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Underground > Comic Books >

New X Men #140

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ONLY NICE THINGS

20:42 / 05.05.03

Midwich.

20:53 / 05.05.03

Pedant.

The idea of the Stepford Cuckoos as self-replicating neural lifeforms seems rather Grant Morrison. They'd be the biological counterparts of the Weapon Plus programme's viral minds.

23:05 / 05.05.03

bug-birds? I imagine Angel and Beak's children to look like humming birds.

23:37 / 05.05.03

I think Beak's confession is a red herring, or at least not the whole truth.

Forget Fantomex. Pah. Silliest character since Gambit.

If the shed's full of pupae don't forget that one of the Cukoos (Esme) was getting it on with a shapechanging alien blob-being during Imperial. Maybe she didn't go that far, but who knows...?

Jean showed Bishop that "The Phoenix Burns Through Lies". If she'd been going to kill Emma she would've.

TBH, when I first reached the end of NM#140 I thought "A-ha! Emma's not dead, but she's hatched out of her diamond form." After all, if the Beast's secondary mutation is continuing to evolve him why should Emma's grind to a halt?

El Gato Was Right: the t-shirt

01:11 / 06.05.03

I agree that Beak's confession rings false, though I'm guessing the eggs have something to do with him and Angel. (As for her speedy pregnancy, I'm guessing insect reproductive biology moves quicker than it does for humans) Also, it seems like we may see some interference with the Cuckoos on the baby front, even if it shows up in a plot twist down the road some.

As for Fantomex, I'm down with the theory that the crystaline bullet links him to Emma's murder. Does seem to push us ahead to the Weapon Plus arc. Once that arc rolls around, I'm guessing we'll learn that Kick has something to do with the Weapon Plus program or is at least part of a human conspiracy (perhaps a conspiracy gone awry since the drug enhances mutant power).

I'm a fan of the idea that Emma's consciousness is adrift, waiting to be reintegrated with the body once Hank puts it back together. After all, she's a survivor. But it's just wishful thinking. Grant's just the type of rebel to fuck the comic book convention of miraculous character resurrection. Let some other writer bring her back once Grant leaves the book or something.

01:25 / 06.05.03

And what if the diamond bullet is a red herring ysed by Bishop to make te killer lower hir guard?

And Angel is thtere at the beginning when Bishop tells them about the bullet, but later claims to not to know she hac been shot.

And what does Angel's shirt say? Control Freak. And she is nicely dressed.

10:40 / 06.05.03

I'm not sure why we're assuming Emma's consciousness is "adrift" or detached from her body. It'd make much more sense to me if her psyche were still fundamentally tied to her body but similarly 'shattered'. Changing out of diamond form wouldn't be a great idea at this stage, though...

13:34 / 06.05.03

To support the Midwich Cuckoos theory...the Stepford Cuckoos did mature quite rapidly...something I always attributed to rotating artists...and they did try to read Bishop's mind...why?...to see how much he's figured out already?

07:54 / 07.05.03

I think that Emma isn't dead and that she is holding the gunt Sage's head. Jean 'healed' Emma and so Emma no longer needed her diamond cocoon, and used the belief about her death to investigate Kick.

The Natural Way

10:23 / 07.05.03

I have no idea what's going on. But I know it has nothing to do with everyone being enfolded in Jean's head.

10:57 / 07.05.03

Looking at beak's confession again and theway he phrases it:

I sold the Kick to them, I killed Miss Frost"
Who are "them"?
I'm taking it that "they" killed Emma using kick fueled powers and he killed her by giving it to them.
If this is the case I reckon that it really points to the cuckoos.Remeber how they weren't sure how their powers would work after sophoies(?) death.They seem to be having no problems now working as a group entity now.Add to that they were pretty pissed of at Emma for inspiring Sophie (?again) to sacrifice herself.
As for

"She was going to tell and, I did it for her. I did it for the babies"

Again vague she.Given that we haven't ever seen Beak dealing, there's probably another "she" behind the scenes.I'm thinking that Grants been leading us down the garden path with Beak and Angel and after reading the summary of cuckoos above...?
just my two cents (€

16:58 / 07.05.03

I don't think they're taking Kick now - not after it contributed to Sophie's death.

Fantomex is still a major suspect in Emma's shooting given the diamond bullet - unless he gave it to a third party. Of course the whole cabin in the woods could be a simulation created by Fantomex, but that would be just too complicated. Can anyone think of a non-convoluted way to connect him, the Cuckoos and Angel and Beak?

21:49 / 07.05.03

I guess it's worth mentioning that the Midwich Cuckoos killed out of revenge.

23:45 / 13.05.03

I think Jean is still the most obvious suspect. She can say the Phoenix burns through lies all she wants, but since she obviously entertains some pretty unrealistic illusions about her relationship with Scott, I'm not sold. Um also brainwashing Bishop so he's psychically incapable of suspecting her?

Weird that nobody asked where Scott is, though.

