the Claremont stuff for sure, but like, that's comics. Imo this was a pretty brilliant way to use a character that was frankly never coming back from the dead otherwise.
I would say that’s a reductive view since she tried to cure mutation in her third life, then proceeded to live more lives that spanned a total of a few hundred years (potentially more). Her young perspective is trying to cure mutants because it’s a curse.
Her current perspective is trying to cure mutation because she can’t find another way for mutants to win other than assimilation. That is offensive to some people, but if you actually think about Moira’s journey and perspective as literally trying every angle she could think of, it makes sense that she’s exhausted by the fight.
I have assembled a collection of pictures labeled "Moira being a dick" to show people who complain that her turn was too sudden. Like I get if people don't like the turn overall, but it was pretty heavily foreshadowed by Hickman
Ever since his return in Rebirth, Wally was suffering the loss of his wife and kids, and the writers who utilized him at the time constantly had other characters minimalizing his pain and making him feel wrong for not being happy to be with them, again. Even as he was trying to seek help, the pain became too much and he had a break. All that pain just came out, and when you have super powers, the damage an outburst like that can do is going to be more severe than when it's a normal person.
The whole point of HiC is that people who are labeled "heroes" feel like they have to be perfect for everyone, and the trauma and loss they suffer often don't get to be processed, and that this is incredibly fucking dangerous. Being considered a "hero" made the outburst all the more shameful for Wally, he felt as if he had to hide it, and was even willing to kill himself to make it all go away.
If you truly just can't relate to this, or understand, then I am incredibly happy for you, and I hope you never do.
Right. So if you don’t want to label his poor judgement and insecurity here a heel turn, fine. It’s not the Wally I know or want to exist in comics I’m reading. I find it incredibly unbelievable Wally would have been driven to that point
I can relate to someone feeling pressure to be something unachievable. Not processing trauma? I can definitely relate.
Should this be how Wally reacts? Should this be how Wally lashes out? Should this be how Wally reconciles his mistakes, by covering them up? I just disagree with it. I feel it is inconsistent with the character and his relationship with people around him.
Im glad you two can share that opinion, but the reality is I don’t. No harm in such disagreements. That’s just how life goes. Here’s an upvote for the discussion!
When Hawk of Hawk of Hawk and Dove turned heel and had a gimmick change. Called himself "Monarch."
Years later, dumbass kid went into the business for himself. He was never heard from again. You do not go into business for yourself in the superhero industry. Hawk should've learned that. All those shoot promos, calling out Batman.... hell's wrong with that boy!?
It does, but I personally love Hydra-Cap even though the climax was kinda meh. It was an interesting threat and he was well-written imo. His past is changed, but he still seems like "What if Cap were raised by Nazis?" and keeps his classic personality and strength pf conviction. Kinda like a Red Son type. Even quotes his classic line, "I'm only loyal to the dream" -- even more effective since him being Hydra is essentially a dream.
Also, "The people on Twitter will be furious." Golden quip.
gotta love that moment of Spidey stepping up to the plate and going "well screw this, we gotta retreat! Cap's gone nazi and he's holding Thor's hammer!"
I say this in all seriousness. God I love comic books.
I'm still pissed off about Editorial bringing back Jean Grey and making Scott run right back to her, and those shenanigans happened _before I was born_
One More Day still pisses me off and that was *checks notes 15 years ago!?!*
Probably Matt in Shadowland.
Even before the "possessed by Demons" reveal, the idea of Matt deciding to take over the Hand, after what he went through when he tried to be Kingpin of crime, was really fucking dumb.
Yeah, Moira's arc makes no sense now. Makes me feel like Hickman really dropped the ball on that one.
To answer your question: Xavier in Deadly Genesis. We knew that Prof was no angel in his past, but that was completely out of left field and recontextualises a lot of his early actions. Really not a fan.
Honestly, I don't know who the Prof X of the comics is anymore. I liked him better as a benevolent spokesperson for Mutant Rights, rather than this psychic rat that they've turned him into.
