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Post by rberman on May 6, 2018 14:38:53 GMT -5
New X-Men #131 “Some Angels Falling” (October 2002)
Meanwhile, Emma genuinely is helping Scott process the mental trauma of his possession experience, but she doesn’t know who to relate to a man non-sexually, so she drags him into her own drama. This would not end well even if he were unmarried, instead of being married to a creature of passion who’s been known to eat solar systems when enraged (or simply hungry). So it’s a double-entrendre of an issue title, referring both to Angel falling for Beak despite her emotional wounds, and the formerly angelic Scott falling for Emma because of his emotional wounds. (The funeral of Darkstar might allow even a third fallen angel in the mix, though we haven't seen enough of her to really miss her.) Morrison is in full-on soap opera mode here, but it’s effective, credible character development.  Man I can't wait until the later issues, when they are really into to. And Emma's straining to keep the link of their psychic sexual connections, and the Stepford Cuckoos started noticing and found out about it. Then, letting Jean know, and Jean psychically walking in through the door finding Emma on top of Scott with her Dark Phoenix costume on, but about almost completely open in the front. That was hilarious. The fantasy role play lets us see what a terrible case of Jean-envy Emma has. It's not just about stealing Scott. Jean is highly respected by everybody, while the only person Emma has really bonded with is Hank, who alone in the mansion shares her highbrow wine-and-cheese-and-ballet interests. (Also, Beast wasn't around for all her Hellfire Club misdeeds and thus may not hold her past against her as much as the others do.) Emma wants to be Jean in as many ways as circumstances will allow. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 6, 2018 17:36:23 GMT -5
Kordey does fine with body posture and action scenes. But as I mention somewhere around here, he fails what's apparently considered a basic test among professional illustrators: Can he make attractive people look attractive? Not everyone has to look like an underwear model. Ugly looks right on Toad or Logan. But Jean is supposed to be a former fashion model, and Emma spent a million bucks to look like a million bucks. And when I see Kordey's versions of them, it doesn't seem like he's making an artistic statement about their circumstances or their inner states. It just looks like he can't draw attractive people properly. I don’t find them particularly ugly, but It’s true that making a character attractive is a pretty difficult thing. I am amazed by what Jaime Hernandez can do in that regard... Or Frank Cho (when he’s not drawing cheesecake)... or my friend Louis Paradis. There is a subtle alchemy involved in translating attractiveness to the page! I am a big fan of Bachalo’s art, and would include him in the “can draw attractive people” category (even if all of his women tend to look like pouty teenagers). |
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Post by badwolf on May 6, 2018 17:36:43 GMT -5
Now, in several issues, we'll get to Chris Bachalo's run on art, and he's quite stylized, but stays appropriate to the characters. (He also doesn't have occasion to draw any women's faces, so maybe he would have flunked that test too, dunno...) Naw, Bachalo's women are cuties.  |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 6, 2018 17:47:41 GMT -5
Man I can't wait until the later issues, when they are really into to. And Emma's straining to keep the link of their psychic sexual connections, and the Stepford Cuckoos started noticing and found out about it. Then, letting Jean know, and Jean psychically walking in through the door finding Emma on top of Scott with her Dark Phoenix costume on, but about almost completely open in the front. That was hilarious. The fantasy role play lets us see what a terrible case of Jean-envy Emma has. It's not just about stealing Scott. Jean is highly respected by everybody, while the only person Emma has really bonded with is Hank, who alone in the mansion shares her highbrow wine-and-cheese-and-ballet interests. (Also, Beast wasn't around for all her Hellfire Club misdeeds and thus may not hold her past against her as much as the others do.) Emma wants to be Jean in as many ways as circumstances will allow. Was the Jean envy something that Morrison came up with? I’m really ignorant of what happened between 1993 and 2000 in the X-titles... In any case, it’s a good idea (as was the whole development of Emma as a character). |
