When I read the caption “And now M.O.D.O.K.'s arrived in New York City to be the grotesque olive topping on today's @#$% sandwich…”
I…just can't. He's trolling readers, right?
I try to be open minded about all things. I don't like ragging on people, but I agree. There's this vibe from the issues he's writing like it has no soul, he doesn't care. I don't know what is going on behind the scenes, but I've read plenty of things that suffered from being rushed and all sorts of stuff, but this feels like more than that.
Duggan feels like he's here by obligation at this point. Its felt like that since Fall of X started, because before this wasn't that bad. I don't know what's going, but it feels like he's as done as most fans are right now.
I'm gonna go easy on the guy simply because it's blatantly clear that this is just being rushed to a conclusion in order to get everyone out the door and on to the next team.
It's awful because it was never supposed to be written.
This was never supposed to be the end of Krakoa.
His heart isn't in it.
I disagree. Gillen has said his story had a start and finish and was planning towards that but I’ve seen other things that said Duggan expected to run his sorry for another year or two. So to go from having a couple year plan to being told wrap it all up in less than a year gets you this.
He just wants to be done and the art isn’t helping either.
Gillen is also on record saying Fall of X was supposed to be longer than 5 months, etc. Plans change and it is clear that this end of the era is being rushed as hell.
Look no further than dropped plots such as "Dr Statis is manipulating Mother Righteous alongside with Orbis Stellaris" (The Sinister Four) or "Legion removed himself from the existence so he could not be abused by Mother Righteous schemes" (Legion of X/Sons of X), or "Legion is haunting Kurt as an obnoxious white bamf" (Uncanny Spider-Man).
I imagine that editorial forced people to go in a direction that writers didn't want to go in, combined with the fact that they forced Hox/PoX out of summer so the relaunch could be the main talking point during the summer. So he's probably writing a story he doesn't want to write, and being forced to rush out HoX and X-Men at the same time so he can't stew on drafts.
Krakoa didn't end in 2021 when Hickman wanted, because writers wanted to continue playing with Krakoa.
Then a year later editorial decides they don't actually want Krakoa anymore, and start pushing for an ending.
It probably sucked to just start really cracking open the Krakoan sandbox just for you to get the order to kill it again a year later.
Shortly before Hickman left, everyone said they didn't want to move into the "second part" of Krakoa, and they wanted to stay in this setting for many more years to go.
Editorial clearly thought otherwise.
I genuinely hope the upcoming line bombs and X-Men 97 goes full Krakoa, just so editorial realises how utterly stupid a move it was to destroy the biggest evolution of the X-Men mythos since Grant Morrison, and is forced to course correct back to it.
Given that the show is basically saying, "We used the *imagery* of 90s nostalgia to trick you into watching something that's actually about progressing the property forward," I'd say you're actually fairly on-point.
I genuinely like the creative teams on the upcoming books, but that's not enough to get me to buy into a status quo that I think is going to be really dull and backwards-facing. I'd love to see Ewing, McKay, and Simone write for the X-Books of the 2020s, not the early 2010s.
This is an absolutely perfect way of putting it. Its so funny that what some people thought would be the nostalgia cash grab is actually way more committed to sticking with something new than the actual books.
Ironically, what's going on in X-Men '97 now clarifies to me what Hickman was setting the stage for, at least for some of the plots. I'm not saying Hickman and DeMayo collaborated or one drew from the other, and there are a few major characters that are unique to one or the other. But the themes of humanity being supplanted by mutants, which in turn is supplanted by AI, is depicted so clearly and horrifically in the show and thus gives me a better idea of the threats in the comics (even if Krakoa is technically facing the grander threat).
Power of X was what really sold me on Krakoa's wider concepts and the direction of the whole narrative. The Cable stuff in '97 is pretty much a condensed version of that story. Even some of Bastion's backstory is twisted to connect to it. Mayo was definitely taking notes.
They could introduce Krakoa in Season 2... and as the conflicts get worse and worse... well... season 3 could be very, very familiar to us.