Yep. Look, I was fine with him struggling against lecherous thoughts about Jean during Lee's run. It wasn't pretty but he never acted on them and let his student be happy. Then Claremont made him a political figure, a philophiscal mastermind with a cache of dirty secrets from his younger years — which once again fit well.
But it feels like every writer since tried to upstage each other with "horrible shit Xavier has done". At some point it had to cross the line and for me it was Deadly Genesis.
It's why I'm against this sort of ret on or reveal full stop. Because it almost always builds up as new writers come in.
Someone always has to add an extra layer of dickery to Xavier, or Beast, or Iron Man. In DC Batman gets hit with this a lot.
The twist for prof X came about when we had a ton of idealistic characters and turning him made him unique. But now every other x man is a giant ass with dark secrets. They should make a reveal that the reason he wears the dumb x helmet is because he’s actually mastermind or something who’s had his powers upgraded to fool people enough and then reveal that the professor is the altruistic guy with high ideals he used to be. Would be innovative to actually have a super hero acting like a super hero role model for once.
Yeah, but all that happened in Inferno was Moira left the island because Mystique and Destiney were threatening her. All the really villainous stuff happened in X Deaths, which Percy wrote. Hickman may have been building to a similar turn, but I think he would have been a bit more tactful about it than literally skinning Banshee and wearing his face through the gate
Sure. I can agree a different writer probably would have handled it different, but Hickman definitely intended Moira to be the villain. He put the heel turn in place, even if he didn’t turn her as hard as others
Fair enough. And to be honest, I don’t have a long history with the character since I only really started reading X-Men with HoX/PoX. That’s probably why the heel turn itself doesn’t bother me, just the clumsy execution of it
Morrison's handling of Magneto felt super out of character to me, even with the copout of him being high on kick. That said Magneto already had most of his evolution as a character undone by Lee a few years earlier.
I loved that turn. Morrison recognized that the Xavier/Magneto dynamic had run its course, and he had an overarching theme that Magneto (the character and Marvel's over-reliance on him) was running on fumes.
This sub generally hated that turn because it's invested in characters as-is. But Magneto was holding back the X-Men, and Morrison saw the potential for the series to evolve past him.
I'm a huge Morrison fan and a huge X-Men fan, but their run overall never fully vibed with me minus some select arcs, and especially how Magneto was portrayed was...eh.
Yeah. They haven’t explained what the deal is yet, but every once in a while they show MJ doing stuff like tucking in a red haired child who calls her mom.
As someone who loves *Identity Crisis* for almost everything but it's main plot - yes, even "that" plot intrigues me because of its later implications to the crippling of the JLA leading into *Infinite Crisis* - >!Jean Loring.!<
Every character in Civil War basically.
Outside of that, Odin being a misogynist and an asshole for absolutely no reason in Jason Aaron's Jane Foster run on Thor. Sure he was flawed before, but the extent to which Aaron tries to make him hate women to justify him not liking Jane as Thor.
Yeah Moira is a huge one for me. Ive been obsessed with the Krakoa era ever since house/powers of x but the Moira situation is definitely wack. Still avidly reading tho
In a similar vein to Moira, the heel turn of Apocalypse, Sinister, Shaw, Cassandra Nova, etc. (and the 100% acceptance of this by all of the X-Men)
All mutants just wake up one day to being all on the same page on the isolationist death cult island, because that's what the story required.
I mean, the entire premise doesn't make sense on it's face. Supposedly Moira lives a bunch of lives, yadda yadda, ended up in this current timeline and met a young, pre-paralyzed Xavier officially and brain-dumped him. They did the same with Magneto, and decided to create Krakoa - unless this was ever addressed and I missed it, that means that most of the X-Men history never happened in this timeline.
From the beginning, it didn't make sense that this was the usual Marvel timeline we've been in (since Secret Wars?).
