Bryan Curtis on Michael Crichton (Commonplace Book)

A bit of an odd one today, a quote from a Slate article about Michael Crichton. The sentence that begins "The joy of reading..." says with me as a fan of weirdly inventive genre fiction, and the stuff about seeing into the future applies to Morrison. This quote, I think, adds to our dicussion of what goes right and wrong in Morrison's New X-Men. I have quoted more than is necessary, but the context it strong and I thought you should have it.

To understand how Crichton stumbled, it's instructive to compare him to two
past masters of suspense fiction: Arthur Conan Doyle (whom Crichton celebrates
in Rising Sun) and H. Rider Haggard (whose King Solomon's Mines is a
model for Crichton's safari book Congo). Doyle and Haggard opened their
most famous novels by setting loose a familiar hero (Sherlock Holmes and Allan
Quatermain) on a mystery or quest, complete with new enemies and a cast of
supporting players. The joy of reading Doyle and Haggard is to enjoy the
conventions and watch the authors sweat to provide inventive variations on a
theme. Which clue will Holmes seize upon to crack the case? Upon which corner of
Africa will Quatermain inflict his colonialist brio?

Crichton, on the other hand, eschews flesh-and-blood heroes; the star
of his book is usually a high-concept premise—dinosaurs! killer viruses! Without
a returning hero to lure readers (à la Tom Clancy), Crichton's concepts
themselves must be nerdy and sufficiently topical. Crichton has an unparalleled
genius for this—a gift for seeing years into the future. ... Jurassic Park
arrived just as Steven Spielberg's imagineers figured out how to bring dinosaurs
to the big screen, making it an iconic film of the age of computer-generated
special effects.

Grant Morrison's New X-Men 127

I have seen praise for issue 127 around here, but it was an issue that really frustrated me, and made me feel that even outside of the fill in artists something was seriously wrong with Morrison's New X-Men. I remember reading it on the subway, amazed at my boredom.

The issue is beautiful; Leon and Sienkiewicz are amazing, especially drawing and coloring Xorn (with his glowing blue eyes) and Jean Grey (with her halo of fire) -- both stand out wonderfully against the dreary surroundings. Quitely's cover of Xorn contemplating a cheeseburger is great, and goes well with Sciver's earlier one of him inhaling the essence from a bag of chips. The mutant Buddha confronting popular culture is a lot of fun. Professor X also makes a point that actually makes him sound like a very smart guy, about how humanity survived in tribes organized by shared ideals, but now we are living under the same tent and are guilty for mistaking our ideas for things. This is how Xavier should sound all the time.

But the issue itself is painfully generic. The story takes place in "mutant town", like China Town or Little Italy; I have heard that people like Morrison's idea that there would be a similar set up for mutants -- it is "realistic" I guess -- but it strikes me as a lame analogue. In the story a boy has become a freakish mutant monster people hate and fear, and is killed by cops for being dangerous even though he just needed medicine. I don't find that moving; in fact, I think that is the most generic X-Men story ever -- stupid people hate and fear a something peaceful but different that they do not understand. I think I have read that story many times over by now, and if I had not, I saw it in the sequence of Angel at home a few issues ago. It is also such a transparent bid for emotion it is embarrassing itself; I think Morrison showed significantly more real emotion when Jean told Scott "you are my favorite super hero" in the previous issue -- that was specific to that relationship; this is a fairy-tale allegory for all human-mutant relationships, and instead of characters it has the most simple kind of place-holders: an angry mob, a monster with a soul, a heartbroken mom. It especially annoys me that someone in the crowd wants to get Jean's autograph and then let her burn, and someone else, clearly unconscious of the unintended b-movie humor in the phrase, screams "it came from mutant town." Someone is going to tell me this is all perfectly realistic, and I don't necessarily disagree, but I still think it is stupid and I don't want it in my comic book.

