114: Morrison and Quitely have redesigned the X-Men as weird post-human pop sexy bad-asses! Awesome!
115: Cyclops is actually cool! Casandra Nova is scarring the crap out of me! This is great!
116: Humanity is dying out. Xavier shot a woman with a handgun. This book has edge. Plus a Camel-toe cover. I am finally being surprised by a mainstream superhero book.
The Annual: Did Cyclops sleep with Emma?! Wow. Did the X-Men just bomb a Chinese facility from the air? This Xorn guy is cool. This is not my father's X-Men. I am having a good time.
117: Where did Quitely go? Freaky Beak has replaced sexy X-Men. VanSciver fails to sell a key moment. Xavier was not cool when he shot Nova, he was possessed, which is disappointing.
118: VanSciver is painfully literal. The new Angel is gross. Morrison's ending beat is very off.
119: This art is horrifically ugly, messing badly with the core concept. Mr. Sublime is a lame villain. Morrison's ending beat is once again very off. And did Jean Grey really call the cops?
120: These U-Men look cool but are just a bunch of lame jerks. Mr Sublime's defeat is extra humiliating because he has a toupee and Jean Grey makes people up-chuck and poo themselves. Where did the guy who wrote issue 114 go?
121: Oh here he is. This issue is silent and Morrison and Quitely shine in a weird psychic landscape. This is AMAZING on every level.
122: Quitely is awesome, but Morrison needs to stop highlighting mutant philosophy, since he has none, and figure out what Nova is about. I cannot keep track of what she is supposed to be.
123: Oh, Morrison should NOT be writing mutant philosophy. Nova is still cool, but Van Sciver is only so-so.
124: This is the worst art I have every seen and the storytelling is a total failure, as the super-tough imperial guard turn out to be the worst fighters ever. My sister could kill them all.
125: Oh, this art is bad. And Nova is just like fucking Onslaught, which is weak. The Beast is gay? Nova's nano-sentinels have something to do with the U-Men? What? Really? This is bad.
126: Quitely is back and Morrison can write again: Xorn and Cyclops are great together, and the defeat of Nova is brilliant, interesting and new.
127: Xorn goes through the most cliched mutant story ever. Pathos becomes Bathos. Boring.
128: It turns out Kordey can draw, given time. Morrison builds strong tension with X-Force. Fantomex -- my favorite superhero ever -- is introduced. This is good stuff.
129: The stuff with Animal is lame, and there seem to be little storytelling glitches, but Fantomex is the best, and there are some great ideas and lines.
130: Fantomex, who was already great, now has a living flying saucer; now he is even better. Wow.
131: This art is hot and cold in this one issue, which is randomly plotted in a very bad way. It ends with a great moment -- the Scott-Emma affair.
132: A 9-11 tribute issue, with weird plot glitches, bathos, and an attempt to stir our hearts with people standing proudly but sadly with a girl wearing a waist length jacket and no pants. This does not work well.
133: The 9-11 pendulum swings the other way: Wolverine slaughters Afghanis, Xavier brainwashes airplane hijackers, and he is shot at with a sniper rifle. This does not work well. But Dust is introduced and there is a great line about Bollywood.
134: The Beast is being gay as performance art? Really? He is also just mean for no reason. A fashion designer is dead a teenagers does drugs and gets a haircut. OK. I guess?
135: Quentin squares off with Xavier and it is hard to know with whom to sympathize with the least. These guys are idiots.
136: The "riot" plot is so thin we spend this issue with Xorn. The U-Men suck -- they are so weak -- but Xorn, after a lot of peace-love-sheep stuff, suddenly acts like a badass. Interesting. As for Quentin he acts like a jerk and hits Xavier with a baseball bad. Lame.
137: The "riot" is literally hot wax tossed out of broken windows, and these guys have no plan. Even with no plan, all the X-men can come up with is "everyone calm down," so someone else ends it. Even Quitely cannot save a story this lame. Morrison has an point to make (teenagers are idiots), but it causes his story to suck.
138: Quentin Quire ascents to a higher state of consciousness? Really? And Xavier is pleased with this? Really? Then he quits the school? Really? Then Jean walks in on Scott and Emma in a compromising position, even though Scott was just about to end it. Cliche!
139: One great page with Wolverine and Emma cannot save an issue with everyone acting like teenagers. Cyclops storms off like a 14 year old girl. This is worse because all the teeth is taken out of the affair. They never actually "went-all-the-way." We are all middle-schoolers now.
140: A golden age murder mystery with Bishop as Miss Marple. One of the worst ideas ever, in part because he just questions everyone, which makes no sense in a world with psychics. And did the guy from the Riot just get thrown in human prison to be abused while Nova, who killed 16 million people, gets rehabilitated? I do not get this.
141: Morrison has written a murder mystery in which the victim comes back to life and the person who killed her gets away without being identified. The low point of the series. Where did the guy who wrote issue 114 go?
142: Oh, here he is. Bachalo is great, and brings out the best in Morrison. Everything is beautiful and fun again and will be for 4 issues. Here everyone drinks, and Bachalo has a great sense of humor.
143: Fantomex is awesome, and the art here is great. Morrison is in great form: artificial evolution is great. Plus Weapon X turns out to be Weapon 10 which is a great little spin on an old favorite.
144: Weapon 15 is hilarious -- a faceless robot killer who talks like a poet and has extra thumbs because he is SUPER-EVOLVED. I love Assault on Weapon Plus (issues 142-145)!
145: Some great little clues here for the rest of the run, plus Wolverine learns the truth about everything. This is a great issue. I know everyone hates the last page, but Bachalo is funny and I love him.
146: Everyone just gets their planes blown up? That is weak. Dust was a great idea for a character completely wasted. And XORN WAS MAGNETO THE WHOLE TIME!?! That makes not sense. At all.
147: Morrison's Magneto is a drug addicted old man. Morrison has an intellectual point to make (the X-Men are in a rut) but it ruins his storytelling. Also Morrison has decided to replace characterisation with mind control in the case of both Magneto and the special class.
148: Jean and Wolverine dying as they fall into the sun is simply amazing on every level.
149: Morrison's Magneto is simply awful. Morrison wants not to repeat McKellen (the definitive Magneto), but makes his story grotesque in the process.
150: A haunting ending to a weak story with strong moments. Morrison is very uneven, but can do emotion when he tries. I miss Morrison the super-genius, with all the crazy sci-fi madness.
151: This story is genius, with all kinds of crazy sci-fi madness. He canonizes his own run, by giving us twists not on core X-Men plots, but on his own run. This is awesome.
152: What a weird but brilliant line up. This is everything I want. The old and new are just smashed up. I should hate the art but I love it. The Beast as Apocalypse should not work, but does.
153: I stopped caring about Morrison's larger theme about the old and the new a long time ago; it does not make any sense anyway and I am distracted by the BEST NEW SUPER VILLAIN IDEA EVER. This story rawks.
154: Issue 150 was a beautiful end to an uneven story arc. 154 is a similarly beautiful ending to a uneven run. Morrison goes out with a bang, and real heart. I wish he had paid that kind of attention all along.
SUMMARY JUDGEMENT: the highs are super high, some of the best, most ingenious, imaginative work Morrison has done. The lows are super-low, with basic storytelling failures anyone with a screenwriting guide could correct in one pass, and are some of the worst comics I have read by anyone. And there are about as many bad comics here as good. Something this uneven should not be called a classic, or even great. Casanova, Dark Knight Returns, Dark Knight Strikes Again, WE3, and All Star Superman, are not like this, and it messes up everything to put this in the same category with those, even though the highs are just as high as anything in those books. Morrison's New X-Men should be recommended to others but not without a warning that there is a lot of shit to sift through to find the gold.
Showing posts with label New X-Men. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New X-Men. Show all posts
Monday, June 25, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 154
[This post is part of a series looking issue by issue at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run. For more of the same, just click the New X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]
What I discussed last time in the context of the previous issue is expanded upon here in the opening pages -- Sublime is a 3 billion year old bacterial colony hidden in man and mutant, infecting them with aggression and mindless conflict so that they would fight each other and not Sublime, who was behind the U-Men, the Super-sentinels, the nano-viruses and Kick. I know I already said this, but that is just amazing. It is a great idea, though it is also a poor cop out for issue after issue of bad characterization ("Magneto and Quentin Quire are supposed to be lame idiots because they were being controlled by blah blah blah..."). In the context of the run, not great. In the context of this story -- fantastic. In the context of superhero comics generally, one of the best ideas for a villain ever.
Tom loved his sentinel Rover and was crushed that Rover thought he was ditching him for something new, EVA, a story that plays interestingly with the old versus new dynamic that Morrison has been playing with all along. Wolverine says cynically in this issue that we've seen it all before. The series ends with severe thematic ambiguity -- Morrison is at his most imaginative, and also repeating and revising everything -- which I am fine with.
Two reveals in the final issue for people who have been with Morrison since the beginning: No-Girl -- someone mentioned in the Special Class as a mutant invisible to ALL forms of detection, the class imaginary friend basically -- turns out to have been a cartoon character invented by Martha. And the Cookoo's turn out to have been Weapon 14 all along -- they were the Sleeper Agent mentioned by Dr. Sublime, and somewhere along the way they were converted to Xavier's cause, which is nice to think about.
In the end the Sublime bacteria is isolated and destroyed by the Phoenix -- "did you think you would live forever, little speck?" is one of my favorite lines in the book.
Apollyon takes the Beast's head off with a flying disk, as his mythological counterpart did. Morrison's point in "Planet X" was that this story just plays again and again, in cycles of meaningless violence. Here, 150 narrative years later, Beast, like Magneto attempting genetic perfection, dies just as Magneto did.
Another little reflexive moment: Fantomex cries out; turn the page and a dying EVA says "Fantomex?" (actually she says "Ffzzzzzannnttommzzzk???? Izzi That U ? I thought / heard I / thought / heard / I thought"). It seems the cryptic allusion to "what happened to Fantomex" was referring to his transformation into Apollyon. The details of what happened are less important than the formal gesture of Morrison bringing his creations all back for the finale, and offering little twists on all of them. This is why Quentin Quire is a Phoenix. It is not supposed to make sense; it is supposed to provide closure, which is more about form than content.
In the end Jean amputates the future, and goes back to the moment it all went wrong -- when Cyclops abandoned the school and Emma after Jean's death. She gives him permission to love Emma and changing that detail changes the whole universe. All of this has been about one man and a decision to soldier on and change his life, or just give up. It is a tremendous note of heart to end the series on, something to ground all the madness -- the higher-than-highs and lower-than-lows and about the same amount of each and very little in between -- this series has been running for five years.
I will post a final summary judgement on Morrison's New X-Men shortly, where we can talk in overview about the series.
What I discussed last time in the context of the previous issue is expanded upon here in the opening pages -- Sublime is a 3 billion year old bacterial colony hidden in man and mutant, infecting them with aggression and mindless conflict so that they would fight each other and not Sublime, who was behind the U-Men, the Super-sentinels, the nano-viruses and Kick. I know I already said this, but that is just amazing. It is a great idea, though it is also a poor cop out for issue after issue of bad characterization ("Magneto and Quentin Quire are supposed to be lame idiots because they were being controlled by blah blah blah..."). In the context of the run, not great. In the context of this story -- fantastic. In the context of superhero comics generally, one of the best ideas for a villain ever.
Tom loved his sentinel Rover and was crushed that Rover thought he was ditching him for something new, EVA, a story that plays interestingly with the old versus new dynamic that Morrison has been playing with all along. Wolverine says cynically in this issue that we've seen it all before. The series ends with severe thematic ambiguity -- Morrison is at his most imaginative, and also repeating and revising everything -- which I am fine with.
Two reveals in the final issue for people who have been with Morrison since the beginning: No-Girl -- someone mentioned in the Special Class as a mutant invisible to ALL forms of detection, the class imaginary friend basically -- turns out to have been a cartoon character invented by Martha. And the Cookoo's turn out to have been Weapon 14 all along -- they were the Sleeper Agent mentioned by Dr. Sublime, and somewhere along the way they were converted to Xavier's cause, which is nice to think about.
In the end the Sublime bacteria is isolated and destroyed by the Phoenix -- "did you think you would live forever, little speck?" is one of my favorite lines in the book.
Apollyon takes the Beast's head off with a flying disk, as his mythological counterpart did. Morrison's point in "Planet X" was that this story just plays again and again, in cycles of meaningless violence. Here, 150 narrative years later, Beast, like Magneto attempting genetic perfection, dies just as Magneto did.
Another little reflexive moment: Fantomex cries out; turn the page and a dying EVA says "Fantomex?" (actually she says "Ffzzzzzannnttommzzzk???? Izzi That U ? I thought / heard I / thought / heard / I thought"). It seems the cryptic allusion to "what happened to Fantomex" was referring to his transformation into Apollyon. The details of what happened are less important than the formal gesture of Morrison bringing his creations all back for the finale, and offering little twists on all of them. This is why Quentin Quire is a Phoenix. It is not supposed to make sense; it is supposed to provide closure, which is more about form than content.
In the end Jean amputates the future, and goes back to the moment it all went wrong -- when Cyclops abandoned the school and Emma after Jean's death. She gives him permission to love Emma and changing that detail changes the whole universe. All of this has been about one man and a decision to soldier on and change his life, or just give up. It is a tremendous note of heart to end the series on, something to ground all the madness -- the higher-than-highs and lower-than-lows and about the same amount of each and very little in between -- this series has been running for five years.
