Repowering the Mutants...Too Soon?
By Gold Dust Boi 6 Comments
So at this point the fact that Wanda's returned and may or may not start repowering mutants is no longer news and these aren't spoilers.
I've been reading and posting on several different forums sites and this topic has sparked QUITE the controversy. Yes even I have succumbed to some sniping with people who have opposing (dare I even say "warring") opinions.
So far opinion has been very split whether or not Wanda should be back and repowering mutants, and, further, what does this mean for M-Day, Decimation, Hope Summers, and the years of gripping stories about the struggling depowered mutants we've been reading?
On one hand, there are those who feel very strongly that it was only a matter of time before not only did Wanda come back but until all the mutants somehow got their powers back. Now, as of now many high profile mutants have recovered their powers in one form or another (like Professor X, Magneto, Polaris, and Quicksilver to name a few), but the large bulk of the world's mutants remain depowered, and that's not even referring to the countless depowered mutants who lost their lives in the fallout from Decimation (R.I.P. Antonio, Wing, Jay Guthrie, Laurie Collins, and the 27 students who were on the exploding bus). And let's not forget who we are dealing with here people. Marvel Comics, as much as I love them to death, are KNOWN for ret-conning their storylines, often in colorful and elaborate ways. This trend is part of what gives Marvel such an intricate backstory, because half of it got thought up much much later. That's what one half of the debate is saying.
The other half does not agree. They are appalled that after giving us years of character growth and development, they are just slipping back into something old and simple. Some reader weren't happy to see Rictor get his powers back, and felt that it destroyed everything that the writers of X-Factor have built since the character tried to kill himself in the first issue. Also, its easy to see how Wanda's return and repowering of mutants (even one at a time) could not only nullify Hope Summers' role as Mutant Messiah but also makes her entire journey and struggle to get back to this time somewhat less dire. There's also, again, the depowered mutants who died, not to mention the ones who lived who wished they hadn't, which all amounts to a degree of genocide that she, whether she repowers mutants or not, is responsible for. Most of these people think her return and the lifting of her curse could have waited, if it happened at all.