Mutants have a new home in Krakoa. They have come from far and wide, from all backgrounds, to join a community of their fellow Homo Superior. But one Omega Mutant has ignored the call. In X-Men/Fantastic Four #3 Chip Zdarsky, Dodsons Terry & Rachel, Laura Martin, Dexter Vines and Karl Story come together to tell the tale of Franklin Richards, the son of Marvelâs First Family, as he chooses between his life on Yancy Street, and the world of Krakoa.
Andrea Ayres: Welp. Weâre back to it and literally nothing in the world has changed so weâll just dive right into issue #3. Overall, the pacing of the issue feels rushed to me. From the get-go when weâre in pursuit of FF to the final panel. Some of the action sequences feel shoehorned in place and the same is true of some of the emotional beats between the characters. Thereâs quite a bit happening and Iâm not positive this issue does the best job of giving us the space to get the most out of all thatâs happening. What did you think about the pacing?
Stephanie Burt: Yeah, this is the first issue that isnât working for me overall (after weeks of defending FF/X 1-2 online)! Iâm not getting inside the charactersâ heads enough, and I feel like Iâm being yanked from beat to beat, instead of watching the charactersâ decisions guide the action.
The Fast And The Furious: Latveria Drift
SB: Maybe thatâs because Iâm in a mood from social distancing and want to read slower-paced stories. Maybe thatâs because this issue– unlike the last two– feels like an FF book with an X-team as guest antagonists: the interesting relationship beats all happen within the Richards family or between Richards family members and Doom. Maybe the reason is that this issue, for the first time, all the players are in the same place: rather than cutting among distant locales, Zdarsky has to handle an island full of characters quarreling and working at cross-purposes
He also has to handle characters pivoting from their initial– and more emotionally comprehensible– positions. What exactly made Reed come around? His pivot was sudden, and not in a satisfying way. Was it Reed wanting to show heâs more moral than Doom?
AA: It feels hard to say what exactly it was a response to because I donât feel like we were privy to any of his emotional journey to get to that point. Like…at all. You hit it on the head though.
Weâre being asked to deal with so much. I mean, weâve got the Von Doom particles bit, weâve got the military justice bit, a restructuring of power polarity, Reedâs absolute sudden emotional turnaround regarding his sonâs wishesâŚ
The Reed turnaround felt the most jarring for me. On page 23 weâre smacked with Reedâs apology to Franklin. It hits us like a cold dead fish to the face. There hasnât been much in the way of developing this storyline. I guess I was disappointed in that because I want to know how a character matures or arrives at a decision, especially one seemingly as consequential to the series as this one. I realize that may be a personal squabble. I just need a lot of emotional tenderness right now. Did you hear that Zdarsky? Tenderize me like a flank steak.
Worth my saying, even if Franklin wasnât a âgood manâ heâd still deserve the right to make decisions about his future. I will note, however, Reed calling him a man. A clear indication he no longer recognizes him as a child and as his own person? Would be curious to hear your thoughts on this?
SB: Itâs just shockingly non-responsive. âI need you to know that youâd still be a good man without your powers. Thatâs why I feel pretty OK about implanting a tracer in you and doing something designed to prevent you from using your inherent powers to find your people.â If anything, the moral dilemmas around Franklin– and Reed!– tend to be âcan you be a good person even if you possess this much power?â
AA: Ugh, such a good point. Itâs funny to me that the focus is on how much power one has instead of how that power is used. I mean thatâs a commentary on how we view power in society in general. Some power is fine, for the right person or group anyway. That same affordance doesnât extend to those outside the status quo, those scene recognized as the default or with considerable privilege. When a person or group who does not have privilege seeks to assert their rights all of a sudden the status quo begins to question power structures. They are like, âWhoa. Hang on, maybe this power business isnât good. Not my power though, the amount of power I have is fine. It is expected. Yours is the bad one because it threatens me.â Help. Iâve gone off on a loop.
SB: If youâve been following the way FF/X handles the mutant metaphor, this dialogue looks even worse. âLook, kid, Iâll let you go on blockers/ start medical transition/ take part in your disability community/ present yourself as you want to present in public. But I need you to know that if you werenât trans/ werenât disabled/ were normal and neurotypical, youâd still be a good person.â Itâs one step away from âI wish you werenât trans, kid, but since Iâve come to accept that I donât get to chooseâŚâ Thatâs not acceptance. Itâs happy talk and resignation. At least Sue doesnât talk to Franklin that way.
Iâd love to know what people who have been following Reed very closely for decades think about this version of the guy.
Rules & Authority
AA: The other part of this scene that bummed me out was that we donât even get the benefit of seeing Franklin and Reedâs emotional expressions because the panel view is pulled back. I would have loved to see the Dodsonsâ work shine here, but Iâm also greedy. I reckon this scene in general feels a bit jarring is because weâre just now beginning to see Franklin set and enforce boundaries.