I will post a final summary judgement on Morrison's New X-Men shortly, where we can talk in overview about the series.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 153
[This post is part of a series looking at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run issue by issue. For more of the same click the New X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]
As I keep saying over and over again: Morrison is great at naming things. Bumbleboy is a great name for a superhero. He should have been in Seaguy, also a great name.
A hilarious little detail, for people who have read all of Morrison's run and have been paying attention: Nova says to Martha "of course you can still call me Ernst my dear." Casandra Nova was little Ernst in the special class the whole time -- the child who looked like an old woman, a character who appeared only after Nova was trapped in a alien shapeshifting body for re-education. At first (NXM 126) it looked like Nova was going to be rehabilitated in a virtual classroom, but it was in the Special Class that she would learn her real lessons.
It is in this issue that we get the major coup of Morrison's X-Men run -- really one of Morrison's BEST ideas. Adumbrated here, and expanded upon in the next issue, is the idea of the Sublime bacterial colony, which has existed since the beginning of organic life on earth. This bacterial colony has been fighting for survival, killing off rival species as early as 530 million years ago. It has now infected the Beast, just as in the main narrative it used Magneto, and Dr. Sublime (creator of the Weapon Plus program), and John Sublime, from way back in "Germ Free Generation." The mutants are Sublime's real enemy; this is Morrison's most audacious move, absolutely brilliant beyond measure: Beast says
"The diverse, the strange ones, the crooked masses of Megamerica, forever breeding and multiplying into new and more lethal forms. Swarming millions, each faster, stronger, more adaptive, more immune than the last. Giving birth to creatures like [the Phoenix] introducing cosmic strands into the global genebase. The mutants might have become immortal, unstoppable supermen if left unchecked. I had to make them fight. I had to protect myself somehow. I refuse death! I deny extinction!"
The Beast -- Sublime -- fights for total genetic perfection, an end to evolution, so that the X-Men and mutants will no longer be a threat. Morrison has taken the basic motivation of the goofy X-Men villain Apocalypse and revised it into this -- The Beast (of the Apocalypse) and Apollyon (from the book of Revelation) fighting for genetic perfection at the end of the world. And much more than that: he has posited Sublime as THE opponent in the Marvel Universe, the narrative explanation for decade after decade of meaningless punch-em-up comics. Morrison's point in Planet X was that the X-Men are caught in a cycle of meaningless violence they cannot escape from, from which they cannot grow or evolve. Morrison's metaphor for the franchise has a narrative explanation, a fascinating one.
In Planet X Morrison is deeply pessimistic about the future of the X-Men -- he started with something new and strange at the beginning of his run, but they just cycled back again to beating up on Magneto. In Here Comes Tomorrow possibility opens up again: the X-men are a threat to Sublime because they keep evolving, maybe faster than Sublime can keep up with them. The defeat of Sublime opens the possibility of change without handicaps. Morrison gets it both ways: he tries to do something new with the X-Men at the start of his run (E for Extinction), he demonstrates why the form will not allow him to succeed (Planet X), then he imagines removing the obsticle (the defeat of Sublime in Here Comes Tomorrow), and then he stops. Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, a book that picks up just after this leaves off, is thus in an impossible position: how to continue from here?
(Whedon goes conservative, and hopes that solid storytelling will save him, and it sort of does; I may tackle this book next).
As I keep saying over and over again: Morrison is great at naming things. Bumbleboy is a great name for a superhero. He should have been in Seaguy, also a great name.
A hilarious little detail, for people who have read all of Morrison's run and have been paying attention: Nova says to Martha "of course you can still call me Ernst my dear." Casandra Nova was little Ernst in the special class the whole time -- the child who looked like an old woman, a character who appeared only after Nova was trapped in a alien shapeshifting body for re-education. At first (NXM 126) it looked like Nova was going to be rehabilitated in a virtual classroom, but it was in the Special Class that she would learn her real lessons.
It is in this issue that we get the major coup of Morrison's X-Men run -- really one of Morrison's BEST ideas. Adumbrated here, and expanded upon in the next issue, is the idea of the Sublime bacterial colony, which has existed since the beginning of organic life on earth. This bacterial colony has been fighting for survival, killing off rival species as early as 530 million years ago. It has now infected the Beast, just as in the main narrative it used Magneto, and Dr. Sublime (creator of the Weapon Plus program), and John Sublime, from way back in "Germ Free Generation." The mutants are Sublime's real enemy; this is Morrison's most audacious move, absolutely brilliant beyond measure: Beast says
"The diverse, the strange ones, the crooked masses of Megamerica, forever breeding and multiplying into new and more lethal forms. Swarming millions, each faster, stronger, more adaptive, more immune than the last. Giving birth to creatures like [the Phoenix] introducing cosmic strands into the global genebase. The mutants might have become immortal, unstoppable supermen if left unchecked. I had to make them fight. I had to protect myself somehow. I refuse death! I deny extinction!"
The Beast -- Sublime -- fights for total genetic perfection, an end to evolution, so that the X-Men and mutants will no longer be a threat. Morrison has taken the basic motivation of the goofy X-Men villain Apocalypse and revised it into this -- The Beast (of the Apocalypse) and Apollyon (from the book of Revelation) fighting for genetic perfection at the end of the world. And much more than that: he has posited Sublime as THE opponent in the Marvel Universe, the narrative explanation for decade after decade of meaningless punch-em-up comics. Morrison's point in Planet X was that the X-Men are caught in a cycle of meaningless violence they cannot escape from, from which they cannot grow or evolve. Morrison's metaphor for the franchise has a narrative explanation, a fascinating one.
In Planet X Morrison is deeply pessimistic about the future of the X-Men -- he started with something new and strange at the beginning of his run, but they just cycled back again to beating up on Magneto. In Here Comes Tomorrow possibility opens up again: the X-men are a threat to Sublime because they keep evolving, maybe faster than Sublime can keep up with them. The defeat of Sublime opens the possibility of change without handicaps. Morrison gets it both ways: he tries to do something new with the X-Men at the start of his run (E for Extinction), he demonstrates why the form will not allow him to succeed (Planet X), then he imagines removing the obsticle (the defeat of Sublime in Here Comes Tomorrow), and then he stops. Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, a book that picks up just after this leaves off, is thus in an impossible position: how to continue from here?
(Whedon goes conservative, and hopes that solid storytelling will save him, and it sort of does; I may tackle this book next).
Monday, June 11, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 152
[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run; for more of the same click the new X-Men label at the bottom of this post].
The last of John Sublime's 3rd Species U-Men is seen here for the first time -- he works for the Beast, calls himself Apollyon the Destroyer, and may be Fantomex (which we will talk about in two more issues). We have a reader here doing a thesis on Morrison's New X-Men: he noticed that in The World Fantomex and EVA are like Adam and Eve; here, if this is Fantomex, he has gone from being a figure at the beginning of Christian time, to one at the end -- Apolloyon is a figure from the biblical Apocalypse.
I have come around to liking Mark Silvestri's art on this book, but occasionally it does not work; here it is just too self-serious for drawing something like a mutant who has a magic flying car. Morrison needs an artist who is fun for his fun ideas.
When Tom tells the children that the good guys always win, and one of them replies flatly that current statistical thinking suggests otherwise -- that is one of my favorite little lines in the book. I really don't know why, though. Tom is a great character, and playing his connection to a giant old school sentinel and his attraction to EVA as a love triangle is great fun, a great twist on an old formula.
The three remaining Cookoos describe the horror of the Beast taking over the world: "Evolution will grind to a halt. The future will belong to mass produced biological conformity." In terms of Morrison's little meta-story, this is his condemnation of the X-Men franchise that he simply cannot do anything with -- the future of superhero fiction is mass produced conformity.
And just another note on Morrison being great at naming things: Panafrica and Extrailia.
The highlight of this issue is a great two page spread of the team going off to fight the Beast -- Beak, Nova, Martha, Wolverine, EVA, Tom, and Rover. It will turn out that the Cookoos, working from home base, are Weapon 13, which means that half of the team consists of sentinels (the original sentinel, and Weapons 10, 13, and 14). Given that Wolverine is a mutant and Weapon 10, Martha is just a mutant brain, Tom is a human, and Nova is whatevertheheck she is supposed to be (mutant, free-floating emotional energy in an alien body, a Shi'ar legend) we can see the final legacy of Beak -- his grandson is the only straight up mutant left on the X-Men. The image of the team has another important detail -- Wolverine is wearing jeans, his old yellow top, a leather jacket and a cowboy hat, and Silvestri has drawn him with sultry female almond eyes: it is like some kind of weird parody of the fashion model stuff in the first issue.
The last of John Sublime's 3rd Species U-Men is seen here for the first time -- he works for the Beast, calls himself Apollyon the Destroyer, and may be Fantomex (which we will talk about in two more issues). We have a reader here doing a thesis on Morrison's New X-Men: he noticed that in The World Fantomex and EVA are like Adam and Eve; here, if this is Fantomex, he has gone from being a figure at the beginning of Christian time, to one at the end -- Apolloyon is a figure from the biblical Apocalypse.
I have come around to liking Mark Silvestri's art on this book, but occasionally it does not work; here it is just too self-serious for drawing something like a mutant who has a magic flying car. Morrison needs an artist who is fun for his fun ideas.
When Tom tells the children that the good guys always win, and one of them replies flatly that current statistical thinking suggests otherwise -- that is one of my favorite little lines in the book. I really don't know why, though. Tom is a great character, and playing his connection to a giant old school sentinel and his attraction to EVA as a love triangle is great fun, a great twist on an old formula.
The three remaining Cookoos describe the horror of the Beast taking over the world: "Evolution will grind to a halt. The future will belong to mass produced biological conformity." In terms of Morrison's little meta-story, this is his condemnation of the X-Men franchise that he simply cannot do anything with -- the future of superhero fiction is mass produced conformity.
And just another note on Morrison being great at naming things: Panafrica and Extrailia.
The highlight of this issue is a great two page spread of the team going off to fight the Beast -- Beak, Nova, Martha, Wolverine, EVA, Tom, and Rover. It will turn out that the Cookoos, working from home base, are Weapon 13, which means that half of the team consists of sentinels (the original sentinel, and Weapons 10, 13, and 14). Given that Wolverine is a mutant and Weapon 10, Martha is just a mutant brain, Tom is a human, and Nova is whatevertheheck she is supposed to be (mutant, free-floating emotional energy in an alien body, a Shi'ar legend) we can see the final legacy of Beak -- his grandson is the only straight up mutant left on the X-Men. The image of the team has another important detail -- Wolverine is wearing jeans, his old yellow top, a leather jacket and a cowboy hat, and Silvestri has drawn him with sultry female almond eyes: it is like some kind of weird parody of the fashion model stuff in the first issue.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 151
[This post is part of a series of posts dedicated to an issue by issue look at Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men. For more of the same click the New X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]
In the essay I wrote for Reconstruction years ago I noted that a writer's run on a title was like the translation of canonical poetry -- a new version of old things for a new generation of readers. Just as "Assault on Weapon Plus" was Morrison's take on the Weapon X program, "Here Comes Tomorrow" is his take on "Days of Future Past". What is important is that he chooses to end his run by jumping in the far future -- a future with Wolverine still around doing his cool Wolverine swagger, a future where the Beast still alive (as a version of the X-Men villain Apocalypse -- he is the Beast of the Apocalypse obsessed as Apocalypse is, with genetic perfection), a future with an original sentinel is still around, a future in which Phoenix is back (again) dressing slutty (again), and a future with warhead shaped boobs drawn by Mark Silvestri. Morrison's point with Magneto was that the X-Men are stuck in a cycle. In "Here Comes Tomorrow" it turns out that the future looks a lot like X-Men comics in the 1990s. The cycle goes on for as far as the eye can see.
And yet "Here Comes Tomorrow" is also the freshest thing in the run since Fantomex and Cassandra Nova, because in the future -- outside of the X-Men franchise, in a space that need not effect the tenure of any future writer -- Morrison gets to break out and just have the fun he should have been having all along. What makes the tone of "Here Comes Tomorrow" fascinating is that stale and fresh slam together -- Morrison can do whatever he wants, invent ANYTHING and play crazy games: and he remaps the world, giving us Tranatlantas, and Megamerica (Morrison is great at naming things). But is this world new? His final four issues, rather than being straight ahead inventive, invoke ideas from his previous thirty-seven -- Casandra Nova is back, E.V.A. is back, Fantomex may be back (I will talk about this in issue 154) the U-Men are back (well, one of them), John Sublime is back (in an odd form), the Cookoos are still around, the grandson of Beak is still around, Martha the human brain is still around. Morrison, like all X-Men writers, had to re-translate the canonical X-Men stories in his run; his run ends as he re-translates all the elements he introduced, a kind of reflexive micro version of the whole project. Just as his 41 issues revised X-Men history, his final four issues revise his own run.
It is an amazing way to end things. Morrison is very good at endings.
