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Episode 1454 Talkback - Spotlight on the X-Men in the 2000s
Adam_Murdough
Posts: 506
Our X-haustive X-egesis on the X-Men X-pires in this episode, covering the last seventeen years (1997-2013) of the first fifty years of of X-Men comics. The Geeks (along with 'gifted youngsters' Dani O'Brien and Jamie Hatton) offer their takes on Chris Claremont's attempted homecoming to the X-titles; the poignant-if-temporary death of Colossus; Grant Morrison's fan-polarizing New X-Men run; Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men; a cranium-creasing complement of crossover events, from 'Operation: Zero Tolerance' to 'House of M' to 'Messiah CompleX' to 'Avengers vs. X-Men'; and much more. The Spotlights have ended, but the Dream lives on! (2:08:45)
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Turned out to be just an Image Inducer as he helped unravel the true plot. Generation M is also where we first discover that Jubilee, Chamber, Marrow, Beak, Stacy X, Dani Moonstar, and Blob have all lost their powers.
As for District X, I was a HUGE fan of the series. And even though I also enjoyed Cable later on, I am sad to see the Bishop I grew to love here was essentially wiped away by Messiah CompleX.
Regarding the return of Kitty Pryde in Astonishing X-Men (which I have in trade), I have a memory of Magneto using his powers to somehow guide the bullet back to Earth so she could be saved. Beyond that, the details elude me.
I've not read "Deadly Genesis", but from what I've heard it is indeed a good story. I'll need to grab that. However, I have read some of the follow-up stories in trade, including the aforementioned "Rise and Fall of the Shi'Ar Empire", as well as "X-Men: Kingbreaker" in preparation for the WAR OF KINGS event (which is one of, if not my all-time favorite, stories. I'm a HUGE fan of Gladiator).
-Firstly, about X-Man: I heard that he appeared in the most recent New Mutants series as written by DnA. Before that he was indeed in that Dark X-Men mini-series, as Adam mentioned. And I never read the later, Ellis-penned issues of his solo series, but I have to give another shout out to the first 2-3 years of the title, which I think turned out pretty good. Jeph Loeb and Steve Skroce did a decent job laying the groundwork, and then Terry Kavanagh and Roger Cruz came on to do the best work of their career, imo. I know that Nate Grey is a groan-inducing character, but the first 30 or so issues of his own title were fairly good and self-contained.
-Aside from a couple decent tie-in issues (the Generation X stuff comes to mind), Operation: Zero Tolerance was a forgettable mess. This whole period of transitioning from Lobdell and Nicieza, to Seagle and Kelly, then back to Nicieza once Kelly leaves, was just a weird mess.
-Steven Seagle's work on Uncanny was alright. I think it read well on an issue-by-issue basis, but for whatever reason (possibly editorial) there was just nothing to really take away from the run. Nothing memorable. There was a mini-event called "The Hunt for Xavier", but it made no lasting impression on me. I was really torn by the art at the time, too. Chris Bachalo was the regular artist and he seemed to be transitioning between styles during this time. Some of the issues were gorgeous, while others showed all of the characters looking like squat, ugly children.
-The Alan Davis stuff. It's a shame, but I think this run could have been very good if it wasn't so... compromised on all sides. The beginning of Davis's stuff had the return of Magneto (along with Joseph), which seemed editorially forced and unsatisfying. And the end of his run seemed rushed; he had to hurry up and get his stories over in fewer issues than otherwise he would have had, all in order to clear the decks for Claremont's return. The result was things like the High Evolutionary storyline, which you guys mentioned, taking place in only two or three issues, all of which were CRAMMED with a ton of exposition and dialogue. They are long, hard, brutal reading experiences, which is a shame, because the core ideas of the stories were quite good. I feel that part of the problem came from the fact that Davis was only plotting, not scripting. It seemed as though editorial cycled through a series of scriptors without really caring how good the dialogue actually was... and often it was not good at all. I got the impression that the scriptors (Nicieza and Kavanagh) didn't really have their hearts in these stories, which is understandable if editorial was basically just jobbing the scripts out. On the other hand, particularly in the "X-Men" series, which Davis was not only writing but pencilling as well, we did get some VERY GOOD stuff: particularly the issues with Rogue, Mystique, Mastermind, Mesmero, and Sunfire, as well as the excellent arc with the Skrulls and Galactus. There were a FEW shining moments in Uncanny as well, particularly #375 and #376, which dealt with the "death" of Wolverine (before he returned as the Horseman Death) and the very start of the Twelve storyline. Most of The Twelve was horrible and underwhelming, but it started well, along with the underrated Astonishing X-Men mini-series, which had great art by Brandon Peterson. Anyway, that year or so of Alan Davis's reign was... very mixed and frustrating -- frustrating because there were glimmers of greatness.