You donât give orders to me anymore. Iâm not four years old and Iâm not Uncle Ben or Johnny.
Burn, but also TRUE.
SB: Way to dump on Uncle Ben and Johnny (but heâs right). That moment brings in another aspect of this issue that I liked a bit more: who gets to make decisions for other people? How and why? Itâs easy to answer that question âNobody does! We are all autonomous humans!â and thatâs the right answer in daily life, among adults, but itâs the wrong answer in families with young children– when the adults must work out exactly how much autonomy to give the kids. And itâs the wrong answer in a public emergency, when the state must act to prevent a tragedy of the commons. Or an epidemic.
Reedâs position evolves as he comes to see his kid (however reluctantly) as no longer a child; he doesnât have to worry about giving orders to people outside his family (or not here).
AA: Yo. Yes. There are definitely times when others may need to intervene in order to protect the health, safety, and well-being of others. Franklin asserting a boundary is really a beneficial form of social-emotional learning because he expresses a need and we actually see Reed responding directly to that need (whatever we may think of that response is another story). Hrmm, where does that put Doom in this mix?
SB: Doomâs position is simple: heâs the authority, heâs the state, heâs the Big Daddy and his word is law. He loathes Krakoa– and he says so– because Krakoa doesnât work that way: all mutants are, potentially, Krakoan agents and Krakoan diplomats, which is cool but creates problems with the chain of command. Doom also thinks heâs earned his power, while mutants havenât.
Magneto, understandably, defaults to seeing himself as Big Daddy. Which Kate canât and wonât and probably shouldnât accept.
AA: This is an important moment for Franklin, as it is for any human who has struggled to set boundaries with someone, especially a member of their family. Interestingly, in my research, I found how children view their intelligence mindset tends to be more fixed to how parents respond to failure.
âOverall, parents who see failure as debilitating focus on their childrenâs performance and ability rather than on their childrenâs learning, and their children, in turn, tend to believe that intelligence is fixed rather than malleable.â
Haimovitz, Kyla, and Carol S. Dweck. âParentsâ Views of Failure Predict Childrenâs Fixed and Growth Intelligence Mind-Sets.â Psychological Science, vol. 27, no. 6, June 2016, pp. 859â869.
I think that research has some implications for the Reed/Franklin dynamic.
SB: It does. Speaking of intelligence, when was the last time Beast recommended that someone take a science risk and the risk panned out well? And speaking of bright kids, what happened to Kate Prydeâs dialogue, which used to be wonderful? âThis better work, Doom. Or I swear⌠you just made a whole lot of enemies.â Zzzzz. Besides, Doom already has lots of enemies! And why isnât Kate more curious about all the Latverian technology? Sheâs a CS and engineering and physics genius, right? Itâs like Zdarsky just forgot how to write her.
In his defense– sort of– Kateâs pretty boring when sheâs just a combat leader: she may be a genius, but sheâs also an extrovert who thrives on chosen relationships (donât get me started about her love life). X-Men defaults to a story about chosen family; Fantastic Four about birth family–which most people (in our developed society) at some point want to leave (even if we come back).
And Doom, in an FF book, is the black sheep of the birth family, the uncle whose ties to the kids mean he wonât go away. Doubly so now that heâs linked to Valeria. âSon, we canât trust him,â Reed warns Franklin. But Franklin doesnât trust Reed either. And Valeria, historically, has trusted her godparent, Doom, pretty consistently.
Not that Zdarskyâs Doom is, remotely, trustworthy. Logan has killed a Latverian he thought was a Doombot. A Latverian with blue feathers: so, a mutant? But Ramona and Hugo claim that theyâre the only young Latverian mutants who chose to side with the regime; the others have been imprisoned somewhere. Were they encased in Doombots and turned into flesh puppets with no control over their arms and legs, then sent to attack the X-Men in the hopes that the X-Men would kill one of them and become Latverian âcriminals,â thus âjustifyingâ Doom in sending out Sentinels?
Thatâs one hell of a legalistic damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-donât scheme. If thatâs not what happened, what happened?
AA: I couldnât agree with you more about Kate in this issue. Sheâs been done dirty (I feel). You know how sometimes it feels like stories have an ending and then the rest is constructed to fit it, even if it doesnât really make sense or allow for logic, flow or narrative consistency? I get a bit of that with this issue. Does that feel wrong? Am I a baddie for saying this?
The Enemy Of My EnemyâŚ
SB: You are not a baddie. One thing this issue does well, in concert with #1-2: callbacks to the wonderful 1980s Claremont/Bogdanove series. 1980s Doom wanted to shame and show up Reed by offering life-saving medical help to Kate, and Kate needed Franklinâs emotional help in order to stay alive long enough to accept. Now Doom wants to shame and show up Reed by offering medical help to Franklin, and itâs Kate who gives Franklin the chance to go say yes.