In the essay I wrote for Reconstruction years ago I noted that a writer's run on a title was like the translation of canonical poetry -- a new version of old things for a new generation of readers. Just as "Assault on Weapon Plus" was Morrison's take on the Weapon X program, "Here Comes Tomorrow" is his take on "Days of Future Past". What is important is that he chooses to end his run by jumping in the far future -- a future with Wolverine still around doing his cool Wolverine swagger, a future where the Beast still alive (as a version of the X-Men villain Apocalypse -- he is the Beast of the Apocalypse obsessed as Apocalypse is, with genetic perfection), a future with an original sentinel is still around, a future in which Phoenix is back (again) dressing slutty (again), and a future with warhead shaped boobs drawn by Mark Silvestri. Morrison's point with Magneto was that the X-Men are stuck in a cycle. In "Here Comes Tomorrow" it turns out that the future looks a lot like X-Men comics in the 1990s. The cycle goes on for as far as the eye can see.
And yet "Here Comes Tomorrow" is also the freshest thing in the run since Fantomex and Cassandra Nova, because in the future -- outside of the X-Men franchise, in a space that need not effect the tenure of any future writer -- Morrison gets to break out and just have the fun he should have been having all along. What makes the tone of "Here Comes Tomorrow" fascinating is that stale and fresh slam together -- Morrison can do whatever he wants, invent ANYTHING and play crazy games: and he remaps the world, giving us Tranatlantas, and Megamerica (Morrison is great at naming things). But is this world new? His final four issues, rather than being straight ahead inventive, invoke ideas from his previous thirty-seven -- Casandra Nova is back, E.V.A. is back, Fantomex may be back (I will talk about this in issue 154) the U-Men are back (well, one of them), John Sublime is back (in an odd form), the Cookoos are still around, the grandson of Beak is still around, Martha the human brain is still around. Morrison, like all X-Men writers, had to re-translate the canonical X-Men stories in his run; his run ends as he re-translates all the elements he introduced, a kind of reflexive micro version of the whole project. Just as his 41 issues revised X-Men history, his final four issues revise his own run.
It is an amazing way to end things. Morrison is very good at endings.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 150
[This post is part of a series of posts looking at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run issue by issue. For more posts like this click the new X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]
"Have your eyes grown back yet" is a great first line for any comic book; you knew Wolverine and Jean were not dead, but this is such a cool way to announce it.
Meanwhile, the Beast and Emma's ship, after it blew up in mid-air, crashed in the ocean and floated; the Beast and Emma survived somehow and have been sitting on it for three days. The combination of a lack of imagination and missing information here is maddening. Emma's response to Jean's dramatic rescue on the other hand -- "Bloody Jean showing off again" -- is wonderful.
Some nice foreshadowing: Magneto says he always suspected there was more to Ernst than meets the eye, and Esme knows who Weapon 13 is -- both of these details will lead into the true identity of these characters in the next four issues.
Fantomex's "You and whose knees" is a great little quip, and his retort "is everything you say a cliche" is great -- that actually makes Morrison's theme here fun.
Scott gets genuinely angry at Xorn for not being Xorn -- he is the voice of the reader here, angry that Xorn was never real -- but then lamely backs off after blasting him in the face: "I didn't mean to...". He almost changed, but Morrison's unpleasant little point here comes back and comes back -- he will always be weak and stifled because the X-Men, like Magneto, are in a repetitive cycle, a metaphor for the franchise (Morrison makes this point explicitly in a popimage interview a while back). That is why Morrison has Hank attack Magneto just like Hank attacked Nova, jumping on him with needles. We are already cycling back, and Morrison is not even done yet.
In "E for Extinction" Morrison introduced the idea that humanity is going to die out because of a genetic trigger. Hank has solved it in this issue, scratching on the wing of the plane. So there ends that little plot, which started the book off with so much edge. Morrison is angrily ending the things he introduced because he is finished writing this book, not because the story itself demands that they end here. It works with his theme, but it makes him a bad storyteller in these issues.
Magneto just kills Jean with an electromagnetic pulse, giving her a stroke. Again, not great storytelling, but Morrison is just fucking done here, and so he ends it. Wolverine cuts Magneto's head off; no more of the mutant justice Morrison introduced in his early issues, in which a genocidal maniac gets rehabilitated in the robot body of an alien. Heads roll like the French Revolution.
The issue, against all odds, ends beautifully, hauntingly. It is a wonderful end to a pitiful story, which is such a strange thing. Morrison can tell a story, he just does not want to in much of "Planet X" because his theme is that these repetitive superhero stories suck. As Jean dies a crack in the universe is created -- Jimenez just draws a simple tear in the page and zooms in on it, rather than do some cosmic shot of the multiverse or something more inhuman and Crisis-like. Scott in tears calls for Xorn failing to remember Xorn is not real until he says the name out lout, which is heartbreaking. The panels shrink into nothingness and break apart, and Jean calls Scott her best friend, tells him (in the voice of the Phoenix) to Live, and then (back to Jean's voice) says in small letters "All I ever did was die on you." Morrison can do wonders, when he wants to.
"Have your eyes grown back yet" is a great first line for any comic book; you knew Wolverine and Jean were not dead, but this is such a cool way to announce it.
Meanwhile, the Beast and Emma's ship, after it blew up in mid-air, crashed in the ocean and floated; the Beast and Emma survived somehow and have been sitting on it for three days. The combination of a lack of imagination and missing information here is maddening. Emma's response to Jean's dramatic rescue on the other hand -- "Bloody Jean showing off again" -- is wonderful.
Some nice foreshadowing: Magneto says he always suspected there was more to Ernst than meets the eye, and Esme knows who Weapon 13 is -- both of these details will lead into the true identity of these characters in the next four issues.
Fantomex's "You and whose knees" is a great little quip, and his retort "is everything you say a cliche" is great -- that actually makes Morrison's theme here fun.
Scott gets genuinely angry at Xorn for not being Xorn -- he is the voice of the reader here, angry that Xorn was never real -- but then lamely backs off after blasting him in the face: "I didn't mean to...". He almost changed, but Morrison's unpleasant little point here comes back and comes back -- he will always be weak and stifled because the X-Men, like Magneto, are in a repetitive cycle, a metaphor for the franchise (Morrison makes this point explicitly in a popimage interview a while back). That is why Morrison has Hank attack Magneto just like Hank attacked Nova, jumping on him with needles. We are already cycling back, and Morrison is not even done yet.
In "E for Extinction" Morrison introduced the idea that humanity is going to die out because of a genetic trigger. Hank has solved it in this issue, scratching on the wing of the plane. So there ends that little plot, which started the book off with so much edge. Morrison is angrily ending the things he introduced because he is finished writing this book, not because the story itself demands that they end here. It works with his theme, but it makes him a bad storyteller in these issues.
Magneto just kills Jean with an electromagnetic pulse, giving her a stroke. Again, not great storytelling, but Morrison is just fucking done here, and so he ends it. Wolverine cuts Magneto's head off; no more of the mutant justice Morrison introduced in his early issues, in which a genocidal maniac gets rehabilitated in the robot body of an alien. Heads roll like the French Revolution.
The issue, against all odds, ends beautifully, hauntingly. It is a wonderful end to a pitiful story, which is such a strange thing. Morrison can tell a story, he just does not want to in much of "Planet X" because his theme is that these repetitive superhero stories suck. As Jean dies a crack in the universe is created -- Jimenez just draws a simple tear in the page and zooms in on it, rather than do some cosmic shot of the multiverse or something more inhuman and Crisis-like. Scott in tears calls for Xorn failing to remember Xorn is not real until he says the name out lout, which is heartbreaking. The panels shrink into nothingness and break apart, and Jean calls Scott her best friend, tells him (in the voice of the Phoenix) to Live, and then (back to Jean's voice) says in small letters "All I ever did was die on you." Morrison can do wonders, when he wants to.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 149
[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run -- for more of the same click the New X-Men label at the bottom of this post].
Magneto rejects the comparison between the Nazi's who killed his family and his own plan to lead humanity into a crematoria. The Beak points out that Magneto's plan is nothing new, which is Morrison's point about Magneto, but that does not make for good storytelling. It just gives us a one-dimensional Magneto. Later we will learn that Sublime is behind Magneto's insanity, but Morrison gives us a detail that I find frustrating: Magneto wrote an article that humans do not feel pain like mutants do. That is an absurd racist cliche -- and, again, that is Morrison's point -- but I have a very hard time seeing this version of Magneto sitting down to write something like that. I have a harder time believing that these students, with their fart jokes, would find it and read it -- he did not give it to them, since one student had to tell the others.
This all becomes much more pathetic as Beak objects that every living thing feels pain, even dogs and carrots, at which point there is a debate over whether the carrot is a fruit or a vegetable -- Magneto ends the conversation by declaring it a vegetable and hitting Beak in the face. Then he kills Basilisk over a fart joke. Morrison does a great job here at creating at atmosphere of total horror -- people are getting killed over nothing, but it is frustrating as a reader that this is the Big Bad for this arc, and not some idiot bully lackey. Again, Beak calling him a bully -- which is Morrison's point -- does not save this aspect of the story.
In the last post I asked how the special class could stand tall with psycho-Magneto. In this issue it turns out that Esme was influencing everyone's minds with Martha's super-brain. Again, frustrating. This has replaced any need for Morrison to characterize the special class, just as the Sublime reveal will allow his Magneto to not require characterization either -- no one acts like human beings, not because Morrison is a lazy writer in these issues, but because everyone is being controlled by someone else. The Martha reveal feels tacked on, in part, because there is no explanation as to why it has stopped working just now, for the rally back. It is a bit like Harry's convenient amnesia in Spiderman 3 -- it made the lives of the screenwriters easier.
Esme asks why Magneto is taking so long to switch the poles of the earth -- is he waiting for the X-Men to stop him? In this issue he also tells the comatose Xavier that he misses their struggles. That is actually good writing I think -- I like the idea that there is something in a villain like the Freud's death drive, a desire to be captured.
Ernst calls Magneto boring and old-fashioned at the end of this issue, and she says no one likes what he is doing and it is all coming to an end. This is the third such complaint in the issue, and -- again -- Morrison's point. Thematically this should make sense: the NEW X-Men versus OLD Magneto. But attacking old-fashioned monsters like Magneto to restore the status quo makes the X-Men the oldest and most traditional kind of superhero, not an inch away from Uncanny X-Men number one from 1963. Morrison's vision of a post-human outpost from the future in the here and now -- of a team who only called themselves superheroes because it was something the world could understand -- cannot sink lower.
At least Morrison has a great ending to his run prepared.
Magneto rejects the comparison between the Nazi's who killed his family and his own plan to lead humanity into a crematoria. The Beak points out that Magneto's plan is nothing new, which is Morrison's point about Magneto, but that does not make for good storytelling. It just gives us a one-dimensional Magneto. Later we will learn that Sublime is behind Magneto's insanity, but Morrison gives us a detail that I find frustrating: Magneto wrote an article that humans do not feel pain like mutants do. That is an absurd racist cliche -- and, again, that is Morrison's point -- but I have a very hard time seeing this version of Magneto sitting down to write something like that. I have a harder time believing that these students, with their fart jokes, would find it and read it -- he did not give it to them, since one student had to tell the others.
This all becomes much more pathetic as Beak objects that every living thing feels pain, even dogs and carrots, at which point there is a debate over whether the carrot is a fruit or a vegetable -- Magneto ends the conversation by declaring it a vegetable and hitting Beak in the face. Then he kills Basilisk over a fart joke. Morrison does a great job here at creating at atmosphere of total horror -- people are getting killed over nothing, but it is frustrating as a reader that this is the Big Bad for this arc, and not some idiot bully lackey. Again, Beak calling him a bully -- which is Morrison's point -- does not save this aspect of the story.
In the last post I asked how the special class could stand tall with psycho-Magneto. In this issue it turns out that Esme was influencing everyone's minds with Martha's super-brain. Again, frustrating. This has replaced any need for Morrison to characterize the special class, just as the Sublime reveal will allow his Magneto to not require characterization either -- no one acts like human beings, not because Morrison is a lazy writer in these issues, but because everyone is being controlled by someone else. The Martha reveal feels tacked on, in part, because there is no explanation as to why it has stopped working just now, for the rally back. It is a bit like Harry's convenient amnesia in Spiderman 3 -- it made the lives of the screenwriters easier.
Esme asks why Magneto is taking so long to switch the poles of the earth -- is he waiting for the X-Men to stop him? In this issue he also tells the comatose Xavier that he misses their struggles. That is actually good writing I think -- I like the idea that there is something in a villain like the Freud's death drive, a desire to be captured.
Ernst calls Magneto boring and old-fashioned at the end of this issue, and she says no one likes what he is doing and it is all coming to an end. This is the third such complaint in the issue, and -- again -- Morrison's point. Thematically this should make sense: the NEW X-Men versus OLD Magneto. But attacking old-fashioned monsters like Magneto to restore the status quo makes the X-Men the oldest and most traditional kind of superhero, not an inch away from Uncanny X-Men number one from 1963. Morrison's vision of a post-human outpost from the future in the here and now -- of a team who only called themselves superheroes because it was something the world could understand -- cannot sink lower.
At least Morrison has a great ending to his run prepared.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 148
[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run; for more of the same click the New X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]
Wolverine opens this issue by noting that he did not even smell Magneto till now. I think that is a metaphor, but what about its literal since? Why didn't he, with all his fancy hyper senses, detect that Xorn was Magneto? Morrison's twist just raises more questions than it answers. Magneto tells Ernst -- who misses Xorn, which is terribly sweet -- that he created Xorn with help from supporters in China. Well, I think I am going to need a little more than that -- did he create Xorn with help of undetectable supporters in China who can rig things to fool the most powerful psychics on Earth, and Wolverine?
