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In which Wolverine learns to fly; pants are a basic human right; we decide to cherry-pick our Xorn retcons; Xavier’s eyebrows follow his mind; and the first year of New X-Men ends with a bang.
X-PLAINED:
- The origin of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard
- New X-Men #124-126
- The current state of Charles Xavier’s body
- G-Type
- Neosaurus
- Plutonia
- Schism
- Oracle
- Stuf
- Gladiator (more) (again)
- Angel disambiguation
- Several plans
- Mutant justice
- Several miracles of magnetism
- Mummudrai
- Horror movie shit
- Subtle visual foreshadowing
- A ruse
- Education
- Long-lost family members
- What may or may not come after this
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I’ve never been clear on one aspect of the Magneto-Xorn thing (not the retconned version; the version as Morrison intended):
In “The Man from Room X,” we’re told that Xorn has been in a Chinese prison for over 50 years. That definitely CAN’T be Magneto, right? So… was that a lie? Or was there a REAL Xorn, whom Magneto replaced at some point? If so, when did that happen?
I know Morrison claims they had this plotted out as Magneto from the beginning, but some stuff just doesn’t make sense to me. Like… I get how Magneto could heal people of nanosentinels. But how does he bring something (even something only “mostly dead”) back to life?
Any clarity you can give on this point would be tremendously helpful to me, as it’s never made sense to me or maybe I’ve missed something in the text, which I’d love for someone to explain to me!
As far as I’m aware, everything that Xorn said about his past was a fabrication, supported by fake evidence Magneto planted.
He says in #146/#147 that the “Feng Tu” prison Xorn had been imprisoned in was entirely staged by himm as window dressing to support his story, with the assistance of his supporters in China. He also tells Ernst more than once that there is no Xorn, it was all playacting.
A lot of what we know about “Xorn” was from the issue of his diaries, none of which were real, or were perhaps based on staged events and with a faked “Xorn” POV.
Yet again we are weirdly in synch (But not in Synch because that would be disturbing, nor are we N’Sync, despite my uncanny lack of resemblance to Justin Timberlake) G-Type made me think of a Lego version of the Watcher
Then, as soon as you mentioned Cyclops basically ignoring Cassandra’s psychic attack because he’s “been there, done that”, my brain went “Oh, like Wiccan did with the ennui-inflicting tentacle wizard guy thanks to his anxiety disorder?” 😀
Wiccan vs Moridun (the aforementioned tentacle wizard) is one of my favourite Wiccan moments and is in New Avengers (2015 version) #6
Kudos for recognising Schism as a sort of Duo Damsel (who started out as being able to split into three as “Triplicate Girl”, until tragic events in the line of duty reduce her to Duo Damsel. She and Madrox should hang out, especially after another event later removed her having any limit on the number of selves she could create and became “Duplicate Damsel”… it’s a confusing life in the Legion)… but I digress.
The idea that mummudrai are universal in everyone’s pre-natal experience I wasn’t quite as big a fan of, as wouldn’t that make every birth a multiple birth, until one kills the other and disposes of the bidy somehow? And how many other “evil” winner mummadrai are out there in the world? Though, having said that, it WOULD explain a few things.
But yes, in sheer cosmic temrs of galactic brou-haha, this has been a very enjoyable story.
It seems that Cassandra got nerfed quite a bit in her X-Men rematch. She flat-out possesses people when matched against the Shi’Ar (and Beak, but granted, that’s Beak), solos the superguardians, but when it comes to the X-Men her powers are downgraded to barely Empath-level.
“Roll with the the bad feelings?” *That’s* Cyclops’ plan against a Professor X-level opponent? I admit, It’s funny when Scott’s emotional issues are used as a defense mechanism (he did something similar vs. The Void), but I expect more from him. And while Wolverine going “pure instinct” against Cassadra makes sense, it’d be more believable if he didn’t spend three panels speechifying about it.
The Phoenix flare is neat, but does it do anything?
Finally, is it ever explained how the Cuckoos managed to come up with the body-swapping plan? They’d have to know Cassandra’s ultimate goal — which only Jean had figured out — and know that the genuine Cassandra body was dead, and presumably removed from sight, all of which happened while they were outside. (Granted, telepathy solves a lot of issues like that.)
But I didn’t notice, or mind, any of those nitpicks on the first read-through, which is evidence of how entertaining the whole thing is. The mounting threat of the nano-sentinels is especially well done; you normally wouldn’t think comics would be a good medium for medical drama, but it works. (Kordey’s faces, which can lean toward the grotesque, serve really well here.)
Unrelated: Beast, then Jean/Charles, both raise the concept of “mutant law” as distinct from human laws. That’s certainly a concept that has been brought up in the past (usually by the bad guys) and would again be part of the established Krakoa setting, but had it been regularly used by X-Men themselves before this point?
Having Cassandra become Ernst and then grow up to be Cassandra in the x-men was truly one of the great redemptions of comics and made this such a beautifully compassionate end to the arc-to give her a second chance at life.
Then Whedon came in and f***ed it all up-either didn’t get it or just doesn’t have Morrison’s heart. Still breaks my heart.
I appreciate you wanting folks to do their own thing in the world of x-podcasts, but I am already clambering for someone to cover the wacky weird flipside of this era over in Uncanny under Casey and Austen, and then beyond, in something akin to your thoughtful, inclusive and humorous style…
Comics are weird because you can say, “Martha, No Girl, Ernst, and Cassandra Nova are three characters from Grant Morrison’s run” and people will agree except they won’t agree…
Whedon is to blame for many things, but not that – it was Chuck Austen’s two-issue coda to NXM that made the Cassandra/Ernst error, and with all the other retcons spinning around the moment Morrison’s run was over, that one just slipped through and became canon.