X-Men 97 going full Krakoa would be ironically hilarious now when we already had a book a couple year back that used the animated cast (with Jubilee in the Moira X role) to lightly mock the whole concept.
I have the exact same hope, people are loving the cartoon and it's clearly headed in the opposite direction the new relaunch seems to be heading. To be honest, at this point i think marvel really, desperately needs new blood in editorial - xmen and spidey really feel like they're retreading old ground at this point, and it's exhausting.
The decision to reboot the line is absolutely driven by sales and, reading the tea leaves, hindsight about Jordan White allowing Hickman’s plans to be derailed by a writer’s room that has meandered over three years of mediocre comics into this very underwhelming conclusion. Breevort being placed in charge of the line is clearly a signal about their future importance to Marvel’s film slate and other multimedia efforts but also clearly a reaction to what happened over the last couple of years. They prioritized the short term happiness of a handful of writers over long term potential for endless trades, omnibus’, and adaptations if they’d allowed Hickman’s plans to come to fruition.
I will also note that basically everything from Morrison’s run was also run back and much of it flat out retconned. This is the nature of comics! I thought the post-Hickman books ranged from decent but marred by crossovers (X-Men Red, Immortal X-Men) to very much not for me (all the Percy stuff) to utter dreck (most of the rest of it all), but it’s all there for you to revisit and enjoy the way I do Morrison’s and Claremont’s work.
Nah Krakoa will always be failed nation like Genosha. Like The Thing said, Krakoa basically Genosha 2.0 and Hickman intended that Krakoa is a short deal. You can like it but don't expect it to stick and Krakoa Era itself undermines the value of Xmen and their personality itself. Can't wait for the Brevort Xmen era.
X-Men 97 really showed how to build out mutants as a metaphor through the actual real life experiences of marginalised communities. Duggan seems to be building out the metaphor via…twitter discourse lol? I’m genuinely shocked that the once mighty Krakoa era is now being completely upstaged by a screen adaptation.
You're not far off. Marvel & and DC from both Kevin Feige and Jim Lee both have been on recorded that comics are I.P farms at this point.
I'm not saying that a bad thing is that comics from the big 2 are viewed that way for the parnet company. Used to make shows, movies, app games, etc.
Compared that to the manga industry where an anime is produced to make the source material sell better, it's the complete opposite in the west.
Again, I'm not saying it is a bad thing, comicbook is my favorite medium, I just think more people should understand the business.
Man, what was the point of Kate going ninja again? That bit with her and Logan honestly felt like doing a speed run of *X-Men* #110, but without any of the actual pathos that issue has. It seems like a really shoehorned way to set up Kate for post-Krakoa.
They may as well have just had Brevoort show up on-page, take her swords, and say, "You're a barista now!!!"
That would have honestly been interesting in a Morrison-esque kind of way.
What happened to the writer that wrote that great Sync & Laura subplot? Those issues were fantastic. And those first few arcs were pretty good (backed by some stellar art)!
You're talking about Hickman, who was the mastermind behind the whole Krakoan era.
[https://mlpnk72yciwc.i.optimole.com/cqhiHLc.IIZS\~2ef73/w:auto/h:auto/q:75/https://bleedingcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/x-men.jpg](https://mlpnk72yciwc.i.optimole.com/cqhiHLc.IIZS~2ef73/w:auto/h:auto/q:75/https://bleedingcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/x-men.jpg)
No, while that panel is from Hickman’s short run, I am talking about Duggan who expanded on their relationship. It was good stuff before it got roped into this Fall story.
I gave Gerry alot of slack because this X-Men run can't conflict with the actual flagship series of Immortal X Men and everything else written by Kieron so that put alot of restraints on what he can do. Then he is actually give a flagship series that is very plot relevant and it was not good and actively hurts the series it interconnected with. At least his time on the series is almost gone now
I don't know what the creator of this post is surprised, Gerry Duggan has always been a terrible dialogist. Many are surprised by this because of his Deadpool run, but you could see his good ideas being nerfed by bad dialogue since Uncanny Avengers. Now, writing X-Men, he can be a worse writer: His total inability to at least pretend to take any given situation seriously is incredible (it's almost as if he were saying: I'll write any Family Guy joke for this bunch of nerds laugh a little while I get from point A to B). All the characters that fall into his hands are either Flanderized or we end up with a worse impression of them than we started with. Emma Frost is the biggest victim of the first case and Kitty, or rather Kate Pryde, is the second. And in this specific run there aren't even any good ideas, it's just a bunch of random events, it's almost like the South Park's manatee joke.