When Magneto's speeches fail, Toad tells him that the crowd wants sound-bytes not Shakespeare. At first it appears Morrison wants to attack Magneto for being old-fashioned and un-imaginative -- for re-using old ideas like switching the poles of the earth -- but Morrison also seems to be making a claim that everyone has degenerated, including the people of New York. We never really get to see them here, which is unfortunate.
Magneto's "special class" seems surprised that he wants to exterminate humanity, but what kind of guy did they think he was -- they were posing with him like rock-stars after he destroyed Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. This story is hard to like because its main characters are written badly -- we do not understand them as people -- we do not understand how they got from the Special Class to here -- so when Morrison calls on us to sympathize with them, it fails.
The sequence with Jean and Wolverine, trapped on a rock in space heading into the sun, on the other hand, is great. Jimenez does a wonderful Jean in these issues -- realistically beautiful with her ponytail and sweat, and perfectly normal bra (in stark contrast to the embarrassing super-boobs he gave her in "Murder at the Mansion"). Morrison's writing for the two of them is spot on as well. The Phoenix Force burns away what does not work -- which is wonderfully Emersonian, and my favorite description of the Phoenix force. Wolverine tells a story about surviving without food by eating chunks of off his own arm, which grew back thanks to his healing factor, a great story that shows a great understanding of this character. Finally Wolverine kills Jean to activate the Phoenix Force moments before we see them both die. This is one of the most powerful images in the run, and thankfully we are given a full five pages -- the final three completely silent -- to absorb it. We need the time and we get the time, and it works.
This kind of swerve between bad writing and great writing is what makes this run so maddening, and worse, in some ways, than something consistently badly written. You keep seeing what Morrison can do, and then you have pages and pages of him simply not doing it. It would be a mistake to drop a book with so much good, but it still feels like a mistake to keep buying it when so much of it is so bad.
Wolverine opens this issue by noting that he did not even smell Magneto till now. I think that is a metaphor, but what about its literal since? Why didn't he, with all his fancy hyper senses, detect that Xorn was Magneto? Morrison's twist just raises more questions than it answers. Magneto tells Ernst -- who misses Xorn, which is terribly sweet -- that he created Xorn with help from supporters in China. Well, I think I am going to need a little more than that -- did he create Xorn with help of undetectable supporters in China who can rig things to fool the most powerful psychics on Earth, and Wolverine?
When Magneto's speeches fail, Toad tells him that the crowd wants sound-bytes not Shakespeare. At first it appears Morrison wants to attack Magneto for being old-fashioned and un-imaginative -- for re-using old ideas like switching the poles of the earth -- but Morrison also seems to be making a claim that everyone has degenerated, including the people of New York. We never really get to see them here, which is unfortunate.
Magneto's "special class" seems surprised that he wants to exterminate humanity, but what kind of guy did they think he was -- they were posing with him like rock-stars after he destroyed Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. This story is hard to like because its main characters are written badly -- we do not understand them as people -- we do not understand how they got from the Special Class to here -- so when Morrison calls on us to sympathize with them, it fails.
The sequence with Jean and Wolverine, trapped on a rock in space heading into the sun, on the other hand, is great. Jimenez does a wonderful Jean in these issues -- realistically beautiful with her ponytail and sweat, and perfectly normal bra (in stark contrast to the embarrassing super-boobs he gave her in "Murder at the Mansion"). Morrison's writing for the two of them is spot on as well. The Phoenix Force burns away what does not work -- which is wonderfully Emersonian, and my favorite description of the Phoenix force. Wolverine tells a story about surviving without food by eating chunks of off his own arm, which grew back thanks to his healing factor, a great story that shows a great understanding of this character. Finally Wolverine kills Jean to activate the Phoenix Force moments before we see them both die. This is one of the most powerful images in the run, and thankfully we are given a full five pages -- the final three completely silent -- to absorb it. We need the time and we get the time, and it works.
This kind of swerve between bad writing and great writing is what makes this run so maddening, and worse, in some ways, than something consistently badly written. You keep seeing what Morrison can do, and then you have pages and pages of him simply not doing it. It would be a mistake to drop a book with so much good, but it still feels like a mistake to keep buying it when so much of it is so bad.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 147
[This post is part of a series of posts looking issue by issue at Grant Morrison's New X-Men. For more of the same hit the New X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]
This issue has a nice structure -- We jump head to Magneto at his headquarters, and we learn in brief page-spread single-image flashbacks that he took over Manhattan island and destroyed Xavier's mansion in one day. We don't really need to see Magneto being a terrorist -- we have seen this before, and that is one of Morrison's points here. Jimenez does a great job with the art in these spreads. The only thing that bothers me here is the destruction of the mansion -- did he kill all the students?
In his triumph Magneto says to his new brotherhood "I have turned the world on its head for you. The lowest are now the highest." The image shows a bizarre lineup: Martha (the brain in the jar), Ernst (the old woman little girl), Basilisk (the giant one eyed guy, in street clothes), Esme (of the Cookoos, looking like an 80s idea of a tramp), Toad (in street clothes), Beak and Angel (both in X-Men jackets, which is odd) and Angel's weird babies (in diapers, with huge black eyes and gossamer wings). It is an odd image, especially in the context of the Morrison's "cool" manifesto. The weirdos have taken over, but given Morrison's treatment of them -- we have no idea why they would side with Magneto here at all, or stand tall with him after he wrecked New York -- it is not very persuasive, especially since Ernst does not understand that Xorn was not real. What was she thinking in the first place? If we knew that, if we understood these characters better, we could care more. Morrison is skipping over some important information.
The X-Men team appear in head-shots under superimposed Xs -- Xavier is listed as "missing" and everyone else is "missing in action". In a minute this will become a plot point -- Esme says it seems like Magneto wants the X-Men to come and get him, or he would make sure they are all dead. For now we have the same problem as last issue, and in the Riot: Morrison wants to show that Magneto is lame, but making your villain lame does not make for very interesting storytelling.
The sentimental radio message that appeared in Morrison's September 11th tribute turns out now to have been a virus to disable the world's technology. This is a very weird detail, and seems tacked on to me -- I doubt Morrison had that in mind when he wrote that issue, in which he seemed to be really aiming for the sentimental.
Morrison wants to make a joke about Magneto being too old fashioned: Magneto addresses the masses, and they do not react as he wants them too; Toad remarks that no one is sure what is going on, the speakers are distorting his voice, and no one can tell who he really is. What doesn't make the scene make sense is the question of why Magneto would think they could tell who he was all the way up on top of a skyscraper. The crowd has a short attention span, and so Magneto turns to Kick to make he powers more dramatic. He says lamely "just one more time..." Again, interesting interpreting, bad storytelling.
And here we see Morrison's Magneto emerge: he just destroys New York City landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, because he is a petty horrible man out for attention. Morrison wants Magneto to be very unsympathetic, and he succeeds, but it is a Phyrric victory, as his story is no fun as a result. I have written elsewhere about why Morrison's Magneto does not work -- go to the archives for July 30, 2006.
This issue has a nice structure -- We jump head to Magneto at his headquarters, and we learn in brief page-spread single-image flashbacks that he took over Manhattan island and destroyed Xavier's mansion in one day. We don't really need to see Magneto being a terrorist -- we have seen this before, and that is one of Morrison's points here. Jimenez does a great job with the art in these spreads. The only thing that bothers me here is the destruction of the mansion -- did he kill all the students?
In his triumph Magneto says to his new brotherhood "I have turned the world on its head for you. The lowest are now the highest." The image shows a bizarre lineup: Martha (the brain in the jar), Ernst (the old woman little girl), Basilisk (the giant one eyed guy, in street clothes), Esme (of the Cookoos, looking like an 80s idea of a tramp), Toad (in street clothes), Beak and Angel (both in X-Men jackets, which is odd) and Angel's weird babies (in diapers, with huge black eyes and gossamer wings). It is an odd image, especially in the context of the Morrison's "cool" manifesto. The weirdos have taken over, but given Morrison's treatment of them -- we have no idea why they would side with Magneto here at all, or stand tall with him after he wrecked New York -- it is not very persuasive, especially since Ernst does not understand that Xorn was not real. What was she thinking in the first place? If we knew that, if we understood these characters better, we could care more. Morrison is skipping over some important information.
The X-Men team appear in head-shots under superimposed Xs -- Xavier is listed as "missing" and everyone else is "missing in action". In a minute this will become a plot point -- Esme says it seems like Magneto wants the X-Men to come and get him, or he would make sure they are all dead. For now we have the same problem as last issue, and in the Riot: Morrison wants to show that Magneto is lame, but making your villain lame does not make for very interesting storytelling.
The sentimental radio message that appeared in Morrison's September 11th tribute turns out now to have been a virus to disable the world's technology. This is a very weird detail, and seems tacked on to me -- I doubt Morrison had that in mind when he wrote that issue, in which he seemed to be really aiming for the sentimental.
Morrison wants to make a joke about Magneto being too old fashioned: Magneto addresses the masses, and they do not react as he wants them too; Toad remarks that no one is sure what is going on, the speakers are distorting his voice, and no one can tell who he really is. What doesn't make the scene make sense is the question of why Magneto would think they could tell who he was all the way up on top of a skyscraper. The crowd has a short attention span, and so Magneto turns to Kick to make he powers more dramatic. He says lamely "just one more time..." Again, interesting interpreting, bad storytelling.
And here we see Morrison's Magneto emerge: he just destroys New York City landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, because he is a petty horrible man out for attention. Morrison wants Magneto to be very unsympathetic, and he succeeds, but it is a Phyrric victory, as his story is no fun as a result. I have written elsewhere about why Morrison's Magneto does not work -- go to the archives for July 30, 2006.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 146
[This post is part of a series of posts looking at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run issue by issue. For more in this series click the New X-Men link below.]
Xavier, responding to the satellite explosion from the last issue, screams out "X-MEN EMERGENCY!" in a single page image, with huge letters -- The first line of dialogue is also the issue's title, I think. Perhaps I am being cynical and tired, but it seems like an overreaction. You have a hard time imagining him freaking out every time something like this happens, since it happens so often. But that is probably just me being mean.
Scott and Fantomex, escaping from the satellite, crash into the Pacific Ocean shortly after. Henry and Emma's jet explodes trying to rescue them. The following issues will make a thematic point out of Magneto's lack of imagination, but I will renew my objection to this device: in criticizing something lame you are also giving us something lame -- I would rather see Morrison come up with something more clever than blowing up Wolverine on a satellite, blowing up Scott and Fantomex on a plane, blowing up another plane with Hank and Emma on their way to rescue them, then blowing up Jean and Wolverine moments after she rescues him. (I have mentioned 9-11 with Morrison here -- is this another allusion to that? Crummy terrorists with their bombs and lack of imagination?). More lack of imagination will follow with an eeeeevil upside down map, and an eeeeevil bolt lock that locks itself -- a very poor way to build to the reveal of the Master of Magnetism; in a superhero universe, you have to feel the bolt lock is going to be a minor obstacle, even if Xavier is crippled again and there are no superheroes around.
One nice detail that got a bit buried here is that Scott has reported there is a traitor in the mansion, and then Magneto is revealed to have been Xorn the whole time. But of course the traitor Scott is talking about is Weapon 14, whose identity will not be revealed until the next arc. THAT is an example of clever plotting that I want to see more of. My general complaint with New X-Men is not that it is bad but that it is uneven.
Elsewhere we see Xorn addressing the special class. It seems he has just finished his "pitch" and is now asking for a response from Dust. Given the reaction of everyone in the room, they agree with whatever it is Xorn just said. Given what happens in the next issue, this skipped over moment seems crucial -- it is hard to imagine drugged up Magneto, who everyone will hate in ten minutes, saying something persuasive to this group. I want to see what it is that made them want to follow him. It would make what follows much easier to swallow. This should have been set up long ago.
Dust's response is to run to Xavier, then panic when Xorn follows her; in her panic she will destroy Cerebra. Then we never hear from her again. This is the third and final appearance of what would have been an interesting character. It is a shame that Morrison had no better plans for her than this. This lack of imagination has nothing to do with the upcoming attack on Magneto for a lack of imagination -- the fact that this is in the same issue with the explosions tells me the problem is a problem Morrison is having, and not and intentional part of the theme of the story.
And the big reveal is here -- that Magneto has been Xorn the whole time. We have gone over the evidence on this blog issue by issue, and my conclusion is this: in order for this moment to have any impact it has to have been set up very well, and it was not. The nano-sentinels allowing Xavier to walk was a very nice detail, as was Xorn healing everyone by killing Nova's Nano sentinels; though the coincidence factor on that second one is very high -- Magneto pretends to be a healer and lucky him there is an easy way to pretend to be a healer that works perfectly with his powers. But I have too many questions about how Xorn could have been Magneto the whole time to have the Wow reaction Morrison must be looking for, and I have aired those complaints in earlier posts. We had a theory back when Scott picked up Xorn to help in the Nova fight that the Xorn in the annual was really Xorn, and Magneto replaced him between the annual and when Scott comes to get him (that would explain how Magneto was able to fool the psychics with a fake history) -- in this issue Magneto says There never was a Feng-Tu prison, it was all invented for the occasion. He may be lying, but my problem stands -- for a twist like this to work you have to lay the groundwork that makes it both inevitable and surprising. This is surprising, but hardly as inevitable as Morrison wants to to be when Magneto mocks Charles with "A man in an iron prison. A star for a brain? I kept thinking it was too obvious, but still you missed it." Well there was a lot of evidence that Xorn was real, and you did not explain why I should not have been fooled by it.
