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I wonder if, at least partly in terms of significance, the entirety of New X-Men does not represent one huge psychological battlefield. So, I'm recycling this thread instead of starting one called 'New X-Men: I'll Show You The Life Of The Mind', because it concerns some thematic similarity; I'm just proposing that telepathy/meme-transmission/representation, etc. not be considered so separately. I was also enlightened by Barbelith board-members posts at, of all places, X-Fan. Anyway, onward:
Cassandra as nihilism. Utterly bleak anti-mind, or 'anti-self' as Araki puts it. Masochistic, self-destructive overtones when placed diamettric to her twin brother, a trope that's run through several X-Men stories, most notably Onslaught. At the other end of the diptych, Xavier as social concern. Also, forthcoming "enemy of all intelligent life in the universe', which should be fun. Phoenix/Anti-(or Dark, as some people call it...)Phoenix?
The Cuckoos each comprising one fifth of the minds psychological defenses, possibly (Esme - 'beloved', emotional attachments, Sophie - 'wisdom', rationale. Umm, don't know the three other names, or defenses. Ganesh?) I wonder what happens when one goes missing: they've been quite unpleasant to Emma, but that's about it.
Scott Summers as super-sexually repressed idealist. A man who's aroused, like Emma is by 'bereavement', by visions of the wife he thought had died. He also married her clone, thereafter, so this is hardly new. I'd be surprised if Emma hadn't had them lie together on the moon, beside a recently fired laser, as an astral makeout setting. Perhaps that'd be going too far... Also Apocalypse, envoy of uber-Darwinism has infested his head recently, so perhaps this fixating on the Phoenix, an all-powerful embodiment of humanity's potential is hardly surprising. I really liked the line, in #138, 'He made everything seem boring afterwards,' but I can't quite figure what this exactly is pointing at. It may be a symptom of the aforementioned repression.
Emma is overshadowed by Jean also, careers and choice-wise; she's failed miserably in all her teaching assignments, and a great many students of hers have died - a multitude of Hellions, Synch of Generation X. Her 'icing up' into diamond form is a physical manifestation of mental foetal posture, trying to feel as little as possible. And perhaps something she identifies with Scott in doing. She's envious, and emotionally hobbled. She does a fairly good impression of someone who's coked out when in this state.
Coke (to the nth level) = Kick? Bendis has been having fun with mutant drugs also, in Daredevil and Alias. Taking drugs can make one approximate (what I imagine to be, never having been diagnosed with one) the experience of mental illness. I like the idea, coined here, of No-Girl as anti-kick, as a being representing the Special Class' group unity; 'you can have fun without drugs...'
I like Magneto, Quentin and Dummy's transmutation to aethereal beings. The inactive Dummy becoming a 'fart in spacesuit', mental inactivity, released, Quentin perhaps collating and improving on Xavier's and Magneto's combinant philosophies as he became transcendent, and Magneto, I think I've mentioned before.
Fill in your own... I'm a bit stuck on Xorn and Phoenix. |
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