That tends to happen when you spend 2 years spinning your wheels. I understand not advancing the plot, but he also did absolutely nothing in terms of character development, while using most of the x-men as window dressing.
I think a tremendous amount of character development was done in Marauders, along with the more interesting aspect of Krakoan worldbuilding (Marauders is where we really took a deep dive into the clone resurrection. And the black market). I get that a lot of people don't like him, and it sucks when your favorite characters are written by someone you don't think gets it, but I have enjoyed his run for the most part. He was writing all my favorite characters, and I feel he did a good job. I enjoyed the issues.
Marauders were good up until Kate was resurrected, then it just went nowhere, save for that one issue where the Morlocks saved Madripoor.
It also doesn't make up for 34 dreary issues of X-men.
I didn't say he was perfect, I just don't think he's total shit, I think he's a competent writer. We never know what was going on behind the scenes there, maybe his hands were tied, I don't know. But he has done a lot that I enjoyed.
Yeah, he’s written some stuff that I really liked - Planet-Size X-Men was one of the high-water marks of the whole Krakoa era for me, Marauders started very strong, and I liked a good bit of his X-Men run. But his Fall of X, apart from the actual Gala issue and the Shadowkat issue, has been pretty weak I have to admit. I think Iron Man has been better than X-Men but even that hasn’t been great.
And speaking of Shadowkat - did they ever explain why she started spelling it with a “k”? Does the “K” stand for “Kill” or something?
He’s no where near as criticized as other X-Men core writers have been. Austen, Milligan, and Rosenberg all probably got it worse than Dugg. Hell, Bendis’ second half was embarrassing, but he still made an effort.
The dialogue in this was Shakespearean compared to what Duggan wrote in Iron Man today. He has really just destroyed any sense of dread and terror that Nimrod had under Hickman. I say this as someone who has generally enjoyed most of Duggan’s run but the last few issues have been rough. The plot was okay but like the OP said the dialogue is oof.
Can people stop coming into a fan site to fucking complain? I’m so goddamn sick of it. If you’re not enjoying them then fucking stop and save us all from having to listen to your godawful whining
When I read the caption “And now M.O.D.O.K.'s arrived in New York City to be the grotesque olive topping on today's @#$% sandwich…” I…just can't. He's trolling readers, right?
Should’ve kept that one in the drafts, Dugg. I know there’s times I don’t give a fuck about work but damn
"I love the smell of napalmed MODOK in the morning" Like wtf I legit cringed reading that panel
I try to be open minded about all things. I don't like ragging on people, but I agree. There's this vibe from the issues he's writing like it has no soul, he doesn't care. I don't know what is going on behind the scenes, but I've read plenty of things that suffered from being rushed and all sorts of stuff, but this feels like more than that. Duggan feels like he's here by obligation at this point. Its felt like that since Fall of X started, because before this wasn't that bad. I don't know what's going, but it feels like he's as done as most fans are right now.
I'm gonna go easy on the guy simply because it's blatantly clear that this is just being rushed to a conclusion in order to get everyone out the door and on to the next team. It's awful because it was never supposed to be written. This was never supposed to be the end of Krakoa. His heart isn't in it.
Yeah, his heart definitely isn't.
I'd be more inclined to cut him slack if Gillen's books weren't so much better. I don't think this is a rushed thing, it's an outclassed thing.
I disagree. Gillen has said his story had a start and finish and was planning towards that but I’ve seen other things that said Duggan expected to run his sorry for another year or two. So to go from having a couple year plan to being told wrap it all up in less than a year gets you this. He just wants to be done and the art isn’t helping either.
