You Can Go Your Own Way

Go your own waaaay! Is it a Fleetwood Mac kind of day? Hell if I know.

I saw that image on Kalinara's Tumbler, and it's from X-Men: Regenesis, the follow-up to the whole Schism thing in the X-Books. I guess Caveman Scott and Logan are meant to be a metaphor, although it really suggests their conflict is less an ideological thing, and more an alpha male pissing contest. Pounding their chests and roaring.

Which is fine, I do that sometimes. Just yesterday I was digging up some invasive autumn olive trees from along my father's fenceline, and when I removed the last one, I pounded my chest a bit. I also yelled "Buuuuuu!", because I was always amused when Majin Buu would do that. I loved him as the villain for those later stories in DragonBall Z. Goofy, yet menacing.

I wandered off-topic.

So I'm looking at this picture, and I'm struck by. . . actually, it reminds me of that Jeph Loeb Wolverine story about tribes of feral people where the light-haired one and the dark-haired one are always in conflict and -

Well, anyway, when I recovered from my subsequent seizure, I noticed whoever is speaking, I guess Cyclops, said people could go off on their own if they wanted. He frames it as neither side needing people who don't believe, but I think someone opting to strike out on their own is good common sense. Westchester has a long history of being targeted, and Utopia's pretty clearly sitting (floating?) on a giant bullseye. Trying to find a safe distance from both sounds like a pretty good idea.

Perhaps it isn't practical for someone with a mutation that's difficult to hide, but there are plenty of the remaining mutants who look enough like an average human that if they don't make showy displays of their powers, they can pass mostly unbothered. In a meta sense, it's safer to go off over the horizon and be forgotten, than to hang around with the big-name, money characters, where you're likely to get sacrificed so Wolverine or Cyclops can look pained about your death in whatever Big Event nonsense is coming over the horizon.

Coming over a different horizon than the one they walked over to get away from it all. Because otherwise they'd be walking over the horizon right into the Big Event as it comes over the horizon, and that would likely get them killed by said Big Event before it's even begun. Can a Big Event kill someone before it's a Big Event, or would that necessarily signal its beginning? Like Ted Kord getting shot in the head. Poor Ted. Anyway, the Event would be coming over a different horizon. Or is it all the same horizon? Then a different side. The character leaves going east, the Event comes from the west, that sort of thing. The exact opposite side is best, but as long as the Event is at least 90 degrees off from where the character exited, the character is probably safe from being sucked into its vortex of horrific deaths.

At any rate, it's not safe to be near Scott or Logan, because all the enemy fire is going to miss them and hit the other characters. Or hit Logan, keep going, then hit the other characters. He has a healing factor (did you know Wolverine has a healing factor?) so he'll be fine, but the poor Generation Hope kids (or whoever) will be up the creek.

I'm guessing no one took that option, though I did hear Polaris and Havok may be joining X-Factor. That's not exactly stepping off the bullseye, though. It's a smaller bullseye, though, and it has to move around as they pursue cases. Like in the animated Robin Hood movie, when the Sheriff had his deputy hide in the target for the archery contest and move it so he'd hit the mark. Only in this case the bullseye is chasing the heroes, to mark them as the target, rather than the projectile designed to hit them.

I've gotten lost again.

I blame myself. Not for the getting lost, the fact everyone chose sides. Well, also the getting lost part, that's on me, but that wasn't the specific thing I was blaming myself for here. I gave Dr. Strange loads of crap for sitting out Civil War, after all, even though avoiding that load of cow flop was a wise decision. No one wanted to be the undecided who incurred my wrath this time, which is silly since I've hardly noticed the X-line in the last 3 years.

But these days everyone has to choose sides on everything. There can be no uncertainty or middle ground. One or the other, people. If Dogma taught me anything, it's that God hates people who try to stay above the fray. God also hates people who side against it, but I don't think Cyclops or Wolverine are God. The writers might be, though.