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In which we start the Morrison Run; Professor X gets his hands on Chekhov’s gun; Cassandra Nova raises X-villains to a new level of weird; and humanity is running on borrowed time.
X-PLAINED:
- No-Girl
- New X-Men #114-116
- Grant Morrison and their approach to the X-Men
- Superhero fashion
- Cerebra
- Beast’s new look
- Ugly John
- Interpersonal dynamics
- Cassandra Nova (somewhat)
- Donald Trask
- Master Molds
- Wild Sentinels
- Emma Frost (more) (again)
- Negasonic Teenage Warhead (the original)
- The fall of Genosha
- Secondary mutations
- The most strapless bra of all time
- The Black Bug Room
- Summers problems
- Official X-Men and the designation thereof
- Wonder Man and mutants
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I have to complain about just one page of New X-Men #1. As it happens, human prehistory and evolution is one of my science interests. I’ve got a lot of information from Wikipedia, IFLScience.com, youtubers Screens of the Stone Age, Archeology Podcast Network, North 02, Gutsick Gibbon, Stefan Milo, PBS Eons, and various others, and people and institutions in the paleoanthropology sphere John Hawks, Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Chris Stringer, and the Leakey Foundation.
Rebecca Wragg Sykes even wrote a book about Neanderthals! Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death & Art! It’s very dry!
First, they both are and aren’t our direct ancestors. They split from Homo Erectus earlier, then we came along and interbred with them.
Neanderthals didn’t look like that. Sure they’d look a little odd to our modern eyes, but a whole lot closer to modern HS than this depiction. Best guess is that they weren’t covered in hair but *did* wear clothes. If they were properly dressed they’d probably have passing privilege these days.
They had fire, rope, sewing needles, jewellery, and art, and cared for their vulnerable family members. Pretty civilised IMO, hardly the savages they used to be depicted as.
Neanderthals, mostly being Eurasian, would have been more pale than early HS, who first appear in Morocco and then spread in all directions.
Yes, I’m sure there were conflicts between neanderthals and HS. But also, everyone who isn’t pure subsaharan African has up to 2% neanderthal DNA. It’s suspected that at least some of those relationships were what passed for consensual at the time. It’s what’s available/they have food, fire, and shelter/I like ’em funny looking.
Why are there no neanderthals around these days? Partially because we alternately integrated them and outcompeted them. Further, we were better adapted to changes in climate.
Way too early for hafted axes. At that time it was just your old-fashioned hand-axe. However, they *did* have early glue and could make spears. No one had the idea of sticking a smaller spearhead horizontally onto a small shaft yet.
Okay, this is both 2001 and in the Marvel universe. But it still bothers me. I’m sure everyone has these things.
Also, somewhat related, I always imagine Moon-Boy (Homo habilis) with a Brazilian accent. Why? I don’t know! Just how I hear it.
My assumption is that Cassandra Nova is running straight propaganda with no attention to historical accuracy–she doesn’t care if Trask learns anything accurate or useful; she just wants to convince him of her point (and buy time to copy his DNA).
That’s my No-Prize too for this.
I completely agree. Villain propaganda. Still, I had to share the actual science as best I understand it. Joe X-Plains Neanderthals! Doesn’t have the same snap, but I’m sure you understand. 🙂
Two questions:
Isn’t “X-Men Annual 2001” the first issue of the Morrison run? I haven’t finished the episode yet (commute is over, though), so maybe you address it… but isn’t the annual what addresses Emma’s presence and all that? Perhaps you’re covering it next episode, but I just wanted to ask while I’m thinking about it!
My second question: when JAMXPTXM wraps up, is there any chance we’d see The Lightning and the Storm make a comeback (possibly covering the Aaron run?!) and/or the long-awaited “Jay Dare-Splains the Anne Nocenti Daredevil” podcast?
Well, I guess I forgot that “The Man in Room X” has assumed Emma as a member of the team, and obviously that can’t’ve happened until after Genosha. Just forgot about that one! Whoops. I’m really interested to hear you two discuss that story, because Leinil Yu’s “dirty” art vs. the “clean” stuff we’ve been seeing with Quitely is a huge contrast. I’ll be interested to hear about your impressions!