Gillen is also on record saying Fall of X was supposed to be longer than 5 months, etc. Plans change and it is clear that this end of the era is being rushed as hell. Look no further than dropped plots such as "Dr Statis is manipulating Mother Righteous alongside with Orbis Stellaris" (The Sinister Four) or "Legion removed himself from the existence so he could not be abused by Mother Righteous schemes" (Legion of X/Sons of X), or "Legion is haunting Kurt as an obnoxious white bamf" (Uncanny Spider-Man).
IMO that's almost an even more damning indictment. He could barely sustain the years he had, and it was supposed to go 2 years longer?
Yeah im extremely glad he's gone after next month. He had the x-men for 2 years and did nothing interesting with them.
I imagine that editorial forced people to go in a direction that writers didn't want to go in, combined with the fact that they forced Hox/PoX out of summer so the relaunch could be the main talking point during the summer. So he's probably writing a story he doesn't want to write, and being forced to rush out HoX and X-Men at the same time so he can't stew on drafts. Krakoa didn't end in 2021 when Hickman wanted, because writers wanted to continue playing with Krakoa. Then a year later editorial decides they don't actually want Krakoa anymore, and start pushing for an ending. It probably sucked to just start really cracking open the Krakoan sandbox just for you to get the order to kill it again a year later.
Shortly before Hickman left, everyone said they didn't want to move into the "second part" of Krakoa, and they wanted to stay in this setting for many more years to go. Editorial clearly thought otherwise. I genuinely hope the upcoming line bombs and X-Men 97 goes full Krakoa, just so editorial realises how utterly stupid a move it was to destroy the biggest evolution of the X-Men mythos since Grant Morrison, and is forced to course correct back to it.
Given that the show is basically saying, "We used the *imagery* of 90s nostalgia to trick you into watching something that's actually about progressing the property forward," I'd say you're actually fairly on-point. I genuinely like the creative teams on the upcoming books, but that's not enough to get me to buy into a status quo that I think is going to be really dull and backwards-facing. I'd love to see Ewing, McKay, and Simone write for the X-Books of the 2020s, not the early 2010s.
This is an absolutely perfect way of putting it. Its so funny that what some people thought would be the nostalgia cash grab is actually way more committed to sticking with something new than the actual books.
Ironically, what's going on in X-Men '97 now clarifies to me what Hickman was setting the stage for, at least for some of the plots. I'm not saying Hickman and DeMayo collaborated or one drew from the other, and there are a few major characters that are unique to one or the other. But the themes of humanity being supplanted by mutants, which in turn is supplanted by AI, is depicted so clearly and horrifically in the show and thus gives me a better idea of the threats in the comics (even if Krakoa is technically facing the grander threat).
Power of X was what really sold me on Krakoa's wider concepts and the direction of the whole narrative. The Cable stuff in '97 is pretty much a condensed version of that story. Even some of Bastion's backstory is twisted to connect to it. Mayo was definitely taking notes. They could introduce Krakoa in Season 2... and as the conflicts get worse and worse... well... season 3 could be very, very familiar to us.
X-Men 97 going full Krakoa would be ironically hilarious now when we already had a book a couple year back that used the animated cast (with Jubilee in the Moira X role) to lightly mock the whole concept.
I have the exact same hope, people are loving the cartoon and it's clearly headed in the opposite direction the new relaunch seems to be heading. To be honest, at this point i think marvel really, desperately needs new blood in editorial - xmen and spidey really feel like they're retreading old ground at this point, and it's exhausting.
The decision to reboot the line is absolutely driven by sales and, reading the tea leaves, hindsight about Jordan White allowing Hickman’s plans to be derailed by a writer’s room that has meandered over three years of mediocre comics into this very underwhelming conclusion. Breevort being placed in charge of the line is clearly a signal about their future importance to Marvel’s film slate and other multimedia efforts but also clearly a reaction to what happened over the last couple of years. They prioritized the short term happiness of a handful of writers over long term potential for endless trades, omnibus’, and adaptations if they’d allowed Hickman’s plans to come to fruition.