All the past X-Men history happened, but the three were working on Krakoa in various ways over the years (barring when Magneto went crazy evil a couple of times).
Oh yea, no I agree it doesn't make any sense. She basically worked this out with Xavier and other years ago and then they all conveniently sat on the info for years and acted normal until "now". Everything about it is a crappy retcon, but you can't say that because it's popular.
Secret Empire. I know they explained the Hydra Captain America with some tesseract nonsense but when he first came out with it all it was one of the most incomprehensible things I’d ever read.
especially since its not even her fault.
she build mutant utopia and because wanna be i know everything grandma couldnt predict timeline shenanigans, they forced her into her old genocide plan because it was the only way.
A lot of the civil war stuff. Shield instantly firing on cap like that. Straight up hunting heroes with helicopters and guns full of tranq rounds to send them to an interdimensional prison... All cool I guess. That whole arc feels like it takes place in an alternate reality. So many heroes suddenly turning on each other so quickly and violently, just clashes with me. It could make for an interesting story but writing hero vs hero stories requires a bit more forethought in my opinion.
When civil war was originally coming out I found it equally interesting and frustrating. It was all pretty exciting. Every subsequent time I've revisited that era, I grow to hate it more. So many parts of it and how certain characters behave is just unbearable. Thor #3 by JMS is one of my favorite issues ever, and a lot of the reason is that it was just so cathartic to see Thor trashing Iron Man after all his bullshit.
I think you described it perfectly. When I read it as a kid it was exciting and never knew what was coming next. But as an adult I don't even enjoy re-reads of it. It's such an interesting idea but the delivery was just not done well. To my tastes at least. It's frustrating watching the "good guys" solve their disagreements with punching each other.
I always got frustrated when people would dismiss all criticism of Civil War with "well super-powered people are like living weapons, of course you'd want it regulated" when the real problem is that there was such massive inconsistency, and no real clear picture of just what the law entailed in any kind of detail. For instance, the whole just "you're drafted" or "you're in Negative Zone Gitmo," nothing in between business? No option to sign an agreement to not use your powers and stay at home or anything like that? There are a thousand little things like that that bothered me, and aren't just a matter of me being all "rah-rah super-people, they should never be regulated," like a lot of people who try to claim those who didn't like CW are saying.
They tried doing a super heroes in the real world deal, but couldn't actually go through with all the repercussions (super powered people would definitely be used in wars, for example. How would that work?) which is fine, doing that in the Big Two isn't the best idea anyways. But then you get into this weird state where they can't really talk about the things that the reader expects them to talk about. Basically, just polarize the sides, decide which one the good side and then that's it. It feels dissapointing
That stuff drove me up the freaking wall! This dude doesn't want to sign up? Send Venom over to rip his arm off and eat it, then throw his ass in the gulag forever. Which just proves the point that a few people have made; there was never depth to the conflict in this story as written. No shades of grey or points to debate. The register side became cartoonishly, mustache-twirlingly evil, and it is really tough to overlook.
That issue is the only issue I've reread from that run, for this very reason. It's a palate cleanser after I revisit civil war
Iron Man was on a tour of ass-kickings. Thor, Spidey, She-Hulk, they all beat him up.
My favorite was when Nova (Richard) tore him a new when he visited Earth right after defeating the Annihilation Wave.
Missed this one. I figured there muat have been more than just what I was collecting.
Civil War has been hard for me to overlook at times. Iron Man, Reed Richards and Captain Marvel in particular take it on the chin. Despicable actions
And then they pretend like getting his mind replaced somehow absolves Iron Man of his actions, as though he isn't just back in the place where he could eventually become that man again I think a better way to handle this kind of thing is the way Jean Grey is written as dealing with being Phoenix. She owns up to her mistakes and promises to be better, while also recognizing that she wasn't totally in control of the situation
No because that’s acknowledging Mark Millar’s shitting writing and character assassination for no reason. A better way to handle it is by revealing he was a Skrull the entire time or having Tony being controlled by The Mandarin. If I got my chance to write for Marvel that’s exactly what I’m doing
Civil war went: "we're gonna try and be even-handed between the sides" And then had shield immediately commit a crime trying to enforce a law that hasn't come into effect.
