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Post by rberman on Apr 18, 2018 21:12:47 GMT -5
New X-Men #114 “E is for Extinction, Part One” (July 2001)
 The Story: Morrison starts his run with a nicely pared-down cast of five longstanding characters. No alternate reality doppelgangers. No visitors from a dystopian future. Charles Xavier, Hank McCoy (a blue, newly leonine version), and Jean Grey are testing Cerebra. The machine visualizes mutants on a world map as lighted figures, almost exactly as depicted in the X-Men movies. (More about which see below). What’s that glowing reading Cerebra is picking up in Ecuador? Cyclops and Wolverine are returning from a mission in Australia where they've picked up a three-faced mutant named Ugly John; they are tasked to check it out. While amplified by Cerebra, Xavier experiences a psionic attack from his “first, oldest and last enemy.” They fight for control over his body, and Xavier pulls out a pistol, ready to blow his own brains out to prevent the takeover. Jean removes Xavier from Cerebra, and the attack subsides, but Xavier knows something terrible is happening to the South American recon mission. Xavier also says, non sequitur: "Are these words from the future?" File that statement away; it will come up again in about 45 issues.  In Ecuador's jungle, a wizened, bald woman brings the last surviving member of Bolivar Trask’s family to a dormant Master Mold. The forest is crawling with robot critters in various semi-Sentinel shapes and bristling with weaponry. Scott and Logan may receive an unpleasant welcome when they arrive… Biographical Background: I had collected X-Men as a young teen in the early 80s but had fallen away around 1986 when my spending money was diverted into gas for my car and CDs for my music library. So I missed seminal events like The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. I also missed all the terrible, terrible comics that followed in the late 80s and early 90s, as well as the renaissance of classic heroism heralded by stories like “Kingdom Come” and “All-Star Superman.” However, I was a fan of Joss Whedon’s television work on Buffy and Firefly, so when I saw a few years ago that he’d done a two year run as writer for Astonishing X-Men several years prior, I got the Omnibus edition. Loved it. Though his story was original, almost every element in Whedon's set-up was from the early 80s. Almost. But a few of them seemed more recent. Emma was on the team and turning to diamond for some reason? What was up with that? Who’s this bald villainess? I decided to check out Grant Morrison’s run which immediately preceded Whedon. I’d heard good things about his work on Doom Patrol and Animal Man. My Two Cents: The first X-Men movie came out in 2000. As in, almost twenty years ago. Wow! At the time, Marvel (not yet owned by Disney or making its own cinematic universe) treated those Fox-made films as a boon, a maybe chance to get film-watchers to buy some of the source material. So Morrison seems to have been instucted stylistically to work from that first film’s template. The team wears matching yellow and black suits rather than individualized costumes, but not the familiar student suits from the Kirby/Lee issues. The previous issue #113 was the last of the series entitled simply “X-Men,” so Marvel was making a big deal that Morrison was doing something “New” from the last hundred-plus issues, which had ended Scott Lobdell’s writing run with Wolverine nearly killing Magneto. I don’t know how easily #114 issue would read to a total X-Men comics newbie who had only seen the film, but for a former 80s reader like me, it was no problem. The only mystery element was the inclusion of Emma Frost in the issue-opening roll call, since she does not appear in the issue, and she was not an X-Man when I last read the series. Two important details are introduced subtly concerning Jean Grey. First, she and Scott are having relationship problems. We see this first during a telepathic team conference, when she doesn't sit with him, and she scowls at him. This visual cue is confirmed by two separate sets of dialogue which immediately follow: Logan with Scott, and Hank with Jean.  The second detail is in the team headshot collection on the title page. Jean is shown disassembling a watch with her mind. Messing with time. Keep that in mind.  This first issue has little action except the two-page struggle for Xavier’s mind, but plenty of characterization and interest-building as to what happens next. "My X-Men, Cerebro (or now, Cerebra) is picking up an unusual energy reading; go check it out" is one of the classic X-Men story lead-ins, so Morrison is paying homage to X-Men history in a variety of ways. Cerebra looks like a giant eye.  