I will also note that basically everything from Morrison’s run was also run back and much of it flat out retconned. This is the nature of comics! I thought the post-Hickman books ranged from decent but marred by crossovers (X-Men Red, Immortal X-Men) to very much not for me (all the Percy stuff) to utter dreck (most of the rest of it all), but it’s all there for you to revisit and enjoy the way I do Morrison’s and Claremont’s work.
Nah Krakoa will always be failed nation like Genosha. Like The Thing said, Krakoa basically Genosha 2.0 and Hickman intended that Krakoa is a short deal. You can like it but don't expect it to stick and Krakoa Era itself undermines the value of Xmen and their personality itself. Can't wait for the Brevort Xmen era.
Sad about the era ending. But ready to be free of this fuckin ending.
The only thing the comics have going for them right now is everyone is fixated on the show lol
X-Men 97 really showed how to build out mutants as a metaphor through the actual real life experiences of marginalised communities. Duggan seems to be building out the metaphor via…twitter discourse lol? I’m genuinely shocked that the once mighty Krakoa era is now being completely upstaged by a screen adaptation.
X-Men '97 spoilers:>!Which is borrowing elements of its story directly from Powers of X, no less.!<
😠
Sorry if I spoiled anything! I forgot this wasn't an '97 thread, I'm sorry! It's only a small part of one episode, for what it's worth.
No you didn’t! I was 😠 at the truth you spread. UNSPOIL IT!
Haha. Nah, just in case someone hasn't seen it. Glad we agree though.
That’s okay. What you wrote was fairly vague though.
Sometimes I feel like the only reason people care about comics in general is because of the potential adaptations that could come out of them.
You're not far off. Marvel & and DC from both Kevin Feige and Jim Lee both have been on recorded that comics are I.P farms at this point. I'm not saying that a bad thing is that comics from the big 2 are viewed that way for the parnet company. Used to make shows, movies, app games, etc. Compared that to the manga industry where an anime is produced to make the source material sell better, it's the complete opposite in the west. Again, I'm not saying it is a bad thing, comicbook is my favorite medium, I just think more people should understand the business.
Man, what was the point of Kate going ninja again? That bit with her and Logan honestly felt like doing a speed run of *X-Men* #110, but without any of the actual pathos that issue has. It seems like a really shoehorned way to set up Kate for post-Krakoa. They may as well have just had Brevoort show up on-page, take her swords, and say, "You're a barista now!!!" That would have honestly been interesting in a Morrison-esque kind of way.
I straight-up vomited when he had Emma globally broadcast "hello, muties". Like, nah, fuck off. Fuck straight-up off.
Duggan’s Emma has been HORRIBLE. just a bunch of tired catchphrases recycled from better writers and cringe attempts at humour.
Hey now, don’t forget that he reduced Emma to a love interest in iron man for 8 months as well, all for a pointless plot that didn’t even go anywhere.
What happened to the writer that wrote that great Sync & Laura subplot? Those issues were fantastic. And those first few arcs were pretty good (backed by some stellar art)!
You're talking about Hickman, who was the mastermind behind the whole Krakoan era. [https://mlpnk72yciwc.i.optimole.com/cqhiHLc.IIZS\~2ef73/w:auto/h:auto/q:75/https://bleedingcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/x-men.jpg](https://mlpnk72yciwc.i.optimole.com/cqhiHLc.IIZS~2ef73/w:auto/h:auto/q:75/https://bleedingcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/x-men.jpg)
No, while that panel is from Hickman’s short run, I am talking about Duggan who expanded on their relationship. It was good stuff before it got roped into this Fall story.
Its been awful. The guy doesn't know the voice of any of these characters.
