One of the X-Men's most fearsome foes has entered!
This issue brought to you by:
Our Team This Issue:
After the team's difficult battle against The Juggernaut, the X-Men have taken to repairing the mansion as well as themselves. Professor X has the team all in physical therapy so that they can get back up to full fighting ability as quickly as possible. Thankfully Xavier decides that the team is all better, just as he is about to give the team some good news.
A vacation!
These special teenagers have worked hard and haven't had any time off in quite some time. Beast and Iceman head to their favorite beatnik cafe, Jean Grey is hopping on a train to home, The Angel is headed for home, and Cyclops...well he's still brooding as he preps for his vacation...which I imagine is just another place for him to brood.
However, as the good times are about to roll for the X-Men, there is another nefarious person about to threaten the very existence of the mutants, Dr. Bolivar Trask.
Dr. Trask is an anthropologist turned futuristic technician preaching hatred for mutant kind. He is convinced that the mutants are collaborating amongst one another and building their numbers so that they can overtake the human race...which he isn't too wrong about after all, that is pretty much exactly what The Brotherhood wants to do. Good thing they are somewhere in space!
After Dr. Trask's announcement, the press goes mad, and Professor X attempts to set the record straight, though he knows with humanity that the damage is probably already done. Professor X calls his local PBS and organizes a press conference where he and Dr. Trask can debate one another.
During the press conference, Professor X attempts to speak his peace about mutant-kind, hoping that humans will listen with open minds and put and end to their hatred. Too bad that plan isn't going to go over as well as he hoped it would. Dr. Trask interrupts Professor X and showcases his top of the line mutant protection solution...The Sentinels.
Though Dr. Trask is a victim of his own zeal. As he showcases his newest, top of the line creation, assuring everyone that they are under his complete control...the Sentinels turn on Dr. Trask. He is blasted with one of their hidden lasers and kidnapped by the rest of the team where they take him back to the lab where the Sentinels were created.
Professor X feels helpless as he can't use his powers against the mechanical menaces, as his powers only work against humans. So in a last ditch effort, he sends out a telepathic beacon, and calls for his X-Men!
The team, though separated, still all heard the call. They dropped what they were doing and rushed towards where they felt Professor X's mental beacon was coming from. Beast and Iceman arrive on the scene first, followed by Cyclops. As Angel soared quickly to his location, he encountered the group of Sentinels carrying the now unconscious Dr. Trask back to their lab. Not knowing that he was in danger, Angel moves in closer to get a better look. Then the Sentinels stop, as they detect another mutant. Several Sentinels break off from the pack, and pursue Angel.
As some sort of deus ex machina, Angel is forcibly pulled downward onto the roof of a moving train.
Marvel Girl sighs with relief as when she knows Angel is safe. She had just happened to look out the train's window and saw Angel about to get attacked. She telepathically lifts herself out the window and onto the top of the train and meets Angel and they fly off towards the beacon.
Back at the studio, Beast, Iceman, and Cyclops are facing a foe like never before. The Sentinel, using the powers of his mechanical brain, can outwit the X-Men's every advance against him. Not even Cyclops' optic blast can penetrate their armored exterior.
As luck would have it...the X-Men wouldn't need to fight the Sentinel for much longer, because as the team realized they were out of options, the Sentinel malfunctioned and fell over. The battle was over. Just then, Marvel Girl and Angel arrived on the scene.
Before the Sentinel went completely offline he uttered the word Master Mold, and Professor X was able to get a read of the location where the Sentinel wanted to retreat to.
At the lab the Sentinels are escorting Dr. Trask back to his lab, when a radar detector goes off. The Sentinels observe a car arriving near their property, and contained inside are the X-Men! As the X-Men stand around looking for where the Sentinel's base is, the ground shakes and a giant mechanical station wielding several guns rises from the ground. The whole base was contained under the ground!
