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Underground > Comic Books >

New X-Men #150

  
  

Page: 123(4)567

 
 
I'm Rick Jones, bitch
17:04 / 11.12.03
Magneto was fibbing to Weapon + to start the war, dude.
 
 
Dicodisco
15:50 / 13.12.03
First review:

http://www.comixtreme.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=6967
 
 
Quireboy
12:28 / 15.12.03
As I'm trying to avoid major spoilers, does this review give the plot/ending away, or is it just a general overview?
 
 
sleazenation
12:51 / 15.12.03
yes it is an overview that dopesn't give too much away but i'd still avoid it if i were you.
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
21:59 / 15.12.03
For those who want to read such things there is also a very positive (and spoilerish, I think) review up at www.thefourthrail.com

Me. I'm waiting till Wedensday.
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
16:35 / 17.12.03
"Angel! Kids! Get behind me!"

"I think I'm most especially proud of you, dear."

"Is everything you say a cliche?

"Somebody get help! Fetch... ...Xorn..."

"...my best friend..."

So, anyway #150 is out and I'm still not sure how I feel about bits of it. It resolves a metric assload of plot, but leaves just as manyt things hanging in the wind. I'm getting the feeling that while "Here Comes Everyone" is being described by many as a coda, it may be far more important to the overall run than people think.

It's going to be interesting to see how long it takes Marvel to retcon many of this issue's events. Not that I care, mind you, because if the new writer isn't quality, I'm gone like the wind.
 
 
Quimper
18:48 / 17.12.03
You nailed the best lines, kevin. "My best friend" KILLED ME when I read it.

It's clear that Here Comes Tomorrow is more important to the greater whole of this run than many of us thought. Magneto's line about Ernst and Angel's intervention were very interesting, but not explained. And Wolverine's actions took me completely by surprise.

But again, it seemed like everything was going to be tied together from Beast 's comments in the beginning. Although many plot lines were resolved, we did not get the connections I was expecting.

Cyclops speech to Magneto was brilliant.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
19:31 / 17.12.03
I loved the You-Know-What scene of You-Know-Who the best. Very "The Gift" episode of Buffy, which kills me every time I see it. There's just something about someone urging someone they care about to live a good life that is just so heart-slugging.

Soo. Ernst is Cassandra, potentially.

And what was Beak thinking?

And how many licks does it take to link Sublime with Cassandra Nova? I guess we'll never know.
 
 
FinderWolf
19:52 / 17.12.03
How many licks?

A-one (lick), a-two (lick), a-THREE (CHOMP)!!

A-THREE.

(who gets this joke? Come on! shout it out!)
 
 
CameronStewart
20:18 / 17.12.03
Tootsie Pops.
 
 
diz
22:19 / 17.12.03
i'd like to add:

"You and what kneecaps?"

to the list of quotes. also, the graffiti on the last page was hysterical.

i'd also like to note that the violence was fairly brutal. i mean, the earrings, man. yowtch.

a question for the room: what was up with Beak? sometimes he talks funny, but was it just me, or was he am talking all weirdzo in that one frame?

also, the Xorn/Mags stuff was weird, yo.
 
 
diz
22:20 / 17.12.03
"My best friend" KILLED ME when I read it.

oh, yeah, i meant to "me, too" this.
 
 
Mr Tricks
23:20 / 17.12.03
hmmm . . .

It should have been "137 years later"
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
11:10 / 18.12.03
#150 seems like the end of a big rock show, with a big dramatic conclusion, but you know there's an encore coming up in a few minutes where they will probably play that big hit that will send everyone home happy.

#150 is very crowd-pleasing. It hits all of the big action marks in ways that this comic hasn't been for a really long time. As with the rest of Planet X, we get lots of good ideas, exciting scenes, and big pay-offs, but the pacing is all weird and there is so much that is happening off-panel that you're left thinking "huh? wha'happened?" You know how they used to do those back-up stories in Classic X-Men that had the stories that happened off-panel in continuity? Or that John Byrne thing with the original X-Men? NXM is BEGGING for someone to do that for it, so we can see all of these pivotal events that were deliberately left out to make things seem more exciting and unpredictable. We're probably never going to be clear on how Magneto started the Xorn thing up, or how/when he started the alliance with Esme...it goes on and on. Too much has happened off-panel, and this whole thing would have been better if Assault On Weapon Plus was one or two issues and Planet X was seven or eight.

