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Post by rberman on Apr 27, 2018 12:16:15 GMT -5
That brings up a question. If New X-Men was only one of five X-Men titles running concurrently, how did the other titles justify ignoring this big fat mess that was unfolding in New X-Men? I mean, Professor Xavier has been possessed by a world-ending monster, and the Shi'ar will soon be coming to destroy the Earth (spoiler!). What other characters were busy doing something more important in the other books?
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Post by Cheswick on Apr 27, 2018 12:26:09 GMT -5
That brings up a question. If New X-Men was only one of five X-Men titles running concurrently, how did the other titles justify ignoring this big fat mess that was unfolding in New X-Men? I mean, Professor Xavier has been possessed by a world-ending monster, and the Shi'ar will soon be coming to destroy the Earth (spoiler!). What other characters were busy doing something more important in the other books? The other two teams were away teams. The Uncanny X-Men team travelled around assisting mutants and, at that specific time, were dealing with the X-Corps fiasco and the team in X-Treme X-Men were off looking for Destiny's diaries. So, presumably, neither were able to assist the mansion team.
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Post by rberman on Apr 27, 2018 12:32:51 GMT -5
That brings up a question. If New X-Men was only one of five X-Men titles running concurrently, how did the other titles justify ignoring this big fat mess that was unfolding in New X-Men? I mean, Professor Xavier has been possessed by a world-ending monster, and the Shi'ar will soon be coming to destroy the Earth (spoiler!). What other characters were busy doing something more important in the other books? The other two teams were away teams. The Uncanny X-Men team travelled around assisting mutants and, at that specific time, were dealing with the X-Corps fiasco and the team in X-Treme X-Men were off looking for Destiny's diaries. So, presumably, neither were able to assist the mansion team. "Yay! We found Destiny's diaries!" (World blows up) "Oh... we lost them again."
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Post by Cheswick on Apr 27, 2018 12:39:09 GMT -5
The other two teams were away teams. The Uncanny X-Men team travelled around assisting mutants and, at that specific time, were dealing with the X-Corps fiasco and the team in X-Treme X-Men were off looking for Destiny's diaries. So, presumably, neither were able to assist the mansion team. "Yay! We found Destiny's diaries!" (World blows up) "Oh... we lost them again." Yeah, it doesn't make complete sense. I look at as being similar to Batman not just always calling Superman or the Justice League or even his younger allies for help. Sometimes logic has no place in a shared universe
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Post by rberman on Apr 28, 2018 7:08:54 GMT -5
New X-Men #123 “Testament” (April 2002)
The Story: Angel and Logan bond over their common disdain for Emma Frost. Logan leaves campus to take care of unspecified business (going to a bar), so he’s not around for what goes down next. Jean Grey-Summers gives some Muggles a tour and press conference at the mansion to show that mutants are no threat, and that the X-Men aren’t a paramilitary strike force. (But they are, and they are.) The meeting seems to go well! As Jean tries to usher the civilians out before anything breaks the positive mood, a chain of events in the mansion garden turns quickly to disaster… Beast makes a horrible discovery in the lab: This flu epidemic sweeping the X-campus is no mere viral infection. It’s a horde of nano-Sentinels, attacking everyone's immune system internally. Beast rushes out to the garden to tell Jean and the rest of the crew. Grant Morrison used a similar plot point in his previous JLA run, with The Atom discovering microscopic attackers in the bloodstream. From DC One Million #2: In the garden, the Stepford Cuckoos are perturbed. Esme, one of their number, has been kissing a boy, and the other four seethe with the notion that he may break up the mental unity which makes them so powerful. Emma assures them that the relationship won’t last, that romance is for fools, etc. She’s proven right; the boy is actually an infiltrating agent of the Shi’ar Superguardians by the name of Stuff. Gladiator and two other Guardians streak down from orbit to the mansion, having already captured Cyclops and Xorn in Tibet and taken them up to their spaceship. Their intention is to destroy Thought-Plague Contagion found in all humans with whom Charles Xavier has had contact. My Two Cents: In the aerial image above, the Xavier mansion does not have the X-shape that Quitely showed last issue. This is a