In both series, Doom makes the offer of lifesaving medical tech into a way to display his superiority. It feels very timely. Compare China offering medical help to COVID-afflicted nations in Europe: offering medical help is a move in a diplomatic game!
AA: First of all, Iâm happy you brought this up because I think itâs a fascinating examination of what appears to be a power polarity change happening IRL and in this comic. Polarity refers to international power structures and the ordering of power. First, we have China using the absolute vacuum of American authority and leadership to their every conceivable advantage. Worth noting that Russia has also provided aid to Italy in its COVID-19 response. Feels like Doom is operating from the same kind of mentality, where there is a vacuum of power, he sees an opportunity to engage.
SB: What is Doom Island doing in the western Pacific anyway? Was Latveria a 19th century imperial power, like the Dutch?
AA: Hell yah. Throwing up two thumbs up for the Dutch reference like a real cool individual. My college history professor would be *so excited* about this and then talk about the book Embarrassment of Riches. Which honestly, is a good book about the Dutch and their accumulation of wealth, I digress…
SB: Doom certainly wouldnât mind operating an empire. He wants absolute control over what Latverians do. This issue may be the first time the series has faced head-on the fact that Doom wonât let Latverian mutants leave. Are there refuseniks?
Doom practices what my friends in that field would call realism in international relations: states never operate on selfless motives or for the good of the world. Instead, every state action (except open, total war) constitutes an agreement with incentives to honor it and disincentives to break it. States and leaders act for internal legitimacy, external security, and practical advantage, never because itâs the right thing to do.
Are the X-Men, as representatives of their nation-state Krakoa, behaving like realists too? How do they understand their sources of authority? Did Kate make the right call? Did she have the right to make it? Itâs unusual– as far as I can tell– to see sympathetic superheroes honestly trying to figure out a military-style chain of command and responsibility.
AA: Is the nexus of this series âEveryoneâs a little realist at the end of the dayâ?
SB: Was that an Avenue Q reference? I hope so. The debate over who has the right to make policy here– who makes the call and why?– strikes me as a special case of a general thing I love about Krakoa. Superhero comics fans have seen a bazillion stories of rebels overthrowing a bad government. Weâre conditioned to root for the free spirits, for the coming revolution. But Dawn of X stories are, usually, stories about legitimacy and state formation, about what happens after you âwin.â How do you have a functioning government thatâs neither a faceless bureaucracy nor a cult of personality with a Dear Leader or a Big Daddy?
AA: Thatâs probably why I like them so much because I love thinking about the work of actual governance and good governance at that. Making policy is hard, especially if you want to make policy that involves input from every stakeholder. Itâs easier for Doom because thereâs no daylight between his personal wishes and those of the state, as is the case with most authoritarian regimes.
One thing I will say that Iâve been noodlinâ over with respect to this issue⌠Weâre being asked to consistently question where and how power is derived. We are asked to question the source of power for mutants, for the X-men, for the FF⌠We are asked to question authority as well as who gets to establish and control it. I keep thinking about the Reed Richards Godpower entry back in issue #1.
Itâs not only illustrative of the supposition for how the FF powers originate, but itâs also a suggestion for how all power structures may originate in this Universe. Maybe? Even if this diagram doesnât turn out to be true and I canât help but perhaps get a sense of thatâs where we are headed…To me, itâd be neat if there was no such thing as a central, unifying force of power especially one that is perfect (as the name Godpower inherently suggests). I dunno maybe thatâs wishful thinking on my part. There are limits to all forms and structures of power, from the family level to the state and beyond. How we respond to the limits of power and what we choose to do with the power given to us, thatâs what matters.
SB: Speaking of responses: how do we respond to the visual elements of this issue? The Dodsonsâ faces– especially the mutants– sometimes fall short of the expressive warmth they had in the first two issues (Kate and Valeria, in particular, look wooden, and Sue and Emma look too much alike). But the composition for the indoor scenes, with Kirbyesque molecule-spheres and blue backgrounds and diagrams, really shines: weâre looking, literally, at networks of power, at where power and energy originate in this world and where they can go.
AA: I totally, absolutely agree and have nothing to add because youâve done it.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Apparently, nothing brings people together like Doom.
- Canât stop think about the Big Boi Doombots
- Emma always gets the best lines
Andrea Ayres writes about comics and culture. She loves research, coffee, and lifting weights.
Stephanie Burt is Professor of English at Harvard and the author of several books of poetry and literary criticism, most recently Donât Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems (Basic, 2019). Her nose still hurts from that thing with the gate.
Andrea Ayres is a freelance writer and pop culture journalist.
Stephanie Burt is Professor of English at Harvard. Her podcast about superhero role playing games is Team-Up Moves, with Fiona Hopkins; her latest book of poems is We Are Mermaids. Her nose still hurts from that thing with the gate.Â