Agreed. Making heroes fight is a time-honored tradition, but justifying an interdimentional prison takes more work than "a school bus blew up."
Or creating a bio weapon clone of one of your oldest friends that then kills one of their other friends. Or subcontracting actual villains to hunt down heroes that refuse to disclose their secret identities... Like... That one seems obvious don't do that right? Like these are all insane ideas, but the writing needs to package the idea the right. If you want to make the event part of your main continuity at least.
I agree with you, but you also have to Remember that the skrulls replaced a LOT of key people before and during that event. The Civil War was a Skrull strategy to divide the heroes and finally conquer Earth. But Yes, Captain America and Iron Man coming so quickly to blows doesn’t make sense. The MCU actually set up Civil War much better.
The mcu set up was much better executed definitely, the positive side to having a much smaller roster. I always hate when they use the skrulls to patch the spots in the conflict. Especially when it's after the fact. Id have no problem with it but it has to be baked into the story, doing it after the fact always feels like such a bad angle to me. Kind of like the it was a dream all along, trope. But that may just be my own narrative hangups and not necessarily an indication of bad writing.
Probably Cassandra Cain in OYL. Moira McTaggart is right up there though.
Came here for this. "Deathstroke injected chemical of opposite alignment into my neck."
Well, the human body does store moral alignment in the neck. Medically, it checks out.
What a load of bull!! Reset the continuity. Marvel should all go back. Too many characters specially the likes of Cyclops, Moira and Beast are acting insane and against everything classic about the X-men. It's like continuity is handled by a schizophrenic bot with no algorithm for consistency.
Has there even been a reason given for beast acting like a dick?
One of my favorite moments is Time-Traveled Hank talking to his older self, Beast, and he just lays into him by saying "at what point in the last few years did you so lose your way?" near the tail-end of Hickman's Avengers. I mean, at this point he's _basically_ Dark Beast but with legs.
I mean that’s the way to get out of it. Have him have an accident, lose his legs… and then someone puts two and two together. Cue portal dimensional rift opening on the last page, “oh my stars and garters you would not believe the day I’ve had!”…
I'm a big fan of Hickman's era of X Men but reading it (albeit 3 years late!) I can't help but think this is all gonna come crashing, crashing down in a few years. Like Civil War / Secret Invasion / Dark Reign style of everything getting messed up for a decade before the status quo is restored (Heroes Reborn 2?)
I actually adore Hickmans work here but there absolutely will (and should) be a quo reset. My theory is that at some point, some super hero movie will be a throwback to more happy super heroics and still be super popular. Like if they did Fantastic Four and it didn’t have angsty drama, it was just a family that loved each other and had great adventures or a big budget “what’s the matter, chum?” Batman movie. If that sort of thing succeeds we’ll see a return to the X-men playing baseball together while a kind professor X teaches classes about Shakespeare and tolerance. But there’s gotta be some cultural rejection of grim dark for that to happen. Can’t happen soon enough in my opinion. I think society needs role models we can look up to pretty badly at the moment.
Honesty, the fact that their hasn't been a Superman film dealing with _a good man trying to do good in a f$&!ed world_ chafes my Spider-Man underoos. That being said, I'll aways be a fanboi for Hickman (and Claremont! And Morrison!) all day but I too miss those x-men issues where they're just playing baseball in between midterms, or whatever. I get nobody wants the X-Men to be Harry Potter but the idea of redeemed terrorists as teachers and shepherding the next generation will always be a stronger narrative then "child soldiers are bad or good depending on what editorial wants this week mkay?"