I love love love love loved the big Cyclops/Magneto confrontation, but it just drives me nuts that Magneto survived that point-blank shot to the head! If we're being slightly realistic, that would've been the end of it, and maybe it should have been. If he had shuffled the story around, it would have been a much better end to Magneto than Wolverine's decapitation. So, okay, to keep the story moving, Magneto survives Scott's blast - okay, fine. But he just shouldn't be as coherant as he is. That's just too much!

I do love the part with all of the X-Men pretending that he is Xorn to taunt Magneto; that's just perfect. I love that at the end, he just sounds like an obnoxious angry teenager.

I'm not too crazy about the way that they kill off Jean - I just don't think it's very plausible, and it seems forced. I would've prefered it if the Phoenix force just left Jean's body after fulfilling its mission or something like that. I just don't buy that a "lethal electromagnetic pulse" from a severely battered and beaten Magneto would kill the fucking Phoenix.

Question: What is that white line of light on the page with Magneto's head plopping to the ground and Jean dying in Scott's arms?

Anyway, things that need to be resolved in Here Comes Tomorrow, or I will be very let down:

1) What exactly is Cassandra Nova, really?
2) What's the deal with Sublime Pharmeceuticals? How do they fit into all of this?
3) Ditto Weapon Plus.
4) What's the deal with Ernst? (This is more than likely tied to #1)
 
 
makeitbleed
11:36 / 18.12.03
Cat's out of the bag, but just in case:
SPOILERS



My own personal feelings for the character aside (and it really does hurt me when fictional Jean dies EVERY time) I tried to just go along for the ride.

However, if Magneto could give her a planetary-level stroke, is she really that powerful? I wasn't clear on whether she had a real body to receive a stroke. Did she make one when she made her ship? Isn't the Phoenix a goddess who can eat suns? How is she vulnerable to electro-magnetic pulses? Is she electrical energy that be disrupted?

I know this is all nerdly debate, but when you've got a dramatic death of a significant character I don't want to be distracted by "why"s and "how"s I want it to seem an inevitable course of fate. It seemed very avoidable. I want the punch in the gut I felt when she called Scott her best friend not to have company.

Don't get me wrong, great, great issue. I'm just particularly attentive when somebody's killing Jean.

Beak is Dutch. Or Danish. Sorry, don't remember which. It's been mentioned on Barbelith that he speaks English like someone from that part of the world typically does.

Any thoughts on the fact that Henry is going to reverse one of the more significant characteristics of Morrison's take on Mutants?

Anyone see the Phoenix egg in 1602 and think it would be somewhat redemptive for that series if this storyline caused that one?

Anyone think Morrison's announcement that Scott was going to make a decision about Jean or Emma was over-hyped because the action interrupted the announcement of the actual decision?

Maybe a hint that he was leaning towards Emma would make it more interesting if Scott is now more focused on Jean because of the feelings brought up from her death? And wouldn't it be more like Scott to pine over the dead girl instead of move on with the live one next to him? Ever the sullen martyr? Or is Grant blessing him with actual character development?

Also, I miss Basilisk.

Xavier is finally ready to listen to the youth. Excellent foresight, Chuck.

Visually, a stunning issue, fitting for the strength of the story. Jimenez's depiction of Jean crumbling away was perfect. And a ballsy use of a conceptual depiction in a medium where most artists feel compelled to render everything literally.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
12:27 / 18.12.03
Oh no, it's exactly like Scott to finally make the decision to go with Emma (which he obviously was going to do), and then have Jean die on him, making him reticent, grief-stricken, and confused all over again. But it's also exactly like Scott to NEED Jean to die so that he can't backpedal on moving on. I don't think there was any "over-hype" about it - all of the Scott/Jean/Emma stuff in this issue was pure pathos, and we'll get the resolution with Scott and Emma at the end of the last story. Scott is definitely the central hero of New X-Men - more than anything else, this has been the story of him coming to terms with himself and reestablishing him as a great hero, so it makes sense that the story ends with him having something of a happy ending.