And sweet, sensitive, Xorn: "if I could save every life, I would do it", "we only want to stop them hurting one another. Why were they so angry?" I know it is Magneto -- he even describes how he sees wavelengths and energy. But I just have such a hard time imagining any version of Magneto staying in character to this degree. I also cannot understand why Xavier, in the Cerebra helmet, says, when he looks into Xorn's mind, that "I see orchards in China, a star falling across the sky, a radiant star of pure thought." Xavier is a top notch psychic. How does Magneto do that? Later in the issue Xorn says Xavier cannot read his thoughts because he is blinded by the star under the mask -- what is going on? Is Xavier just being metaphorical? It is at least a little confusing, and it is Morrison's fault. Xorn narrates this issue in the form of a letter to Xavier -- an extraordinarily detailed cover for himself as Magneto, I guess, complete with a story about how he met a man with a connection to his ancestors. He even tells the mom that he once ate a dog. Again, Magneto? Really? It is possible, I agree, I just don't like it.

Xorn also claims that the monster-boy would have have grown, in just ten days, to something wonderful, rare and unique. Without looking ahead this just makes the story all the more pathetic -- veering into bathos. Looking ahead Magneto is just lying to be extra mean, I guess. He was, I suppose, lying about all the parts of the story that could not be verified by Xavier, making up, for example, eating with a man from China. Also he makes glowing light near the wounded in front of paramedics -- fake helping? Really helping somehow to keep his cover and kill everyone? If the Kick made Magneto crazy I want to know what is going on in his head at this point, before the kick (though is it before the kick?). It is a huge gap in Magneto's character that bothers me to no end. The whole thing is very messy and unsatisfying.

TV: The Week in Review

Studio 60 may be gone forever. This week the show was not in its slot, was replaced with the pilot of a new show, and there was no announcement of when we will see it again. Frankly I am glad, as it was a chore to watch: the only reason I watched it was out of loyalty to Sorkin for Sports Night and West Wing and A Few Good Men. I probably would have watched, but not enjoyed, two years of the show before giving up. We will see what happens next.

I wanted so say one more reason the show went bad: Sorkin writes great male friendships: Leo and the president on the West Wing, Danny and Casey from Sports Night. Studio 60 looked like it was going to be about Matt and Danny, but then became the Matt and Harriet Show, with Danny and Jordan as a foil. He is writing against one of his main strengths.

Lost this week was fantastic, good fun. It is important to notice that Buffy, for example, cannot have an episode like this, where the big arc or monster focus is put aside for a great short about four guys drinking beer and fixing a car just for the fun of it. On Buffy they can do smaller episodes but they usually involve finding some magic thing or some new creature coming to town. The power of Lost is in how many different kinds of stories the concept allows for.

30 Rock was less good -- Fraiser has told that story before, with a guy in a wheelchair -- but still funny. I did like it when LL Cool J asked Kenneth "What's your game" and he replies, without missing a beat, "Boggle."

Free Form Comments

Free Form Comments. Shameless self-promotion. Anonymous complaints. Random thoughts, suggestions, questions, ideas, topics of conversation. Requests to be added to the blog-roll (which I have not updated in a while, but I will -- remind me here if you want to be on it).

For this week, I have a question about the New X-Men posts. Comments on the posts have been dwindling, down to basically nothing on the two most recent. That is not necessarily a bad thing, if people still like reading them, but having wrapped up the first year of New X-Men, this might be a good time to stop, or pause. One of the problems, I have discovered with the issue-by-issue thing, is that I have to repeat myself; I worry that is making the posts dull. You don't need to tell me you want me to keep going (as many of you already have, very kindly), but if you think it is time for a change, speak up now.

I am sorry it is taking so long with the videoblogging, but I have not forgotten it; they just discontinued the iCamera and I got busy.

Grant Morrison's New X-Men 126

[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 it click the New X-Men tab at the bottom of this post.]

