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Maybe you've just been kidding yourself the whole time, Radiator. This has been the X-Men the whole time. Let's break this down, okay?
In the first story, the X-Men fought a Shadowy Mystery Villain From The Past, were attacked by Sentinels, and had a former villain join the group.
In the second story, the school is under attack, and Wolverine takes a teenage girl under his wing. And the Phoenix returns.
In the third story, the Shi'Ar Imperial Guard fight the X-Men, and the team fight the mystery villain from the first arc, who turns out to be Professor X's evil twin.
In the fourth storyline, we meet a badass gun nut. He's mysterious!
In the next set of stories we have a love triangle, a guest appearance by a lot of Rob Liefeld characters, and a story about Magneto.
Then we have the riot.
After that, we have a murder mystery, a la Columbo.
Then we have the Assault storyline, which seems a little like a homage to mid-90s action/superheroics.
And now we have the big finale, in which we learn that one of the mystery characters was The Big Villain All Along, and he reverts to his old ways, which turn out to be totally ridiculous in the context of the new world that's been in the background of this comic all along. It's a story about how Magneto Was Wrong, and how even though he seems foolish and unrealistic, Xavier Was Right. It's about proving once and for all that Magneto is not a noble guy with noble goals - he's an evil creep whose goals are selfish and have nothing to do with making the world better. It's about showing how extremism only leads to disaster. Trust me, dude - I've read them all - none of the previous Magneto stories were like Planet X. None of them were out to prove this point.
Really, if any of the stories are showing how this is a New approach to the X-Men, this one is it. This is the logical conclusion of the Magneto Vs. Xavier dialectic. This is what the X-Men is all about.
Anyway, if you look back over all of the stories that I just outlined, isn't it pretty clear that aside from maybe the Riot story, that everything that Grant did was well within the tradition of the X-Men comics that came before him? His style was different, but the content and iconography was always the same.
Basically, don't blame Grant for the supposed bait and switch, you've been kidding yourself about what you've been reading the whole time. It's the X-Men, man. |
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