Re: the art. Eee, it's good because Phil Jiminez is always pretty good, but the fact that they were forced to keep an alarming chunk of the violent action in this issue semi-off-panel made a lot of the pages difficult to read. I guess to get the most out of this issue, the reader has to fill in the blanks, but that still doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of panel-to-panel and page-to-page transitions that don't scan well.
 
 
makeitbleed
12:49 / 18.12.03
Good point about the art, it does read sometimes as a series of stand alone pictures, as opposed to sequential art. Which makes it hurt when there are so many single page panels and double-page spreads. They do provid impact, but take space away from some explanatory panels.

Here's something strange, we've all heard that Grant wrote these issues well in advance, but doesn't it seem that Planet X was rushed, almost as if he were forced to shorten his run? I know that's not the case, so why did he choose the lengths as such?

I understand only Grant really knows, just asking for opinion or speculation. Maybe there's a pacing to the whole series that I'm not getting by reading it in individual pieces.
 
 
houdini
13:29 / 18.12.03

If I recall correctly, the end of GM's JLA run also had this rushed quality to it. What it is, I think, is that the storytelling becomes more and more compressed as he approaches climax, so that whole plots and characters are squeezed into two or three panels, from which you're just meant to intuit what they've been up to. Personally, I'll just describe my feelings about this technique as "mixed". On the one hand it's quite an interesting use of the reader and a fun way to stretch the gutters. On the other, it can be a bit sparse for my taste.

Are we still at the point where we have to say SPOILERS...? (Well, just in case....)






At first I was very surprised and a little nonplussed that GM had spent all this time trailering the Jean --> Phoenix switch and the alleged "disinfection" of Earth and the mutant species' "toxic levels of aggression" only to have Mags zap her like this in (what I initially took to be) a cheap attempt to add gravitas to a multiple-of-50 issue.

And then I realized, that isn't it at all.

What you're looking at here is the whole conceptual setup for 'Here Comes Tomorrow': The mutant species is spiralling out of whack, becoming a danger to Earth and possibly the cosmos. So the cosmos/evolution responds by sending the Phoenix to cleanse the Earth. But something goes wrong and the Phoenix is killed by a powerful, angry mutant. And now it's a rescue mission....

One hundred thirty seven years later when the "Phoenix Egg" hatches....

All-up, it's quite a good setup, really. And remember, "no-one really dies". (Which is why I think we really weren't shown Magneto's actual decapitation on camera. But that's another issue....)
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:52 / 18.12.03
They chopped his head off! I'd like to see someone try to bring Magneto back now!

But............at the end of the issue, we're left with a continuity problem for the rest of the Marvel Universe: how are the other Marvel comics supposed to deal with Manhattan being destroyed? So maybe that hasn't been resolved yet in this story, and the Phoenix will fix that in the end. There's got to be some kind of resolution to that, or a) all of the other writers have a huge mess to clean up, which is something that I think Morrison has been trying to avoid or b) the end of NXM splits off from regular Marvel continuity. Hmm.

Houdini = OTM about the set-up for Here Comes Tomorrow.

The Cuckoos in #150, as Jean dies: "See? Something's gone wrong with the WHOLE UNIVERSE now."

SPOILERS FOR #151

Cassandra Nova: "Somewhere, somehow, something has gone fundamentally, WRONG...Our universe is BROKEN, Logan. We have no idea where the break occurred..."
 
 
Quimper
14:15 / 18.12.03
What's also weird about the Cuckoos was what they said about ESME's death. I don't have it in front of me, but it's like "Somethings changed now that Esme is dead." Were they talking about themselves? Is that why they are still alive 150 years later, looking like they've hardly aged? Did Esme's death make THEM immortal?

Does Angel know that Ernst is Cassandra and THAT's why she flipped out so much when Mags raised his hand to her? Angel was rather integral in Cassie's downfall...or at least her transformation into Ernst.

It's clear that we have an AOA-type situation on our hands. The Phoenix never disinfected the planet because Mags killed its connection to the planet, which is completely plausible. The girl can harness power from the sun and fly across space, but only when she's working at it. Catch her off guard, and you realize she's still just a girl.

