The Mojoverse is a cold and cruel place, where content creators fight for scraps to feed the empty void of validation inside them. Leah Williams, David Baldeón, and Israel Silva fight for their scraps in X-Factor #3.
Cori McCreery: Leeeeeet’s get ready to RUUUUUUUUUUUMMBLEEEEE!!!!! It seems like just yesterday that we got X-Factor #2, and here we are already at #3. And #4 is but another three weeks away! We’re drowning in content before we get to sit out the rest of X of Swords, aren’t we, Andrea?
Andrea Ayres: We really are Cori. It is an embarrassment of riches. I had an inkling I was going to be a fan of this issue based on the cover and it really did not disappoint. Issue #3 is where things have begun to really click into place for me.
Spiral’s Showcase
CM: So I know she’s always BEEN hot, but uh David Baldeón’s Spiral is EXTRA spicy, huh? Her dress is super sleek and also very futuristic. It reminds me of the Hunger Games: Catching Fire wetsuits, but in a good way? And that choker… God, it’s unfair how attractive she is.
AA: In 1999, when people were envisioning the future and fashion, I feel like they had Spiral’s look in mind. That look, however, was never captured as nicely as Baldeón has done here. I low-key started to look up holographic catsuits because of it. Alas, so hot but so evil. What I enjoyed about issue #3 is how it takes our cult of personality obsessed culture to its destructive and inevitable conclusion.
Early on we see Spiral ask for emotes to give those ‘content curators’ the love they deserve. I don’t think I spend too much time thinking about the linguistic implications of words like “emote” or “content creator” but now I am. In the context of issue #3 all of our online life is filled with a sinister dread. It’s something Leah and David have done a good job of getting across, what do you think?
CM: The Mojoverse hasn’t felt this real or this sinister in years. I said it last issue that the Mojoverse really plays to Williams’ strengths as a writer, allowing her to go off leash and flex a bit. Nobody has evolved the Mojoverse as well as this new iteration, and truly I don’t think anybody has played so well with these toys since Nocenti. The Mojoverse also allows Baldeón to flex a bit too, giving him lots of room to exaggerate facial expressions and play with creepy imagery.
AA: You are so right about that. The panel progression for ‘A Killing Evening’ was likely my favorite part of the entire issue. This issue deals so much with what I imagine Leah and David cope with on the daily. Navigating responsibility to a corporate entity, to fans, to yourself. Managing the parasocial relationship between people who you don’t really know but who feel they know you? X-Factor has me thinking about all those broader implications of these relationships. What is yours? What do you own? The machine of online culture churns, disrupts and distorts. Even considering the existence of the different factions in the Mojoverse had me drawing comparisons to TikTok collaboration houses.
I was doing some quick research into Twitch and what kind of research people have been conducting into its use and found out some interesting stuff. It’s possible to predict (using neural networks) how popular a stream will be based on the number, frequency and kind of emotes viewers use within a streamer’s first 15-minutes. Below is an image from the study, it indicates the different reasons why a viewer may tune into a Twitch streamer and the different funnels their interactions may take. I feel like it’s definitely relevant to this issue.
I can’t stop thinking about the emotes and Headshot TV and what its broader implications…
CM: I can’t imagine what kind of emotes are floating around Headshot TV, and I don’t think I really want to? This whole thing is really chilling, and watching Spiral draw out the reveal of the dead mutant and play that up for ratings? God that was horrifically real in a way I don’t really care to think about. Turns out it’s Prodigy’s old teammate Sofia Mantega, Wind Dancer, and that she had herself executed for ratings. I’m just so utterly sickened by this concept and by this iteration of the Mojoverse, but that’s exactly what we should feel about it, so well done.
AA: I agree, it is so well done. On page 12, the way we get that frame within a frame (the team is watching them, watching themselves, watching Sofia) it’s exactly what our day-to-day is like. Well, at least to me! It’s bizarre now that I’m thinking about it. I send a Tweet, it gets engagement. I am detached and yet attached as both the real Andrea and my Twitter persona. The dopamine hit I get from someone liking something is real and yet there’s still a discordance because it FEELS like people are engaging with an avatar of me and not the real me? Ah. I need my therapist. Point is, I need to rethink my relationship to online media. [Ed. note: #BigMood]
It’s Angora
AA: Amazing Baby melted my flipping heart. In fact, that entire scene was so damn necessary because this issue is so damn dark.
CM: God, yeah. This little intermission was so absolutely needed. It injected a bit more levity into the book, in a time of dire necessity. The chemistry between Aurora and Akihiro is palpable, even if he botches the landing. That scene really did make it seem like he wasn’t actually using his pheromones and was trying to do this without cheating. What do you think?
AA: Aurora’s eyebrow raise and the way he puts up his hair? Adorable. Love that you brought up the botched component here, because it does seem like it was deliberately placed there to indicate what you’ve proposed. The look Aurora gives him when he asks the personal question? Deeply familiar with that look.
CM: The worst part is that she didn’t even leave him Amazing Baby to hang out with, just left him alone to wallow in his failures. At least he has his soft, sheer, Angora sweater to make him feel better about screwing up the only reason he stayed back at the Boneyard. And it’s sheerness is the only reason I’ll forgive Williams and Baldeón for putting a shirt on him at all. For shame.
Bleeding The Hard Way
CM: Speaking of people without shirts, we finally got to meet the top streamer of Headshot TV and it’s exactly who we expected! It’s Shatterstar, as a wrestler but also to the death? When we first see him he’s just splattered in the blood of his enemies in the midst of a victory pose. He’s got a freaking title belt with his logo on it, and if the circumstances weren’t so horrifying, it’d be hecka sweet.