Xavier, responding to the satellite explosion from the last issue, screams out "X-MEN EMERGENCY!" in a single page image, with huge letters -- The first line of dialogue is also the issue's title, I think. Perhaps I am being cynical and tired, but it seems like an overreaction. You have a hard time imagining him freaking out every time something like this happens, since it happens so often. But that is probably just me being mean.
Scott and Fantomex, escaping from the satellite, crash into the Pacific Ocean shortly after. Henry and Emma's jet explodes trying to rescue them. The following issues will make a thematic point out of Magneto's lack of imagination, but I will renew my objection to this device: in criticizing something lame you are also giving us something lame -- I would rather see Morrison come up with something more clever than blowing up Wolverine on a satellite, blowing up Scott and Fantomex on a plane, blowing up another plane with Hank and Emma on their way to rescue them, then blowing up Jean and Wolverine moments after she rescues him. (I have mentioned 9-11 with Morrison here -- is this another allusion to that? Crummy terrorists with their bombs and lack of imagination?). More lack of imagination will follow with an eeeeevil upside down map, and an eeeeevil bolt lock that locks itself -- a very poor way to build to the reveal of the Master of Magnetism; in a superhero universe, you have to feel the bolt lock is going to be a minor obstacle, even if Xavier is crippled again and there are no superheroes around.
One nice detail that got a bit buried here is that Scott has reported there is a traitor in the mansion, and then Magneto is revealed to have been Xorn the whole time. But of course the traitor Scott is talking about is Weapon 14, whose identity will not be revealed until the next arc. THAT is an example of clever plotting that I want to see more of. My general complaint with New X-Men is not that it is bad but that it is uneven.
Elsewhere we see Xorn addressing the special class. It seems he has just finished his "pitch" and is now asking for a response from Dust. Given the reaction of everyone in the room, they agree with whatever it is Xorn just said. Given what happens in the next issue, this skipped over moment seems crucial -- it is hard to imagine drugged up Magneto, who everyone will hate in ten minutes, saying something persuasive to this group. I want to see what it is that made them want to follow him. It would make what follows much easier to swallow. This should have been set up long ago.
Dust's response is to run to Xavier, then panic when Xorn follows her; in her panic she will destroy Cerebra. Then we never hear from her again. This is the third and final appearance of what would have been an interesting character. It is a shame that Morrison had no better plans for her than this. This lack of imagination has nothing to do with the upcoming attack on Magneto for a lack of imagination -- the fact that this is in the same issue with the explosions tells me the problem is a problem Morrison is having, and not and intentional part of the theme of the story.
And the big reveal is here -- that Magneto has been Xorn the whole time. We have gone over the evidence on this blog issue by issue, and my conclusion is this: in order for this moment to have any impact it has to have been set up very well, and it was not. The nano-sentinels allowing Xavier to walk was a very nice detail, as was Xorn healing everyone by killing Nova's Nano sentinels; though the coincidence factor on that second one is very high -- Magneto pretends to be a healer and lucky him there is an easy way to pretend to be a healer that works perfectly with his powers. But I have too many questions about how Xorn could have been Magneto the whole time to have the Wow reaction Morrison must be looking for, and I have aired those complaints in earlier posts. We had a theory back when Scott picked up Xorn to help in the Nova fight that the Xorn in the annual was really Xorn, and Magneto replaced him between the annual and when Scott comes to get him (that would explain how Magneto was able to fool the psychics with a fake history) -- in this issue Magneto says There never was a Feng-Tu prison, it was all invented for the occasion. He may be lying, but my problem stands -- for a twist like this to work you have to lay the groundwork that makes it both inevitable and surprising. This is surprising, but hardly as inevitable as Morrison wants to to be when Magneto mocks Charles with "A man in an iron prison. A star for a brain? I kept thinking it was too obvious, but still you missed it." Well there was a lot of evidence that Xorn was real, and you did not explain why I should not have been fooled by it.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 145
[This post is part of a series of posts looking at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run issue by issue. For more posts on the same subject, click the New X-Men label below. For more on issues 142-145, click on the link in the issue 142 post and read part 6 of my online essay for Reconstruction.]
Each issue Assault on Weapon Plus takes a foot for the subject of its opening panel. I have no idea why that is but I think Bachalo has a quirky and fun sense of humor, and I like it.
Again, Bachalo has a great use of empty space here, as Weapon 15 travels through literally empty space.
Dr. Sublime is introduced as the man behind the Weapon Plus program, and thus the man behind Weapon Plus. We only see him on a monitor; we have never seen him before and will not see him again in Morrison's run. This guy is a link in the chain that leads to the big reveal at the end of the series, but we never get to spend time with him -- this actually feels like a last ditch attempt to link this arc with the arc of the series. It is ok here -- this arc is still perfect -- but it seems ill set up in terms of the run.
We get a great little reveal here -- there is a mole inside Xavier's. It looks like Magneto for a moment (as long as you don't stop to think about it), but it turns out to be someone very surprising, even though the identity of Weapon 15's predecessor will not be revealed for 150 narrative years.
Each issue Assault on Weapon Plus takes a foot for the subject of its opening panel. I have no idea why that is but I think Bachalo has a quirky and fun sense of humor, and I like it.
Again, Bachalo has a great use of empty space here, as Weapon 15 travels through literally empty space.
Dr. Sublime is introduced as the man behind the Weapon Plus program, and thus the man behind Weapon Plus. We only see him on a monitor; we have never seen him before and will not see him again in Morrison's run. This guy is a link in the chain that leads to the big reveal at the end of the series, but we never get to spend time with him -- this actually feels like a last ditch attempt to link this arc with the arc of the series. It is ok here -- this arc is still perfect -- but it seems ill set up in terms of the run.
We get a great little reveal here -- there is a mole inside Xavier's. It looks like Magneto for a moment (as long as you don't stop to think about it), but it turns out to be someone very surprising, even though the identity of Weapon 15's predecessor will not be revealed for 150 narrative years.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 144
[This post is part of a series of posts looking at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run issue by issue. For more posts on the same subject, click the New X-Men label below. For more on issues 142-145, click on the link in the issue 142 post and read part 6 of my online essay for Reconstruction.]
Just a few very quick notes.
Frozen time within the fortress of the World is shown with washed out color, which is nice. When time starts up again characters cough up blood, which is the right detail for seeing something so unnatural.
Morrison has them confront a gigantic shambling security robot that Fantomex describes as what happens when you put a whale's brain under the hood of a truck, which is a great bit of surrealism.
Weapon 15 talks like a poet-philosopher, and I think it is pretty well written. In the hands of a lesser writer this kind of monologuing can become quickly cringe-worthy.
I keep talking about this, but Bachalo's layouts are just fantastic: the talk down an uninterrupted spiral staircase, the white background Wolverine-Weapon 15 fight, the twelve grid Cyclops Weapon 15 fight (in which Cyclops says it is like Weapon 15 is running a program -- hence the symmetry of the panels), the tall panels for flying, the two page spread to communicate the freedom of no more walls, the circular panel for the space station (like looking through a telescope).
I know these are brief, but I did say most of what I had to say about these issues in the online essay.
Just a few very quick notes.
Frozen time within the fortress of the World is shown with washed out color, which is nice. When time starts up again characters cough up blood, which is the right detail for seeing something so unnatural.
Morrison has them confront a gigantic shambling security robot that Fantomex describes as what happens when you put a whale's brain under the hood of a truck, which is a great bit of surrealism.
Weapon 15 talks like a poet-philosopher, and I think it is pretty well written. In the hands of a lesser writer this kind of monologuing can become quickly cringe-worthy.
I keep talking about this, but Bachalo's layouts are just fantastic: the talk down an uninterrupted spiral staircase, the white background Wolverine-Weapon 15 fight, the twelve grid Cyclops Weapon 15 fight (in which Cyclops says it is like Weapon 15 is running a program -- hence the symmetry of the panels), the tall panels for flying, the two page spread to communicate the freedom of no more walls, the circular panel for the space station (like looking through a telescope).
I know these are brief, but I did say most of what I had to say about these issues in the online essay.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 143
[This post is part of a series of posts looking at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run issue by issue; for more of the same click the New X-Men label at the bottom of this post].
As I said last time, much of what I have to say about this arc I said in an online essay -- the post for issue 142 will give you the link; only part six of the essay is about issues 142-145. Here I will give only stray notes.
In the headquarters of The World there is a place called the Euthanasium, where old experiments are killed. Grant Morrison is always very good at naming things.
Weapon 15 is a religious monster prone to monologuing: "What if there is no joyful reward in the fire," a mode Morrison also writes very well.
Some of Bachalo's most beautiful layouts are in this issue -- a full page panel of a building with smaller panels superimposed to show guys climbing, for example. Bachalo gives some amazing glamour shots of the three leads, including a Wolverine Attacks image in which the background has been removed -- only white remains -- to make it uber-iconic.
a series of identical small panels, like film reel, of Fantomex just shooting his gun over and over; in one of my favorite Morrison lines he says, in the first panel "I come in peace" then says in the last panel "Did I say peace?" -- this is why Fantomex is my favorite comic book character of all time. One of my other favorite New X-Men lines is in the issue: Fantomex remarks of shooting a guy with an old fashioned AIM uniform "AIM helmet. Design classic. I could clean up on eBay. But now I'm thinking... Would bullet holes make it more collectible or less?"
And Bachalo always has a sense of humor -- one guy is so freaked out his hair has turned white. Bachalo makes a point of giving him dramatic orange glasses so when his hair color changes, you know it is the same guy. Bachalo is cluttered and chaotic -- along with Geof Darrow, Bachalo is great at drawing debris -- but he always puts these little details in to make his art clear if you take the time to look past the mess, if you take the time to figure it out. Whether he should be asking the audience to take that time is up for debate, but I have always found it rewarding, especially on Steampunk.
As I said last time, much of what I have to say about this arc I said in an online essay -- the post for issue 142 will give you the link; only part six of the essay is about issues 142-145. Here I will give only stray notes.
In the headquarters of The World there is a place called the Euthanasium, where old experiments are killed. Grant Morrison is always very good at naming things.
Weapon 15 is a religious monster prone to monologuing: "What if there is no joyful reward in the fire," a mode Morrison also writes very well.
Some of Bachalo's most beautiful layouts are in this issue -- a full page panel of a building with smaller panels superimposed to show guys climbing, for example. Bachalo gives some amazing glamour shots of the three leads, including a Wolverine Attacks image in which the background has been removed -- only white remains -- to make it uber-iconic.
a series of identical small panels, like film reel, of Fantomex just shooting his gun over and over; in one of my favorite Morrison lines he says, in the first panel "I come in peace" then says in the last panel "Did I say peace?" -- this is why Fantomex is my favorite comic book character of all time. One of my other favorite New X-Men lines is in the issue: Fantomex remarks of shooting a guy with an old fashioned AIM uniform "AIM helmet. Design classic. I could clean up on eBay. But now I'm thinking... Would bullet holes make it more collectible or less?"
And Bachalo always has a sense of humor -- one guy is so freaked out his hair has turned white. Bachalo makes a point of giving him dramatic orange glasses so when his hair color changes, you know it is the same guy. Bachalo is cluttered and chaotic -- along with Geof Darrow, Bachalo is great at drawing debris -- but he always puts these little details in to make his art clear if you take the time to look past the mess, if you take the time to figure it out. Whether he should be asking the audience to take that time is up for debate, but I have always found it rewarding, especially on Steampunk.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 142
[This post is part of a series of posts looking at Morrison's New X-Men run; for more posts in this series click the New X-Men label at the bottom of this post.]
The last group of New X-Men issues have been bad -- Morrison lost his way for a dozen issues, maybe more: a year of reading has been pretty good at best, and issue 140 was the low point. With 141 Morrison comes roaring back, creating the first perfect arc since E for Extinction, and the first perfect issue since the silent one. You can disagree with my assessment of the last 12 issues, but if you have been following these posts you know ALL my reasons for thinking it.
Years ago I wrote an essay on Mark Millar's Ultimate X-Men, Grant Morrison's New X-Men and Gnosticism. Section Six of the essay focuses on Assault on Weapon Plus (New X-Men 142-145). In that section I said the bulk of what I have to say about that arc, so if you want the main review you will have to go there. I am just going to make some quick notes for this post, and the next three posts, on things in those issues that I did not talk about in the essay.
Bachalo's artwork in in top form, and Morrison has brought writing to match. We get an extreme close up of Cyclops's visor as he gets drunk watching a stripper at the Hellfire Club -- we get so close one panel, the maximum zoom, is just red; Cyclops responds to the stripper's "you really know how to murder a nice romantic mood" with "Yeah. I guess so. I think it might be my new mutant power", and then we just get empty space at the bottom of the page. The art is great and the line is sweet, silly, funny, perfectly in character (he ruined the mood by talking about the junky outfit the stripper will wear when she goes home to her boyfriend) and a parody of Morrison's introduction of "secondary mutations" to justify giving the Beast a new look or Emma a new power. The empty space at the bottom of the page makes the comic timing work. Cyclops notes the reserved table across from him and club honor gets from Sebastian Shaw, "reserved -- a little like yourself." Its these little things, this understanding of how characters speak, that tells me Morrison is back.