-Claremont's (first) return was so bad that I've blocked it out from my memory, to the point that I'm not even sure how long I lasted on the titles before dropping them. I nearly shrieked when you mentioned the NEO. The horror... The HORROR...
-Re: Claremont's dated dialogue. To me it isn't even that he's stuck in 1989 or whatever, it's that he's doing an impression of what a fantasy writer from the early-to-mid-1980s would have characters sound like. It just seems like Claremont's characters speak from a level of reality that is not only antiquated but also... fantasy-based... and it's a type of fantasy that doesn't really match up with what would be there in any sort of contemporary Marvel Universe.
-The "road-trip" era of X-Force was indeed quite cool. Adam Pollina was a good choice for the title. I'm wondering whether you'll mention X-Statix before the episode is over.
That's all for now. I look forward to listening to the rest of this much-awaited deluxe episode later this week when I have more time. As is often the case, Adam's description text was creatively wonderful, but I have to give a bit of a stink-eye to the characterization of Morrison's run as polarizing. Of course, it was polarizing. But "Avengers Disassembled" and the start of "New Avengers" was at least as divisive, and you gave Bendis a pass there. In fact, you gave Bendis blanket praise for turning the Avengers franchise into a rolling series of event tie-ins. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy some of those comics (I did), but I think you kind of ignored the fact that a large contingent of fandom did not like what was going on over there. At least stories from Morrison's run routinely place in the top 5-10 X-stories of all time on CBR lists, whereas Bendis's Avengers stories don't show up nearly as high in comparable Avengers polls.
Regarding the Xorn confusion: The 2001 Annual, the one read sideways for the "widescreen" experience, introduced Xorn. Toward the end of Morrison's run, Xorn was revealed to be Magneto, who was later killed by Wolverine. At this point, it's cut and dry: Magneto pretended to be Xorn to infiltrate the school, caused havoc, and was killed.
The confusion didn't begin until other writers got involved after the end of the Morrison run. In Excalibur (Vol. 3) Prof. X goes to Genosha to rebuild, and who shows up? Magneto. Then, I think in the Austen X-men run, Xorn shows up. There were loose attempts at explaining how Magneto was still alive, and how there was a Xorn at all (since he was supposed to be a facade,) but they all seemed to make it worse. I think by the time Bendis killed Xorn(2) in New Avengers, the story was that there were two Xorns. One went nuts, joined the x-men, pretended to "really" be Magneto, destroyed Manhattan, and was killed, while a benevolent Xorn was somewhere else. At the same time, the real Magneto was recovering from the attack on Genosha, to later aid Xavier in rebuilding. But even that explanation is largely ignored, or filed alongside "Peter and MJ's baby" and other bits we don't like.
Also, John Sublime showed up during the Morrison run, too. I think in the second or third arc. He was a living bacteria back then, too.
Great job, everyone!
Bastion was actually the Nimord Mastermold hybridization that pulled into the Siege Perilous. The Perilous changed him into the human looking form. Oh yes! David Hine did an excellent job on that series! It happened around Uncanny X-Men 519...Magneto almost killed himself doing it to prove he was "with" the X-Men There was a really simple easy way to make everything gel. Wanda. During her breakdown in Avengers Disassembled she could have been the one bring Magneto back after his beheading making him "good" again. But no...Marvel really screwed the pooch with Xorn...and his twin brother (sigh) Xorn. Bendis turned the original Xorn into some kind of energy being made up of different powers that could possess people.