pitfall of having more than one artist work on the series at the same time; their work may contradict, as with the changing size and age of the Stepford Cuckoos. Emma refers to the “lost years” of substance abuse that saw her at peak villainy. In the last issue, we saw her taking a surreptitious swig from a flask before entering Charles Xavier’s mind that is trapped in Cassandra Nova’s body. So she’s clearly not as over her boozing as she lets on. Nor has Logan forgotten all the nasty things Emma has done in the past, and he doesn’t plan on letting her forget either. Jean's mystery about the identity of "Gus" is quickly revealed to be Xavier's childhood dog. As mentioned before, the Imperial Guard were originally a “new skin” over DC’s sci-fi Legion of Super-Heroes, which Dave Cockrum had drawn for DC. They featured memorably in the game-changing X-Men #137, in part thanks to John Byrne’s excellent designs for the new Guardians featured in that issue. Morrison adds a bunch of new “Superguardians” in this story arc to further fill out the pseudo-Legion roster, playing them more for laughs than Claremont’s majestic guardians of a great galactic Empire. They’re less formal, chatting with each other like longtime comrades even in the middle of a mission. They’re less uber-competent than the fearsome warriors from X-Men #137 too. The Stepford Cuckoos started as an inside joke, with five girls named Sophie, Phoebe, Irma, Celeste, and Esme. SPICE, as in “The Spice Girls,” the British singing sensations of the mid-1990s. But Irma’s name was never mentioned on the page during Morrison’s tenure, and a later writer mistakenly named her “Mindee” at first. She’s now (i.e. in the year 2018) Irma as originally planned, I’ve heard. Anyway, we still don’t know their origins. Did they survive the Genosha extinction? Were they already X-students before Emma came from Genosha? Did they already look a lot like young versions of Emma, or did they adopt her style in admiration? Other writers will have their ideas about this. The appearance of the girls (identical in size and age) stabilizes from this issue onwards. Much of this issue is one long speech given by Jean Grey to visiting journalists. At one point she hits on a pet Grant Morrison theory that the whole human race should be conceptualized as a giant, cross-dimensional super-being in which we are all but individual cells. Ethan Van Sciver turns in another terrific job on interior pencils. I'm proud to own the original of one of these pages: The cover of this issue (artist names withheld to protect the guilty, but it’s no one I know) is a really terrible Wolverine image that looks like a Photoshopped male model with some claws lazily added with MS Paint. I can’t believe they published it. Hey, at least they made it nine issues before they repeated Logan as the cover subject! That's progress.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 28, 2018 8:10:17 GMT -5
The Stepford Cuckoos started as an inside joke, with five girls named Sophie, Phoebe, Irma, Celeste, and Esme. SPICE, as in “The Spice Girls,” the British singing sensations of the mid-1990s. But Irma’s name was never mentioned on the page during Morrison’s tenure, and a later writer mistakenly named her “Mindee” at first. She’s now (i.e. in the year 2018) Irma as originally planned, I’ve heard. Anyway, we still don’t know their origins. Did they survive the Genosha extinction? Were they already X-students before Emma came from Genosha? Did they already look a lot like young versions of Emma, or did they adopt her style in admiration? I am surprised that Mindee isn’t her proper name, as that’s the one I remember! I believe that the Stepford cuckoos were later revealed to be clones of Emma or something. Yes, I know. *Sigh*.
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Post by Cheswick on Apr 28, 2018 9:15:05 GMT -5
The Stepford Cuckoos started as an inside joke, with five girls named Sophie, Phoebe, Irma, Celeste, and Esme. SPICE, as in “The Spice Girls,” the British singing sensations of the mid-1990s. But Irma’s name was never mentioned on the page during Morrison’s tenure, and a later writer mistakenly named her “Mindee” at first. She’s now (i.e. in the year 2018) Irma as originally planned, I’ve heard. Anyway, we still don’t know their origins. Did they survive the Genosha extinction? Were they already X-students before Emma came from Genosha? Did they already look a lot like young versions of Emma, or did they adopt her style in admiration? I am surprised that Mindee isn’t her proper name, as that’s the one I remember! I believe that the Stepford cuckoos were later revealed to be clones of Emma or something. Yes, I know. *Sigh*. Mindee was revealed to be Irma's nickname during Fraction's run, putting it back inline with Morrison's intentions.