Bachalo does a great job with single color tones -- the club is burnt read, the bathroom is all white. Cyclops and Wolverine drinking is fun, and Bachalo draws one page in a twisty road shape to capture their intoxication. When Wolverine goes to the bathroom Bachalo plays a perspective game with a little picture of a pinup girl over the urinal -- we see her as closely as Wolverine does -- before Wolverine and Sabertooth get into a conversation about penis size. A glamour shot of the stripper is wonderfully used to punctuate a scene and to indicate time has passed.
Fantomex is drinking Champagne -- of course he is, he is French, or at least pretending to -- and he orders Tylenol for Cyclops, who now has little green bubbles around his head to indicate his drunkenness. They stand out in pages and pages of red, and are fun. This is what Bachalo
does best, and why I love him. He has a sense of humor. I think he would pair well with Whedon, and would have been my artist of choice for Whedon's Runaways.
The issue ends with Wolverine telling Fantomex that there is no one he would rather have in his corner than Scott Summers, which is really nice: Bachalo really sells it, ending the issue a page later with a single panel, surrounded with empty space (like the camera is backing away), of Wolverine and Fantomex standing over Cyclops who is on the floor saying "*hic*". The humor sells the emotion, which is Whedon's main device (the final lines of Serenity are the best example of this, I think).
The last group of New X-Men issues have been bad -- Morrison lost his way for a dozen issues, maybe more: a year of reading has been pretty good at best, and issue 140 was the low point. With 141 Morrison comes roaring back, creating the first perfect arc since E for Extinction, and the first perfect issue since the silent one. You can disagree with my assessment of the last 12 issues, but if you have been following these posts you know ALL my reasons for thinking it.
Years ago I wrote an essay on Mark Millar's Ultimate X-Men, Grant Morrison's New X-Men and Gnosticism. Section Six of the essay focuses on Assault on Weapon Plus (New X-Men 142-145). In that section I said the bulk of what I have to say about that arc, so if you want the main review you will have to go there. I am just going to make some quick notes for this post, and the next three posts, on things in those issues that I did not talk about in the essay.
Bachalo's artwork in in top form, and Morrison has brought writing to match. We get an extreme close up of Cyclops's visor as he gets drunk watching a stripper at the Hellfire Club -- we get so close one panel, the maximum zoom, is just red; Cyclops responds to the stripper's "you really know how to murder a nice romantic mood" with "Yeah. I guess so. I think it might be my new mutant power", and then we just get empty space at the bottom of the page. The art is great and the line is sweet, silly, funny, perfectly in character (he ruined the mood by talking about the junky outfit the stripper will wear when she goes home to her boyfriend) and a parody of Morrison's introduction of "secondary mutations" to justify giving the Beast a new look or Emma a new power. The empty space at the bottom of the page makes the comic timing work. Cyclops notes the reserved table across from him and club honor gets from Sebastian Shaw, "reserved -- a little like yourself." Its these little things, this understanding of how characters speak, that tells me Morrison is back.
Bachalo does a great job with single color tones -- the club is burnt read, the bathroom is all white. Cyclops and Wolverine drinking is fun, and Bachalo draws one page in a twisty road shape to capture their intoxication. When Wolverine goes to the bathroom Bachalo plays a perspective game with a little picture of a pinup girl over the urinal -- we see her as closely as Wolverine does -- before Wolverine and Sabertooth get into a conversation about penis size. A glamour shot of the stripper is wonderfully used to punctuate a scene and to indicate time has passed.
Fantomex is drinking Champagne -- of course he is, he is French, or at least pretending to -- and he orders Tylenol for Cyclops, who now has little green bubbles around his head to indicate his drunkenness. They stand out in pages and pages of red, and are fun. This is what Bachalo
does best, and why I love him. He has a sense of humor. I think he would pair well with Whedon, and would have been my artist of choice for Whedon's Runaways.
The issue ends with Wolverine telling Fantomex that there is no one he would rather have in his corner than Scott Summers, which is really nice: Bachalo really sells it, ending the issue a page later with a single panel, surrounded with empty space (like the camera is backing away), of Wolverine and Fantomex standing over Cyclops who is on the floor saying "*hic*". The humor sells the emotion, which is Whedon's main device (the final lines of Serenity are the best example of this, I think).
Monday, April 23, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 141
Bishop's partner Sage, who we last saw with a gun to her head, has been incapacitated, and before she recovers she gibbers random things including "sun in a box" and "horse trap". Both are nicely chosen, and foreshadow what is to come: Magneto is hiding within the walls of the mansion waiting to leap out, as the soldiers waited to leap out of the Trojan Horse; rather than hiding in a horse, Magneto pretends to be a man in an iron mask who has a star for a brain -- a sun in a box.
It appears Sage was the victim of a psychic attack -- you have to wonder what the point of pulling a gun on her at all was -- and now she cannot remember the last hour. This is a high tech version of being hit on the head and getting amnesia, which is very very lame.
Hank says of the murder: "I bet everyone thinks it's me, don't they?" What a pathetic thing to say. He sounds like a depressed teenager who make everything about themselves. Is there ANY reason for anyone to think he did it?
Bishop says the murder weapon was "custom engineered by experts to fire a diamond bullet capable of shattering Emma Frost in her mineral form." "You checked for fingerprints..." is Professor X's response. Yeah, the guy had this super weapon custom designed by experts and tailor made to kill one person, and he forgot to wipe his fingerprints off of it, or Bishop forgot to check for them. Idiots.
Jean, in a very weird shot by Jimenez in this issue, has the largest breasts I have seen since Lady Death. You just feel like there is no one at the helm of this ship.
Jean uses the Phoenix Force to resurrect Emma and says, in a line I love, that Emma has fallen in love with Scott and that it is actually quite sweet. Angel has a weird litter of babies that have hybrid Beak-Angel mutations that are actually quite fun and silly.
But this plot arc completely fails to deliver on the level of plot at all. No reader believes Emma is really dead -- and we turn out to be right, which is sad. We never believe any of Bishop's "suspects" could really have done it. We learn Esme psychically manipulated Angel to shoot Emma Frost because she learned something secret, but we don't find out what because the relevant information has been deleted from their minds. Also, if Emma learned something she should not have and then suddenly had to be killed, way to plan ahead and have a weapon that was custom designed to kill her just lying around. Then we learn Esme did NOT manipulate Angel at all and that is was someone else altogether but no one knows who. We learn someone else is behind Esme, but we don't find out who. And after Bishop ran a detailed investigation to catch the murderer, Esme, the only person who could tell them anything, literally just walks out of the front of the mansion after knocking out both Bishop and Sage in an instant and gets in a cab. Bishop said with psychics, crime takes on a whole new meaning, but obviously that did not involve him doing ANYTHING to protect he and his partner from any kind of psychic attack. Jean could not have done anything to catch that taxi taking Esme from Westchester?
This is a fancy way of saying Morrison wrote a murder mystery in which the victim comes back to life and the killer gets away with what he did without being identified. The low point of the series; the next issue is a high point of the series. See what I mean about uneven?
It appears Sage was the victim of a psychic attack -- you have to wonder what the point of pulling a gun on her at all was -- and now she cannot remember the last hour. This is a high tech version of being hit on the head and getting amnesia, which is very very lame.
Hank says of the murder: "I bet everyone thinks it's me, don't they?" What a pathetic thing to say. He sounds like a depressed teenager who make everything about themselves. Is there ANY reason for anyone to think he did it?
Bishop says the murder weapon was "custom engineered by experts to fire a diamond bullet capable of shattering Emma Frost in her mineral form." "You checked for fingerprints..." is Professor X's response. Yeah, the guy had this super weapon custom designed by experts and tailor made to kill one person, and he forgot to wipe his fingerprints off of it, or Bishop forgot to check for them. Idiots.
Jean, in a very weird shot by Jimenez in this issue, has the largest breasts I have seen since Lady Death. You just feel like there is no one at the helm of this ship.
Jean uses the Phoenix Force to resurrect Emma and says, in a line I love, that Emma has fallen in love with Scott and that it is actually quite sweet. Angel has a weird litter of babies that have hybrid Beak-Angel mutations that are actually quite fun and silly.
But this plot arc completely fails to deliver on the level of plot at all. No reader believes Emma is really dead -- and we turn out to be right, which is sad. We never believe any of Bishop's "suspects" could really have done it. We learn Esme psychically manipulated Angel to shoot Emma Frost because she learned something secret, but we don't find out what because the relevant information has been deleted from their minds. Also, if Emma learned something she should not have and then suddenly had to be killed, way to plan ahead and have a weapon that was custom designed to kill her just lying around. Then we learn Esme did NOT manipulate Angel at all and that is was someone else altogether but no one knows who. We learn someone else is behind Esme, but we don't find out who. And after Bishop ran a detailed investigation to catch the murderer, Esme, the only person who could tell them anything, literally just walks out of the front of the mansion after knocking out both Bishop and Sage in an instant and gets in a cab. Bishop said with psychics, crime takes on a whole new meaning, but obviously that did not involve him doing ANYTHING to protect he and his partner from any kind of psychic attack. Jean could not have done anything to catch that taxi taking Esme from Westchester?
This is a fancy way of saying Morrison wrote a murder mystery in which the victim comes back to life and the killer gets away with what he did without being identified. The low point of the series; the next issue is a high point of the series. See what I mean about uneven?
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 140
[This post is part of a series looking at Grant Morrison's New X-Men run issue by issue; for more of the same click the New X-Men label at the bottom of this post].
Emma Frost has been murdered; someone in the mansion did it, and so the place is sealed off until the murderer can be discovered by a detective brought in. "No one in, no one out; everyone in this room is a suspect." Morrison is doing a golden age Agatha Christie style murder mystery with Bishop in the Miss Marple role (the quote above is his). This is one of the worst ideas in the whole run. People get mad when I say stuff like that, but it is not a free standing quote -- I always give a lot of evidence. The basic problem is this: a genre fusion should feel organic -- space IS like the old west frontier; if superheroes are zombies then bringing in Galactus makes perfect sense. The superhero Agatha Christie story just doesn't fuse.
In Agatha Christie the lockdown is there so the murder will not be an outside job or an off the wall twist; it gives you a limited number of suspects so you have a chance to figure it out. But I cannot understand how this lockdown is practical in a superhero comic. Bishop SAYS that in a world of mindreaders, shapechangers and disembodied consciousnesses crime takes on a whole new meaning, but this is maddening: everything he DOES suggests this is an old fashioned -- like 1920s fiction old fashioned -- attempt to find a killer. He asks each person at the mansion a question or two -- not even very good questions -- and then moves on to someone else. Even psychics just get questions like Where were you at the time of the murder? Part of the problem is time -- in a 22 page comic you cannot flesh out these scenes; Bendis and Oeming's Powers can take the pages and pages it takes to establish the tension in these kinds of conversations but Morrison does not have that kind of time. Also Bendis is writing something a lot more like actual cops, which makes much more sense then resurrecting a long dead genre in bizarre a new context.
Jean just uses the Phoenix Power to simply and magically convince him that she did not do it. As readers we are asked to just believe this; it isn't that I don't -- obviously Jean did not get a gun and shoot Emma -- but is shows you how rushed Morrison is. Everyone gets about a page to be cleared.
The image of badass Bishop looking like a futuristic version of a 70s cop in a leather trench coat and body armor sitting in the professor's office drinking tea out of tiny cup and sticking his pinkie finger out as he does so sort of sums up the whole problem. It is such a silly image, and it is surely not supposed to be -- this story is the buildup to the Magneto story, and a main character has been killed.
Xorn -- Magneto -- has the kids playing Clue. OK. As a murder mystery game in a mansion this is a parody of the story arc it appears in -- Basilisk says "It was professor Sex with the lawnmower -- that's whodunnut." Morrison is making fun of himself, but it is hard to see what the point is. Whedon makes jokes like that, but emotionally deflates the story in such a way that you can care about it more (the people on screen are only human). Morrison highlights how artificial the whole thing is, which has the opposite effect.
Bishop, figuring out Kick is involved, goes to a prison to talk to one of Quentin's Gang and find out who supplied the drug to the mansion. Two things to note here. Given that the "Riot" had an epilogue, it seems clear that there was some down time between "Riot" and "Murder in the Mansion". One: Did no one try to find out how these very dangerous drugs got into the school BEFORE sending the gang to prison? As a psychic headmaster, you think this would be important and easy. Two: all this talk about post-human, rather than merely human, justice, about the dawn of a new age where new rules will be applied and this is what you get -- they sent the remaining members of the gang to a perfectly human New York State Maximum Security Penitentiary? Casandra Nova kills 16 million mutants and is rehabilitated at the mansion; a teenager sells drugs and does drug related violence in a gang of teens and he goes to normal human prison, where he is clearly being abused -- he begs Bishop to get him away because "there are people in here that really do not like mutants". I do not get it.