I already knew Frank Quitely’s work from All-Star Superman. I like his idiosyncratic, elongated style. Sometimes (as on the cover) the women's legs are ridiculously long, but his clean lines remind me of Paul Smith’s celebrated run following Dave Cockrum.  Cyclops and Logan say that Ugly John needs to come for America for corrective surgery because no qualified Australian doctor will operate on a mutant. That's standard "X-Men, hated and feared" stuff. But Morrison will soon introduce the notion of humans who love and envy and obsess over mutants as well. Quitely gives us a lot of information about Beast. He tears the whole lid off his can of Diet Pepsi (note the circle logo) rather than just popping the top. He has a rose on his computer table, signifying his love of beauty and culture. Perhaps a reference to the Disney "Beauty and the Beast" film in which a rose losing its petals was a metaphor of the Beast's time running out? That may be stretching it. Beast also has a naked baby doll sitting atop his monitor for some odd reason. Perhaps it's related to the dialogue describing a mutant baby boom?  Index#114-116 "E for Extinction" New X-Men Annual 2001 "The Man from Room X" # 117 "Danger Rooms" # 118-120 "Germ-Free Generation" # 121 "Silence: Psychic Rescue in Progress" # 122-126 "Imperial/Testament/Superdestroyer/Losers/All Hell" (Cassandra Nova and Shi'ar) # 127 "Of Living and Dying" # 128-130 "New Worlds/Fantomex/Weapon Twelve" # 131-132 "Some Angels Falling/Ambient Magnetic Fields" one-shots # 133 "Dust" (this review is far out of order) # 134-137 "Kid Ω/Teaching Children about Fractals/When X is not X/Riot at Xavier's” # 138 "The Prime of Miss Emma Frost" Excursus: Quentin Quire # 139-141 "Shattered/Murder at the Mansion/Whodunnit" # 142-145 "Assault on Weapon Plus: Brimstone and Whiskey/The World/The Flesh/The Devil" # 146-150 "Planet X" Excursus: Is Xorn (spoilers)? # 151-154 "Here Comes Tomorrow" Postlude
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 18, 2018 21:48:07 GMT -5
I really want to get into this run, but I can't stand Quietly's art. Maybe reading reviews will be better for me  |
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Post by rberman on Apr 19, 2018 5:38:57 GMT -5
New X-Men #115 “E is for Extinction, Part Two” (August 2001)
The Story: A Sentinel attack crashes the jet with Cyclops, Wolverine, and Ugly John at the feet of the Master Mold Sentinel-maker deep in the Ecuadorean jungle. The little Sentinels capture them. The old bald woman Ms. Nova learns to replicate the voice of Mr. Trask, who as a descendant of Bolivar Trask can control the Sentinels. After that, she doesn’t need him any more, so she kills him in a suitably Morrison-esque bit of freakery:  Ms. Nova half kills Ugly John before Cyclops and Wolverine break free, and Cyclops feels obliged to give the dying Ugly John a quick death. Wolverine severs Nova’s vocal cords so that she can’t command the Sentinels further. They get some sort of pickup (their own “X-Wing” plane crashed and then was scuttled) and return to the X-Mansion with Nova captive. She’s healing unusually quickly, though. And before they captured her, she had sent a super-Sentinel off to exterminate the mutant nation of Genosha, where Emma Frost teaches a class of high school mutants…  My Two Cents: We get two fights for Wolverine and Cyclops and a sad death for sad sack Ugly John; I was rooting for him to stay around a little longer. Wolverine and Cyclops both show tactical savvy but also a ruthlessness that wouldn’t have passed the Comics Code back in the 80s. Cyclops expresses apparent faith in the afterlife. Is he talking about heaven, or about Morrison's favorite concept that comic book characters can't die, because readers can always go back and read the story in which the character still lived? "More than just this world" would refer to our world, the world of comic book readers.  Emma Frost was shown to be a teacher of mutants at the Massachusetts Academy way back in Uncanny X-Men #151 (1981), so it makes sense that she’s teaching in Genosha too. Morrison gives her a delightfully wicked wit; was he the first to do so? Emma will alternate between two main outfits in this series. One is an eye-popping halter top with a cut-out in the shape of an X across her chest and abdomen. The other top is basically the cloth inverse of the first, consisting only of an X. Do not ask me how either of these stays in place; it must be a mutant power. Emma’s costumes are my second-least favorite thing about the Morrison era, but I won’t tediously keep mentioning them. Probably. I will admit that in the picture above (and throughout the series), Emma is rocking some amazing Elton John-style platform shoes that, while unwieldy, say