Other noteable series:
Fabian Nicieza and Steve Skroce's Gambit...lol the Man of Steal
EDIT: Attaboy Murd!
Destiny was killed by Xavier's son Legion.
Claremont's book history:
X-Men & Uncanny X-Men
X-treme X-Men
Excalibur
Uncanny X-Men
New Excalibur
Exiles (totally ruined the series IMO)
New Exiles
X-Men Forever
I will note that Uncanny X-Men #467-468 are one of my all time favorite stories. It's here that the Shi'ar Commando Squad wipe out Jean Grey's whole family line in literally 24 seconds while Rachel witnesses the whole thing.
The Cuckoos- are actually Weapon XIV
Scott Jean and Emma triangle- LEmma is a sex therapist and the beginnings of her and Scott's sessions was to help repair his marriage. How it fell apart from there was due to her actually falling in love with Scott.
Logan and Jean on Astroid M - they were being pulled into the Sun and Wolverine wanted to spare Jean by killing her. He didn't know that by killing her he would free the Phoenix.
The White Costumed Phoenix goes way back to Claremont's X-Men Classic back up story.
Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is freaking fantastic, and I was also surprised to hear the lukewarm treatment of that title.
I agree with the X-Factor love.
Whedon- I love how Whedon reconciled the Morrison era in his first issue and moved right on to what he wanted to do. (They needed to dress like superheroes to "Astonish" the populace and how the black leather was making people uncomfortable. Colossus actually died and by ritual a Breakworld ritual Ord brought him back. The same thing happens to Kitty which is how they are able to bring her back from being stuck in ghost form.
The 198- I really hated this nomenclature, the 198 was the name the mutants that lived outside Mansion gave themselves. There was more closely something like 300 mutants.
Jean Grey actually did resurrect in the X-Men Phoenix Endsong mini series by Greg Pak and Greg (good art) Land. She left the Earth to gather the pieces of the shattered Phoenix Force.
Bishop is currently running around in Uncanny X-Force volume 2 they're in the process of reforming him.
I heard that Joe Quesada announced at a convention a few years ago that there were plans to bring this version of Jean Grey back; they’re just looking for the right time. Well? What’s keeping them?
Aside from all that, once again another great Spotlight episode!
I've always seen Jean Grey as a valuable character. I know a lot of X-Men fans see her as a big old nothing in the character/personality department. I couldn't disagree more. I've always considered her to be the ultimate den mother/big sister of the X-Men and I thought her very balanced combination of kindness, courage, and fierce offensive opponent when needed was awesome. Plus, I've always been personally attracted to her combined power of telepathy/telekinesis. If (or when) she comes back, I really wouldn't want her at full, or even partial, Phoenix force. I would be just satisfied at the telepathy/tk power level she was at before re-obtaining the Phoenix Force in had in Morrison's X-Men.
Matthew
I would even go so far as to say the O5 Jean is the perfect compromise of giving us Jean but leaving her life with Scott behind.
Schism: While I can see Wolverine's side of things I still think Cyclops was right. Cyclops let the kids choose if they wanted to fight and with less than 300 mutants around they would always be a target so why not train them to fight?
AvX: I have to say the AvX Consequences is vital to the direction Cyclops took post AvX. While in prison Cyclops learns that certain businesses are looking to profit and build an economy from mutant detainment centers. And when the only other mutant in the prison is killed he decides that he needs to step things up for mutant rights.
I will agree with Jamie AvX could have been bigger if they truly balanced out both sides.
That being said, I feel the same way about it that I feel about a lot of Morrison's Big 2 work that I've read: it gets off to a strong start but then it runs aground in the back half and never really recovers. I think in this particular case I thought it was solid all the way up through the arc where Emma was shot and Bishop came in to play detective, and after that it started a shaky descent to the finish, and then that future epilogue that just made no sense to me whatsoever and then was boring besides. I've retconned my own interpretation of the run to the point where I consider it's end point to be the death of Jean and that epilogue just doesn't even exist.