That white line of light that was getting closer is interesting, Flux. I determined it to be the flaw in the universe that was created with Jean's death. It's the flaw, the rip, the tear that "broke" the universe, which Cassie spoke of in 151.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
14:43 / 18.12.03
The Cuckoos: "Something STRANGE is happening now that Esme's dead. Magneto thinks he can tip the WORLD over on its head. And he's doing something to GRAVITY and TIME."

I'd reckon that the 'gravity and time' thing is the clue.

Quimper: yeah, it probably is the 'tear.' As Jean dies, it gets bigger and bigger on the page, and then everything goes white when Jean is gone.
 
 
FinderWolf
15:20 / 18.12.03
This was pretty good but still felt slightly off to me. I'll write more later - I'd give it a 7 out of 10. Maybe a 6.5 if I was feeling extra-critical. And the cleanup inker they brought in for a few pages really showed.
 
 
diz
15:35 / 18.12.03
And now it's a rescue mission....

Cassie says to call him "Boody."

houdini: And remember, "no-one really dies".

Flux: They chopped his head off! I'd like to see someone try to bring Magneto back now!

well, notice Mags is now missing a head. kind of like he was pretending to be missing a head before.

and weird effects with gravity and time are common with collapsed stars.

Xorn might have always been now become real after all.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
15:45 / 18.12.03
Clever.
 
 
Aertho
16:31 / 18.12.03
And Esme sees Fantomex outside the skyscraper and says : ...weapon thirteen...

Cyclops says he's got two SuperSentinels in his X-Men squad. We thought it was EVA and Fantomex, but who was guessing that the Cuckoos might be Weapon 14?
 
 
Quimper
16:39 / 18.12.03
Ah. Yes. The Cuckoos. There is a correlation with their ability to feel time being manipulated and the time manipulation in The World.
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
16:43 / 18.12.03
I think the light effect, coupled with Cyclops' wishing for Xorn while Jean lay dying and the final close up of Xorn's head means that we probably haven't seen the last of Xorn.

Wouldn't it rock if what many X-Fans are calling the "worst Magneto Story Ever" ended up redeeming him and striping away all that garbage?

And as for what Beast has figured out? I'd say the answer lies in Harold Bloom's The Lucifer Principle which has informed Grant's arc from the very first panel.
 
 
diz
16:53 / 18.12.03
And as for what Beast has figured out? I'd say the answer lies in Harold Bloom's The Lucifer Principle which has informed Grant's arc from the very first panel.

i haven't read Lucifer Principle, and though i'm familiar with some of the basic arguments, i'm not seeing the connection to Hank. do tell! i want to hear!
 
 
hypersimulation
17:01 / 18.12.03
...disappointed...the art was nice enough, all the characters were actually in it again, for once. For an extra-sized issue, I feel like we never got very basic plot explanations.

I'm not even talking about the dangling plot threads everywhere, just basic plot isn't explained very well.

...how and when was Xavier freed? Where did Beast suddenly get two Kick blockers? The US government just had ceramic bomber planes lying around in case Magneto threw up a big shield over Manhattan? How could they be useful otherwise? A Neutron Bomb? Why would that work? Was Esme telepathically controlling Magneto? Was Ernst Cassandra Nova? Why did Fantomex's bullets work at first, (he could initially shoot Magneto as if the bullets weren't metal) but then Magneto could just throw them off? Did Fantomex live?

An electromagnetic pulse? For that matter: reversing the polarity of the earth? I'm accustomed to Morrison's weird science being far, far weirder than this.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
17:17 / 18.12.03
..how and when was Xavier freed?

Fantomex freed him when he shot up the container he was in, he was rescued by Fantomex and given clothes and an EVA wheelchair sometime before the big confrontation at the end.

Why did Fantomex's bullets work at first, (he could initially shoot Magneto as if the bullets weren't metal) but then Magneto could just throw them off?

Fantomex's bullets worked perfectly. He aimed at Magneto, knowing that Magneto would throw them past him, and they'd hit the container holding Charles. He used Magneto's powers in his favor.

Fantomex is with the X-Men at the end of the issue, so yeah, he's alive. I guess he's an X-Man now or something. I'd hope that whoever is writing this next keeps him with the group and fleshes him out some more. I didn't like him at first, but I think Fantomex has some potential. If I had him, he'd be trying on new personalities all of the time. He'd be a fun character to play with.

