#wildchild

(ref to this classic video)

(twitter post link)

mannnn i hope the rest of the gang gets their turn on the variant covers for this series.........i love spending 7bucks on pieces of paper yippeeee<3

(mark brooks already posted other aoa stuff to his twitter anyway)

(plus bonus beast cuz oohhhh my god. oh my god.)

So now the gloves are off. And I am once again going to be putting a sharp focus on how the X-men are not acting like heroes and are really failing to actually do their jobs and get rid of the blight that is Greymalkin prison.

As the Raid on Greymalkin event had revealed, the mutant inmates, whose members not only include Omega Red, but also include other characters such as Blob, Siryn, Monet, and Wildchild, are all being tortured and brainwashed into mutant hunting "trustees." In previous posts, I have talked about those effects on the prisoners and how it is affecting those characters all for the worse. In short, all these mutant prisoners do not deserve to be treated as less than human. They should not be forced to say an anti-mutant creed that forces them to think of themselves as monsters. They shouldn't be imprisoned at all.

Every single one of these characters, including Omega Red, have previously been allies with the X-Men. Arkady himself was a member of X-Force during the Krakoa era and was very loyal and dedicated to actually becoming a better person during his days as a member. Given how Rogue has not seen Omega Red since his very first appearance more than 30 years ago, she may not necessarily be aware of the redemption arc he's been on since 2017, but it still seems very forced for her to lump Arkady in with characters who have been shown to be unwilling to change when he himself has shown to have made considerable progress as a character once the X-men started treating him like a person and cured him of his need to kill to live.

This impression of Rogue in current books doesn't get any better once you start reading the X-manhunt crossover. Despite previously going on a Raid of Greymalkin Prison, seeing the conditions of said prison, and getting threatened by Warden Ellis that she had a satellite weapon ready to blow up the X-men's home in Louisiana, Rogue still comes willingly to Greymalkin Prison and willingly works with the warden with no reservations. Instead, she stands in the same room and holds a civil conversation with the warden as if this harpy isn't responsible for the torture of mutants, didn't transform the X-mansion into a concentration camp or threaten to blow up entire towns.

Rogue should not be meek and accepting of this situation. She should not accept that mutants need to be sent here and tortured. And she shouldn't be acting like this towards Warden Ellis after the threats she's made and the things she's done. But yet Rogue does. She and her entire team are condoning this place by working with Warden Ellis. It's sickening.

And Rogue is sadly not the only X-men character who seems to think that Greymalkin Prison is necessary. Over in Storm's book, Both Cyclops and Storm seem to similarly accept Greymalkin as something that is either necessary or they can't do anything about. Storm's talk with Charles makes it seem that she is not against imprisonment of mutants, only offering Xavier different accommodations as a prisoner at a different site. Her promise of sanctuary for people in need apparently doesn't extend to people who are actually in need. Storm here doesn't want Xavier's presence to affect her and her standing with the authorities. She never considers if the "arrests" made of the mutant prisoners trapped in Greymalkin are even legal or if they were made in response to an actual crime. Spoiler alert: they weren't. None of the inmates in Greymalkin did anything wrong. All their "arrests" were illegal. And they have all been subject to cruel and unusual punishment while there. A lawyer like Jennifer Walters or Matt Murdock would have a field day if they got a chance to defend even just one of the prisoners of Greymalkin.

Storm continues to point out statistics that only adds to the bleak situation mutant prisoners face when they are incarcerated. These are not good things to hear with regards to the treatment of mutant prisoners across the board and further show why the X-men should not be putting such blind trust in the system when it is proving time and time again to be a system that's actively harmful to mutants. Instead, like so many times before in this new era, the X-men do nothing to try to address these issues and try to prevent these deaths from happening when mutants attempt to escape prison. They are leaving the most at-risk members of the mutant community to fend for themselves.

Then there's Cyclops. He shows up here in Storm's book as well to drag Charles back to prison.

His argument here really screams of appeasement. He's willing to allow certain mutants be thrown to the wolves if it means the rest of the mutants are allowed peace. Just don't ask Scott to actually sacrifice himself or any of his teammates for such a noble cause. No, he'll break those teammates of his out with no hesitation whatsoever. Because his mutants are apparently better than the ones locked up and tortured in Greymalkin. Scott's X-men don't deserve that kind of unethical treatment. But apparently, he thinks that these mutants do. It reeks of double-standards.

Once again, the X-men are not seeing their own kind as people. They don't see what is being done to the prisoners of Greymalkin as wrong. They are all continually failing to protect mutantkind and are hypocritically only protecting their own teammates. Consistent morals have no place in this new era of X-men.

As I've said before, this is not the X-men that I know. These characters are not acting like they should, especially given what they know about Greymalkin prison. The X-men should be marching on that place in anger and razing it to the ground. Not playing around with people's lives and deciding who is worthy of being free and who isn't. They are not being heroes. They are all acting incredibly selfish and short-sighted. Something seriously needs to change in their attitude because, quite frankly, this is appalling behavior by them. They need to do better and do right by all the mutant prisoners.

X-Men of Apocalypse: Alpha #1 (2025)

Wild Child Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P.

Tina pictured by Angelo Frontoni in 1968