__________________________________________
So this issue is actually really poignant for a couple of time periods. From the time when the comic was published - this absolutely revolves around the civil rights movement, as well as in part McCarthyism, or the red scare.
Racism was still heavily present in daily society, and the X-Men, much like Martin Luther King Jr., wanted the mutants and the humans to co-exist in a peaceful world. Dr. Trask is more like McCarthy, wanting to find and expose all communists aka mutants. He even goes so far as to create a mutant killing machine he wanted to mass market and put into every home for protection.
From a current standpoint I feel this issue really hits two major fears happening right now. The first is obviously racism is still very present in our daily society, however, nowadays it's focused on the Middle East. We have been hearing politicians preach the dangers of the Middle East, the dangers of Muslims for sixteen years. We even have branded a slogan around it "The War on Terror".
Most recently though, the word automation has become dirty. People are starting to fear robots and AI coming in and taking jobs from people. It is an inevitable part of progress, one which I feel is very important, but to most people, people who can't see a future where humans aren't working the daily 9-5 shift it terrifies therm.
This also lives up to the classic trope in sci-fi, where the technology we create overthrows and overpowers us completely.
I think the story of the Sentinels is on point as a "classic sci-fi story".
I mentioned a few paragraphs above that I felt that robots taking human jobs was a good thing. Let me quickly clarify that I do not want robots to overthrown humanity. Personally, I don't see that as an issue. What I meant by my statement was, the more automation that we can bring to our daily lives, the more time it gives humanity as a whole to work on other projects. These projects can be personal, or they can be universal.
We need more art in the world, more music, I feel these things are what breathes life into humanity as a whole. It's what separates us from "lower forms", so people will have the time to focus on these things as automation increases in the work place. From a universal standpoint, that's where humanity really needs to focus.
If you read the news today, you'll see that climate change is all the rage, tensions are heightened on a global scale due to the political fire that has been lit. We read things like bees are being put on endangered species lists and the great coral reefs are dying at an insanely accelerated rate than we originally presumed. Humans are destroying the Earth faster than ever...and the craziest thing is that we have people in power denying that it's happening.
When you automate everything, you take away those barriers that people have in their daily lives, and you allow them all to work on projects which will benefit the greater good of humanity as a whole, rather than a few select humans who continually amass wealth.
Automation will change the face of humanity, as well as the placement of humanity in the universe. We need to start thinking that way and embracing it.
Most recently though, the word automation has become dirty. People are starting to fear robots and AI coming in and taking jobs from people. It is an inevitable part of progress, one which I feel is very important, but to most people, people who can't see a future where humans aren't working the daily 9-5 shift it terrifies therm.
This also lives up to the classic trope in sci-fi, where the technology we create overthrows and overpowers us completely.
I think the story of the Sentinels is on point as a "classic sci-fi story".
I mentioned a few paragraphs above that I felt that robots taking human jobs was a good thing. Let me quickly clarify that I do not want robots to overthrown humanity. Personally, I don't see that as an issue. What I meant by my statement was, the more automation that we can bring to our daily lives, the more time it gives humanity as a whole to work on other projects. These projects can be personal, or they can be universal.
We need more art in the world, more music, I feel these things are what breathes life into humanity as a whole. It's what separates us from "lower forms", so people will have the time to focus on these things as automation increases in the work place. From a universal standpoint, that's where humanity really needs to focus.
If you read the news today, you'll see that climate change is all the rage, tensions are heightened on a global scale due to the political fire that has been lit. We read things like bees are being put on endangered species lists and the great coral reefs are dying at an insanely accelerated rate than we originally presumed. Humans are destroying the Earth faster than ever...and the craziest thing is that we have people in power denying that it's happening.
When you automate everything, you take away those barriers that people have in their daily lives, and you allow them all to work on projects which will benefit the greater good of humanity as a whole, rather than a few select humans who continually amass wealth.
Automation will change the face of humanity, as well as the placement of humanity in the universe. We need to start thinking that way and embracing it.
No comments:
Post a Comment