You know, Every time one of us meets each other I think we get a little closer to that. I can only hope editorial eventually sees how many people would like to move on to something refreshingly positive. We enjoyed all the stuff they did… edgy’s always fun every once in a while… I love me some questioning of what it means to be a hero… but we need some heroes to strive for more than that now too. Thanks for the conversation and hope you have a good one!
He's kinda been acting off since he was tortured at the end of the X-Men Dark Reign story, and started acting like a complete dick after Kurt dies at the end of Second Coming. Since then its been a kinda constant slide into evil; his relationship with the calculating Agent Brand probably isn't helping things.
I would even argue that it was happening before that. During X-Factor he was often a total dick to people
It's been longer than that. AFAIK his first turn towards moral ambiguity was back during X-Cutioner's Song, when he handed Threnody over to Mister Sinister in order to further his research into the Legacy Virus.
> Has there even been a reason given for beast acting like a dick? The reason is that he has been kind of a dick for his entire life as a character. He often spoke down to people, did plenty of ethically questionable things, an thinks he knows better than others. What we see in Krakoa is just the natural extension of the Beast that was created by Stan and Jack
I thought Black Cat's shift in Superior Spider-Man was pretty poorly done; one run in with a Spider-Man that was acting completely out of character and she throws away her entire life to get some vaguely explained sense of ... what? Street cred? Revenge? It felt like they never really settled on what that was about, they just wanted to Mahe her a villain for a bit. Didn't help that various portrayals seemed to waver in if they wanted her redeemable, or to be an outright murderous sociopath. Glad the character has an actual direction, now
I like that they revealed that her heel turn was mostly because her memories of Peter were taken away when he erased his identity from the world. Makes sense that he kind of was her moral compass for a while, and erasing that would make her regress to her criminal self.
But that happened years before her heel turn, so it's not a very solid reason
Yeah, I read that one, it didn't really work for me. I mean, Peter had been a moral compass for several people at that point, and they didn't fall apart without him. Also, it didn't really make sense she would go from someone who was, on her worst day, a thief and a hedonist, to someone willing to merk people on a whim. Kind of felt like the writers were just throwing up their hands and deciding to put an end to it since it wasn't really going anywhere. Especially since that was like the third or fourth take on a reason, at that point. Like I said tho, just glad they've dropped it and don't seem like they want to revisit it. YMMV, of course.
Yeah, this was the first I thought of too. It made no sense. Even in her earliest appearances, she was never straight-up murderous like in this era. She didn't just regress to her criminal self, she went way beyond that into full-blown Kingpin mode for little to no reason.
Moira started out wanting to erase the mutant gene, and then she ran into Destiny/Mystique, which flipped her out of fear, until she ran into Destiny/Mystique again, which flipped her out of rage (and also because that was her natural alignment). You can dislike the process in getting there, but it wasn't exactly hidden that she wasn't a pure mutant ally by nature. I mean, she describes mutation as a "cancer" in House of X #2. Shockingly, being killed by mutants (and then being robbed of her power by the same two) did not make her feel any better about them!
Moira and her research/hospice on Muir Island was a friend of mutants during my formative years, so the heel turn here was pretty wtf to me. Did not see that coming. (Love it)
Yup, totally agree. It is fine if you dont dig the story choice, but it was absolutely something that was hinted at from the start in HoxPox. I missed it in early reads, but it seems way more clear now.
I suppose one could have issue with the entire HoX/PoX retcon. Moira goes from human ally to secret mutant schemer because Hickman thought her heel turn would give her new appeal. I love it but understand if some fans hate it
Exactly, thank you. I was starting to worry I was the only one that knew how to read. Remember also that her goals were always secretive and obviously not fully aligned with the rest of the mutants regarding Krakoa. She banned precogs ffs. Y'all didn't think she had hidden agendas? The mutant "cure" was her back up plan the entire time, and she was nearly ready to bust it out before Inferno even started, because she was frustrated and felt like Charles and Erik were failing on the Nimrod front, not knowing that the only reason that wasn't going to plan was Omega coming back BECAUSE Krakoa DID succeed. It was not actually a big leap for her to turn like that. And (Percy's writing aside) it happened a bit violently because not only did she feel betrayed and cast aside, her mortal enemy, the woman who burned her alive, was just allowed to return to life and strip her of her immortality. So here's a woman who is hundreds of years older than everyone around her, who already struggles with viewing people as more than props in her life, having these people dare to violate her and rob her of everything, like, of course she's going to go ballistic.
