Richard does A versus X
This post starts off super-introspective, then moves out to talk about things that might be of interest to other people. In other words, it’s the exact opposite of most of my posts.
Like Emma, I’m 110% on board for Avengers Versus X-Men. Possibly more, since 110% is my current default for anything Aaron and Hickman are working on, and once you factor in how keen I am to watch some X-Men beat up some Avengers then we’re into regions of mathematics only explored by Simon Cowell.
But why am I feeling not just so excited but so partisan? I’ve seen the future, as regards my engagement with this event, and it’s me in a little cheerleader outfit waving pom-poms and singing encouraging ditties in the X-Men’s direction. Unlike most Marvel X-futures this cannot be averted. This shall come to pass.
Which is odd, because the X-Men are terrible people. Scott’s running a horrific survivalist cult that’s been repeatedly proven to make its members less safe, while Logan’s running a fraudulent school backed-up by a secret murder squad. Danni Moonstar’s lot are the only faction behaving with any sort of intelligence or morality.
So, if I don’t feel particularly aligned with the X-Men, why do I feel so aligned with the X-Men?
I’ve had a think, and it’s mostly this: The X-Men are in a lot of fantasticly good comic books at the moment and the Avengers are in a lot of rubbish ones.
There you go. I’m so in love with the quality of what Gillen and Aaron and Remender are doing, that it’s engendered a sense of brand loyalty in me. I want to see this brand that I like kick the shit out of a brand I don’t. I’m feeling about the X-Men as I feel about, say, Nintendo.
Which is preposterously meta! What am I expecting is going to happen here? Do I think I’m going to walk into Forbidden Planet and see a pile of Wolverine and the X-Men’s wrestling New Avengers to the ground and beating the dialogue chains out of it?
This is a story about two super-teams going to war, and I’m approaching it as if it’s X-Men: The Brand versus Avengers: The Brand. But there’s something sensible about doing that. It’s because these properties exist as cinematic franchises that this is happening. Both teams have had Burger King meals themed around them, and now it’s war to determine which tastes least obviously reheated! The big draw is that these are two properties that have a life out of comics, but only comics can show you the punch-up in literal terms.
There’re plenty of ways in which its very satisfying to think of it like this - to think in a Morrisonish way of ‘The X-Men’ and ‘The Avengers’ as two sentient franchises going at it. Because if ‘The X-Men Franchise’ was a self-aware entity then it’d be pretty fucked off with the Avengers for having slashed its tires back in House of M. We’ve now had SIX YEARS in which every X-Men book has revolved around something that happened in an Avengers storyline.
So yeah, I do think treating this as a conflict of brands is a valid way to approach and enjoy the event. Obviously it’s all really just Marvel shadow puppeteering (and so they’ll ultimately favour the brand whose film rights they hold) but, shhhh don’t tell anyone, Emma Frost and the Hulk aren’t real so their fight will just be determined by some guy writing them. That knowledge isn’t a reason to not invest in the battle as a conflict between characters, and by the same token the knowledge that this is just Marvel exploiting its properties rather than a real corporate scrap isn’t a reason not to invest in the drama of a Battle of the Brands.
BUT! There are already, before an issue’s been released, lots of other ways we might understand the idea of “Avengers Versus X-Men.”
THE SYMBOLIC
This is pretty much what Emma’s doing. Reading the X-Men as Queer and the Avengers as various normative forces. She knows which side her bread’s buttered.
Approached this way, “Avengers Versus X-Men” becomes a conflict between what the Avengers symbolise and what the X-Men symbolise.
THE INTERNALLY IDEOLOGICAL
Here’s a fun thing. What a character (and for our purposes here, a superhero team) may represent as a symbol isn’t necessarily the same thing as what they may believe in within the fiction.
Captain America’s a good example of this. As a character, as a fictional human being, Steve Rogers undoubtedly believes in a load of cool stuff and is probably a top bloke. Good for him.
As a symbol, the idea that this white soldier boy represents America is despicable and terrifying.
Goes the other way too. Plenty of times the X-Men that exist within the fiction have been shown to be painfully hetronormative at an institutional level. This has zero effect on their queer coding.
There’s no wall between this and the symbolic level, they interrelate in all sorts of ways, but there is a distinction. And so there’d be no hypocrisy in cheering on the X-Men at a symbolic level, while on the level of internal ideology clamouring for the fall of Utopia.
THE PRAGMATIC
In story they aren’t actually going to fight because of a clash of ideas, values and Burger King meals. There’s going to be some sort of Phoenixy situation and the two teams will both have a different idea as to what to do about it.
Obviously those ideas will be informed by the characters’ ideologies… but this is still a distinct level of “Avengers versus X-Men”; What The Avengers Think They Should Do Here versus What The X-Men Think They Should Do Here. A reader could reasonable prefer everything that one side represented and espoused and still think, yeah, on this Phoenixy thing those other guys have a better idea.
The funny thing is, this question - “Who’s practically right in this specific situation?” - will be the least important to everyone deciding whose side they’re on.
THE INDIVIDUALLY PREFERENTIAL
Emma’s cooler than the Hulk, I hope she kicks his ass.
Tony’s cooler than Magneto, I hope he kicks his ass.
And so on.
So, yeah. There’ll be at least five different Avengers versus X-Men conflicts happening this summer.
The Avengers Brand versus the X-Men Brand.
What the X-Men Symbolise versus What the Avengers Symbolise.
What the Avengers Believe versus What the X-Men Believe.
What The Avengers Think They Should Do Here versus What The X-Men Think They Should Do Here.
Your bbys versus my bbys.
Now the sort of writing that’s generally called ‘good’ or, if it’s me talking, ‘boring’ would work to create a unity between those levels; To have what the characters represent reflected in what they believe, to have what they believe determine their situational choice, to have that direct us as to who we should love, and then to use all that to reinforce the brand.
But, and this is one of the reasons I’ll always love superhero comics, that sort of tedious neatness is impossible here. There’s too much baggage, too many characters, too many writers, too much history. It’s going to be chaos. I’m going to love it.