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Post by rberman on May 6, 2018 18:40:32 GMT -5
The fantasy role play lets us see what a terrible case of Jean-envy Emma has. It's not just about stealing Scott. Jean is highly respected by everybody, while the only person Emma has really bonded with is Hank, who alone in the mansion shares her highbrow wine-and-cheese-and-ballet interests. (Also, Beast wasn't around for all her Hellfire Club misdeeds and thus may not hold her past against her as much as the others do.) Emma wants to be Jean in as many ways as circumstances will allow. Was the Jean envy something that Morrison came up with? I’m really ignorant of what happened between 1993 and 2000 in the X-titles... In any case, it’s a good idea (as was the whole development of Emma as a character). When I stopped collecting and reading back in the 80s, Emma was trying to keep the Hellions in line at the Massachusetts Academy. I never even read the Firestar series until recently. So I am even more ignorant than you! Speaking of my ignorance... does anyone know why this book seemed to come out 14 times a year? It is a weird number. Was there some master plan to have a different X-book hit the shelves every week? |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on May 6, 2018 22:48:09 GMT -5
Oh yeah, hee, they were way behind schedule and Kordey had no time at all to draw these issues. And why was he so far behind turning in scripts? Some of these issues are astonishingly decompressed and have rather low word counts. Was Morrison overcommitted with writing on three other titles? Was he busy having a Lost Month in Maiorca? Writer's block? Hospitalized for schizophrenia? Reasearching Fantomas details? If his work ethic was just that bad, why did he keep getting work? I just would have expected editorial to step in somehow, whether it meant canning him or getting somebody else to write a fill-in arc or two that took somebody (perhaps the neglected Beast) on an adventure that didn't damage the threads of continuity. There was certainly room in the plot for it. The Fantomex arc only uses Charles and Jean. The World arc (still upcoming in the issue reviews) only uses Logan and Scott. I dunno if it was actually Morrison's fault. I'm quoting from an interview with newsarama where it sounds like he probably had a script. But Marvel editorial was kind of a mess at this point in time. Lots of books were insanely late, all the time. Like the Ultimates was (If I Recall Correctly) Marvel's best selling book and it miiiight come out twice a year if they were lucky. I'd have preferred that Marvel either wait a while or Dreaded Deadline Doom some of these books and not make their artist draw and ink it in a week But that's not what happened. |
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Post by rberman on May 6, 2018 22:55:25 GMT -5
But that's not what happened. I wish Kordey had spent more time on #120 because (1) his "did it in ten days" results look terrible, and (2) his speedy turnaround encouraged the editors to give him more work. Seems like a real "quantity over quality" situation. I can imagine they were over a barrel if Frank Quitely was supposed to have done #119. His work for Mark Millar on Jupiter's Legacy looks great, but apparently he was so slow turning it around that Millar has sworn not to release the first issue of the next series until he has the art for the whole series back from Quitely. (They tend to be six issue series; I may talk about them down the line when they seem to have reached a good stopping point.) |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on May 6, 2018 23:09:42 GMT -5
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Post by Cheswick on May 6, 2018 23:24:56 GMT -5
Was the Jean envy something that Morrison came up with? I’m really ignorant of what happened between 1993 and 2000 in the X-titles... In any case, it’s a good idea (as was the whole development of Emma as a character). When I stopped collecting and reading back in the 80s, Emma was trying to keep the Hellions in line at the Massachusetts Academy. I never even read the Firestar series until recently. So I am even more ignorant than you! Speaking of my ignorance... does anyone know why this book seemed to come out 14 times a year? It is a weird number. Was there some master plan to have a different X-book hit the shelves every week? I don't remember Emma and Jean having much, if any, interaction before Morrison's run.
At the time, Marvel was shipping the main X-Men books up to 15 or 16 times a year. It probably had something to do with the fact that they sold very well and Marvel was literally in desperate need of funds back then.