Then Beak says he killed Miss Frost -- we do not believe this for one second -- and someone pulls a gun on Sage, Bishop's partner, as the ending beat to this story. Really? A gun to the head? Can a woman with a computer for a brain even be killed like that? It is an ending that makes sense in another story, but means nothing here.
If I am wrong about any of this -- if these are not really problems at all -- please let me know. Cause they seem like MAJOR problems to me.
Emma Frost has been murdered; someone in the mansion did it, and so the place is sealed off until the murderer can be discovered by a detective brought in. "No one in, no one out; everyone in this room is a suspect." Morrison is doing a golden age Agatha Christie style murder mystery with Bishop in the Miss Marple role (the quote above is his). This is one of the worst ideas in the whole run. People get mad when I say stuff like that, but it is not a free standing quote -- I always give a lot of evidence. The basic problem is this: a genre fusion should feel organic -- space IS like the old west frontier; if superheroes are zombies then bringing in Galactus makes perfect sense. The superhero Agatha Christie story just doesn't fuse.
In Agatha Christie the lockdown is there so the murder will not be an outside job or an off the wall twist; it gives you a limited number of suspects so you have a chance to figure it out. But I cannot understand how this lockdown is practical in a superhero comic. Bishop SAYS that in a world of mindreaders, shapechangers and disembodied consciousnesses crime takes on a whole new meaning, but this is maddening: everything he DOES suggests this is an old fashioned -- like 1920s fiction old fashioned -- attempt to find a killer. He asks each person at the mansion a question or two -- not even very good questions -- and then moves on to someone else. Even psychics just get questions like Where were you at the time of the murder? Part of the problem is time -- in a 22 page comic you cannot flesh out these scenes; Bendis and Oeming's Powers can take the pages and pages it takes to establish the tension in these kinds of conversations but Morrison does not have that kind of time. Also Bendis is writing something a lot more like actual cops, which makes much more sense then resurrecting a long dead genre in bizarre a new context.
Jean just uses the Phoenix Power to simply and magically convince him that she did not do it. As readers we are asked to just believe this; it isn't that I don't -- obviously Jean did not get a gun and shoot Emma -- but is shows you how rushed Morrison is. Everyone gets about a page to be cleared.
The image of badass Bishop looking like a futuristic version of a 70s cop in a leather trench coat and body armor sitting in the professor's office drinking tea out of tiny cup and sticking his pinkie finger out as he does so sort of sums up the whole problem. It is such a silly image, and it is surely not supposed to be -- this story is the buildup to the Magneto story, and a main character has been killed.
Xorn -- Magneto -- has the kids playing Clue. OK. As a murder mystery game in a mansion this is a parody of the story arc it appears in -- Basilisk says "It was professor Sex with the lawnmower -- that's whodunnut." Morrison is making fun of himself, but it is hard to see what the point is. Whedon makes jokes like that, but emotionally deflates the story in such a way that you can care about it more (the people on screen are only human). Morrison highlights how artificial the whole thing is, which has the opposite effect.
Bishop, figuring out Kick is involved, goes to a prison to talk to one of Quentin's Gang and find out who supplied the drug to the mansion. Two things to note here. Given that the "Riot" had an epilogue, it seems clear that there was some down time between "Riot" and "Murder in the Mansion". One: Did no one try to find out how these very dangerous drugs got into the school BEFORE sending the gang to prison? As a psychic headmaster, you think this would be important and easy. Two: all this talk about post-human, rather than merely human, justice, about the dawn of a new age where new rules will be applied and this is what you get -- they sent the remaining members of the gang to a perfectly human New York State Maximum Security Penitentiary? Casandra Nova kills 16 million mutants and is rehabilitated at the mansion; a teenager sells drugs and does drug related violence in a gang of teens and he goes to normal human prison, where he is clearly being abused -- he begs Bishop to get him away because "there are people in here that really do not like mutants". I do not get it.
Then Beak says he killed Miss Frost -- we do not believe this for one second -- and someone pulls a gun on Sage, Bishop's partner, as the ending beat to this story. Really? A gun to the head? Can a woman with a computer for a brain even be killed like that? It is an ending that makes sense in another story, but means nothing here.
If I am wrong about any of this -- if these are not really problems at all -- please let me know. Cause they seem like MAJOR problems to me.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 139
Jean has discovered that Scott and Emma are having a psychic affair. This has been building since the beginning so you need this issue to be huge; what you get is a bad episode of 90210.
When the women get in a fight doors start slamming, cause that is how girls fight. Lame. Scott's claim in the issue that the affair was just mental is pathetic, and makes me think he is an idiot -- if your thoughts are like the holodeck, the distinction between mental and physical worlds is stupid. The fact that Morrison feels the need to clear up the fact that the affair was not ever physical at all -- including a flashback to the very suggestive X-Men Annual practically hitting us over the head to clear things up -- is very boring. It is an attempt to take the teeth out of the affair on purely technical grounds, like nervous prom kids who don't go "all the way" but do "everything but." These are adults, and should act like adults, or I cannot take any of them seriously. And given that this issue is about a major development in the life of the main characters, it should be taken at least kind of seriously. When Scott is exonerated by Jean's psychic probe, she cries out, like a teenager, "But they were thinking about it -- They were thinking about it the whole time!" Wow, the Phoenix -- power cosmic -- is a whiny 13 year old who needs to be sent to her room. Also unbelievably juvenile is Scott running off like a spoiled teenager just as everyone finds out the relationship was not physical. Jiminez's illustration really makes him suck. These are powerful adults acting like bratty little kids.
One more minor but notable offence: in the flashback of Emma's childhood we see her father looking to divvy up his empire among his children -- including one named Cordelia; the allusion to King Lear is pointless, pretentious, and very very annoying.
Morrison, as a great writer screwing up badly, does not let this issue go without one great scene. Wolverine and Emma bond -- two adults with an illicit love for one member of this couple -- and this one page makes you believe, really believe, that Emma genuinely loves Scott. It is really moving.
Then Emma gets mysteriously killed, as the set up one of the worst genre mash-ups EVER -- THE SUPERHERO DRAWING ROOM MYSTERY. I will save my bile for this wretched idea for next time.
When the women get in a fight doors start slamming, cause that is how girls fight. Lame. Scott's claim in the issue that the affair was just mental is pathetic, and makes me think he is an idiot -- if your thoughts are like the holodeck, the distinction between mental and physical worlds is stupid. The fact that Morrison feels the need to clear up the fact that the affair was not ever physical at all -- including a flashback to the very suggestive X-Men Annual practically hitting us over the head to clear things up -- is very boring. It is an attempt to take the teeth out of the affair on purely technical grounds, like nervous prom kids who don't go "all the way" but do "everything but." These are adults, and should act like adults, or I cannot take any of them seriously. And given that this issue is about a major development in the life of the main characters, it should be taken at least kind of seriously. When Scott is exonerated by Jean's psychic probe, she cries out, like a teenager, "But they were thinking about it -- They were thinking about it the whole time!" Wow, the Phoenix -- power cosmic -- is a whiny 13 year old who needs to be sent to her room. Also unbelievably juvenile is Scott running off like a spoiled teenager just as everyone finds out the relationship was not physical. Jiminez's illustration really makes him suck. These are powerful adults acting like bratty little kids.
One more minor but notable offence: in the flashback of Emma's childhood we see her father looking to divvy up his empire among his children -- including one named Cordelia; the allusion to King Lear is pointless, pretentious, and very very annoying.
Morrison, as a great writer screwing up badly, does not let this issue go without one great scene. Wolverine and Emma bond -- two adults with an illicit love for one member of this couple -- and this one page makes you believe, really believe, that Emma genuinely loves Scott. It is really moving.
Then Emma gets mysteriously killed, as the set up one of the worst genre mash-ups EVER -- THE SUPERHERO DRAWING ROOM MYSTERY. I will save my bile for this wretched idea for next time.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 138
[This post is part of a series looking issue by issue at Morrison's New X-Men run; for more of the same click the labels link at the bottom of this post.]
Is there a joke about the Beast, who is pretending to be gay as a stunt, saving two old homosexual stereotypes from a giant "flamer"? (Quentin's Wax friend is on fire running at a bus; this is in the first few pages of this issue). If there is I don't get it. The whole sequence catching Herman goes on far too long. It is a weird anti-climax as well, since the riot is over.
Are we supposed to take Wolverine's posturing seriously as he screams at Quentin's gang like a military leader screaming at his troops? The problem is how do you not laugh when he barks, describing the aftermath of the riot, "one dead, and one missing, presumed evaporated"? I just don't know what to do with that. A failed attempt at weird seriousness? A failed attempt at humor? It must be a failed attempt at something since I cannot tell what it is supposed to be clearly.
Is Emma Frost really younger that I am? Cause that is freaking me out a little, as she turns out to be only 27. Was I the last to know she was not in her thirties?
What are we to make of stupid Quentin Quire's apotheosis? He converts to pure light as a secondary mutation caused by DRUGS. Morrison likes his drugs, apparently, but Kick is supposed to be a bad drug -- we will learn more about why it is evil at the end of the run, and it has nothing but bad effects on Magneto. Yet it triggers Quentin's ascension to a higher plane of consciousness. Later we will learn how far he ascends, but it is quite surprising. Quentin goes from jackoff to the guy who spouts Morrison's most beloved peace-love-sheep one-world philosophies: the world is one thought that has been divided into ignorant boxes, fighting each other is like one finger fighting another and so on. (I have never found these ideas very persuasive, but do not hold them against Morrison at all, as long as he remains, overall, a good storyteller). Why does Quentin get to get enlightened?
In terms of being a good storyteller we get some good foreshadowing as Quentin speaks while becoming light -- Manhattan gone, the school is gigantic, the professor missed the point, the enemy within. Wonderfully, these serve double duty -- we think many of them are fulfilled by Planet X but then we see they are better fulfilled in Here Comes Tomorrow. That is good writing.
Why does Xavier consider Quentin's apotheosis to be a waste, and not a positive change? He told Lilandra that maybe her empire being ruined by Nova was not a bad thing. Xavier steps down as headmaster and says the Riot has taught him to reconsider non-violence. The riot taught him that? Really? Because the girls had to just take him down after talking didn't work? Wolverine has done stuff like that a hundred times. I don't get it.
The riot shuts down basically because the school is going on break. Morrison is making fun of the student riots in France in 68, which shut down for the same reason. Lots of stupid kids everywhere, I guess is the point, though it is an odd one.
Dust is on the plane with Jean. A great character, this is her second, and second to last, scene in the run. What a waste of an interesting character.
Scott is breaking up with Emma just as Jean catches them in an embrace. What a cliche!
Is there a joke about the Beast, who is pretending to be gay as a stunt, saving two old homosexual stereotypes from a giant "flamer"? (Quentin's Wax friend is on fire running at a bus; this is in the first few pages of this issue). If there is I don't get it. The whole sequence catching Herman goes on far too long. It is a weird anti-climax as well, since the riot is over.
Are we supposed to take Wolverine's posturing seriously as he screams at Quentin's gang like a military leader screaming at his troops? The problem is how do you not laugh when he barks, describing the aftermath of the riot, "one dead, and one missing, presumed evaporated"? I just don't know what to do with that. A failed attempt at weird seriousness? A failed attempt at humor? It must be a failed attempt at something since I cannot tell what it is supposed to be clearly.
Is Emma Frost really younger that I am? Cause that is freaking me out a little, as she turns out to be only 27. Was I the last to know she was not in her thirties?
What are we to make of stupid Quentin Quire's apotheosis? He converts to pure light as a secondary mutation caused by DRUGS. Morrison likes his drugs, apparently, but Kick is supposed to be a bad drug -- we will learn more about why it is evil at the end of the run, and it has nothing but bad effects on Magneto. Yet it triggers Quentin's ascension to a higher plane of consciousness. Later we will learn how far he ascends, but it is quite surprising. Quentin goes from jackoff to the guy who spouts Morrison's most beloved peace-love-sheep one-world philosophies: the world is one thought that has been divided into ignorant boxes, fighting each other is like one finger fighting another and so on. (I have never found these ideas very persuasive, but do not hold them against Morrison at all, as long as he remains, overall, a good storyteller). Why does Quentin get to get enlightened?
In terms of being a good storyteller we get some good foreshadowing as Quentin speaks while becoming light -- Manhattan gone, the school is gigantic, the professor missed the point, the enemy within. Wonderfully, these serve double duty -- we think many of them are fulfilled by Planet X but then we see they are better fulfilled in Here Comes Tomorrow. That is good writing.
Why does Xavier consider Quentin's apotheosis to be a waste, and not a positive change? He told Lilandra that maybe her empire being ruined by Nova was not a bad thing. Xavier steps down as headmaster and says the Riot has taught him to reconsider non-violence. The riot taught him that? Really? Because the girls had to just take him down after talking didn't work? Wolverine has done stuff like that a hundred times. I don't get it.
The riot shuts down basically because the school is going on break. Morrison is making fun of the student riots in France in 68, which shut down for the same reason. Lots of stupid kids everywhere, I guess is the point, though it is an odd one.
Dust is on the plane with Jean. A great character, this is her second, and second to last, scene in the run. What a waste of an interesting character.
Scott is breaking up with Emma just as Jean catches them in an embrace. What a cliche!
Monday, April 09, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 137
[This post is part of a series on Morrison's New X-Men run; for more, click the New X-Men label at the bottom of this post].