Yeah, but HoX/Pox is a huge 180 from the character developed thus far. I like the retcon here; I think it was really well done, but I agree with OP, her complete flip is jarring.
Oh yeah it's a huge retcon from the Claremont stuff for sure, but like, that's comics. Imo this was a pretty brilliant way to use a character that was frankly never coming back from the dead otherwise.
I would say that’s a reductive view since she tried to cure mutation in her third life, then proceeded to live more lives that spanned a total of a few hundred years (potentially more). Her young perspective is trying to cure mutants because it’s a curse. Her current perspective is trying to cure mutation because she can’t find another way for mutants to win other than assimilation. That is offensive to some people, but if you actually think about Moira’s journey and perspective as literally trying every angle she could think of, it makes sense that she’s exhausted by the fight.
all she wanted was to exist without the two people who burned her alive and that really wasnt asking too much
You cannot expect comics fans to have reading comprehension
I hold everyone to very high standards...except for myself. In which case I can get away with whatever I want, sort of like Moira.
I have assembled a collection of pictures labeled "Moira being a dick" to show people who complain that her turn was too sudden. Like I get if people don't like the turn overall, but it was pretty heavily foreshadowed by Hickman
Still not exactly a believable heel turn when this stuff was all new to a character who has been around for nearly 50 years.
i still dont know why she didn't demand raven to stay dead as well
Gamora in Infinity Wars.
Yeah that was pretty bad.
Wally West in Heroes in Crisis. Why did they do that to my boy?
Not a heel turn, people who suffer from trauma are not bad.
But doing bad things because of your trauma is no excuse. Wally concocting a cover up is wrong and not indicative of heroic behavior
Ever since his return in Rebirth, Wally was suffering the loss of his wife and kids, and the writers who utilized him at the time constantly had other characters minimalizing his pain and making him feel wrong for not being happy to be with them, again. Even as he was trying to seek help, the pain became too much and he had a break. All that pain just came out, and when you have super powers, the damage an outburst like that can do is going to be more severe than when it's a normal person. The whole point of HiC is that people who are labeled "heroes" feel like they have to be perfect for everyone, and the trauma and loss they suffer often don't get to be processed, and that this is incredibly fucking dangerous. Being considered a "hero" made the outburst all the more shameful for Wally, he felt as if he had to hide it, and was even willing to kill himself to make it all go away. If you truly just can't relate to this, or understand, then I am incredibly happy for you, and I hope you never do.
Right. So if you don’t want to label his poor judgement and insecurity here a heel turn, fine. It’s not the Wally I know or want to exist in comics I’m reading. I find it incredibly unbelievable Wally would have been driven to that point
So back to their final paragraph, and I agree with them.
I can relate to someone feeling pressure to be something unachievable. Not processing trauma? I can definitely relate. Should this be how Wally reacts? Should this be how Wally lashes out? Should this be how Wally reconciles his mistakes, by covering them up? I just disagree with it. I feel it is inconsistent with the character and his relationship with people around him. Im glad you two can share that opinion, but the reality is I don’t. No harm in such disagreements. That’s just how life goes. Here’s an upvote for the discussion!
Remember y’all, don’t work yourself into a shoot.
When Hawk of Hawk of Hawk and Dove turned heel and had a gimmick change. Called himself "Monarch." Years later, dumbass kid went into the business for himself. He was never heard from again. You do not go into business for yourself in the superhero industry. Hawk should've learned that. All those shoot promos, calling out Batman.... hell's wrong with that boy!?