At one point in Morrison's run it is strongly hinted that the Cuckoos are Weapon XIV/created by the Weapon Plus Program. This was confirmed in Greg Pak's Phoenix: Warsong series. It actually made clever use of continuity: It was revealed that Emma's eggs were harvested after she ended up in a coma way back in Claremant's Uncanny X-Men #184 and used, along with an as-yet-unnamed male donor to create the Cuckoos, who were cloned and artificially aged using the program's advanced science. So, they are technically Emma's biological daughters.
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Post by rberman on Apr 28, 2018 9:42:37 GMT -5
I am surprised that Mindee isn’t her proper name, as that’s the one I remember! I believe that the Stepford cuckoos were later revealed to be clones of Emma or something. Yes, I know. *Sigh*. Mindee was revealed to be Irma's nickname during Fraction's run, putting it back inline with Morrison's intentions.
At one point in Morrison's run it is strongly hinted that the Cuckoos are Weapon XIV/created by the Weapon Plus Program. This was confirmed in Greg Pak's Phoenix: Warsong series. It actually made clever use of continuity: It was revealed that Emma's eggs were harvested after she ended up in a coma way back in Claremant's Uncanny X-Men #184 and used, along with an as-yet-unnamed male donor to create the Cuckoos, who were cloned and artificially aged using the program's advanced science. So, they are technically Emma's biological daughters.
At least for this thread, all I care about is Morrison’s intent, not the inevitable train wreck wrought by later writers to answer questions that do not need answering. But I would like to know whether the Cuckoos were in Genosha. The first time we meet them, they are already Emma’s pet students.
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Post by badwolf on Apr 28, 2018 11:59:22 GMT -5
The reveal of the nano-sentinels was creepy though at the same time it's a little odd and goofy that they have traditional Sentinel heads.
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Post by rberman on Apr 28, 2018 13:12:09 GMT -5
The reveal of the nano-sentinels was creepy though at the same time it's a little odd and goofy that they have traditional Sentinel heads. I guess Master Mold is a creature of habit. The bug-sentinels in Ecuador had helmets too.
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Post by badwolf on Apr 28, 2018 15:15:52 GMT -5
The reveal of the nano-sentinels was creepy though at the same time it's a little odd and goofy that they have traditional Sentinel heads. I guess Master Mold is a creature of habit. The bug-sentinels in Ecuador had helmets too. Oh yeah, so they did!
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Post by rberman on Apr 29, 2018 7:09:33 GMT -5
New X-Men #124 “Superdestroyer” (May 2002)Another great cover by Van Sciver gives way to more terrible, rushed Igor Kordey interior art! Ugh. Note: During this storyline, the minds of Charles Xavier and his twin sister Cassandra Nova have switched bodies. I will refer to Cassandra-in-Charles as “Cassandra” and “she,” and Charles-in-Cassandra as “Charles” and “he.” Thank you, and have a nice flight. The Story: Cyclops and Xorn are in a spaceship, captives of Cassandra Nova and the Shi’ar Superguardians whom she commands. Empress Lilandra seems under her direct mental sway, acting drugged and spitting in Scott’s face when he pleads not to be fired from a rail gun into the Earth’s atmosphere. At the end of the issue, Scott and Xorn break free. Yay! Their death machine looks very Silver Age. Plus as we'll learn eventually, shooting Xorn to Earth wouldn't necessarily kill him. Down at the X-Mansion, Superguardians attack: Neosaurus (Braniac 5), Manta (Shadow Lass), Oracle (Dream Girl), and Plutonia (Phantom Girl). "Star Boy" and Stuff (Proty) have captured Emma Frost, but the Stepford Cuckoos and Angel fight back, incapacitating Oracle with a vision of a death-coaster, and shutting Stuff down somehow also. “We are the resistance,” they declare. But they can’t break Emma out of the helmet/shield that’s been placed on her by the Superguardians. Tune in next issue for their next steps… Inside the mansion, Jean Grey-Summers and Beast herd their frightened civilian guests into