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The Krakoa Era is Great for Obscure Mutants
You’ll never guess who’s back now! I love obscure mutants. I probably like obscure mutants more than I care for the main X-Men lineup. That’s one of the reasons why I love the Krakoa era so much, because any mutant who ever existed, no matter how obscure, might get a moment to shine. We’ve already seen the likes of Mimic, Rhapsody and Ugly John reappear, just to name some of my favorites.
Now we’ve got friggin’ Eye-Scream, the first ice cream mutant!
Eye-Scream was a one-off joke character who appeared in an issue of Obnoxio the Clown in 1983. So that tells you everything you need to know about this mutant, who has the power to turn his body into any flavor of ice cream. He’s the sort of character who has spent the past 40 years appearing on The Strangest Mutants in X-Men History lists across the internet.
Well now he’s back! Alive and well on Krakoa! And he’s assisting in disaster relief efforts. This week saw the release of a Before the Fall one-shot called Mutants’ First Strike. When a town is hit by some bad guys, creating a humanitarian disaster, Krakoa sends a rescue squad of both heavy-hitters and obscure mutants who can help. They all get those spiffy red and white jackets. The issue is a literal who’s who of obscure mutants lending a hand with their unique powers.
And that includes Eye-Scream, who is helping kids cope with the tragedy by giving them free ice cream. Friggin’ genius.
I love the X-Men.
It’s a shame this issue wasn’t used to solidify Soft Serve in the canon. But there’s probably a good reason for that…
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Ladies and Gentlemen, Mimic is on Krakoa
It has been nearly four long years since the start of the Krakoa Era in X-Men comics, but I can finally, excitedly share that one of my all-time favorite X-characters, the Mimic, has finally appeared on the page. This might not be big news to most people, but this is my blog, it’s a random Thursday, and I’m pretty giddy about the whole thing.
Mimic showed up in this week’s issue of Immortal X-Men. It’s not a great appearance, because he chickens out of helping with an important task, but the important thing is that he has finally appeared on the island.
So this is great. And I will gladly take this time to explain to everybody still reading why this is great.
The Mimic is a character who harkens all the way back to the original X-Men. In fact, he was the first new member of the team after the original five. That’s some neat trivia. I’ve liked the character since I was a kid, since the Mimic was essentially the Green Power Ranger of the X-Men. He’s come and gone over the decades, both a good guy and a troubled bad guy. And I’ve enjoyed keeping up with him through that time.
Most recently, in late 2018, he was killed off. Such is the fate of most obscure, unimportant comic book characters. I was pretty bummed.
But then 2019 saw the launch of the new Krakoa era, where all dead characters were brought back to live on a special mutant island. And in one of the very first issues of the new era, Mimic got name-dropped as living on Krakoa. I was pretty excited!
Because not only was he alive again, but now Mimic is being established as a mutant. When he first debuted, and through most of his existence, Mimic has always been portrayed as a human who was given powers in a science experiment. But only mutants are allowed on Krakoa (with few exceptions), and only mutants are resurrected (with few exceptions).
This week’s issue confirms in writing, again, that Mimic is around to supplement the Five in the resurrection process.
That’s the thing he’s chickening out of doing, which isn’t a good look for him, but I’ll take what I can get.
Anyway, I know the Mimic isn’t a very important dude, but I’m glad to see, even all these years later, that that initial mention of him in House of X has been followed through on. And while I don’t know if this means Mimic is for sure retconned into being a mutant, it would be cool if he was.
Also, just to note, I kinda wish he’d been given a new, retro costume, like a lot of characters on Krakoa. But, again, I’ll take what I can get. Hooray Mimic!
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The X-Men Have Finally Reaped the Whirlwind
The day has finally come, decades in the making. The X-Men have finally addressed the supervillain Whirlwind. I know what you’re thinking: why does that matter? Whirlwind is an Avengers villain. What does he have to do with the X-Men?
Nothing. Except…Whirlwind is a mutant!