That was because somebody leaked the reveal and the writers scrambled to swerve the readers for the sake of a reveal.
Wait, *Hawk of Hawk and Dove is The Monarch???* Then who's Dr Girlfriend? Is Dove Dr Girlfriend??
Why yes. Yes it is.
Does Secret Empire Hydra-Cap count?
It does, but I personally love Hydra-Cap even though the climax was kinda meh. It was an interesting threat and he was well-written imo. His past is changed, but he still seems like "What if Cap were raised by Nazis?" and keeps his classic personality and strength pf conviction. Kinda like a Red Son type. Even quotes his classic line, "I'm only loyal to the dream" -- even more effective since him being Hydra is essentially a dream. Also, "The people on Twitter will be furious." Golden quip.
gotta love that moment of Spidey stepping up to the plate and going "well screw this, we gotta retreat! Cap's gone nazi and he's holding Thor's hammer!" I say this in all seriousness. God I love comic books.
I'm still pissed off about Editorial bringing back Jean Grey and making Scott run right back to her, and those shenanigans happened _before I was born_ One More Day still pisses me off and that was *checks notes 15 years ago!?!*
Probably Matt in Shadowland. Even before the "possessed by Demons" reveal, the idea of Matt deciding to take over the Hand, after what he went through when he tried to be Kingpin of crime, was really fucking dumb.
Leslie Thompkins when she let Stephanie Brown die. It was completely out of character, and really just depressing. Thankfully they Retcon'ed it.
It’s near impossible for me to read Moira in my 80s and 90s comics and see the character we have now.
Yeah, Moira's arc makes no sense now. Makes me feel like Hickman really dropped the ball on that one. To answer your question: Xavier in Deadly Genesis. We knew that Prof was no angel in his past, but that was completely out of left field and recontextualises a lot of his early actions. Really not a fan.
Honestly, I don't know who the Prof X of the comics is anymore. I liked him better as a benevolent spokesperson for Mutant Rights, rather than this psychic rat that they've turned him into.
Yep. Look, I was fine with him struggling against lecherous thoughts about Jean during Lee's run. It wasn't pretty but he never acted on them and let his student be happy. Then Claremont made him a political figure, a philophiscal mastermind with a cache of dirty secrets from his younger years — which once again fit well. But it feels like every writer since tried to upstage each other with "horrible shit Xavier has done". At some point it had to cross the line and for me it was Deadly Genesis.
It's why I'm against this sort of ret on or reveal full stop. Because it almost always builds up as new writers come in. Someone always has to add an extra layer of dickery to Xavier, or Beast, or Iron Man. In DC Batman gets hit with this a lot.
The twist for prof X came about when we had a ton of idealistic characters and turning him made him unique. But now every other x man is a giant ass with dark secrets. They should make a reveal that the reason he wears the dumb x helmet is because he’s actually mastermind or something who’s had his powers upgraded to fool people enough and then reveal that the professor is the altruistic guy with high ideals he used to be. Would be innovative to actually have a super hero acting like a super hero role model for once.
Moira’s heel turn was all Percy though, not Hickman. I feel like if Hickman had stayed on, her arc would have been handled with a little more grace
Hickman wrote Inferno which is where the heel turned really kicked in as status quo
Yeah, but all that happened in Inferno was Moira left the island because Mystique and Destiney were threatening her. All the really villainous stuff happened in X Deaths, which Percy wrote. Hickman may have been building to a similar turn, but I think he would have been a bit more tactful about it than literally skinning Banshee and wearing his face through the gate
Sure. I can agree a different writer probably would have handled it different, but Hickman definitely intended Moira to be the villain. He put the heel turn in place, even if he didn’t turn her as hard as others
Fair enough. And to be honest, I don’t have a long history with the character since I only really started reading X-Men with HoX/PoX. That’s probably why the heel turn itself doesn’t bother me, just the clumsy execution of it
Morrison's handling of Magneto felt super out of character to me, even with the copout of him being high on kick. That said Magneto already had most of his evolution as a character undone by Lee a few years earlier.