a lot about her desire to seem bigger than she is. We'll eventually see what she's overcompensating for. I never read any previous issues featuring Genosha, but my second-hand understanding was that it was a supposed haven for mutants that turned out to be a slave colony for mutants and then was turned into an actual haven for mutants. Now the extinction Sentinel is turning it into a mass grave for mutants, as we see its population plummet from 16 million to under a thousand in a matter of moments. All in all, an exciting issue with strong characterization as well. Three mutant students in particular deserve special mention. One is the goth girl with blue skin. She is Negasonic Teenage Warhead, named after a 1994 song by the band Monster Magnet. She dies here but will nevertheless return in Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men immediately after Morrison finishes his run. The second mutant student is this one dressed in strict Muslim garb. She looks just like a character named Dust whom Morrison will introduce down the line. Did he invent her here, immediately kill her off, and then later decide that he wanted to use her after all? Or did he always intend it to be a different woman?  Third is this unnamed girl mutant who is wearing X-Men brand clothing. This notion of X-Men as a trendy brand name in their world will become a major Morrison theme in issues to come; this is the first instance. The specific character on the shirt looks very similar to a soon-to-be introduced Shi'ar Superguardian named Stuff, the analogue of the Legion of Super Heroes' pet Proty (or perhaps Chameleon Boy). That may be a coincidence.  In last issue's roll call, the guys were identified by their birth names and code names, but Jean Grey and Emma Frost were not given code names. This was corrected this issue. But I wonder: I don't know enough about previous issues to know whether Jean thinks of herself as Phoenix at this point; she's certainly not exhibiting Star Lord-level powers. And does Emma still use the White Queen moniker now that she's dissociated from the Hellfire Club? Are these images to scale? Emma is tiny, shorter than Logan and more slender than Jean, who is an amazon, as tall as Scott and Beast.  I said yesterday that on my first reading, Frank Quitely’s art made me think of Paul Smith. But now that I’ve read The Incal I see a strong Moebius influence. Thumbs up to Quitely for making Logan clearly shorter, huskier, and yes, hairier than “Slim” Summers. All the main chracters have very different silhouettes.  The sentinel attack on Genosha includes an airplane shaped like fist, smashing into the tallest skyscraper around. (Top left panel below) This issue was published weeks before September 11, 2001. More on this later. Note also the X-branded merchandise on the signs in "Times Square" in Genosha. 
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 19, 2018 18:54:08 GMT -5
Agreed. SOooooooo much Moebius in Quitely's stuff.
Oh, man, I love this whole era of "Vertigo-ized" Marvel. (Seriously. I have NEVER HEARD ANYONE ELSE MENTION that Marvel was actively head-hunting writing talent from DC Vertigo - Morrison, Ennis, Millar, Gaiman, Ellis, Milligan, Brian K. Vaughan all did work for Marvel in the early 2000s) I got back into comics with Sandman and was mostly ignoring Marvel until the Quesada era.
Marvel felt different, new, and interesting - And creator driven as opposed to editorial driven - for the first time since Frank Miller and Bill Seinciwicz. I was buying all the X-men titles (even the terrible ones) along-side Cerebus and Transmetropolitan for a while there.
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Post by String on Apr 19, 2018 19:04:19 GMT -5
Genosha first appeared in UXM #235. Long story short (too late!), it was an island located off the east African coast whose modern marvel cities were built upon the backs of mutants who underwent a 'mutate' process that stripped them of free will and basically made them slaves of the state. The whole set-up was kept secret from the global public.
Once discovered by the X-Men, several small events and actions (culminating in the Legacy virus spread) lead to the mutant slaves rising in rebellion and eventually winning. But the toll on their society and economy was too large and the remaining mutant population faced imminent survival dangers. That is, until the UN intervened and decided to award the island nation to Magneto in an attempt to distract/appease him. He managed to rebuild the island nation to the point where it was feared he was going to use the local mutant population as an army to attack. A team of X-Men were able to stop his plans. It was after this event that Nova launched her attack on Genosha.