AA: Shatterstar’s outfit is two massive thumb’s up. [Ed. note: Based on the ring gear of Cody Rhodes, a big old nerd who once cosplayed as Mister Sinister for a match.]
What a jarring series of panels, especially that close up of his eye? That’s a great Baldeón moment. The next few pages are disturbing and have such broad implications, but Shatterstar speaking sheepishly in Krakoan stands out to me so much. What were your thoughts about this and live streaming an autopsy?
CM: So one thing that stands out about that sequence is how much it mirrors reality right now. Our colleagues on the wrestling beat are going to talk more about this soon, but it is entirely eerie how the timing of this issue lines up with current events. The WWE’s own Mojo, Vince McMahon, has just barred his wrestlers from streaming platforms, because he couldn’t control what they said on them. And with Shatterstar being unable to speak freely, it’s just the next advanced step in that pattern of behavior. And uh live streaming an autopsy is the second worst thing streaming on Headshot TV, behind only Adam-X’s snuff channel. Especially bad is that according to Aurora’s write-up, the autopsy was happening on what is typically a meditation type channel? What the heck?
AA: Dang Cori, such a good point. That McMahon classifies the wrestlers as independent contractors in order to skirt employment law, providing healthcare and establishing safety standards tells us all we need to know about the kind of person he is. Misclassification of workers further demonstrates the lack of safety net most of us, especially those in creative fields have. Also, when Shatterstar brings up the Headshot TV psychic shield neural net that definitely piqued my interest. Definitely hope we circle back to it with issues #4 and #5.
It’s pretty distressing that Sofia’s autopsy is happening on “Arize’s Arize and Shine Channel.” Nothing to get you into that contemplative, meditative moon like an autopsy! Speaking of which, Aurora brings up Sofia’s death in the journal entry Jean-Paul asks her to keep. The letter brings up a few important elements we’ve seen in the Mojoverse worth unpacking a bit.
First, Aurora brings up Adam-X’s channel who does commentary entertainment. He’s been replaying the death of Sofia as a tool to promote his livestream of her autopsy. Reflecting on this, Aurora says:
“Whether he is cognizant of doing this or not, when the inevitable collapse of Mojoverse’s current culture collapses, Adam-X will have curated a very comprehensive and detailed archive of the way these people are suffering while thousands more idly watched.”
“Overall, I find the honesty of Mojoverse channels’ brutality to be somewhat…refreshing.”
I do think there is a large component of our online media culture and the way we consume media which views brutality as somehow closer to truth. Showing traumatic images, replaying videos of brutality does not bring us honesty.
Every single piece of media we consume goes through a lens, a frame, and we only ever get a little bit of it. Even if we were to be there, experiencing an event in real time, it’s still subject to our past experiences, biases, prejudice and so on. So whatever honesty we feel we experience online and with creators, is largely because of our relationship to and how we identify with them. I am more likely to view someone as honest whose beliefs, actions and view of the world is more aligned with my own.
I cannot help but consider the implications of this for channels like Adam-X who may do commentary on live events but who may lack any kind of journalistic rigor or ethical standards. If we experience a closer personal relationship, if we as viewers identify more with someone on Twitch than say a news broadcaster, then what impact does this have on the media we are viewing on that channel? I suspect it has quite a lot.
Lord. If this pandemic has taught me anything it’s that viewing a “death count” everyday as outlets like CNN, Fox, and MSNBC do is freaking morbid. It also decreases our ability to empathize. It also increases stress, fear-responses and can be more traumatizing than actually experiencing a traumatic event. Research indicates that as the number of people in help increases, the degree of compassion people feel decreases. Investigation into how empathy works is expansive but there are many reasons why the aforementioned phenomenon occurs.
First, people respond differently to emotional and physical suffering. People may also engage in self-protective behaviors to prevent feeling overwhelmed, thinking of human suffering on a massive scale is pretty damn overwhelming. We are less likely to engage in prosocial empathetic behaviors when the material invokes emotions like shame or anger. Then we have a bunch of other things that come into play like our self-esteem and our perceived level of status and power.
CM: It’s definitely got a comparison to doom scrolling, which is how I spend entirely too much of my day. It’s a bad addiction, and one I know I should try to break, but it’s also the easiest way to keep informed in today’s society, so I keep doing it. So I definitely feel for Aurora just vegging out on the couch to the worst possible forms of entertainment. One last thing I want to touch on is that even though this case has been wrapped up, and Sofia’s body recovered, this story doesn’t seem done. I feel like after our sword break, we’re going to see this team going back to eff some ess up and get Shattybuns the heck outta there. But before that… SWORDS SWORDS SWORDS SWORDS SWORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!
AA:Oh yes. We definitely aren’t done with Sofia or whatever terrifying clones are being created for the sake of content™. Also, S ⚔ W ⚔ O ⚔ R ⚔ D ⚔S.
X-Trenuous Thoughts
- Standard disclaimer that Leah has been a friend of the Xavier Files Media Empire for a bit now but we’re being objective anyway.
- I absolutely love that Shatterstar’s logo is his star with his silly double bladed swords crossing it.
- Fortnite ages me 40 years
- Of all the shocking returning characters, He-Lix was the one I least expected.
- Shatterstar’s transmission should be highlighted, life imitates art and all that.
- I am so lonely.
- Me too ‘Star, me too.