And the Beak thing is an obvious red herring - presumably he's covering for Angel after drawing the wrong conclusion from her defensive reaction to Bishop's questioning. Check out his expression in that panel. Or maybe he knows she's been selling Kick. I def don't think he is. And I don't think the glowing things in the shack are Angel's eggs - that seems pretty forced and unrealistic. Apart from the intercutting of the panels, there's nothing that really suggests this.

Also, I think the connection between Kick and the murder may be another red herring. On the other hand, Emma claimed to have taken it at least once, and presumably didn't buy it from whatever grommit is flogging it at Xavier's, so maybe she knew somebody higher up the supply chain.

09:27 / 14.05.03

If Jean wanted to kill Emma she wouldn't need to shoot her, nor would she have left a body to be found. Remember what she threatened to do to the U-Men.

E

12:44 / 14.05.03

Can anyone access the issue where we first meet Angel in Germ Free Generation? What does her father say about the state of her room? I know he says something about a chemical toilet, but does he ever mention eggs? I may be thinking of the Wasp in Ultimates.

14:29 / 14.05.03

No mention of eggs.

You're either thinking of that or Emma's cabdriver.

18:09 / 14.05.03

All I can say is Grant M. on fire with this book and I can't wait til the next issue!!! Are we still bi-weekly on NXM???

01:15 / 15.05.03

I hope so.

06:09 / 16.05.03

Whoever said that Emma could body jump like she has in the past is wrong. She has never body jumped under her own power, only with the aid of a machine or some outside source of power such as a Shiar power spike. And Emma has never jumped into Jean's body, it was the other way around. Jean jumped into Emma's. So that makes the theory of her jumping into someone else's body moot because she had no other third factor and she doesn't even have telepathic powers in diamond form.

21:07 / 16.05.03

Circa 90's about the time of the debute of X-men Emma was "killed" and actually beheaded by sentinals...
...Later it was revealed that she come into possesion of Iceman's Body and eventually ended up an a fresh body of her own...

Not sure what a Sha'ir power spike is...

& yeah, she used some tech for the switch with Storm... Considering secondary mutation an all it's possible she eventually outgrew the need for such a 3rd factor.

More interesting is that She was "killed" in Diamond form & it's been stated that such a form "shuts down" any of her telepathy.

03:59 / 18.05.03

In numerous interviews, Morrison is reported to have said he approached New X-Men as he might a novel. I believe there are clues to the future dropped throughout his run. ‘A gun placed on a table in Act One’ and all that….

New X-Men issue 119 (p. 4)

John Sublime – “U-Man Bell has mutant EYE IMPLANTS which give him passable microscopic sight. He identified the FLAW in your molecular structure.”

New X-Men issue 140 (p. 5)

Hank McCoy – “She managed to turn to DIAMOND FORM, but the bullet hit her FLAW.”

I suspect John Sublime. He survived and wants revenge/mutant eggs to harvest.

Also, some contrasting attitudes likely to be relevant to the over-all plot–

New X-Men issue 130 (p. 19-21)

Fantomex – “There is NOW. Illusion, Jean. Misdirection.”

Jean Grey-Summers – “LIES, Fantomex…”

New X-Men issue 139 (p. 9)

Jean Grey-Summers – “But the fire of the Phoenix burns THROUGH lies, you understand? The gaze of the Phoenix is like an X-RAY tearing through every self-deception. So BURN, Emma.”

New X-Men issue 140 (p. 13)

Jean Grey-Summers – “But I can only tell the truth. Take a look for yourself.”

Fantomex, now that Scott has been out-ed as the stupid asshole he is, is the only boy capable of holding Jean’s attentions. I suspect there will be some sort of love interest between the two. Whether such is the case or not, their relationship is likely to turn to conflict. The Phoenix, a major device attached to Jean Grey-Summers, is said to burn through lies. Fantomex seems to be the mutant master of misdirection and lies. When the two come into contact with one another, more so when placed in opposition with one another, interesting things are going to happen. Should make for thought provoking reading.

Of course, this is speculation but still… it is probably the most reasonable place to start. Nothing further can be deduced without additional information.

Matthew Fluxington

04:05 / 18.05.03

...and like I always say, I'm sure glad that some of you are not writing this comic.

09:44 / 18.05.03

If we assume Emma's 'flaw' to be her nose, there are several others who know of its existence. Martha ('Brain in a Jar'), Jean ('cosmetic surgery' comment in Emma's flashback) and, most foreshadowed of all, Scott. In issue no.138, when he finds Emma in the rose arbour, she tells him "I was just checking my nose for cracks. It's never been right since it was broken by that awful man...". She subsequently toys with his visor, and he says "Please don't touch my visor... I mean it, it's really dangerous... I could kill you just by looking at you..." to which she replies "I only wanted to see if your eyes were as red as your face".

Suicide? Self-harm? Could she have contrived a meeting with Scott somehow, and opened his visor mid-snog? A significant degree of force directly into her 'flaw' would surely shatter Emma as comprehensively as a diamond bullet (red herring?)

I dunno. Next issue can't come soon enough...

