Reworking the structure of “Sword of X”
I have ... problems with Sword of X. Now, I don’t want to be like the overly aggressive, self-defeating artists who draw over people’s work when they do a ‘redraw’ to ‘fix’ a character design (and reveal their biases in the process while shooting their own careers in the foot). But it’s going to be tough, because I didn’t like it that much.
Much of that initial dislike comes from the Death of Rockslide, which I fully understand WHY it was done, but hate that it was done and the cross purposes that put him in the cross hairs (IE: They needed a minor character to kill off, but wanted someone the audience cared about for it to have an emotional impact). It still reeks of my hated “You didn’t put much work into making the audience care about the character yourself before you offed him and expected people to care about him based on the work of others.”
Which I hate. And it brings back Avengers Arena flashbacks. Not a thing I ever want to be reminded of.
But there was also structural elements that hindered my enjoyment. One has to be corrected hard, but another can be fixed in a more simplified fashion. One plays into the other, so we’re going to have to go with the hard way first.
One of the inherent flaws of X-Book crossovers is that the only way to really ‘get’ them is to better establish Saturnyne as using Insane Troll Logic. Look, the thing that sucks about these contests in comics from Avengers Arena (one of the worst) to The Immortal Weapons (a good one) is that they don’t really explain the rules very well before the contest begins. Like, this is a fundamental flaw that plagues the entire genre. Even Dead Legends doesn’t have precise rules set up. However, unlike Sword of X, the rules are revealed within the space of an issue and an observer can determine them from observation and knowledge of the genre.
So, when Saturnyne pulls the “Oh, I’m reading things this way,” and “Surprise! It’s a wedding!” it comes off as an arbitrary ruling done at random, and not something the reader can sink their investment and mind into. I found it to break my Suspension of Disbelief almost instantly.
Though I liked the wedding, the following sword-less contests killed it.
I mean, here’s the tally.
Number of contests with Swords: 4 Number of contests without Swords: 21
This renders the issues where the swords are gathered largely padding. Sure, it is setting up 3 events for the story and future events as well, but this renders a good chunk of the crossover padding!
But I digress.
The easy fix is to continue the Tarot theming. They allude to it, but don’t go into it. Several times, Saturnyne draws cards to show what the contest will be, but ... well, they often aren’t real Tarot cards she’s drawing.
So, first, have Saturnyne tell the contestants that there will be X number of contests. Each one will be determined by the Tarot Cards given to the players, and by one she draws. The combination of them, as well as their orientation determine what will happen. With Saturnyne as the judge.
That’s it.
From there, because Tarot Reading is usually little better than Cold Reading, you can justify almost every single one of these contests.
So, you have several layers the reader can sink their investment into. Look at what cards the people drew, the card the drawn for them, and the rulings of the “Impartial” Judge.
That’s it. That’s the rules structure with the Insane Troll Logic subversion built in.
And we have it done.
I bet someone more versed in the Tarot than I could go through the series and retroactively put that framework in place.
Of course, Tarot being Tarot, any two people are going to get two different results. I mean, the booklet that came with my Tarot Deck contradicts the top google guides I’ve seen in several locations.
Though I’d still think upping the number of Sword-based contests in an event called X of Swords would be a good thing. I mean, if you want silly contests for one panel jokes, why not make sure the sword is incorporated. Like, balancing contests - “No, not balance the word, Balance ON the sword!”, using your foe’s sword to torture them in the ‘endure torture’ contest, etc.
But it’s out, too late to do anything about it. Just... I hope they put more thought into the next one. Because this one did not live up to its potential, and was not worth the loss of Rockslide.