Miles stopped reading X comics around the same time as the great comics collapse. Do you think it was coincidence, or was it related?
They, them?
Why are you talking about Grant Morrison like he is more than one person? 🤷🏼♂️
Grant Morrison uses they/them pronouns; which, if you’re going to be pedantic about it, have been used in the singular case for centuries.
Yup! Geoffrey Chaucer uses singular “they” in Middle English. It’s so old it LITERALLY predates our language as we recognize it.
Grant Morrison identifies as a version of nonbinary and prefers they/them pronouns. Links here if you’re interested.
Because Grant Morrison came out as non-binary back in 2020, and has since said they use they/them pronouns.
1. No Girl vs. Martha – I think even the folks at Battle of the Atom got confused about this to the point where one was talking about her one way, one the other and they both accidentally talked past each other but agreed not realizing they disagreed. COMICS!
2. Yeah, I stopped X-Men right around Magneto War and jumped back in on this. I remember it hitting SO HARD at 14. I mean, it still hits hard. But like, I cannot describe how much this made X-Men my personality again.
3. “Breeding, darling, top notch breeding” is one of those “this is the character in two panels” examples. Emma is broken and retraumatized and grieving and so damn angry and she will both claim “bitch” and give an A+ one-liner back rather than show a bit of vulnerability.
I wonder how this opening arc would have played differently had the timing been just a bit later. These opening issues of Morrison’s run were published just a few months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and I don’t see Marvel editorial OK’ing a scene of a city being murdered by a plane-shaped assailant after that. (Nor, really, any responsible artist pitching the idea.)
So the book would’ve lost one of its big early setpieces, though the could’ve still worked. We haven’t met the nano-sentinels yet, but Cassandra Nova could use them to kill off Genosha — a pandemic metaphor, which wouldn’t be in bad taste for a couple decades yet. (Emma’s secondary mutation still saves her, as her diamond form kills off the tiny robots or something).
It’s not as showy an idea, of course, but it does resolve one of the chief complaints I had back when this was released: If it was this easy to destroy Genosha, why was the place a world-class threat just a year ago? And how do you kill* Magneto by sending a giant robot at him? (This is one of those elements of Morrison’s run — like Scott & Jean’s out-of-nowhere problems and where-are-all-the-other-X-Men? — that you just have to overlook in service of the overall story.)
* Yes, I know.
I only managed to really catch that when “Charles” is referring to Cassandra he refers to her as “it”. “It killed sixteen million mutants”. I really need to go reread this run with an eye on gender and sexuality. How Charles and Cassandra related through that lens seems fascinating
Ah Grant Morrison, who I remember taking over the previously rather mundane “Zoids” licenced comic in the UK, which instnatly became a lot more cyberpunk.
Then “Zenith” in 2000AD, a typically crammed-full-of-ideas decontruction of superheroes through the celebrity culture of the 80’s/90’s.
Then “Animal Man” of course, AND “Doom Patrol” which took the well intentioned by rather bland then current DP revival and went completely nuts with it. Crazy Jane, Rebis, Dorothy Spinner, The Brotherhood of Dada, Danny the Street, the Cult of the Unwritten Book and so many more.
So I had no idea what to expect in their X-Men run and they did not disappoint, half the time I was blown away by powerful moments (“Just look into my eyes” is an amazing line from Scott), the other half of the time I’m not sure what’s going on, and I’m not sure Morrison does either.
I like Scott and Logan’s banter, but Logan the rest of the time just comes across as just a cranky mean-girl, and sarcastic shit-stirring is never quite how I imagined Logan reacting to things he doesn’t like.
Morrison’s Emma is superb, though every time people talk about Emma being a good teacher, I consider the scene here where she’s encouraging her students to hack into the minds of their favourite film stars which is just way past any ethical boundary.
I remember some fuss among fans from Beast talking to the skeleton on Genosha with “You’re dating days are over I’m afraid” as they thought it ghoulish, rather than prime gallows humour.