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Post by rberman on May 7, 2018 5:20:33 GMT -5
New X-Men #132 “Ambient Magnetic Fields” (November 2002) The Story: A bunch of X-Men ( Sabra, Thunderbird (Neal), Quicksilver, Storm, Charles Xavier, and Jean Grey-Summers) are surveying the irradiated ruins of Genosha following the extinction event from issue #115. Unus the Untouchable survived physically, but he’s a basket case, babbling about ghosts.  The extinction Mega-Sentinel is there too, still as a statue, with one of its three heads having been half-sculpted by someone to look like Magneto’s helmet. “Someone” turns out to be Toad, Shocker, and another disciple of Magneto. Further down the island, the X-Men find Polaris: very naked, and very insane. She’s magnetically absorbed the electrical thought patterns of many Genoshans into her brain at the moment of their death, including Magneto, whom I guess is her father as well as Quicksilver’s in current continuity. Polaris causes a message from Magneto to issue from the Sentinel, projecting out into space as an electromagnetic signal.  My Two Cents: There’s really not much to say about this issue, because ultimately, very little happens, not even a fight between the X-Men and Magneto’s Brotherhood servants. In fact, Quicksilver pitches in with super-speed to help complete the Brotherhood's renovation of the giant sentinel helmet into a giant Magneto helmet. The story has a nice kernel: The last testament of Magneto, who was felled by a Sentinel commanded by an unknown foe. However (1) the story is too short, without any real complications, to justify taking up a whole issue, and (2) Magneto’s message turns out to be a rather underwhelming one along the lines of, “Hm, I’m dead now… well… hello to whoever receives this message out there in space…” I mean, that’s probably a realistic message since in all fairness he was dying from the Extinction Event at the time; a less spontaneous message would have improved both in content and style. But as the punchline of this issue, it’s more anti- than climax. Genosha did not appear to be full of dangerous radiation when Beast, Jean, and a bunch of civilians found Emma there back in #116. Unus is a nice callback to the earliest issues of X-Men. I have no idea who Sabra is. If there were any new X-Men readers as a result of the first film (which is probably not the case), they would have known Storm but not Polaris, Sabra, Thunderbird, or Quicksilver.  I had forgotten Sabra completely, having not seen her since she had a role in Contest of the Champions, Marvel's first limited series and an homage to the Olympic Games, with heroes from all over the world split into two teams like a proto-Secret Wars. Sabra represented Israel.  Phil Jiminez turns in some excellent pencils, with Frank Quitely on inks. Jiminez will become a regular X-Men several issues from now. I assume this issue was another fill-in since it could occur any time after Xavier returns to his body in #126. That would account for its lack of a compelling continuity-dependent B-plot to help push some other story element forward.  However, Morrison is alluding to some fairly heady material which he previously covered in Doom Patrol around 1991. (see review here) It deals with the pseudoscientific notion that the soul consists of electrical activity, and that upon death, that electricity is released into the atmosphere and trapped in the radiation belts, so that we can access it by radio. Polaris, the X-Man with magnetic powers, is the natural character for this story, in which the deceased of Genosha remain airborne as "ambient magnetic fields."
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Post by rberman on May 7, 2018 5:31:32 GMT -5
Here he is: #124 is "Superdestroyer," which is mostly a battle between the Shi'ar Superguardians and the X-Men. That one actually is not too bad for me since it's mostly action that benefits from his frenetic pencils. It's the talky scenes (and thus the issues with lots of talky scenes, like these Jean/Charles/Fantomex ones that Kordey still finds "strong") that suffer from his rush jobs. But hey, I get it. He was young and probably literally hungry and delighted to be getting the work, and Marvel's two X-Men co-editors Mark Powers and Pete Franco were I guess asleep at the wheel figuring that anything with superstar Morrison involved should be left alone. And for whatever reason, Morrison didn't squawk either. This answer may lie here in this article about Alan Davis' rapid work: This sort of thing also increases my admiration for John Byrne, who was also known for turning in numerous books a month, and turning them in months early, with substantially higher quality. |
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Post by badwolf on May 7, 2018 9:23:48 GMT -5
I have no idea who Sabra is. Sabra is an Israeli mutant who first appeared in Bill Mantlo's Hulk run. She has the ability to fire some kind of energy quills...  |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 7, 2018 20:04:30 GMT -5
