Second Thoughts
Second Thoughts
May 12The Second Coming crossover event currently running through Uncanny X-Men, X-Men Legacy, New Mutants, and X-Force reaches its midpoint this week. The story centers on Hope, the so-called ‘mutant messiah’ as she returns to the present day after being raised in the bleak, post-apocalyptic future by her guardian Cable, who is himself the time-tossed son of Cyclops and his wife Maddy Pryor (the psychotic evil clone of Jean Grey created by Mister Sinister who turned into some kind of crazy witch called the Goblin Queen and hooked up with Cyclops’ brother after he ditched her and his infant son to be with his resurrected ex* who later attempted to seduce an alternate-universe version of her own son**), and the X-Men’s struggle against the forces determined to stop her from laying her messianic mojo on Marvel’s merry mutants.
So, at the halfway point, where are we? Hope has made it to Utopia, the island fortress of the X-Men, but not before Nightcrawler (and Ariel and, apparently, Vanisher) gave their lives, Magik got sent to Hell and Karma lost a leg. The legion of resurrected former X-Men villains led by the half genocidal-robot-from-the-present/half genocidal-robot-from-the-future Bastion (aka Bad 90s Concept #54) seems to be targeting teleporters (despite some messy scripting in X-Force #26 where Bastion initially ignores Nightcrawler as not being as high-priority a target as Rogue) and former Hellfire Club member Donald Pierce is free on Utopia and clearly looking to explode some of the X-Men’s stuff. Team Evil hasn’t been unscathed, though, even if they do have the upper hand at the moment. Archangel bisected anti-mutant religious leader William Stryker (the Marvel Universe version of those Westboro assholes) in a shower of gore that discriminating readers have come to expect from the members of X-Force, while Cameron Hodge (leader of the battlesuited terrorist group The Right) was taken out by the New Mutants’ Warlock.
As an outspoken fan of X-Men crossover events (I love Inferno and Messiah CompleX), I’m still up in the air about Second Coming. In a landscape where the X-Men’s biggest antagonists right now have been off-the-radar threats or their own internal bickering, the sudden prominence of Bastion’s conspiracy (which has been running through X-Force from the beginning and has never bled into the other books prior to the ramp up to Second Coming) seems kind of random and off-putting and almost punishes the readers of the other books for not wanting to pay attention to the book where all the X-Men with knives and/or claws trudge through graphic violence and teenage girl chainsaw torture.
Ostensibly, this is the story of the return of the Phoenix. At least, that’s what all the clues in the marketing materials and the cute convention panel answers have been telling us. That’s a cosmic scale story, by its very definition. It is not dead bad guys from the 80s and 90s getting their gangs back together and facing off one by one against Cyclops and Wolverine over a girl. That’s River City Ransom.
For a story that is supposed to be about Hope Summers, we’ve seen her do precious little except for drool over hair care products, sulk and bravely but ineffectually assault Bastion with a steel pipe. Other than her status as the only mutant born since the Scarlet Witch’s Decimation of the mutant populace at the end of House of M, there is nothing noteworthy about Hope save for Scott’s belief that redheaded girls have magical powers. Wolverine is right; she’d better be worth it.
As the reader, we don’t know if she is or not. Nor do we really know what the stakes are (and don’t give me ‘survival’; I’m ready for an X-Men story that isn’t just about the mutants’ fight to survive their genetic obsolescence and a villain with a plan that’s not ‘kill the mutants’). In fact, you might have noticed that Second Coming is re-serving the same story as Messiah CompleX – Cable trying to keep Hope safe, the X-Men trying to find them, random villains teaming up to take them down, Wolverine and his crack team of violent sociopaths crossing the line in order to serve the greater good. Except three years ago it had more immediacy and more impact. So far, Second Coming feels silly and bombastic, and I hope that I turn out to be wrong about it.
Have you been keeping up with Second Coming? Am I wrong? Do you love it? Don’t you just wish they’d bring Jean back already? Let us know in the comments.
*The first case of what the kids now call “resurrexting”
** I’ll admit that I’m fuzzy on the events of X-Man, but this actually happened, right? Or is this fanfic?
http://www.teefury.com/,
Yes, this. I feel like Hope is the most transparent McGuffin in the sense of “you will pay attention to this because we are telling you it’s important.” But the thing about a McGuffin is that the device itself doesn’t matter, it’s what the device teaches us about the people who are after it. And. . .right now what it’s teaching us is “more of this BS.”
I never thought I’d drop an X-Men crossover in the middle but, well, this is dropped.
I’m waiting for this in trade more than anything. I very closely followed Cable and Hope through the Cable trades (there were 4, incuding the X-Force crossover… I think) and while the first two were wildly compelling, the third wasn’t gripping and the fourth left a bad taste in my mouth, and it was nowhere near the end of Hope’s saga. I realize this a likely a watershed moment for the X-Men, but it’s dragging on in a way that I just can’t want to follow anymore.
I’m enjoying the way Second Coming is being told, though I feel like it’s written more for the trade than anything, but I feel like we’re seeing Cyclops’ militarization of the X-Men come to a head as they’re behaving like organized soldiers going after specific targets with specific goals. It’s interesting. It actually brought my friend Robb back into the X-fold (at least for this storyline).
I agree that I’d have like Hope to be DOING something as this storyline is supposed to be about her, but maybe this last half will be more about Hope and who she is and what she can do.
As someone who was reading X-Force this entire time, it’s nice to see things playing out finally. I’ll keep reading and won’t really know until the end whether this was all really “worth it” as Logan says.
Oh, people still read X-Men comics?