I think the biggest problem, though, was that it existed in a vacuum. Never mind the fact, uniforms aside, that it didn't jibe with what was going on in Uncanny (admittedly maybe that was for the best), it didn't play well in the rest of the Marvel Universe. The Xorn/Magneto revelation was a headscratcher:
"Magneto, YOU were Xorn? How?"
"Because reasons! I throw bridge at you now!"
...but that he leveled Manhattan and not one other book or character in the entire Marvel universe was affected or made any reference to it? Given how insular the 616 is (and was even in the midst of Joe & Bill's "we just want good stories" edict), that was hard to swallow, and the backpedaling after the fact to explain all of that just made things worse. It would have worked if the X-Men existed in a vacuum, but again, Marvel has worked hard to make sure that has never been the case with any of their main line titles since year one.
Basically, I think there are a ton of problems and clear factual errors with how you guys characterized the Morrison run. I could go on forever about this -- getting into the minutiae of things like how you didn't tell Cassandra Nova's origin quite accurately -- but I'll just hit the points I want to hit and then call it "good enough". Bear with me. I DID enjoy the episode very much, even though I disagree with a lot of what was said.
First of all, a few quick items to respond to the common complaints.
"Why are there SO MANY WEIRD MUTANT KIDS at Xavier's? Ew. That's just retarded. Get them out of my X-Men book."
I'm sorry, guys, but I ALMOST have to disregard all of your opinions on ALL X-Men comics if this is your view. The book is about tolerance and acceptance of people who are different. But apparently that only applies if the X-Men look like supermodels and Hollywood action stars? It's like: For ONCE we get actual young mutants who would REALLY, REALLY need sympathy and protection, young people who aren't pretty and who don't have Mary Sue personalities -- you know, sort of like how a lot of real social outcasts are -- and yet half the fans turn their noses up at them. I guess you guys would rather these characters were forced to hide down in the sewers like the Morlocks? I mean, from what we know of real science, bizarre physical disfiguration is what mutation actually would mean for most people...
The weird-looking characters didn't even dominate the book. You had Cyclops, Jean, Wolverine, Emma, Charles, and Beast there most of the time. If you can't put up with a few weird characters every now and then, I don't know what to tell you. To make this criticism you either have to be a hypocritical X-fan, or else you just must not have taken the book seriously on any level ever. It's beyond me. It isn't like Morrison made the book permanently about bizarre, non-anthropomorphic characters. He introduced several (really; only several; go back and look) strange-looking students. And isn't that what the Xavier school was SUPPOSED to be about? Helping out mutants who would need it? Well, here are several young mutants who need help, protection, and training. For a number of reasons, this will be a hard task. What is the problem? Sounds like a good set-up and source of dramatic tension to me. It isn't as if Morrison is the first writer to introduce very bizarre looking cast members. Think back to all the weirdos in Generation X. Nightcralwer and Beast are weird looking. So was Warlock from the New Mutants.
Why the Female Angel gets criticized as being "weird", I don't know. There are a LOT more people like her in the real world than there are people who look like Warren Worthington (minus the wings on both counts). Oh, but the Female Angel has babies and shoots fireballs. Like that's any weirder than Archangel? And let's be honest: The relationship between Female Angel and Beak was a better love story than any relationship Warren Worthington has had with any other character in 50 years of continuity. And I'm a Psylocke fan. No, I don't want Female Angel in every X-comic going forward, but the way Morrison used her was perfect for his run. Great little story arc.
It's like these Morrison characters get criticized for not being good enough to get the Wolverine/Cyclops/Storm treatment, and become franchise tentpoles for decades on end. Most of them were just intended to be used as supporting characters for this one run. To that end, they served their purpose very well and showed us different sides of what mutants would go through. It's like criticizing Merv Pumpkinhead in "Sandman" for being too bizarre and non-photogenic. It's a supporting character.
