u/Plenty_Square_420

Right now going into season 2 it seems like we're gonna see both versions of X-Factor and X-Force. And people from both the Blue and Gold teams of the X-Men are already core cast members.

But we have nothing for Excalibur. The only person from that team we've seen is Nightcrawler and he's completely removed from the team that he actually spent the 90s as a part of.

I would love to see some of that team in season 3 or something.

From pretty early on, going as far back as HoX & PoX, the Krakoa-era comics seemed to carry a kind undercurrent of certain sexual themes. We have things like how everyone comes out of their eggs to be admired by a whole crowed of people while they're fully naked. We have Nightcrawler declaring that they need to make more mutants at the same time as they start a big rave. And let's not even get into the ménage à trois on the moon.

So there does seem to be a clear undercurrent of sexual liberation tied into Krakoa, in conjunction with them having social liberation on their own nation. A kind of "Free to live, free to love" kind of thing. And the creators do seem to be aware of this. Like how Deadpool will jokingly refer to it as the mutant sex island or the "Krakoa was for lovers" bit.

But despite there seems to be surprisingly few lowers on Krakoa. When it comes to the actual execution the creators kind of choke and chose to not really do anything with these themes. It doesn't feel like it develops into anything actually substantial. The closest we got to exploring this in any depth might have been in Way of X and Legion of X. But even there not much comes out of it. It just kind of vaguely invokes them then forgets about. If anything it feels like these themes are invoked to make Krakoa seem more out there and crazier then X-Men storys that have come before. But then the creators kind of chicken out when it comes to the execution.

I think it could have been really interesting to see something more done with this. It would have been interesting to see X-Men that explored other relationships dynamics or things like naturism that some of the stories were kind of implying. There's already a running joke that the X-Men are a giant swinging club. It would have been interesting to see them actually lean in to this when the X-Men were in a setting where they are supposedly free from the rest of societies traditional prejudices and preconceptions about relationships, hierarchies and other behaviour.

Perhaps this is part of a larger hesitancy in media to discuss sexual topics. The kind of hypocrisy around how it's fine to have violence in media but people are often way more hesitant about sexual themes. Like how we can have Apocalypse beating a member of the X-Men to death in front of a large crowd but even just a mention of more unrestrained sexual activity would be seen as too weird. Despite the early prevalence of sexual themes during the Krakoa era I think the current run on Uncanny might actually have more courage to just be openly horny then many of the Krakoa era books had.

TLDR; Krakoa would have been way cooler if the creators had actually been willing to commit to the bit and allowed the X-Men to all bang each other on the island

So Kitty is apparently dodging Nina's calls. I'm curious to see where this goes and I want this to be developed out more. There is stuff to like about how Kitty is handled here. Though her line earlier in the issue, "Emma, if you kill him, he can't do anything." felt very weird, as if Kitty thought Emma was actually about to kill Beast when Emma was basically just mildly sassying him. Feels like quite a leap.

We also desperately need more then the breadcrumbs we are getting. This is first mention of Nina since Exceptional #11. Which came out almost a year ago.

I feel like Ewing needs to make the decision if she's gonna sit down and actually develop this plotline into something substantive or just move on to something else. I don't want to be negative, I want to try to engage with the story on it's own terms and find what there is to like in it. But here I feel like me ability to care is being eroded by how long this is taking.

Like, how do you think the parts all fit together? I think it can sometimes look unclear if the stuff above her legs but under her waist is a separate part from the actual jacket or if it's all part of the same larger garment. I think there are basically three possiblities

1. She is basically wearing tights and a leotard with a jacket on top of it. This I think is the simplest explanation
2. The jacket is separate but the stuff beneath but above the light-blue tights are basically trunks that the rest of the jacket is tucked into. I don't like this explanation but it would explain how the jacket parts seems to so perfectly stop after the sash
3. All of the dark blue stuff is all one garment. It can really looks like this sometimes with some artists making the everything above and below the sash seeming almost indistinguishable.

How do you imagine the costume works? Do you have any alternative explanations?

For me my favourite is probably this moment. Just such a fantastic and creative way to show Kitty using her powers. The worst is probably the declaration that Kitty is not a fighter which is probably the best example of how the series ignored her development.

Image source: Astonishing X-Men (2004) #16 & #1

I hope we get a good mix of the comedic and the emotionally supportive.

It's just "Jean died, then Cyclops was all alone, the Jean came back" completely leaving out the fact that when he was a mutant leader making all kinds of hard choices he constantly had Emma at this side. She was the one at this side when he fucking died, for Pete's sake.

Illyana has probably been holding a lot of that in for a long time. Also, kind of surprised we didn't get anymore of the parents flashback beyond what we saw in the preview. Maybe we'll see more of what happened back then in the final issue.

Right now a lot of X-fans are eagerly awaiting the next season of X-Men '97. But Magik fans are probably wondering if there will be any follow up on the Magik tease from the end of season 1.

Even if Magik was to be brought into the show there's a question of where she would go. There doesn't seem to be any counterpart of the New Mutants that exist in that show, especially with Sunspot being a part of X-Force and Wolfsbane as a part of X-Factor.

But with Nightcrawler being a part of the main X-team instead of being on Excalibur one place she be is on that team. Where she could replace him as him as the teleporter with a sword. You could even potentially have an unbodyswapped version of Psylocke serving as the team telepath. So you would have a lineup of Shadowcat, Magik, Psylocke, Captain Britain and Meggan. I think that could be really cool.

For the briefest of moment we once again had absolutely peak...

And then they just threw it away

Image source: Immortal X-Men #1

One of the biggest reasons Kittys arc in Exceptional X-Men falls really flat is just how underdeveloped it is. There's a lot of set up in the first 2-3 issues. Where we're introduced to her PTSD, her desire to have a normal life and so on. Then this is never really explored in any greater detail as Kitty is just kind of around, helping out the kids. Then by #13 we find out that she's kind of fine now.

This scene in #11 is one of the only scenes outside the first few issues where we actually get to see Kitty introspect. Where we get a clearer insight into what she is feeling right now. And it requires here to just be talking to herself. It would be so much easier with thought balloons.

And if we had thought balloons not just in this issue but in several of the preceding issues that allowed us to follow along with what Kitty was thinking and feeling as well as how her state of mind was progressing then her change of heart in #13 might not have felt so out of nowhere.

Thought balloons are a tool to give us insight into what a character is thinking and feeling in any given moment. Without them it becomes so much harder to communicate a characters arc and state of mind without things taking an absurd amount of time. It's like how in musicals a lot of songs are either an "I want" song or an "I am" song. They tell us stuff about that character or what they want. A comic without thought balloons can so often end up feeling like a musical without any songs. They're not utilising the mediums best way of communicating character.

Really highlights the differences in the two version.

Image source. Excalibur (1988) #17