secure rooms. Beast tangles with several foes (Manta, Fader (Invisible Kid), and Squorm) before being brought down by a Lightning-Lad type. Logan is back from the tavern, and he takes out the Bouncing Boy ( Blimp), "Lightning Lad," and "Duo Damsel" surrogates before falling to Gladiator (Superboy/Mon-El). Just before Jean and Gladiator face off, Plutonia (Phantom Girl) carrying the wounded Smasher (Ultra Boy) arrives with the news that Cassandra up in space is the real threat. My Two Cents: The X-Men and Legion of Super-Heroes are such great teams that their brawls always make for fun; so many different super powers to play with! That element of X-Men #137 tends to get overshadowed by Phoenix’s poignant death. Morrison gives us a delightful version of this scenario, with both sides giving as good as they get, though some of the Superguardians are played for laughs. (To some degree, that is appropriate. Bouncing Boy? Come on.) Morrison gently mocks Bronze Age LSH costumes by making Oracle needlessly nude. Her ability to see into the future makes her kind of ditzy, which is a favorite Morrison theme: People who seem confused (like, say Grant Morrison when he's high on hashish) are actually operating on a higher plane of awareness. Igor Kordey is back on pencils. Boy, that guy cannot draw faces well. But just concentrate on the fight kinetics, and the overall effect is alright. Did I say previously that the appearance of the Cuckoos had stabilized? I forgot about this Kordey issue, when he still shows them as different sizes/ages. Kordey draws the door to Cerebra as it was pictured in the X-Men films, a thick, round, door with an "X" on it. But cueing off of the film, he also puts Cerebra in the basement. That's not correct. Cerebra is (repeat after me once again) behind a bookcase in Xavier's office. Also, taking all these Muggles to tour Cerebra isn't the most brilliant idea.
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Post by Cheswick on Apr 29, 2018 8:27:52 GMT -5
As far as the art in this issue goes, the only thing that really bothers me is the way Oracle is depicted. I don't know if it was an intentional new look or if Kordey just did not realize she was a preexisting character and accidentally drew her differently.
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Post by rberman on Apr 29, 2018 8:41:57 GMT -5
As far as the art in this issue goes, the only thing that really bothers me is the way Oracle is depicted. I don't know if it was an intentional new look or if Kordey just did not realize she was a preexisting character and accidentally drew her differently. I assume that Kordey was acting on instructions from Morrison; surely the artist isn't authorized to make a character constantly nude without some kind of writing/editorial involvement. She was always albino, though. She seems sort of like a Dream Girl/Saturn Girl hybrid. Her dialogue suggests that she can't easily distinguish the present from the future, which is quite a liability in a combat situation. But as previously depicted, Oracle also has offensive psi-blast capabilities. Morrison shows her being easily overcome by the Stepford Cuckoos.
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Post by Cheswick on Apr 29, 2018 8:56:56 GMT -5
As far as the art in this issue goes, the only thing that really bothers me is the way Oracle is depicted. I don't know if it was an intentional new look or if Kordey just did not realize she was a preexisting character and accidentally drew her differently. I assume that Kordey was acting on instructions from Morrison; surely the artist isn't authorized to make a character constantly nude without some kind of writing/editorial involvement. She was always albino, though. She seems sort of like a Dream Girl/Saturn Girl hybrid. Her dialogue suggests that she can't easily distinguish the present from the future, which is quite a liability in a combat situation. But as previously depicted, Oracle also has offensive psi-blast capabilities. Morrison shows her being easily overcome by the Stepford Cuckoos. The only reason I thought it might be a mistake is, in all her subsequent appearances, she is back to her original look. I guess Marvel didn't like the change either.
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