As for Morrison adding in a bunch of new students "and none of them were normal walking dudes with powers" (which is an exact quote from this episode): Well, you had FIVE prototypical white blonde telepaths walking around. You had Kid Omega walking around. You had characters like Tag, Tattoo, and Redneck walking around. These were quite normal looking mutants who could pass for normal humans just as often as Jean Grey could. The Cuckoos and Kid Omega had as much panel-time as all of the weird looking mutants put together. Not seeing how this is a problem. Seems like people are exaggerating.
Moving on.
"Where were the Avengers or the Fantastic Four when Magneto attacked?!?!?!??!"
You may as well ask: Where were the Avengers and the X-Men when Galactus attacked? Because they sure didn't appear in Fantastic Four #48-50, and that was back when the Marvel Universe actually had fairly tight continuity.
Stuff like this doesn't matter. A million No-Prize explanations can be arrived at. "They were in a different dimension having an adventure yet to be told in the pages of our comics!"
(continuing...)
-I should quickly dispel any notion that I'm a rabid Morrison defender. Yeah, I like his writing, but he's done a lot of work (Invisibles, JLA, All Star Superman, Action Comics) that is more "miss" than "hit" for me. I also recognize that New X-Men is not perfect and has flaws.
I do agree that there are aspects of New X-Men that seem like an Elseworlds. Sure. I readily admit that the run doesn't really fit in tonally with much else that has come out of the X-titles. But... I fail to see how that is really a bad thing. I don't need to read 50 years of "continuity" expecting everything to make sense and fit together anywhere close to seamlessly. The Morrison run is a capsule on its own, and I'm fine with that.
During the show you guys said that it was either like Morrison didn't know continuity or didn't care. There was actually a "Morrison Manifesto" in which he readily admitted that when he got the gig he hadn't read any X-Men comics in about ten years and wasn't planning to go back and brush up on what happened. Is that a bad thing? Many if not most of the comics he didn't read, by your own admissions, are convoluted messes anyway. I DID READ most of those comics, and I'm glad Morrison saved himself the trouble and the weight of their continuity.
On the other hand, HE DID reference some recent continuity. Numerous times he had Cyclops reference the fact that he was still dealing with having been possessed by Apocalypse. He used Bishop and Sage and M and Siren and others. It wasn't a total break in continuity. It wasn't really a break at all. He just ignored a lot of stuff, most of which we can all agree was worth ignoring, in order to give us something new. It is called NEW X-Men. Yeah, exactly. As Morrison had it, there were no real problems. Then other writers screwed around with the Xorn concept and (aided by the anti-Morrison myths that seem to develop) Morrison gets the retroactive blame for something that "doesn't make sense." But within the context of the New X-Men issues, Xorn made sense. It was a brilliant ruse on Magneto's part, and it has been established that magnetism can be used to heal people. Especially in superhero logic. On the episode Shane and Chris agreed to something along the lines of "I liked New X-Men okay overall... well, up until XORN was introduced." He was introduced after the THIRD issue, guys! You KNOW you liked it after that!
I do agree, though, that the final storyline, "Here Comes Tomorrow" is subpar. Morrison does have problems ending big long runs. I find that "HCT" works a lot better upon rereading the entire run, but even then... the themes and storypoints that Morrison references in the future just... aren't... that interesting. It's a difficult read there at the end, and when you figure out what he's doing with the different players it just seems like "Wow, that's some complicated chess moves, for no real reason." What he does there at the end, aside from the Jean/Scott/Emma note, doesn't really shed much more light on what we read before. It's a strange dissonant note to end on. Absolutely. I was just getting back into X-comics at the time, and I was stunned to see that these Claremont/Bachalo issues were so good. Claremont's whole third run is "OKAY". Some fairly good stuff with Alan Davis, and the Bachalo issues toward the end are the peak.
Anyway, that's it for now. I have to emphasize again that I really, really did like this episode.
PS. Rick Remender's Uncanny X-Force. Omnibus coming soon.
I've plowed through the first 5 collections in the past few weeks and have 6 and 7 sitting on the To Read pile. Yeah, I'm a little obsessed... amazing book. I thank and blame you all! :D
:D