I do love the addition of the mutant subculture we’re stating to see, which does indeed feel overdue.
I confess I’ve never been a huge fan of Quitely’s work, something about this style, though it would work in something like 200AD I suspect. The default pouty expression on his women being one thing that irks (Emma especially) and the tendency to elongate faces weirdly, but it might also be the colouring in conjuntion with the texturing he gives skin, which flattens faces out in ways faces don’t really flatten. I suspect I would have liked this a lot more in black and white to be honest.
I think I’m in agreement with the comment Dr. Doom made on the “As Mentioned” that I don’t think their plan to recruit new readers worked. It likely brought back lapsed comic readers, but I never felt this made an impact the way Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns did over ten years earlier.
Still, as ever, looking forward to seeing your takes on this run.
Couple things i forgot to mention:
1. Morrison addresses the inadvertent parallels of Genosha and the World Trade Center attacks in NXM #132, which reads as a retelling of the stories about the last words of 9/11 victims being preserved in voice mails to their loved ones. The issue is a step away from the series’ overall storyline — it doesn’t significantly advance any of the major plots, apart from some foreshadowing — and is really well done. (This is the same issue as Beast’s skeleton jokes, and I recall he lampshades those by remarking he’s barely holding it together.)
2. So the attack kills 16 million mutants, or half the world’s mutant population — and the only pre-existing named character to die* is Magneto? The Scarlet Witch’s “No More Mutants” Hex was famously pilloried for missing pretty much all the most important X-Men, but at least she got a bunch of B-listers. This just feels implausible.
Just following in the footsteps of the Great Mutant Massacre, which despite a massive bodycount, only killed one character who had not been introduced specifically to be killed off in the event: Anna Lee, Leech’s adoptive mother.
The other fatalities were newbies, and every other previously named character: Callisto, Sunder, Healer, Beautiful Dreamer etc survived.
Or “The Fall of the Mutants”, where only one mutant actually fell, Cypher. The X-Men stumbled a bit rather than fell, as they didn’t actually die but were transported to Australia (There MUST be an British penal-history joke I can make here), so their “fall” was largely performative.
I am as excited for you two to get to this run as I am sad the show is ending. So bittersweet. My first X-book was a X-Men Classic (I think #30) that I saw at the grocery store featuring a Murderworld story. Then I read everything from 275-325 before I ran into college and marriage and so on. But I came back for the Morrison run and have been reading everything ever since. Long live Jay and Miles, long live the X-Men, and Omnia Mutantir!
What was the rationale behind Emma’s diamond form? I’ve seen posts suggesting that Morrison wanted to use Colossus instead of Emma and her new powerset lets her fill that role. (Which seems odd, given the importance of the Scott/Jean/Emma triangle to the overall storyline — all that was really Morrison’s Plan B?)
Or did Morrison always plan on using Emma but didn’t want identical telepaths on the team, so Jean gets her telekinesis back and Emma gets something entirely different?
Morrison did indeed want to use Colossus, but was told they couldn’t as Piotr was only recently deceased, and Joe Quesada had a “Dead means DEAD!” policy in place at the time.
According to the reliable “Comic Book Legends” column (for debunking or confirming comic book rumours/legends/urban myths), the idea of using Emma specifically came about through a comment on Morrison’s website, where a fan asked if she was going to appear in the new line up (and outlined why her unique POV would be an interesting addition to the mix). Morrison took the idea and ran with it, using her to replace Colossus, and acknowledging the original poster as the inspiration.
They also had some fairly major ideas regarding Rogue and Gambit, but these were blocked as Claremont was using the over in Xtreme X-Men
And as for the affair, I believe (though I’ve not found the evidence of it so it might be a rumour, but it seems plausible at least) that the original plan, prior to Emma coming on board, was for Scott and Ororo to have the affair, with Ororo dealing with the fact she’d fallen in love with her best friends husband, and Jean reacting to the double betrayal of her husband cheating on her with her best friend. Again though, Claremont had first dibs on them and the ideas never materialised.