I have not talked about the covers in a while, but Quitely's covers are great and this is the best one in the arc. Just a tremendous about of clearly articulated chaos; your eye knows just where to go. Quitely is a great designer.
This issue -- this one issue -- is the riot: the rest of the arc is build up (a failed buildup in which no tension is established, as I have demonstrated) and epilogue. Our points about the gang reach fruition here: Morrison has been making fun of privileged teens by making them look like idiots and this issue is no exception: their "riot" is hot wax tossed out of broken windows, literally.
Emma says that she misses the verve and imagination of her old students -- the ones from Generation X, drawn by Chris Bachalo. So do I. In a great line, she makes fun of Quentin's Gang with "Seize the school and then what?" Of course she is right -- these guys have no plan. The problem, already covered here, is that you can make fun of Quentin's gang for being lame but you cannot expect to generate any story tension if your bad guys are morons. If they have no plans, they are not much of a threat. It's cool that Quentin can fuck with Wolverine, but it just seems like the worst these guys are going to do is kick everyone out of the school and break all the windows. When Cyclops hits one in the face, they freak out like the pathetic teenagers they are: "That's assault!" The anti-authority riot kids are now phrasing things for the police report they want to fill out; when push comes to shove these guys want to rely on traditional human authority to save their asses. I know this is to make fun of them, but Morrison is doing too good a job -- I fucking hate these guys, and want to be past this stupidity.
Then, in the chaos, Dummy -- from the special class -- is cut and dissipates (he is an intelligent gas in a rubber suit). This moment is a good one: we have bonded with this character last issue, so the death has some meaning.
As for the good guys? Saying "Let's all calm down" is still the best plan the paramilitary X-Men who bombed China can come up with to deal with drug addicted teenagers with powers formidable enough to disable Wolverine. Idiots.
Xavier just somehow -- it must have been so easy it is not worth showing -- got out of the helmet and calls them on being lame. "The revolution lasted minutes." The Cookoos say that this fight is not youth versus experience, or anarchy versus authority -- the fight is always "in" versus "out." I don't quite know what to do with that, but I kind of like it -- I like their point that, for example, experience or authority could be "in" (fascism, for example, in the Authority).
Quentin has got to be one of my least favorite comic book characters, but at least he dies cool, ripped apart psychically by the cookoos into skin, nerves, muscle, and skeleton. Thank god the X-Men had these girls as students, because the X-Men hade NO IDEA how to deal with the riot. Quentin did it all to impress a girl who died, somehow. Morrison keeps it off screen. Fine.
People are getting mad and my bad mood with these issues, and don't know when I will snap out of it. Here is a preview: Murder at the Mansion (three issues): AWFUL. Assault on Weapon Plus (four issues): AMAZING. Planet X (five issues): BAD. Here Comes Tomorrow (four issues): QUITE GOOD ACTUALLY. Assault on Weapon Plus and Planet X will be shorter posts, becauase I have written about them elsewhere, and will link to what I said when I post about them.
I have not talked about the covers in a while, but Quitely's covers are great and this is the best one in the arc. Just a tremendous about of clearly articulated chaos; your eye knows just where to go. Quitely is a great designer.
This issue -- this one issue -- is the riot: the rest of the arc is build up (a failed buildup in which no tension is established, as I have demonstrated) and epilogue. Our points about the gang reach fruition here: Morrison has been making fun of privileged teens by making them look like idiots and this issue is no exception: their "riot" is hot wax tossed out of broken windows, literally.
Emma says that she misses the verve and imagination of her old students -- the ones from Generation X, drawn by Chris Bachalo. So do I. In a great line, she makes fun of Quentin's Gang with "Seize the school and then what?" Of course she is right -- these guys have no plan. The problem, already covered here, is that you can make fun of Quentin's gang for being lame but you cannot expect to generate any story tension if your bad guys are morons. If they have no plans, they are not much of a threat. It's cool that Quentin can fuck with Wolverine, but it just seems like the worst these guys are going to do is kick everyone out of the school and break all the windows. When Cyclops hits one in the face, they freak out like the pathetic teenagers they are: "That's assault!" The anti-authority riot kids are now phrasing things for the police report they want to fill out; when push comes to shove these guys want to rely on traditional human authority to save their asses. I know this is to make fun of them, but Morrison is doing too good a job -- I fucking hate these guys, and want to be past this stupidity.
Then, in the chaos, Dummy -- from the special class -- is cut and dissipates (he is an intelligent gas in a rubber suit). This moment is a good one: we have bonded with this character last issue, so the death has some meaning.
As for the good guys? Saying "Let's all calm down" is still the best plan the paramilitary X-Men who bombed China can come up with to deal with drug addicted teenagers with powers formidable enough to disable Wolverine. Idiots.
Xavier just somehow -- it must have been so easy it is not worth showing -- got out of the helmet and calls them on being lame. "The revolution lasted minutes." The Cookoos say that this fight is not youth versus experience, or anarchy versus authority -- the fight is always "in" versus "out." I don't quite know what to do with that, but I kind of like it -- I like their point that, for example, experience or authority could be "in" (fascism, for example, in the Authority).
Quentin has got to be one of my least favorite comic book characters, but at least he dies cool, ripped apart psychically by the cookoos into skin, nerves, muscle, and skeleton. Thank god the X-Men had these girls as students, because the X-Men hade NO IDEA how to deal with the riot. Quentin did it all to impress a girl who died, somehow. Morrison keeps it off screen. Fine.
People are getting mad and my bad mood with these issues, and don't know when I will snap out of it. Here is a preview: Murder at the Mansion (three issues): AWFUL. Assault on Weapon Plus (four issues): AMAZING. Planet X (five issues): BAD. Here Comes Tomorrow (four issues): QUITE GOOD ACTUALLY. Assault on Weapon Plus and Planet X will be shorter posts, becauase I have written about them elsewhere, and will link to what I said when I post about them.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Grant Morrison's New X-Men 136
[This post is part of a series looking at every issue of Grant Morrison's New X-Men; for more click the New X-Men label.]
In the comments to last issue NeilShyminsky wrote: "These are just angry white kids at a private school who are pushed to rebellion by the revelation that one of them was adopted. Like Geoff says, it's lame; and like you said, it's mundane. I think that's supposed to be the point. The problem is, while that makes for a decent critique of privileged kids who long for some identification with oppression, it makes for storytelling that's seriously lacking in tension or surprise." That is exactly the problem. Morrison is a storyteller first and a cultural critic second (or third or fourth): Morrison can make his point, but if it is not wrapped in a good story, he has failed. If he wants to be a cultural critic first he is welcome to write an essay of cultural criticism.
The U-Men are back in this issue and Quentin and the Gang run them down in what looks like the Mystery Mobile painted purple. Weirdly lame. When the U-Men complains, as he is being killed, that he spent the last of his savings on this suit, that is really sad -- just as in last issue it becomes hard to know who to sympathize with the least. When everyone in a story sucks, it makes me want to put the story down.
One of the things that makes Riot at Xavier's so bad is that there is so little to it, in order to package it as a prologue and a four issue arc, this second issue has only two scenes related to the title plot. The third issue is the Riot itself and the fourth is really an epilogue -- Riot at Xaviers is essentially a one issue story. The rest of this issue is Xorn and the Special Class on a camping trip.
This is the issue where I start to like the Special Class more. With pop-sexy X-Men nowhere to be seen these guys start to get out from under that shadow. I still don't like any of them, and I am not that entertained listening to them being idiots and making fart jokes, but you feel, in this context, that these characters have so much potential to grow and change -- something Scott has been struggling with in the run -- you start to like them more. The same problem arises, however: the U-Men suck -- they have to check a website for their orders, for example -- so there is not enough conflict or tension. Instead you get a lot of bickering teenagers. It is a nice counterpoint Quentin -- these guys are actually fighting for their lives while Quentin is being a jackass -- but the story is only so-so.
Then we see that Xorn has devastated the U-Men, a very strong and very surprising moment that should have come a long time ago, or been built up more from the beginning. Xorn has left the kids to fend for themselves and when Angel tracks him down, he tells her he was teaching them a lesson and that what he himself has done should remain a secret. The lesson is crap: many of the individual character traits he claims to be helping the kids with were not established as character traits before he said it: for example, that Ernst has no one to be responsible for comes out of nowhere. This speech would be better if Morrison had established this and it had been true, but it is acceptable if Morrison just wanted to put an obvious lie in his mouth -- more evidence that Xorn is not who he seems. But the destruction of the U-Men is a GREAT moment -- now you really begin to suspect that there is something more to this character; now we get a sense that the mystery surrounding this guy may be less than sweet.
But notice the problem: all of this has nothing to do with the Riot. I care more about this moment than anything else in the arc, and that is bad storytelling. Same problem in Superman Returns: James Marsden was so strong, I cared more about him than Superman, distracting me from what the movie was supposed to be about. Next to Marsden, the normal guy hero who loves Lois and raised somone else's child, Superman looks like a dick, special only because of the powers he has, rather than the person he is. Next to Xorn blowing up the U-Men, the Riot just seems even more lame.
In the end of the "subplot" Xorn comes to accept the reality of No-Girl, a member of the Special class that may be a mutant undetectable by Xorn, or may be a class Imaginary Friend. It is another very strong, and sweet, moment, but again, one that again draws attention and sympathy from the main story.
Back to the Riot, Quentin and his gang hit Xavier over the head with a baseball bat -- fucking LAME -- then call for a Riot out the window with a megaphone. This should be an exciting moment -- it is the beat that will lead into the next issue -- but I wish I was back with Xorn and the Special Class, and that is not good storytelling, especially since the next issue will be all about Quentin.
In the comments to last issue NeilShyminsky wrote: "These are just angry white kids at a private school who are pushed to rebellion by the revelation that one of them was adopted. Like Geoff says, it's lame; and like you said, it's mundane. I think that's supposed to be the point. The problem is, while that makes for a decent critique of privileged kids who long for some identification with oppression, it makes for storytelling that's seriously lacking in tension or surprise." That is exactly the problem. Morrison is a storyteller first and a cultural critic second (or third or fourth): Morrison can make his point, but if it is not wrapped in a good story, he has failed. If he wants to be a cultural critic first he is welcome to write an essay of cultural criticism.
The U-Men are back in this issue and Quentin and the Gang run them down in what looks like the Mystery Mobile painted purple. Weirdly lame. When the U-Men complains, as he is being killed, that he spent the last of his savings on this suit, that is really sad -- just as in last issue it becomes hard to know who to sympathize with the least. When everyone in a story sucks, it makes me want to put the story down.
One of the things that makes Riot at Xavier's so bad is that there is so little to it, in order to package it as a prologue and a four issue arc, this second issue has only two scenes related to the title plot. The third issue is the Riot itself and the fourth is really an epilogue -- Riot at Xaviers is essentially a one issue story. The rest of this issue is Xorn and the Special Class on a camping trip.
This is the issue where I start to like the Special Class more. With pop-sexy X-Men nowhere to be seen these guys start to get out from under that shadow. I still don't like any of them, and I am not that entertained listening to them being idiots and making fart jokes, but you feel, in this context, that these characters have so much potential to grow and change -- something Scott has been struggling with in the run -- you start to like them more. The same problem arises, however: the U-Men suck -- they have to check a website for their orders, for example -- so there is not enough conflict or tension. Instead you get a lot of bickering teenagers. It is a nice counterpoint Quentin -- these guys are actually fighting for their lives while Quentin is being a jackass -- but the story is only so-so.
Then we see that Xorn has devastated the U-Men, a very strong and very surprising moment that should have come a long time ago, or been built up more from the beginning. Xorn has left the kids to fend for themselves and when Angel tracks him down, he tells her he was teaching them a lesson and that what he himself has done should remain a secret. The lesson is crap: many of the individual character traits he claims to be helping the kids with were not established as character traits before he said it: for example, that Ernst has no one to be responsible for comes out of nowhere. This speech would be better if Morrison had established this and it had been true, but it is acceptable if Morrison just wanted to put an obvious lie in his mouth -- more evidence that Xorn is not who he seems. But the destruction of the U-Men is a GREAT moment -- now you really begin to suspect that there is something more to this character; now we get a sense that the mystery surrounding this guy may be less than sweet.
But notice the problem: all of this has nothing to do with the Riot. I care more about this moment than anything else in the arc, and that is bad storytelling. Same problem in Superman Returns: James Marsden was so strong, I cared more about him than Superman, distracting me from what the movie was supposed to be about. Next to Marsden, the normal guy hero who loves Lois and raised somone else's child, Superman looks like a dick, special only because of the powers he has, rather than the person he is. Next to Xorn blowing up the U-Men, the Riot just seems even more lame.
In the end of the "subplot" Xorn comes to accept the reality of No-Girl, a member of the Special class that may be a mutant undetectable by Xorn, or may be a class Imaginary Friend. It is another very strong, and sweet, moment, but again, one that again draws attention and sympathy from the main story.
Back to the Riot, Quentin and his gang hit Xavier over the head with a baseball bat -- fucking LAME -- then call for a Riot out the window with a megaphone. This should be an exciting moment -- it is the beat that will lead into the next issue -- but I wish I was back with Xorn and the Special Class, and that is not good storytelling, especially since the next issue will be all about Quentin.
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