I've had my problems with Morrison's run. I've tried a couple of times to read it and have only managed to make it through this initial arc. Quitely's art is part of the problem, it looks rough to me in certain regards. I think my biggest problem is Morrison's degrading the relationship between Scott and Jean. I've long been a strong believer in that relationship, especially in being one of the foundational relationships of the MU. Thus, I've rarely been a supporter of his later relationship with Emma, in fact, there have been only a very few writers of late (Bunn being the most recent) that, through dialogue, have made me feel in any way sympathetic to their coupling.
So perhaps your reviews will help in this regard.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 19, 2018 20:15:52 GMT -5
I look forward to your reviews, rberman!
I was never a Morrison fan, but I enjoyed his X-Men. He might have played it loose with characterization and continuity, but he got the book away from the insufferable alternate timelines/duplicated characters/incestuous self-referential plots that have been a hallmark of the X titles since the early 90s. Getting the X-Men out of their colourful spandex was also a boon!
If memory serves, Morrison himself conceived the extremely cool “New X-Men” logo. Neat stuff!
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Post by rberman on Apr 19, 2018 21:25:31 GMT -5
I look forward to your reviews, rberman! I was never a Morrison fan, but I enjoyed his X-Men. He might have played it loose with characterization and continuity, but he got the book away from the insufferable alternate timelines/duplicated characters/incestuous self-referential plots that have been a hallmark of the X titles since the early 90s. Getting the X-Men out of their colourful spandex was also a boon! If memory serves, Morrison himself conceived the extremely cool “New X-Men” logo. Neat stuff! I'm glad you mentioned the logo. I was going to bring it up at an opportune moment. It looks cool. It also suggests that the same thing looked at from different angles can be different things, which is an interesting thematic idea.  |
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Post by rberman on Apr 20, 2018 5:30:05 GMT -5
I really want to get into this run, but I can't stand Quietly's art. Maybe reading reviews will be better for me The good news for you is that Quitely only draws sporadically. For instance, he does 114-116 and isn't seen again (on interiors) until 121. I understand he's a slow artist. |
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Post by rberman on Apr 20, 2018 5:32:04 GMT -5
New X-Men #116 “E is for Extinction, Part Three” (September 2001) All in favor of Emma's leather shorts not having cameltoe at all, let alone on the cover, say "aye." I really hate this look. Get that woman a cape! The Story: Hank McCoy, Jean Grey, and a rescue squad are sifting through the ashes of Genosha. They find Emma Frost, traumatized, cradling the corpse of her student Negasonic Teenage Warhead. (The name would appear on another character much later in the Deadpool movies. Waste not, want not!) Emma is also made of solid, living diamond somehow. Even she can’t explain it. Later when she’s more lucid, she wonders aloud what her net worth is. Beast later coins a new term, calling it Emma's "secondary mutation."  Back to the Xavier Institute. Beast thinks that their captive, Cassandra Nova, is some sort of evolutionary leap forward from mutants. Homo Supremus? Worse still, he finds that a latent “extinction gene” is getting triggered in regular humans; in a few generations, they will all be gone. Suddenly, Nova awakens and shatters her prison. Using her immense telepathic powers, she sends Cyclops’ consciousness to a creepy “Black Bug Room” inside his mind. She’s telekinetic too, rapidly healing from his optic blast and melting the flesh off of Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton along his whole right arm. Nova is about to put on the Cerebra helmet and amplify her impressive powers to an absurd degree when Emma steps out of the shadows in diamond form and snaps her neck. Xavier finishes her off with five rounds from his handgun, and her bright blue blood spatters everyone.  Watching cable news that night, Scott and Jean see a sudden wave of pro-mutant sympathy in the wake of Genosha's destruction. Without consulting anyone, Xavier goes on national TV and reveals his secret identity.  My Two Cents: Last issue we had the extinction of Genosha, lowering the worldwide population of mutants by 50%. But now the extinction event is the human race, collectively laying down to die in the face of a superior species on the scene. Is this Cassandra Nova’s intentional or incidental doing? This issue has three segments: The Genosha cleanup (Emma is the only survivor that we see), the debrief, and then the vicious fight between Nova and the X-Men. Logan is the first to ask why their assailant looks like a female Charles Xavier. She's also absurdly powerful, healing instantly after being shreddded first by Cyclops' eye beams and then by Wolverine's claws. So how did Wolverine damage her in the first place back in Bolivia? Was she playing possum so they'd bring her to the mansion where her quarry Xavier lives? If so, is she playing possum again now, or did Xavier's bullets really put her down? Given that she can shred Wolverine down to the bone with a thought, we're in Omega Mutant territory here.  Morrison makes explicit his costume theory: These new neon yellow uniforms are supposed to look like rescue squad jackets. This proves handy when sifting through the rubble of the terrorist attack on Genosha's largest city. Did I mention that this issue was published in September 2001?  Beast describes Cassandra Nova as another evolutionary jump forward from mutants, using language nearly identical to the opening narration in the first X-Men film.  Scott and Jean's estrangement gets shown visually, as she turns for Beast to comfort when the fight is over, instead of to her husband. Later dialogue reveals she and Scott have not been intimate in five months. 
