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Underground > Comic Books >

New X-Men #147

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14:16 / 08.10.03

I've heard a big spoiling rumour that could be true, could be corn...

But I would expect that Jon Sublime is behind Kick. He's the last piece in the puzzle.

Matthew Fluxington

14:22 / 08.10.03

I found it hard to beleive that Magneto, after carefully plotting his revenge for some time, would simply go 'Oh go on, I'll take this highly addictive super drug, again. I won't get addicted'.)

No, I think it's totally believable - he's all ego, and he needs to keep doing these spectacular things with his powers to keep the people afraid of him. He needs to keep their attention. So he's taking the drug to boost his powers so that he can keep it up, wearing himself out. The whole point is that Magneto has this vision, and he's willing to do anything to make it real, but once he actually succeeds, he has no plan. He just falls apart.

14:37 / 08.10.03

"I'm going to take over the world!"

As Emma said:
"And then what?"

14:42 / 08.10.03

Right. And Mags was in a weakened state when this whole mess began. Wolverine had sliced his spine up or something (wasn't reading pre-GM). And I really don't think he would've sat idly by while the mega-sentinels destroyed Genosha if he'd been capable of stopping them, which the old Magneto was.

There's no real evidence that he's ever gotten back to "full power". Remember when Mags would haul hundreds of nukes around, sink submarines, fuck up the Earth's EMP field permanently, destroy small islands and maintain satellites in geosynhronous orbit? Yeah. Well he isn't doing that so much these days. That he would take a drug to help him pull off the kind of shit he used to be able to do seems pretty plausible to me. The man is nothing if not committed.

It does, however, make me wonder who was supplying it at Xavier's. It doesn't seem like it was Magneto, does it?

And, Benjamin,
I think you're totally right. GM does believe in love. And the endings you cite have all been ones I've enjoyed much more. I also reckon that's where nXm is going, particularly with a story titled "Planet X". I'm just hoping not to see that derailled into another psychic headgame.

Fingers x-ed, eh?

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:48 / 08.10.03

I was going to post a lot of speculation here but I guess it belongs in another thread.

As a study in character, I liked this issue. I especially liked the fact that Magneto is an old man, scared of his children (who don't listen, don't even let him finish sentences) - killing Quentin starts to make even more sense. And I'm more or less certain that the destruction *is* real - I'll be disappointed if it's not, or if it's 'undone'.

But I'm having major pacing worries: I expected the issue after #146 to be mostly Mags gloating, but I thought we might get some explanation as to the less obvious hows and whys of Xorn... I dunno, I also have a bit of a problem with the "wooo, all the X-Men are missing in action! scary!" thing. I know that at this stage we're not supposed to be fooled, we're supposed to play along, but the idea that ANYONE on Magneto's team thinks "that exploding plane wing will have killed Beast and Emma well and dead!" is a bit annoying.

(This is why stuff can't be 'undone' - the ONLY thing that stops this issue being overly familiar is the extent of the damage done, and the likelihood that it's permanent.)

Matthew Fluxington

15:05 / 08.10.03

I agree with the pacing issues that Flyboy mentions. But I'd say that of a majority of this run so far...there's so much that goes unaccounted for, especially when we drop characters and situations for issues on end while other storylines are going on. We still haven't been brought up to speed on Emma, remember. She comes back to life, isn't in four issues in a row, and is suddenly perfectly fine. It'd be nice if we at least got to see her recover a bit.

This is what we get for ditching the art of the subplot...

17:06 / 08.10.03

I know it's been said in this thread already, but I also have a problem with the fact that all the X-Men seem to be out of action. I really don't care that the FF, Spidey, etc haven't come to the rescue. But GM has specifically included characters from both the Uncanny and X-Treme teams. To have them just ignoring the fact that Magneto has destroyed the school, crippled the Professor and taken over Manhattan does seem to be a bit much. Especially given Bishop and Sage's investigation of the crimes at the mansion.