It’s one of those weird little bits of comic book trivia that I enjoy. Whirlwind, a classic Avengers, Ant-Man and Wasp villain, who has been around since 1963, is a mutant. But he’s a mutant who has never, ever been involved in any X-Men comics. I’m pretty sure Whirlwind has never fought the X-Men, never duked it out with Wolverine, never had anything to do with Magneto or the Brotherhood of Mutants.
Until this week! Whirlwind was the villain in this week’s X-Men Annual comic, where he gets into a fight with Firestar and Cyclops. And after they kick his butt, they bring up the fact that Whirlwind chose not to move to Krakoa.
It’s neat! They even gave him a whole informational page, which laid out everything I just said, but in a more all-encompassing way.
I have really been enjoying the X-Men comic in the Krakoa era. It’s my favorite title of the lot. And I especially love it when the X-Writers get to explore some other characters in the wider universe, through these Annual or Unlimited issues. Writer Steve Foxe took the time to explore this nifty little corner of the Marvel Universe and now we can finally say for sure that Whirlwind wanted nothing to do with Krakoa.
Considering the nature of comics, he’ll probably be proven right in the long run…
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The X-Men Have Fixed One of My Biggest Complaints
I am enjoying the Krakoa Era of the X-Men a whole lot. I love the whole concept, and I love most of the creative ideas that have been built into the new status quo. I haven’t been the biggest fan of all the comics, but I love pretty much all of the ideas.
But not all of the ideas.
One of the few things that has really bugged me in the Krakoa era is what I saw as a misuse of the characters Petra and Sway. According to some X-Men comics, after being resurrected, Petra and Sway apparently spent all of their time wearing their old costumes and hanging out with Vulcan, one of their X-teammates.
This bugged the heck out of me.
If you don’t know, Petra, Sway, Vulcan and Darwin were a retcon from a few years back that, honestly, I never liked in the first place. The Deadly Genesis retcon retold the story of when the original X-Men were kidnapped by Krakoa, back when he was just an evil island monster. In the actual story from long ago, the original X-Men were kidnapped, so Charles Xavier put together his second team, with members like Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler and more. It was a classic change in status quo, one of the biggest moments in the history of the X-Men.
In the Deadly Genesis retcon, Xavier put together a hastily-built, in-between team out of a couple of young, inexperienced mutants. He used his mind powers to force some experience into their brains and he sent them to the island — where they all promptly died.
So, like, these poor young people are essentially forced into service by Professor X before they’re ready and he gets them killed. And then when Petra and Sway are resurrected on the new Krakoa and given a second chance at life…they choose to spend it still wearing the costumes in which they died, hanging out with one of the guys they were forced onto a team with? Just wasting away on the moon?
Is that really the best the creators could come up with for how Petra and Sway would spend their second chance at life?
Apparently, thankfully, not. Because in this week’s issue of X-Men Red we discover something rather exciting: that wasn’t really Petra and Sway on the moon!
It turns out, those are just some mental/energy constructs created by Vulcan because he’s all sorts of messed up. That wasn’t the real characters. They haven’t been resurrected at all! There’s still hope that they can have good, second lives!
And just like that, one of my biggest annoyances with the Krakoa Era has itself been retconned and fixed. I’m pleased as punch. And I hope we see the real Petra and Sway sometime soon, being allowed to live new and better lives.
Next up, settling the long debate of whether or not Mimic is a mutant or a human.
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My 6 X-Men Comic Book Ideas (for the Krakoa Era)
My lifelong dream is to become a professional writer. And while I am currently working on a self-published comic book series — Gamer Girl & Vixen — I’m also constantly dreaming up ideas for new comics and stories and characters. And a lot of time, I do this daydreaming for actual, existing properties. Because someday, universe willing, I might get invited to pitch to Marvel Comics.
But I’m not getting invited to pitch tomorrow, so I thought a fun little game would be to share some of my X-Men comic ideas with all of you. I was inspired by the announcement last week that Leah Williams will be writing a new X-Terminators series, in which a bunch of cool characters will have a fun and wild adventure for five issues. That is exactly what I want to do: pitch a bunch of 5-issue, X-Men mini-series to Marvel, just to have some fun and write some cool X-Men.
So join me after the jump for a peek at my creator notebook for some random X-Men comic book ideas!
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