New X-Men #132 “Ambient Magnetic Fields” (November 2002) I had a problem with the depiction of Lorna in that issue, mostly because as a cranky old fan there’s only so much continuity-twisting I can accept before it starts affecting my enjoyment of an issue. When Lorna was introduced, it was hinted that she might be Magneto’s daughter (having, after all, the same powers). This was a red herring and it was firmly established that she was not. That was the status quo for several decades. I read on the internet that some writer of other decided to retcon that away and made her Magneto’s daughter anyway, and plausibility be damned. Fine, it wouldn’t be the first lousy idea I’ve come across. But here Lorna behaves like she’s been driven mad with grief, and seems to have major daddy issues. Well, irrespective of what was revealing about her parentage, she never knew Magneto as her dad until very, very recently... How could she care for him at all? The only role she consistantly knew him as, growing up, was as the mutanat madman who wanted to kill the X-Men and tried to make her his accomplice in the dirty deed. When did she develop such filial affection for him? Or was it also revealed that all her memories were implants and that she was actually raised lovingly by Magneto? (I wouldn’t put it past certain comics writers, if truth be told). Otherwise, it was interesting to return to Genosha and deal with the emotional trauma that follows genocide. It was also pretty sneaky (plot wise) to use this issue to hammer the point that Magneto might really be dead, setting the table for a certain future plot twist. Up to that point I was sure he was still around, but after this issue I really believed that Morrison might have decided to forego the usual approach of always bringing back villains! |
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Post by rberman on May 8, 2018 7:09:53 GMT -5
New X-Men #132 “Ambient Magnetic Fields” (November 2002) I had a problem with the depiction of Lorna in that issue, mostly because as a cranky old fan there’s only so much continuity-twisting I can accept before it starts affecting my enjoyment of an issue. When Lorna was introduced, it was hinted that she might be Magneto’s daughter (having, after all, the same powers). This was a red herring and it was firmly established that she was not. That was the status quo for several decades. I read on the internet that some writer of other decided to retcon that away and made her Magneto’s daughter anyway, and plausibility be damned. Fine, it wouldn’t be the first lousy idea I’ve come across. But here Lorna behaves like she’s been driven mad with grief, and seems to have major daddy issues. Well, irrespective of what was revealing about her parentage, she never knew Magneto as her dad until very, very recently... How could she care for him at all? The only role she consistantly knew him as, growing up, was as the mutanat madman who wanted to kill the X-Men and tried to make her his accomplice in the dirty deed. When did she develop such filial affection for him? Or was it also revealed that all her memories were implants and that she was actually raised lovingly by Magneto? (I wouldn’t put it past certain comics writers, if truth be told). Otherwise, it was interesting to return to Genosha and deal with the emotional trauma that follows genocide. It was also pretty sneaky (plot wise) to use this issue to hammer the point that Magneto might really be dead, setting the table for a certain future plot twist. Up to that point I was sure he was still around, but after this issue I really believed that Morrison might have decided to forego the usual approach of always bringing back villains! I would rather she was not Magneto's daughter. We already have Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch for that soapy plot point. I figured that her behavior in this issue was not the result of natural grief for her father, but rather some result of the Genosha Extinction interacting with her powers. Unus and Emma were pretty traumatized when we first met them also. But has Unus been curled in a fetal position on the ground for a year, waiting to be found? Has Polaris been roaming the irradiated ruins as a madwoman that whole time? This issue would have made more sense if it were part of the original "immediately after the blast" story where Emma was found. |
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Post by rberman on May 8, 2018 7:23:36 GMT -5
New X-Men #134 “Kid Ω” (January 2003)
The Story: Outside a nightclub in the Mutant Town section of NYC, a four-armed mutant named Jumbo Carnation is harassed by a gang of young toughs. As he grapples with them, he drops dead. He was a designer who made clothes for the unique fashion needs of mutants, what with their weird shapes, sizes, and appendages. Beast and Cyclops help Officer Foster investigate the crime scene. Jumbo was killed by an overdose of the inhaler-administered steroid Hypercortisone D, (also called “Kick”) which is a drug of abuse which enhances mutant powers to an unpredictable and sometimes fatal degree.  