Hiatus Announcement
As you may have noticed, I haven’t been posting on my Marvel blogs for a while. Those of you who regularly discuss comic books with me are aware of my general disappointment with Marvel these past few months. They cancelled All-New X-Factor and She-Hulk, they killed and brought back characters just to be used as plot devices again and again, they gave up on any pretense of caring about character development over “epic events”, they sank my ships, demoted their classic symbol of the fight against oppression… they let corporate synergy and their failure to comprehend 21st-century demands substitute good stories. For much of this year, some of the Marvel books I used to love have either started to bore or to annoy me, but after today, I’m now angry, angrier than I’ve ever been at a piece of entertainment.
By now, most of you know what happened on AXIS #7 (from this point on, there will be spoilers). If we’re being honest, we all knew something like this was coming, we’ve known for two months, ever since that "No More Mutants" teaser in NYCC. I’m among those who tried to stay optimistic, to believe that Marvel wouldn’t betray their fanbase and their history this way, that, even if they made Wanda and Pietro Inhumans, there would be a logical explanation for that, preferably from their mother’s side, and all would be well. Instead, they decided to throw over thirty years of internal struggles, of identity issues, for three characters, all so that the comics would be better aligned with whatever mess they have planned for the Maximoffs in the MCU, where they can’t use Magneto or their mutant connections for their backstory? I’m sorry, but that’s too much for me. And before you say there could be another explanation for why Wanda’s spell didn’t affect Magneto, I would agree with you if not for all the other influence the MCU has had on the comics, or how the solicits for next year’s Uncanny Avengers has let us know “important reveals” will come up about Wanda’s and Pietro’s past, and that they have something to do with the High Evolutionary, and certainly continue on the Axis and “No More Mutants” subject.
"Damn Remender!", you say. If only it was so easy as to just blame him for these changes, if only we could know that a different writer would waste no time in fixing this mess! But, for once, this is not on him. He’s the guy that killed Wanda and Rogue last year, that’s true, but huge changes like Steve Rogers losing the super-soldier serum, inverted Tony Stark, the Maximoff Twins no longer Magneto’s children, or mutants? Those decision’s come from higher up, probably following on directives from Marvel’s - or Disney’s - executives. So if we want to blame someone, we should probably blame the executives, and capitalism, and whoever made the bad decisions that led to Marvel going bankrupt in the 90’s and selling the X-Men movie rights to Fox, the beginning of what we’re seeing now.
And yes, I know that Wanda and Pietro haven’t always been Magneto’s children, and that they’re so much more than that, and I agree with you. But they have been his children for over thirty years, they have struggled with the resulting identity crisis from learning that the man they hated so much was their father, just like Magneto struggled with the knowledge that he hurt his own children many times over to achieve his goals, even coming to acknowledge (more than once, which is nearly unheard of for him!) how he wronged them, and how that might not have been his best choice. Being related has defined who these characters are today, has led to more growth than any other retcon in their histories, and still had the potential for so much more. And, like it or not, many of us, the people who got into superhero stories in the 90’s or after, first heard of Wanda and Pietro by their connection to Magneto. I, myself, first saw them in the episode of the X-Men Animated Series where they learn that Magneto is their father, and, a bit older, I fell in love with them after reading about their struggles with this knowledge. Yes, they’re so much more than just that, but those characters have gone through so many changes in the last decade, so many different motivations, personalities, team affiliations, that the simple fact that “Wanda and Pietro are Magneto’s children” remained the only constant in their characterization, the only thing to give comfort to old fans, to reassure us that they were still the same characters we loved, even when it didn’t look like it. And now that’s gone, along with the whole excuse for the chaos that was the Decimation and the Twins’ history in the past decade. Thrown away, just like their connections to real-world minorities will probably be soon enough. Marvel is letting me know they don’t want my time or my money, and I’m happy to oblige.
I have spent the last several hours struggling, but I’ve come to a decision: I’m putting my Marvel blogs on hiatus. I don’t know how long that hiatus will last, or if I’m ever returning to them, only that they stopped being a fun obsession to become a burden. And this is not just about the Maximoff reretcon; as I said above, many other of Marvel’s decisions have been making me feel alienated for months, but I didn’t want to make the hiatus official for fear of upsetting anyone. I’ll still be on Tumblr, over at maximoffmartell, if you’d like to talk to me about anything or follow my thoughts on what recent comics I’ll still be reading. I’ll never stop loving these characters or being grateful for the wonderful times I’ve had with all of you, followers. But it’s time to move on.
See you around.
Love.
Aline (maximoffmartell)