The Natural Way

11:48 / 18.05.03

I like the idea that, if it was self harm, Emma's body would've instinctively gone into diamond mode. Yeah, you definitely can't rule out suicide.

I like the idea that.

And I like it when.

00:22 / 19.05.03

God, Flux=killjoy.

It's a good thing you weren't around when we were doing this to the Invisibles, it would have driven you completely nuts.

The Natural Way

11:03 / 19.05.03

Yeah, I fall somewhere inbetween Flux and the over-theorists (a band. Phnar.) - on the one hand, some of this bearding is patently crap, but, on the other, I think Flux's serious head probably misses some of the more esoteric, hippy stuff.

Matthew Fluxington

12:53 / 19.05.03

I don't know man, sometimes it seems that some of you get confused about who is writing New X-Men - Grant Morrison REPLACED Scott Lobdell et al, not the other way around. Grant Morrison, being a guy who nine out of ten times is a very good and intelligent writer, will definitely avoid some of the arcane, convoluted ideas that some of you come up with in your speculation.

I've seen this in forums about other series, particularly The Sopranos - the writer(s) is consistently smarter and more down-to-earth than the fans who speculate about it, whose ideas about what is "gonna happen" is almost uniformly godawful. If the wildly speculating fans wrote the show/the comic, it would be unreadable dross.

The Natural Way

14:17 / 19.05.03

Yeah, but Grant's public voice is frequently weird and colourful, and he can't seem to drag himself away from certain themes. For all X-Men's soapyness (and regardless of whether it's poorly articulated or not) there's an agenda there. Whilst I agree wholeheartedly that some of the ideas on this thread are a bit convoluted and silly, I'm aware that you and I would probably disagree over my Phoenix/Horus comparisons (for example) - something that seems patently obvious to me.

I think you can go too far on either tack and yr willfull misrepresentation of yawn over on the X-Movie thread kinda underscores this for me. Sometimes I get the feeling that any interpretation of the text that strays from the *human drama* angle immediately flicks yr "No! No! That's ridiculous!" button; and I'm not always sure, with a writer like Morrison who frequently head-nods everything from kaballah to Crowley (subjects you appear to have little to no interest in), yr always in the best position to judge what is and isn't relevant....

Matthew Fluxington

14:47 / 19.05.03

I definitely see the Horus/Phoenix connection, and Grant is obviously pushing it. It doesn't change much though - he's just foregrounding some subtext, and even still, it's not really the focus of the story just yet.

I definitely come at this as being part of a larger 40+ year X-Men story, and whenever things are good, it's very character-based. Grant's been good with that so far, for the most part. Ulimately, I feel that the major contributions that Grant will make to the X-mythos will be the character stuff - I think that a lot of the other more Barbelith-y things will eventually be set off to the side or phased out, and they won't mean too much. I'm more interested in the X-Men than Grant's mysticism, and so I tend to focus on their story and not his ideas, which I've made my mind up about a long long time ago.

I was thinking this morning about how one of the nice things about Grant's X-Men as opposed to the majority of the stories since the beginning is that Grant makes me feel more interested in the villains/conflicts, whereas they had always been a distraction to me because I was more interested in the characters and the soap opera aspects of it. I was going through old Claremont issues recently, and so much of it is just skimming through the adventures to get to the good stuff. Grant is so much more balanced.

The Natural Way

15:46 / 19.05.03

Maybe my last post was a bit harsh. Sorry.

You know, I really agree with that balance thing. That's exactly how those Claremont issues read to me. I also agree that the most interesting stuff is often the soap-opera (but not always). As for fazing the occult-y stuff out... I doubt it. The big phoenix/future of the school/jump to the next level thing's been foreshadowed so much it hurts. But, this time, and speaking of 'balance', I'd like to see Grant keep ahold of the human angle when things start to get huge and apocalyptic.

21:42 / 19.05.03

i just meant that there's a big difference between writing a serial and reading it, and part of the appeal of the latter is wild speculation about what whoever's doing the former will do next. if you were actually writing it, it would be a completely different process.

14:40 / 20.05.03

The Kabalic themes actually work in X-Men because Claremont had already established them. It makes sense for a writer that understands them, like Morrison, to use them, especially with Jean. This is the direction Claremont spent a lot of the late 80s moving her into. Claremont's run was very layered.

That was lost in the 90s because Harras didn't want layers in the books, wanting to keep things as watered down and dumbed down as possible, missing the point that the layers were a large part of the book's appeal.

E

17:00 / 20.05.03

Mr. tricks, Emma was not beheaded by the Sentinels or else she would have never had a body to go back to. It occured in UXM 381, and in it the Sentinels merely put her in a coma. She didn't transfer or possesss Iceman through her own skill or power. There was an energy surge so to speak that transfered her mind.
And like mentioned dozens of times, she has no telepathy in diamond form, so there's a slim chance she's possesssing anyone.

19:27 / 20.05.03

Alright, new prediction time...

Shaw and the Hellfire Club hired Fantomex to kill Emma Frost.

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