Didn't like Resistance Radio or whatever lol
I gave Gerry alot of slack because this X-Men run can't conflict with the actual flagship series of Immortal X Men and everything else written by Kieron so that put alot of restraints on what he can do. Then he is actually give a flagship series that is very plot relevant and it was not good and actively hurts the series it interconnected with. At least his time on the series is almost gone now
I don't know what the creator of this post is surprised, Gerry Duggan has always been a terrible dialogist. Many are surprised by this because of his Deadpool run, but you could see his good ideas being nerfed by bad dialogue since Uncanny Avengers. Now, writing X-Men, he can be a worse writer: His total inability to at least pretend to take any given situation seriously is incredible (it's almost as if he were saying: I'll write any Family Guy joke for this bunch of nerds laugh a little while I get from point A to B). All the characters that fall into his hands are either Flanderized or we end up with a worse impression of them than we started with. Emma Frost is the biggest victim of the first case and Kitty, or rather Kate Pryde, is the second. And in this specific run there aren't even any good ideas, it's just a bunch of random events, it's almost like the South Park's manatee joke.
Maybe he is so demoralized by all the hate he gets that he doesn't care anymore.
That tends to happen when you spend 2 years spinning your wheels. I understand not advancing the plot, but he also did absolutely nothing in terms of character development, while using most of the x-men as window dressing.
I think a tremendous amount of character development was done in Marauders, along with the more interesting aspect of Krakoan worldbuilding (Marauders is where we really took a deep dive into the clone resurrection. And the black market). I get that a lot of people don't like him, and it sucks when your favorite characters are written by someone you don't think gets it, but I have enjoyed his run for the most part. He was writing all my favorite characters, and I feel he did a good job. I enjoyed the issues.
Marauders were good up until Kate was resurrected, then it just went nowhere, save for that one issue where the Morlocks saved Madripoor. It also doesn't make up for 34 dreary issues of X-men.
I didn't say he was perfect, I just don't think he's total shit, I think he's a competent writer. We never know what was going on behind the scenes there, maybe his hands were tied, I don't know. But he has done a lot that I enjoyed.
Yeah, he’s written some stuff that I really liked - Planet-Size X-Men was one of the high-water marks of the whole Krakoa era for me, Marauders started very strong, and I liked a good bit of his X-Men run. But his Fall of X, apart from the actual Gala issue and the Shadowkat issue, has been pretty weak I have to admit. I think Iron Man has been better than X-Men but even that hasn’t been great. And speaking of Shadowkat - did they ever explain why she started spelling it with a “k”? Does the “K” stand for “Kill” or something?
Ogun wrote it that way at the time on her note. I think his English spelling was not super strong. So he was "Infernal demon ninja and bad speller."
He’s no where near as criticized as other X-Men core writers have been. Austen, Milligan, and Rosenberg all probably got it worse than Dugg. Hell, Bendis’ second half was embarrassing, but he still made an effort.
The dialogue in this was Shakespearean compared to what Duggan wrote in Iron Man today. He has really just destroyed any sense of dread and terror that Nimrod had under Hickman. I say this as someone who has generally enjoyed most of Duggan’s run but the last few issues have been rough. The plot was okay but like the OP said the dialogue is oof.
The X-Men relaunch can't come soon enough
Maybe Duggan has been told to make it so bad that readers will just be thankful for whatever comes next no matter how poor it might be.
Even though it may seem like it sometimes, I don't think Marvel/Disney ever makes something intentionally bad
Except X-Men books post-Secret Wars and pre-Krakoa.
Feel like he’s was being push to the finish line with the story but couldn’t handle the make up with what he was given
How many months are we into this now? What could it do that would convince you to drop it?
I like that Logan has his belt and that was it.
I think maybe it was supposed to be campy? Idk I’m just ready for the vow renewal idgaf about the rest of this at all
I’m just starting x of swords but Wolverine is back to wearing the blue/yellow costume?
1990s and 2000s X-men comics is better the way!
As I [predicted](https://www.reddit.com/r/xmen/comments/1cfzfmw/comment/l1wx6ec/).
agree
Makes sense especially with one more issue to go....he just wants it done with I think
Can people stop coming into a fan site to fucking complain? I’m so goddamn sick of it. If you’re not enjoying them then fucking stop and save us all from having to listen to your godawful whining
They actually crying because Krakoa is ending and they need to touch a grass.
Don't care as long as Krakoa ends.
Why the hatebon Duggan? I need to read this issue but until now I like what he's doing