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Post by rberman on Apr 21, 2018 7:16:42 GMT -5
New X-Men 2001 Annual “The Man from Room X” (September 2001) Time for a horizontally oriented story! Strap in for a difficult reading experience. Before I forget: The title of this story is one of Grant Morrison's zillion tweaks at Alan Moore, whose character V in V for Vendetta was also known as "The Man from Room Five" (Roman numeral V). Morrison can't leave ill enough alone! OK, on with the story at hand. Story One: After Xavier announces his identity to the world, he sets up "X-Corp" offices around the globe. Is this like the "Batman Incorporated" story Morrison did for DC? Also, Mumbai, Hong Kong, and Melbourne are relatively close geographically. Why no office in Africa or South America? Nigeria is the world's seventh most populous country as of 2020. There must be a lot of mutants there, like China and India.  In Hong Kong, Emma Frost, Logan, Hank McCoy, and Scott Summers are seeing the sights of the harbor. Domino and Logan discuss how tense Cyclops is, ever since he was possessed by Apocalypse in a pre-Morrison storyline. That night, Emma shows up at Scott’s hotel room joking about his vow of chastity, referring to the fact that he hasn't had sex with his wife in six months:  Story Two: The mutant Xorn has been enchained in a Chinese prison for over 50 years, encased in a lead helmet resembling a skull. His head is a star (!), exposure to which incinerates a hapless peasant couple. American business mogul John Sublime bribes Ao Jun, the prison commander, to sell him the prison and its sole prisoner. Sublime is a self-help guru preaching a gospel of better living through body modification: specifically, mutant body parts grafted onto humans. His three U-Man chief disciples Jan, Biro, and Harriet declare themselves a third species: “Homo Perfectus, the self-mutated.” Ao Jun himself is a mutant whose dandruff and eczema skin flakes grow into short-lived replicas of himself. Ew! Gloria “Risque” Munoz and Domino represent the X-Corporation’s interests in Asia. They have discovered Chinese-origin mutant organs on the black market and want to shut off the source. Risque was murdered in the parking garage of Sublime Pharm Solutions. It’s “Mission Impossible” time! Domino sneaks in through the ventilation to find the keys to free Xorn (not knowing his name yet, but we do), while Logan infiltrates a swanky party in the lobby and starts a brawl to distract the security guards away from Domino's work. Cyclops, Emma, and Beast blast their way in from the garage, finding some grotesque human experiments and engaging in battle with the U-Men. Emma displays the previously unknown ability to scan a metal prison key for residual telepathic traces which tell her the location of the prison and the backstory of its lone prisonerk, Xorn. I bet we never see her use this ability again. Here's where you can see Scott wearing a trendy X-branded shirt, showing the "mutant chic" theme that for Morrison stands in for the rise of geek culture in our world.  Traveling to China, the X-Men blast open Xorn’s prison (using missiles fired from their X-Wing jet, no less!) to find Xorn on the verge of suicidal despair, the star in his head about to expand and immolate Planet Earth. This turns out to be Ao Jun’s intention, a spiteful stab at the world for making him spend his life in the middle of nowhere as caretaker for a mute prisoner. Emma gives Scott knowledge of "Chinese language," and he talks Xorn down from the ledge, offering him a home among the X-Men. Happy ending!  My Two Cents: My first exposure to Grant Morrison was in his “Batman R.I.P.” story (2008) which I found hopelessly opaque; all I could say after reading it was that Batman had been in it and done some stuff. All-Star Superman was better in that regard but still had some confusing moments of non-linear storytelling. I remember having similar thoughts the first time I read this X-Men Annual, but the story was much clearer to me this time around. The art by Leinil Francis Yu was uneven, sometimes quite good and sometimes not. The pages are oriented in landscape fashion like that Negative Zone issue John Byrne did ( Fantastic Four #252 in 1983). The notion of Xorn having a star in his head is pretty audacious, and we aren’t supposed to think too hard about exactly what that entails; it’s just a cool thing to say and doesn’t have a ton to