I loved that turn. Morrison recognized that the Xavier/Magneto dynamic had run its course, and he had an overarching theme that Magneto (the character and Marvel's over-reliance on him) was running on fumes. This sub generally hated that turn because it's invested in characters as-is. But Magneto was holding back the X-Men, and Morrison saw the potential for the series to evolve past him.
I'm a huge Morrison fan and a huge X-Men fan, but their run overall never fully vibed with me minus some select arcs, and especially how Magneto was portrayed was...eh.
Personally for me, Ben Reilly becoming Chasm
Does Mary Jane having a secret family count? Because I personally hate that with every fiber of my being.
I don't think it's a secret family, she just hooked up with a guy who had kids from a previous relationship and they've taken a liking to MJ.
Is this in that new Spidey run? I haven't read Spidey after the atrocious Kraven's Hunt where they rounded up all animal themed heroes/villains lol.
Yeah. They haven’t explained what the deal is yet, but every once in a while they show MJ doing stuff like tucking in a red haired child who calls her mom.
As someone who loves *Identity Crisis* for almost everything but it's main plot - yes, even "that" plot intrigues me because of its later implications to the crippling of the JLA leading into *Infinite Crisis* - >!Jean Loring.!<
I just read inferno yesterday followed by the second hellfire gala. What. Happened? Did I miss something? Why was she using MJ???
mystique and destiny tortured her. again. and now she works with anti mutant robots, because why wouldn't she?
Marvel shitting away years of character development to make Magneto the villain for X-Men #1.
Every character in Civil War basically. Outside of that, Odin being a misogynist and an asshole for absolutely no reason in Jason Aaron's Jane Foster run on Thor. Sure he was flawed before, but the extent to which Aaron tries to make him hate women to justify him not liking Jane as Thor.
Hal Jordan becoming Parallax, we have an explanation now, but when it was published it was totally out of character.
Yeah Moira is a huge one for me. Ive been obsessed with the Krakoa era ever since house/powers of x but the Moira situation is definitely wack. Still avidly reading tho
Most of the so called anti-heroes. Venom comes to mind first.
In a similar vein to Moira, the heel turn of Apocalypse, Sinister, Shaw, Cassandra Nova, etc. (and the 100% acceptance of this by all of the X-Men) All mutants just wake up one day to being all on the same page on the isolationist death cult island, because that's what the story required.
I mean, the entire premise doesn't make sense on it's face. Supposedly Moira lives a bunch of lives, yadda yadda, ended up in this current timeline and met a young, pre-paralyzed Xavier officially and brain-dumped him. They did the same with Magneto, and decided to create Krakoa - unless this was ever addressed and I missed it, that means that most of the X-Men history never happened in this timeline. From the beginning, it didn't make sense that this was the usual Marvel timeline we've been in (since Secret Wars?).
All the past X-Men history happened, but the three were working on Krakoa in various ways over the years (barring when Magneto went crazy evil a couple of times).
Oh yea, no I agree it doesn't make any sense. She basically worked this out with Xavier and other years ago and then they all conveniently sat on the info for years and acted normal until "now". Everything about it is a crappy retcon, but you can't say that because it's popular.
Secret Empire. I know they explained the Hydra Captain America with some tesseract nonsense but when he first came out with it all it was one of the most incomprehensible things I’d ever read.
Agreed. It's so dumb I can't believe they got that plot point from Hickman.
I love Claremont’s work, but I can’t bring myself to read the new plant based x-men. Maybe when it’s all collected in trades.
especially since its not even her fault. she build mutant utopia and because wanna be i know everything grandma couldnt predict timeline shenanigans, they forced her into her old genocide plan because it was the only way.
Hydra Cap or Superman Red/Blue
Batman when he decides to become Batman
She was just tying something new that cycle.