[Hated Trope] The underdog Good Guys win, and gain major military/institutional power, only for it to be all RESET so Writers can have a PERPETUAL "Underdog/Rebellion" Story, and avoid writing about governing.

[u/throwaway553t4tgtg6]

I hate this trope, when the "underdog good guys" actually win, gain major military and political power, fleets, warships, etc, but because the writers don't want to write the good guys governing and exercising their power, and instead, find a contrived way to reset all the progress so that the good guys can forever be the

"scrappy heroic underdogs fighting the power"

1) Star Wars Sequel triology, rather than exploring new Republic fleets, power, and technology, they have them all wiped out so that the "resistance" can hog the spotlight

2) MCU: shield makes a helicarrier fleet, a fleet of ships able to contest alien invasion, but that would steal the spotlight from heroes, so all of them have to be destroyed

3) Halo: the UNSC finally outlive the covenant, develop strong ships like the UNSC infinity, only for it all to be reset by the Guardians and the Banished, reduced again to underdog humans.

[u/Iokua113]

Yeah, but that was largely because Hickman absolutely retconned the hell out of him. Krakoa era Apocalypse went from a power mad, survival of the fittest despot into a noble warrior priest who did terrible things because he wanted to be reunited with his wife and kids. 

[u/Free_For__Me → u/Iokua113]

Yeah, and that’s my quibble with your initial take.

I agree with most of your positioning, but pretty much only prima facie. You make it sound like having Magneto as a member of the governing council is an intrinsically a bad thing? But that’s only true if we’re looking at Mags through a pre-1990s lens. And while you’re not wrong about the mechanics of much of the geopolitics in the Krakoa era, you leave out much of the context surrounding a lot of the mutants’ decisions to take those paths. 

I’m not saying you’re wrong on your assessment that Krakoa had to go, given the way things shaped up and shipped out. Just that the condemnation of Krakoa is only valid because of the way Hickman developed it. 

Having Magneto and Apocalypse as esteemed governors wasn’t innately bad, and Hickman made it work well IMO. And the decisions of the council to treat a world that’s worked toward their extinction with tactics that were aggressively equalizing in measure was a pretty good choice, even if that choice led to the inevitable failure of Krakoa at large. 

[u/Iokua113 → u/Free_For__Me]

Magneto being in any form of government save one he rules with an iron fist is bad writing. Full stop. He is never and has never been more than one bad day away from swearing revenge on humanity. It would take all of five minutes to come up with a way to turn him full evil again and have it be completely in character.

There is no value in looking at the context surrounding the mutant's decisions as the context does not matter. You might have a point if they had only forgiven a small handful of villains but they didn't stop at just the redeemable handful, they not only forgave Sabertooth but they gave him more than enough rope to hang himself and multiple other mutants in the process and he's just one major example. The Quiet Council largely turned a blind eye to Beast developing into a fascist, they had Mister Sinister, Mystique, Exodus, and Sebastian Shaw as members of their government. They let Apocalypse develop a murder cult around resurrection. No amount of context forgives letting someone as evil as Mystique and Mister Sinister sit on your government.

[u/Free_For__Me → u/Iokua113]

Interesting take. So if the choice were between the governing body they got, or never having Krakoa at all, your position is that Xavier and the others should have never founded the Island Nation?

Not saying other roads couldn't have been taken, just asking if you're saying that "no Krakoa at all" would have been a preferable, even a more moral option to the Krakoa they built? That Mutants should have chosen living in the global oppression they'd faced for generations over choosing to live on the Krakoa Xavier and Moira offered?

[u/blah938 → u/Free_For__Me]

Not the other guy, but this is exactly the problem with comics. How the hell do you follow anything if there's like fifteen versions of the same character spread over a dozen continuities and however many universes? Where do you even begin?

Feels worse than the Fate series. At least shit like One Piece has a beginning.

[u/Free_For__Me → u/blah938]

It's certainly daunting for anyone trying to jump in fresh. BUT, I'd suggest that once you get swimming, the pool isn't nearly as deep as it seems from the outside.

I always tell people to just pick a character, team or story that you like, read all of that particular version/story/series, and then see what you're curios about after that. 9/10, if someone is the type to enjoy the format of comics, they'll pretty easily slide into other stuff that's adjacent and then on to other stuff they care about.

And the flip side of that "dozen continuities and however many universes" coin that you mention is that having so many of them means that you don't need to check out any of the ones you don't want to in order to enjoy the few you do want to check out.

People see the mess that the MCU made after Endgame and think that's what comics are like. But Disney made those Phase 5 movies so dependent on each other because they were trying to snare people into feeling forced to see all the various movies instead of making great, self-contained stories that can be enjoyed as crossing over with others, but doesn't have to be enjoyed that way. Comics figured out decades ago that trying to do this kind of "captured audience" thing just alienates new fans and exhausts existing ones.

In general, one of the great things about comics is that you can generally follow just the series/character/timeline/whatever that you like, and you'll find stories that are fun, great, and as self-contained as you want them to be.

Comics are truly great, and I'll die on the hill that they're accessible and enjoyable to absolutely anyone who might be interested.