do with the power set he’s subsequently shown to have. We won't see Xorn again for several issues; it turns out he spends some time meditating in a Chinese monastery before actually joining the X-Men in America. X-Men have been around a long time, so we’ve seen many variations of the “humans vs mutants” conflict. We’ve seen humans fearing mutants and trying to murder or imprison them all. We've seen periods of peaceful collaboration when mutants are admired. We've seen mutants wishing to become human. We’ve seen mutants taking over the world, imprisoning the humans and enslaving other mutants. Morrison’s new character John Sublime gives us a variation which was at least new to me: Humans who want to be mutants so badly that they’ll mutilate themselves and some mutant victims just to get a taste of mutanthood. They use the language of "rights" to justify their atrocities. Sublime is an Elon Musk-style wealthy, charismatic nutjob. Glorious Godfrey updated for the TED Talk age. He has grafted stolen mutant bug wings onto his own back. He can't even use them but swears that will change.   Emma pulling a “Matrix” on Scott and imbuing him with instant mission-specific knowledge was a nice trick—too nice, in fact, since that ability would be incredibly useful pretty much all the time in one way or another. We don’t see it recurring in the future, and, like her ability to 'read' the metal key, it’s best forgotten before every subsequent story discussion becomes about how Emma fails to use that tactic when it would have been relevant. Also, Morrison seems a little unclear about Chinese languages. He correctly notes that Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong, but when the team travels north to the Chinese tundra (Mongolia?), surely the local language there would be something different, whether Mandarin or some local language. Emma acts as if Logan's knowledge of Cantonese would be relevant. How many languages does Logan know, anyway?  Speaking of unbelievable moments, I simply do not believe that the X-jet (called "X-Wing" by Morrison as a Star Wars joke) was designed and fitted out with missile launchers.  Emma wears the black X-jacket for the first and, I believe, only time while breaking into Subulime Pharm.  It’s an interesting notion that Emma’s super-villainy was a drug-induced exaggeration of her usual personality. It could partially become an excuse for the horrible things she's done before, but the revelation that she's a former addict also gives her a humanizing element, inasmuch as addiction is a weakness, and super-villainy is in one way or another about power. We'll see in later issues that Emma still isn't entirely over her substance abuse issues. She may not be a mustache twirler who wants to conquer the world, but she’s also not a nice person. Putting the moves on Scott is entirely consistent with her character; she’s had it in for Jean ever since they first met in the Hellfire Club Saga, so we can easily imagine her taking advantage of a chance to catch Scott alone and super-tense. She may not want to conquer the world, but conquering Jean’s world would still be a victory in her mind.  As for Scott, several characters have commented on how messed up he is since his mind control thingy (a story which I haven’t read myself), but it would have been nice to see him make a big blunder or fly off the handle inappropriately at somebody (Hank?) so we could actually see his stress. Morrison is being careful not to introduce either new or old characters too quickly during his run, which is a good choice. I sort of knew Domino as a veteran warrior and Cable’s girlfriend but had never read any stories featuring her bfore now. She serves fine as “action girl” here. Her "luck" power, like Longshot's, is a convenient plot device for whatever the writers need to happen next. I don’t know Risque at all and wonder whether she had a fan base that was enraged by her offscreen death.  Overall this issue is less successful than the three preceding it but is important for (1) introducing Xorn and John Sublime, and (2) Emma’s late night visit to Cyclops.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 21, 2018 9:27:10 GMT -5
The annual was not included in the TPB that collected the start of Morrison’s run (I wish I had gotten the larger hardcover that did, but I think that was published later). Pity, but the regukar title did a good job of bringing the reader up to speed.