Time to meet a bunch new students! Martha Johannson ( John Sublime’s former captive “brain in a bubble,” still in a bubble but no longer captive) now lives at the Xavier School, being tended by Xavier’s favorite student, the telepath Quentin Quire. I wonder whether Martha is a teen brain or an adult brain who just never got an education before. Herman is a seven feet tall jock, dumb and enthusiastic, with a covering of translucent paraffin over his skeleton and internal organs. Cool character design. Tattoo is a black girl who’s dating Slick, a musician with powers of charisma and illusion. Spike has long thorns sparsely protruding from his body and is never seen again after this issue. Quentin gets a mysterious phone call revealing that he is adopted. This throws him for a loop, understandably. Soon after, he gets annoyed with Slick and telepathically turns off Slick’s powers, revealing that under his illusions, Slick actually looks like a midget elf/frog. Haha! Everyone, laugh at the misfit! Wait, is that something that happens at Xavier’s School? Mutants should know better!  Xavier brings Quentin in for a chat. Quentin is not only unrepentant for humiliating his classmate, he’s also written “CRAZY NOW” across his forehead in pen. Xavier also wants to run tests to find out why Quentin’s metabolism is running fifteen times faster than normal. We soon find out: Quentin is abusing the “Kick” drug that killed Jumbo Carnation. My Two Cents: Suddenly, the series is kicking into high gear again, with tons of new ideas to talk about. Originally Xavier's School had just one teacher and just five students, the first X-Men. And they graduated just a few issues later! Or not; that idea appeared to rapidly disappear from continuity. Then in the early 1980s, along came the New Mutants, again a small team with Xavier as their mentor. Now there’s a whole school of kids, the “Mutant High” depicted in the X-Men films. The issue that introduced Beak told us that the school now has 152 students. Xavier isn’t teaching them alone. Who is? Not Logan and Jean. They’re in Mumbai. The most sensible solution would be for Xavier to hire human content area experts in the regular curriculum (Literature, Math, Science) and have the X-Men teach Danger Room and the like. Quentin will later report that unarmed combat is a part of the core curriculum. I like the demonstration of a whole economy catering to the special needs of mutants. There ought to be mutant fashion designers, beverage makers, etc. There ought to be mutants whose powers are not combat related also. Mutant fashionistas. Mutant novelists, like Starfighter in Kurt Busiek’s Astro City series. Mutant lawyers. Mutant architects. We see some of this in Astro City, but still not as much as I would like. In fact, there’s a lot of attention to fashion in this issue whose plot circles around Jumbo Carnation. Quentin Quire wears glasses and a sweater vest with zigzag Charlie Brown stripes, the first hint of his contrarian “hip to be square” persona. Slick wears cornrows and a fuzzy pink jacket a la Lenny Kravitz. Tattoo can make words appear on her body; she’s bald and wears yoga pants. (I might have actually expected someone with her power to show more skin so she has somewhere to display messages besides across her face and scalp.) We will later discover that she also has Kitty Pryde's intangibility power. Herman the paraffin man is not only translucent but totally naked. We can see his skeleton and bowels, but thankfully not his sexual or urinary organs, which seem to be absent, not just translucent. The Stepford Cuckoos have traded their prep school blazers for sweat pants and belly shirts; they are an object of desire for Quentin but seem barely aware that he exists. I wonder what he can do to attract their attention… The inset panel below shows Quentin's hand clutching a newspaper clipping from that time that Sub-Mariner invaded New York City early in Marvel continuity. Namor got the world's attention! This is not lost on Quentin.  Slick is shown playing a National resonator “Dobro” guitar, the kind with the metal body as seen on the cover of Dire Straits’ classic album Brothers in Arms. That instrument was developed in the early 20th century, before the advent of electronic amplification, to be loud enough to compete with brass instruments in a band. As such it’s designed to be loud but has a rather harsh sound, so these days it’s used for effect.  It’s not the sort of instrument that you’d sit around and play on the porch, unless you are super-pretentious, which Slick indeed is. But I’m pretty surprised by the cruel reception he gets from his fellow students after his illusion (along with his guitar) is broken. This whole school is filled with freaks, so it’s interesting that Quire mocks him for his looks instead of giving him a “don’t be a wuss; be proud of your real self, you coward” speech. But the scene serves mainly to show us that Quentin Quire is a bad seed. Also, he wants Tattoo himself, so disconnecting her from his rival Slick is a top priority. Morrison also shows clearly the immediate causes of Quentin’s hatefulness. He’s abusing drugs, and the news of his adoption has sent his worldview into an “everything is a lie” tailspin. Whoever triggered all this with a phone call: Not cool! It’s surely not how his adoptive parents would have broken the news to him, so we’re left wondering who made the phone call. Unfortunately, we never see him rage at his adoptive parents or quest for his real parents, which are two missed opportunities.  Keron Grant and Norm Rapund are on art. It’s good. We don’t see them again, though. Overall, a great start to a memorable story arc. This issue was clearly seen as a jumping-on point for new readers; it includes a summary page with a roll call. 
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