Morrison showed a realistic diversity on the topic of mutant/human relations. There were still "No muties" protestors around. As well as "No humans" protestors. Humans who treated mutants as celebrities. Humans so infatuated with mutants that they were willing to kill mutants to harvest their mutant organs for skin grafts as their own "trans-human right."

I thought Morrison did show a diversity of dialogue. Beast is erudite and urbane, of course, as he was from Page One. Emma is sarcastic. Domino is nonchalant and a little goofy. Scott is mopey and bitter these days. Logan has graduated from the feral class into the wise uncle who's seen it all. Xavier has, well as much or little personality as ever, given his mentor role. Only Jean has no distinguishing dialogue traits; she's a competent professional woman, which is a difficult character to write memorable dialogue for but a valued member of any organization.

Now, Morrison's challenge is that he keeps all the characterization in dialogue, whereas Claremont had all the characters engaged in constant internal monologues that gave us great insight into their distinctive thoughts on each topic. It's easier for Morrison to do what he's doing when Claremont has already laid the groundwork.

New X-Men #126 “All Hell” (June 2002)



I'm leaving this cover image large since it features several students who will play significant roles in stories published a couple of years from now. I wonder whether Morrison described them for Quitely, or whether Morrison just liked characters that Quitely invented and decided to run with them when time permitted.

Reminder: During this storyline, the minds of Charles Xavier and his twin sister Cassandra Nova have switched bodies. I will refer to Cassandra-in-Charles as “Cassandra” and “she,” and Charles-in-Cassandra as “Charles” and “he.” Thank you, and have a nice flight.

The Story: Cyclops and Xorn beam down from the exploding Shi’ar spaceship, and Xorn heals Jean Grey-Summers of the nano-Sentinel infestation in her bloodstream. Cassandra has defeated the Shi’ar Superguardians in an off-panel battle. Logan and Beast go into berserker mode, which apparently makes it difficult for Cassandra to attack them psychically. (The U-Men did the same trick when Jean Grey attacked them telepathically several issues ago.) She brings a horde of mind-controlled X-students to her defense. In the confusion, Xorn grapples with Cassandra intent on “healing” Xavier’s body of her, while Beast injects her with the nano-sentinel infestation, weakening her further.



Jean struggles to hold it together, alternately speaking with her own mind and the mind of Charles Xavier stored within her bursting brain. To clear her head (literally), using Cerebra she temporarily distributes his consciousness within the minds of all mutants worldwide. Jean steps aside, and Cassandra wears the Cerebra helm, intending to control all mutants everywhere at once, as she tried to do several issues ago. Instead, Charles’ consciousness floods back into his brain from all those mutants, driving Cassandra out into a bodiless psychic manifestation.



Out in the garden, Emma Frost and the Stepford Cuckoos have been messing with the captive Stuff, who is some sort of changeling bio-computer. Exposed to Cassandra’s DNA sample that Angel lifted from the lab last issue, Stuff transforms into a simulacrum of Cassandra’s body. Emma offers this body to Cassandra’s consciousness, who moves in before realizing it’s not her real body. Trapped! And Stuff has been programmed to take Cassandra’s mind through a re-education process starting in infancy, keeping her consciousness busy while maybe resulting in a better mental outcome next time. As a bonus: When Xavier awakens back inside his own body again, he finds that Xorn has healed him; he can walk again! (Again.)



My Two Cents: Thus ends Morrison’s first year as X-Writer. It’s an original story, focusing on an original villain, introducing numerous memorable supporting characters while telling a story built on four of the six original cast members. Wolverine is around too – how could he not be? – but relegated to the background rather than hogging the spotlight. I can’t think of any elements of regular (i.e. non-X) Marvel Universe continuity in the whole story. No crossovers that existed only to publicize dubious new series from the House of Ideas. No recurring mustache twirlers from X-Men days of yore. And I didn’t miss any of those continuity elements at all. How about you? Several issues later, Cyclops will actually comment, “After Genosha, the old troublemakers don’t seem to bother, do they?” There is one reference to Onslaught. Xavier, like us, seems glad to lose that memory.



Several pages of this issue are exposition by Xavier-in-Jean. The Shi’ar believe that Xavier’s antenatal experience is universal, not unique; every fetus struggles with its ideological opposite in the womb, and only one of the two survives to be born. Interesting philosophical concept; I wonder whether Morrison originated it or borrowed it. Anyway, Charles Xavier prevailed over fetal Cassandra; she was stillborn, and her body was disposed of in the City Sanitation system (Note: This is not actually what we do with stillborn babies, in case you were wondering), where many years later her still-living consciousness was able to coalesce her few remaining cells as the basis to grow a whole body. This is consistent with her immense regenerative powers but still doesn’t explain how Xavier’s identical twin can be a different sex.

Are the Shi’ar going to be OK with Superguardian Stuff being relegated to a prison for Cassandra whom the X-Men imprison in a footlocker indefinitely? Isn’t he, like, a sentient being and a valuable member of an interstellar strike force?