Come to that, if GM really is going to be "destroying the Marvel Universe" soon then how well can that sit with a book which is really agnostic with regard to said universe? So I guess to this extent (which ain't a huge one) the absence of Peter Parker's reaction does bug me.

All that said, I like the whole Xornvestite development a lot better 2 issues in than I did 1 issue in and it's explicitly because of Morrisson's human portrayal of Magneto in 147. After 146 I'd been expecting a much more typical Silver Age gloating uber-villain approach, and seeing Mags in a more fallible, complex light is definitely a step up for me.

23:09 / 08.10.03

Know what...

Fuck the Marvel Universe.

This is Grant Morrison's "NEW X-MEN" not Grant Morrisons MARVEL UNIVERSE.

And I'm sick of those one-panel defeats of other MU characters in a book that isn't theirs.

On the other hand, I'll be very pissed if the X-Men pop up in the last panel of the next issue or somthing with Wolverine popping his claws going "It's over Bub!"
I know this is Grant Morrison and things won't go as we expect them to go but this issue was too much like that last Ultimates issue.

I want the run to be over already, I feel a dread in me when I think of the Silverstri arc. I don't want to read yet another Age of Apocalypse type thing.

08:32 / 10.10.03

I would've liked to see Magneto twisting up the Baxter Building like a doobie. Or is it Four Freedoms Plaza still? Whatever. Or crushing Avengers Mansion with the Empire State Building. Yeah, it's X-Men, but really, Manhatten is the Marvel Universe to a great extent, and it's a bit odd to see it destroyed without a peep from the heroes. This whole storyline seems way too rushed...

Maybe the Vikings from Thor control half of Manhatten, while the muties control the other half? Secret Wars III will be about undead Norsemen and drug-addled muties battling over the ruins of Manhatten while Captain America and Spider-man cower in Queens. Hopefully.

As usual, Basilisk is the voice of reason: "Only a total drug addict could think this up. Magneto really hates people, doesn't he?"

I thought that Magneto destroying the statue of Mercury symbolized that he wasn't really communicating, only destroying. Though that's a bit too obvious. I've officially retired from trying to guess what GM has planned for this fucked up comic.

10:56 / 10.10.03

Finally got this issue. I didn't see any problem with Magneto's portrayal as an aging megalomaniac. Ironic that his fictionsuit is proving more in tune with the new mutant generation than his reputation as master of magnetism.

I wonder, having seen Esme with that whip - did she plant the idea for the Omega Gang's look in Quentin's mind.

The only thing I found puzzling, which no one has mentioned, was the idea of Magneto's 'death speech' being a virus to disable electromagnetic devices around the world. I wonder whether this will be picked up on later in the arc or was just more throw-away junk science?

11:02 / 10.10.03

yeah his eulogy didn't seem to have messed up the electromagnetic 'ware in those fighter planes.

11:58 / 10.10.03

yeah eulogy that was the word I was groping for!

Well exactly the planes - and everything else seems fine, so I wonder if there's a specific point to that remark.

17:16 / 10.10.03

Grant Morrison supposedly has an E-M distortion field. You don't think...?

It may have some relevance, I feel.

Flux - I really don't mind the elliptical nature of the storytelling; I don't need pics of Emma convalescing any more than I need a panel saying 'The Avengers and FF are out of town!', personally.

17:36 / 10.10.03

>> Grant Morrison supposedly has an E-M distortion field. You don't think...?

Are you saying you think he literally has this, like he's claimed it in an interview somewhere?

18:26 / 10.10.03

I think so.

A beautiful tunnel of ghosts

19:53 / 10.10.03

*greeting with laughter*

If he did say that in an interview, does that explain why he and Alan 'I have a disorienting effect on the hypothalamus' Moore are now polarised from one another?

As someone who stopped reading this comic when Wolverine and Sabretooth piss-bonded, I do seem to be reading an awful lot about it.

I had considered briefly the possibility that Beast was actually the Beast from Age of Apocalypse and that he was working with John Sublime in extracting Kick from a mutant brain, but it seemed like a cover identity too far.