And this is totally the best Magneto story ever. No other story has nailed him as well, or reconciled all previous incarnations of the character. If you follow the evolution of the character, it makes total sense. He's always in this cycle of trying to do the right thing and giving up when he gets frustrated, and going beserk Silver Age-villain-style. He's a quitter, he's a megalomaniac, he's a creep, he's cruel, he's a murderer, he's the ultimate sociopath. He has so much potential for greatness, but is always brought down by his vast ego. And that's what this story was about - Magneto's ego. It's perfect, really.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
17:22 / 18.12.03
Another loose end - where the hell did the diamond bullet that Emma was shot with come from?

I think that the Cuckoos had something to do with the Weapon Plus program, and they (or at least Emse) were the informant that Dr. Sublime spoke of. It would potentially explain the diamond bullet thing, as well as how they knew that Fantomex was Weapon 13. I'm hoping that this will be resolved in Here Come Tomorrow, along with the Cassandra thing.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
17:26 / 18.12.03
Also: Though I'm sure Scott was referring to Fantomex/EVA, he could have also been referring to Wolverine.
 
 
LDones
17:28 / 18.12.03
Firstly, I'll say I despise the coloring of this issue - it drains so much of the drama for me. That having been said...

It's really awesome, but it feels flat somehow, perhaps because I'm waiting for Planet X for answers - I think Morrison may have been as well. That observation about the lack of a head on Magneto's body and the alterations of gravity and time keying into the Xorn concept are sharp. Note that the Cuckoo's don't say that the universe is broken when Jean dies, but when Magneto is decapitated (granted, he's already dealt the killing stroke to Jean, but still...)

The spirit of Kordey seems to drift into a few pages - Hank looks grossly disproportionate in a number of panels.

I wonder if Hank potentially becoming the bad guy has anything to do w/ him working out a deal w/ humanity to 'tweak' their genes away from extinction.

And I'm still not sure if Hank and Logan knew Xorn was Magneto when they confronted him. Jean and Scott certainly did.

And why, OH WHY, didn't Charlie FOR ONCE disable Mags when he had the chance. You picked a nice time to painstakingly throw on your X-Gear before nicely asking EVA to become a walking throne while Magneto killed Jean. Nice one, Chuck...

hypersimulation:

Xavier was freed after Fantomex emptied his tank of Anti-Chuck-Juice, by fooling Magneto into thinking he'd missed him with his special screaming bullets (reminds me of Roger Rabbit, which makes me like Fantomex even more). Magneto doesn't make the bullets move, Fantomex does, to free Chuck without Magneto noticing. (He also tells EVA to get Xavier before he jumps through the window and turns Toad into Cotton Hill.)

Why wouldn't a neutron bomb work? The technology's existed for years, but nations have pretty much universally agreed not to develop them.

I think there's more to Esme than meets the eye, but I can't be sure. I don't know how she would know who Fantomex was unless she pulled it from Jean or Scott's mind (or Fantomex 'put' his name in her mind, but that seems like stretching it way too thin).
Morrisson said the real enemy behind everything would be revealed at the end of 'Here Comes Tomorrow', but ol' Moz says a lot of things.

I wondered if Fantomex was dead as well. At first it appears so, but he seems perfectly non-mutilated when Magneto trusses him up. I'll assume he's dead...
 
 
LDones
17:36 / 18.12.03
Hm. Here's a blurb from amazon.com about The Lucifer Principle, mentioned above.

"The Lucifer Principle" is freelance journalist Harold Bloom's theory that evil-which manifests in violence, destructiveness and war-is woven into our biological fabric. A corollary is that evil is a by-product of nature's strategy to move the world to greater heights of organization and power as national or religious groups follow ideologies that trigger lofty ideals as well as base cruelty.

With what seems like a basic idea that if there is not a unified world order of some sort appreciating peoples across the board then genocide and self-destruction will be a natural course.

I haven't read it, just paraphrasing condensed netspeak.
 
 
LDones
17:50 / 18.12.03
Whoops! Sorry for the accidentaly redundancy from MathFlux's post. I am shamed.
 
  

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