The X-Men exploit their two advantages over Cassandra, despite her raw power. First, they have tons more combat experience than she does, and teamwork practice as well. Second, she’s using Xavier’s body and brain, which they know well.

New X-Men #128 “New Worlds” (August 2002)



The Story: Charles Xavier publicly declares himself a mutant. Apparently this is something that Cassandra Nova did while she was in control of Xavier’s body? A riot breaks out at the French X-Corporation building. Lots of new-to-Morrison characters are there: Siryn, Darkstar, Rictor, Madrox, Monet, and Cannonball. Jean Grey-Summers is there too, briefing them on a mission to extract civilians from a subway car wreck underground. The civilians have been infected with some mid-controlling infection, and the rescue squad contracts it too and turns on itself in combat. Morrison loads this issue with fun team banter and Britishisms that don't all fit their characters, like Madrox (who is from New Mexico) saying "go mental," or later when Cyclops calls a turtleneck shirt a "rollneck."



Jean asks Xavier to test her abilities and peer into her soul to see whether she’s in danger of going all Dark Phoenix. Her subconscious has become so powerful that it’s not safe for him to enter, so Jean enters a semi-trance while Xavier speaks verbally with the Phoenix-force within her. This lengthy sequence has two important bits. One is when Xavier speculates that Cassandra Nova was essentially a force of nature attacking mutants. He muses that evolution itself might be intelligent. Store that thought.



The other is when Jean gives him a mysterious vision of a city in flames, with dead X-Men scattered about. "Are these words from the future?" 



We already heard Xavier say that back in Morrison's first issue, under the influence of Cerebra amplification.  Store that thought too.



In a dark Parisian alley, Fantomex, a masked man in Stormshadow-white shoots up (and is shot up by) a Special Forces team before acrobating away. He infiltrates the X-Corp building and demands sanctuary from the attack helicopter hovering outside the building.



Somewhere in a room with two chairs, Cyclops begins spilling his emotional guts to a leering Emma Frost. He calls his marital stability “phony” and complains that Jean is only sexually adventurous when she's being mind-controlled by the Hellfire Club.



My Two Cents: OK, this one was confusing. Morrison has finally decided to pull us into broader X-book continuity, and since my last issue of X-Men was somewhere around 1987, I was totally lost with this new team, which I guess must have a book of its own? No? Siryn was easy to pick out since she wears Banshee’s costume. Cannonball and Jamie Madrox I knew well from the 80s. Darkstar... I saw her somewhere in the 80s. Rictor and Monet were new to me, so they must be 90s characters.

Cyclops’ complaint about Jean in a corset seems quite revisionist; she was under Mastermind’s control at the time and acting very out of character. He doesn’t even bring up Logan, the only remotely unfaithful component of her life, while he’s had a string of other relationships with the likes of Colleen Wing and Lee Forester and Maddy Pryor (and now, Emma) over the years. But Morrison is hitting on two well-known truisms that (1) married men often feel entitled to more sex than their wives wish to give them, and (2) people falling off the cliff of infidelity tend to focus on and even inflate any similar behavior by their spouses, as a pretext for being unfaithful themselves. Jean on the other hand doesn’t talk to Charles about her marital issues (which I can sort of understand) but also leaves Scott home with Emma (which I do not understand, after the Hong Kong episode).

Igor Kordey is on art once again. He gives us a full splash page splay-legged crotch shot not only of Emma but also of Jean. Perhaps this was supposed to be some kind of mirror metaphor commenting on their respective relationships with Scott, but it just feels icky. Also, since he can’t draw nice faces, both of these stunning women look quite unattractive in most images, but especially the two splash pages. No, I am not going to post them.

At what point did Emma Frost become someone who was trusted enough to have students on X-teams? I am unclear what the X-Men thought about Genosha as it existed at the beginning of Morrison's run.

Ah yes, Morrison's swipe of Diabolik, with Fantomas' name (and Arsene Lupin's attitude)  For those not versed with European comics and French pulp literature, Diabolik is an anti-hero thief, created by sisters Angelina and Luciana Giussani.  He wears a skintight outfit and mask (which indicates the lines of his mouth, in the art) and confounds Inspector Ginko, while taking on more deadly criminals and terrorists, aided by his lover Eva Kant.  He starred in over 800 volumes of Italian fumetti ("puff of smoke," the Italian term for comics).  The basic concept is swiped from French pulp literature, in the forms of the gentleman thief Arsene Lupin and the master criminal Fantomas.  Lupin is a thief who more often than not is on the side of the angels and even faced Sherlock Holmes, in a copyright violation that nearly led to lawsuits from Conan Doyle and his publisher.  Fantomas is a master criminal and psychopath who is hunted by the journalist Fandor and police Inspector Juve.  Morrison's likely introduction is the 1968 film Danger:  Diabolik, from Mario Bava and Dino De Laurentiis, and Andre Hunebelle's three Fantomas films (Fantomas, Fantomas Unleashed, and Fantomas vs Scotland Yard) from 1964-67, starring Jean Marais as both Fandor and Fantomas.