23:38 / 13.10.03

I don't really see how you can boast about Magneto's 'human' portrayal in this comic - when he spent three years disguised as a man with a sun for a brain, lurking secretly inside his archenemy's headquarters while he planned his world takeover, he pretty much abandoned plausible human motivations, for mine. And I really liked that - the crazed, silver age ambition of the concept. But this issue seemed really dumb to me, and given all that planning time, I can't believe how quickly his plan is falling apart. Besides 'well the X-Men are all missing, nothing to worry about there' stupidity, he doesn't seem to have bothered indoctrinating the special class at all over the years he's been teaching them. I mean, he pumps them full of pacifist zen to keep up his cover and then expects them to instantly become his crazed evil brotherhood of henchmen whenn he whips off the Xorn mask? He's not being portrayed 'realistically', he's being portrayed as a complete incompetent, and that's really not scary or interesting for me.

23:47 / 13.10.03

As it seems Magneto is realizing with contempt( at least to me) that he has been more impressionable as Xorn than he has been as Magneto. Except for the lovely Esme of course. hence the Kick, hmmm? Might through power and apocolyptical actions instead of through thought and reflection always solves the problem as in real life huh? It is easier to flex muscles and exert power over the weak instead of compromising, right people?There is no spoon, and you don't need Kick to bend it four times as much. Magneto is setting himself up for a fall with his own egotistical flaw.

00:21 / 14.10.03

3 years?? I think it's been a matter of months in the comic.

Matthew Fluxington

00:56 / 14.10.03

As it seems Magneto is realizing with contempt( at least to me) that he has been more impressionable as Xorn than he has been as Magneto

I think you've nailed it there. When he's trying to out-Xavier Xavier, he's a better teacher than either of them. That's some great irony.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

07:27 / 14.10.03

This issue was really boring. It's all been done before. Next one's a classic though...

Our Lady of The Two Towers

11:41 / 14.10.03

It would be great if Magneto's plan fails because everyone likes him as the mainly pacifist Xorn than the bullying Magneto... I would give Morrison credit if he makes Magneto see he was pretty much as bad as the Nazi's that shaped his early years (although I don't know whether that's still continuity any more). But hope this issue was some sort of dream/shared mental reality thing, because the collapse of the strong, confident, never-puts-a-foot-wrong Xorn to the flakey-pastry Magneto is a bit convenient. If however it's Xavier trying to mentally undermine Mags then that'd be okay for the story.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

12:05 / 14.10.03

No one's pointed out the similarities between the Xorn and Erik the Red fictionsuits yet, have they? I forsee a similar future for old star-bonce.

16:49 / 14.10.03

Erik da who?

GM claimed, in an Invisibles lettercol lo these many moons ago, that he couldn't use a modem because his 'weird e-m disruption field' fucked up computers. This may explain why Kristin does all his web-work...

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

17:14 / 14.10.03

Erik the Red was a fictionsuit used by Scott, some alien dude during the original Phoenix storyline and finally Magneto at the trial of Gambit.

16:57 / 15.10.03

So how did that work? Did they cook him up collectively, or just nick the suit off each other?

'It's Erik the Red again...Oh god, which one of us are you now?'

Matthew Fluxington

17:03 / 15.10.03

Magneto outright stole it from Scott.

But it's from a Lobdell story, so there's no logic to it. Lobdell would just do whatever and pray that it worked out later on.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

18:55 / 15.10.03

To be fair, Flux, there was no explainaton when Claremont nicked it for whoever the Shi'ar spy dude was either.

The mags storyline where he's Erik the Red was most likely what Morrison got the Xorn idea from: Magneto is thought dead, tries to divide the X-Men in disguise, etc.

More info here, chaps

Matthew Fluxington

19:31 / 15.10.03

That's true. But Lobdell probably just made him Erik The Red because well, his name is Erik and he wears red pretty often. Get it! Erik The Red!

Ha ha! Lobdell, you crack me up!

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

19:39 / 15.10.03

The next writer's going to put him in drag, you know.

Lobdell I mean, not Magneto.

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