Not having read the X-Men comics since 1993, I have no idea if Scott’s psychological problems were previously caused by his fusing with Apocalypse or are an idea retroactively introduced by Morrison. In any case, “Scott has mental problems” is a meme I have to live with (despite being a big Cyclops fan) since that’s how the character was handled most of the time since Louise Simonson’s days on X-Factor. At least, here, it serves a genuine story purpose.
Emma’s new personality works for me, but like that of several other characters it’s essentially a reboot when compared to who she was in the 1970s and 1980s. Does her behaviour fit with the way she acted in Generation X? I haven’t read that title.
I like the way Morrison handles Xavier. The man is clearly conscious of the danger he represents, and his aloofness can be attributed by (a) a perhaps justifiable sense of mental superiority to anyone else, and (b) a strong sense of entitlement. This Xavier just loves being the one everyone looks up to. It doesn’t make him sympathetic, but gives him a depth of complexity that few other writers gave him. (Even in Claremont’s hands, Xavier was essentially a saint).
One thing that annoyed me in these issues is how impossibly fast Wolverine heals. I was introduced to the character back when his being stabbed or shot would incapacitate him for hours or days, and here he can regrow an arm in seconds. That’s not a weird mutation, that’s magic!
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Post by Cheswick on Apr 21, 2018 10:43:32 GMT -5
The annual was not included in the TPB that collected the start of Morrison’s run (I wish I had gotten the larger hardcover that did, but I think that was published later). Pity, but the regukar title did a good job of bringing the reader up to speed. Not having read the X-Men comics since 1993, I have no idea if Scott’s psychological problems were previously caused by his fusing with Apocalypse or are an idea retroactively introduced by Morrison. In any case, “Scott has mental problems” is a meme I have to live with (despite being a big Cyclops fan) since that’s how the character was handled most of the time since Louise Simonson’s days on X-Factor. At least, here, it serves a genuine story purpose. Emma’s new personality works for me, but like that of several other characters it’s essentially a reboot when compared to who she was in the 1970s and 1980s. Does her behaviour fit with the way she acted in Generation X? I haven’t read that title. I like the way Morrison handles Xavier. The man is clearly conscious of the danger he represents, and his aloofness can be attributed by (a) a perhaps justifiable sense of mental superiority to anyone else, and (b) a strong sense of entitlement. This Xavier just loves being the one everyone looks up to. It doesn’t make him sympathetic, but gives him a depth of complexity that few other writers gave him. (Even in Claremont’s hands, Xavier was essentially a saint). One thing that annoyed me in these issues is how impossibly fast Wolverine heals. I was introduced to the character back when his being stabbed or shot would incapacitate him for hours or days, and here he can regrow an arm in seconds. That’s not a weird mutation, that’s magic! Emma's personality during Morrison's run is, essentially, the same as it was in Generation X and her transition from villain was handled really well in that book. As with Morrison's run, she retained enough villainous traits to keep her from truly being a hero but they were well-balanced with heroic traits, such as how much she cared for her students.
I agree about Wolverine's healing abilities, but I believe they were increased earlier on, so I think Morrison was just going along with what was already established. He did, in a later issue, have him go into a deep sleep state in order to recuperate from an unseen battle.