The opening three pages are some of my favorites ever -- Xorn and Cyclops running for the teleporter with Cyclops showing that "ice cold lunacy under pressure" mentioned in issue 115 -- he has total confidence he will live and the good guys will win even though everything is against them. The first page is a single large panel that appears to be falling off the page -- this is how Quitely shows the ship lunging as it explodes, which is wonderful, simple and effective. The colors are perfect -- the fiery explosions and the cool blue of the Shi'ar transporter -- as is Cyclops's wry smile. Later in the issue Morrison will write one of my favorite lines: Jean says to Cyclops "You are my favorite super hero," which is lovely, and believable after these pages. Cyclops's optimism is terribly endearing; I love the way he smiles when Jean says, when everything is darkest, "Can I just remind everyone that Emma is still on the loose."

Xorn is in awe both of the ship and of Cyclops. Xorn is beautiful, but in terms of our Magneto watch it is all just an act (I guess). Magneto is apparently a great actor, never out of character for even a second. I have trouble imagining this, but OK. Xorn is a healer and heals the X-Men -- the X-Men are sick from the nano-sentinels and Magneto can short them out. I guess it is a coincidence that he claimed to be a healer and then the first time he is asked to do something, it involves little metal robots. That is one very lucky Magneto: anything else and he would have been useless, and his cover would have been blown. But here is my real question -- Nova kicks everyone's asses and Xorn just jumps on her in the middle of the fight and holds her still -- something the imperial guard was unable to do. Nothing metal to help him out here (Nova is naked) except his own outfit -- I guess he could make himself really heavy or something, but that does not seem like much. What annoys me is that even though he is one of the few characters to make a solid attack on her (even Wolverine could not do that) she ignores him. Read the part of my last NXM post on Nova and Xorn to see why that bothers me.

Another great Quitely detail, one I cannot believe Marvel did not censor -- Nova has a Shi'ar warrior with phasing powers raping the Imperial Guard who crashed to earth in the cow field: look at the clenched fists of the victim, and the way the rapist's hand rests on his victim's head -- not all of him is phasing. A stunning moment. Guardian will piss himself on the next page. Again, stunning.

Jean objects to the option of killing Nova, which is odd -- the X-Men bombed a facility in China from a jet, Cyclops euthanized Ugly John, and they chose to let Nova's body die when they had the option of saving it. But Ok, maybe Jean objected to those things.

Another Quitely detail: look at students in the hallway -- Quitely knows how to get the most out of body language, which is how he is the first man to make us believe Clark Kent is a good disguise for Superman -- Clark's body language makes it impossible to think he could be Superman.

I have already written about Nova's convoluted character design, which radically changes from issue to issue; in this issue her motivation is split, which causes problems. As the next step in evolution she still wants to kill all mutants. As Xavier's evil doppelganger, she only thinks she and Charles are real and only wants to hurt him (as we learned in 122). I suppose we can say she wants to kill all mutants to hurt Charles, but it seems like two different characters to me. We do keep going back and forth on her being unique or an example of a kind of monster -- here both options are mentioned in one issue.

The origin of this confusion is, I am now going to claim, Onslaught, an X-Men villain from more than a decade ago. Onslaught is mentioned in this issue and the reference is pointed because Nova and Onslaught are essentially the same character, the psychically powered dark side of Xavier, the return of his repressed. Nova started out as something new, but over time became a version of Onslaught. Morrison has been writing about the clash between the new and the old -- thinking about his new stories trying to break away from the X-Men rut of the last 20 years -- but something goes wrong: He fails to sell Nova as something new in the first three issues, and so she becomes Onslaught, a mere repetition. One of the reasons Morrison's New X-Men fails is that Morrison, at some point it seems, decides to dramatize failure rather than succeed. There is imaginative power in accepting loss and failure, but it is less than the Victory he has achieved elsewhere (All Star Superman, for example).

I have chastised Morrison for having no post-human philosophies to offer, but he does give us something here. Jean says mutant justice, not human justice, is needed -- and that is exactly what she finds: the mutant answer is the reeducation of Nova rather than her death or incarceration. It is a very strong ending to a weird plot and an odd but compelling character. The year has been a mess of highs and lows, but it ends on a powerful and persuasive note.

[EDIT: The title of this post, when it was first put up was wrong: I have now changed the "125" to "126."]