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Post by sabongero on Apr 21, 2018 12:38:50 GMT -5
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Post by rberman on Apr 21, 2018 13:46:40 GMT -5
The annual was not included in the TPB that collected the start of Morrison’s run (I wish I had gotten the larger hardcover that did, but I think that was published later). Pity, but the regukar title did a good job of bringing the reader up to speed. Not having read the X-Men comics since 1993, I have no idea if Scott’s psychological problems were previously caused by his fusing with Apocalypse or are an idea retroactively introduced by Morrison. In any case, “Scott has mental problems” is a meme I have to live with (despite being a big Cyclops fan) since that’s how the character was handled most of the time since Louise Simonson’s days on X-Factor. At least, here, it serves a genuine story purpose. Emma’s new personality works for me, but like that of several other characters it’s essentially a reboot when compared to who she was in the 1970s and 1980s. Does her behaviour fit with the way she acted in Generation X? I haven’t read that title. I like the way Morrison handles Xavier. The man is clearly conscious of the danger he represents, and his aloofness can be attributed by (a) a perhaps justifiable sense of mental superiority to anyone else, and (b) a strong sense of entitlement. This Xavier just loves being the one everyone looks up to. It doesn’t make him sympathetic, but gives him a depth of complexity that few other writers gave him. (Even in Claremont’s hands, Xavier was essentially a saint). The annual was included in the "Grant Morrison's New X-Men Vol 1" TPB that I got, which must be a later one than what you got. It goes up through #126. Emma had no real personality at first; she was just Sebastian Shaw's nasty telepathic partner. Claremont fleshed her out gradually, making her feel proprietary toward her Hellions but also happy to gaslight them when it suited her plans:   Cyclops was always moody and all "I can't date Jean... because of my curse!" under Stan Lee and full of self-loathing and recriminations under Chris Claremont, but not the outright jerk he is under Morrison. Whedon dialed that way back into determined heroism, as we'll see in a month or so.  Xavier was a problem from Day One. Marvel heroes were generally about torment, but what does the Wise Mentor have to be tormented about? He was mostly a surrogate dad and Professor X-position. There was one obvious possibility for personal conflict in a house with one man, a bunch of high school students, and one young lady, but the writers only went there once in the early days, then must have realized it was a really bad direction to take him:  In the X-Men that Chris Claremont inherited from Len Wein, Xavier had no real place. The team already had experienced warriors like Wolverine and Banshee and didn't need a mentor. His telepathic powers were also overpowered, ending any battle in which he could bring them to bear. So our heroes spent a lot of time away from him. When he was around, he was still pretty bland, though we did get backstory of his relationships with Moira McTaggart and Gabrielle Haller. Then came the infamous X-Men/Micronauts mini-series in which Xavier's inner evil manifested as a separate personality with a thing for teen girls Kitty Pryde and Danielle Moonstar:   So Claremont often portrayed Xavier as boring, but sometimes as secretly monstrous, even when he wasn't harboring a Brood embryo or something. Not to mention later stories like the time he was revealed to have sent another whole team of mutant recruits to their doom fighting Krakoa, or the original conception of "Onslaught" simply as "Xavier gone evil" without any Magneto to blame it on. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 21, 2018 19:55:56 GMT -5
I’d say Claremont never made Xavier less than a saintly figure, as all his evil doppelgängers were just that... evil versions of the man, and not the man himself. On top of the evil Microverse-destroying version above, there was an early Evil Xavier in X-Men #106. (I am still bummed that all the Marvel heroes hate Cyclops for what he did as the Phoenix, while Xavier gets a free pass for commiting cosmic-scale genocide in the X-Men/Micronauts miniseries... but that’s comic-book continuity for you!)
Actually, that may not be entirely correct. Claremont did make Xavier something of a jerk in X-Men #129, when he was upset that the New X-Men were not behaving like the original ones. So there was a slight unpleasant edge to the man (and more power to Claremont for giving him a little complexity under the thick layer of selfless nobility).
Morrison took it to a whole new level, though. His Xavier is not a man with telepathic powers, he is a telepath who must work hard to see the world as “normies” do. He really behaves as someone detached from his students; he does care for them deeply, but almost as he would for cute and kind of stupid animals, as if almost no one could play the game at his level. He’s also very aware of his role as a major leading figure in the mutant pantheon, and doesn’t seem to mind it one bit! Which is a bit of hubris that’s not bad at all, as far as storytelling is concerned.
(Didn’t Xavier sacrifice an entire team of X-Men in a retcon set during the first encounter with Krakoa? That’s a pretty crappy thing to do as well, although not one written by Claremont).
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