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Underground > Comic Books >

New X-Men #152

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Matthew Fluxington

19:23 / 19.01.04

Flyboy OTM. Why else does he always end up dating goddesses and dominatrixes?

21:12 / 19.01.04

Chesed- No, no sarcasm. I just really loved that post (and most of your magicky/comic book posts) and I felt the need to gush. You guys are getting really defensive.

18:48 / 20.01.04

This ish should be cool. I have a feeling it will kick #151's ass. (not that 151 was bad, it was just a lot of set-up)

Matthew Fluxington

10:56 / 22.01.04

SPOILERS!

Ah, so "The Beast" is not Henry McCoy at all (told you so!), but he IS "Sublime" AND he's waited THREE BILLION YEARS for the Phoenix. Ah. It's all coming together now. I like how the ending is a big reveal, but really, we learn very little - we have to wait til next month to get filled in on just what's been going on and who The Beast/Sublime is and what he's really been doing all of this time. THREE BILLION YEARS!

Not a bad issue - it starts off a little choppy, but once it gets to Transatlantis, it gets pretty interesting.

12:51 / 22.01.04

Well, Beast is Sublime. I know think that John Sublime IS Dr. Sublime from WP (they're both bald and speak rather "hiply"...i.e., you decided to go faux french). But the 3billion years comment must mean that Sublime has always been a cover for En Sabah Nur.

Sublime's comments in the Marvelscope annual in his first appearance are interesting..."Perhaps you are a mutant SOUL born into a frail, powerless human BODY." Maybe that is what happened to En Sabah Nur. Maybe he was talking about himself. Maybe that is the motivation behind homo perfectus.

And spare me the fanboy crap of "Apocalypse isn't 3 billion years old." He's ancient. The rest is arbitrary.

12:58 / 22.01.04

Well the 3bn years comment could just be hyperbole.

But then remember the comment by Xavier in NXM128 about mutantkind being pawns in an intelligent evoluntionary process. Perhaps Sublime is the mummundrai of the Phoenix. The comment by the Cuckoos is interesting - Sublime's creations will halt evolution. Whereas the chaotic Phoenix, which has destroyed whole species, forces change.

14:03 / 23.01.04

This arc is very Invisibles to me. Sublime in charge of the sick world of conformity and control v. the Phoenix's world of healthy chaos and change.

14:14 / 23.01.04

Let's try to reconcile what we know about the script with what we know about Morrison. The Universe is really just an enormous orgnaism, and Xavier thinks that he's being propelled by a massive evolutionary intelligence.

En Sabah Nur ISN'T 3 billion years old, he's an ancient Egyptain that exhibited mutancy ...and during an encounter with a Celestial baby thermometer, got messed up and immortal. At best, we can sassume him to be five to six thousand... So 3 billion isn't the answer there, hyperbole or otherwise. It's too big and too significant an answer to not be a clue.

So who's the enemy here that's 3 billion years old and seeks the finality of the Phoenix? LIFE itself.

We're looking at the manifested intelligence of 3 billion years of genetic extrapolation over the entire planet. Now, perhaps that intelligence co-opted En Sabah Nur and used him as a vessel or host while En Sbah Nur himself sought a host for HIS consciousness... Maybe that's where he got the idea. I don't know where this "Here Comes Tomorrow" is going...

Matthew Fluxington

14:31 / 23.01.04

I don't think the "three billion years" thing was hyperbole at all. Now it could mean En Sabah Nur (yeah, it could, sorry Chesed!), or it could something else. But the Sublimes we've encountered clearly were a ruse, and this guy's been around a while.

Let's not forget:

sub·lime
Pronunciation: s&-'blIm
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): sub·limed; sub·lim·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French sublimer, from Medieval Latin sublimare to refine, sublime, from Latin, to elevate, from sublimis
transitive senses
1 : to cause to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state and condense back to solid form
2 [French sublimer, from Latin sublimare] a (1) : to elevate or exalt especially in dignity or honor (2) : to render finer (as in purity or excellence) b : to convert (something inferior) into something of higher worth
intransitive senses : to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state

Jean's line about being in the "white hot room" was interesting. Remember when Quentin was dying, he said something about bigger rooms? Hmm.

Also, I'm starting to wonder if Quentin's death was what set everything wrong. He was murdered by Magneto just when he was about to change into something, right? He was in the future, he wasn't born yet, and then he died. Hmm.

14:53 / 23.01.04

So are you suggesting that Egyptian mutants were running around before the time of dinosaurs, much less before the cambrian explosion? Maybe you are, but I want to know exactly what you're saying.

Sublimation, in the sense that the enemy Beast is now Sublime... could mean anything to support the theory that the enemy we're dealing with is the mind of Earth's life, but we're being dragged through a fog this far in the future.

Jean's white hot room and crown meant she was in Kether. I read that Claremont was using Kabbalic references in his original Phoenix story, and Morrison's doing the same. Kether means unity, and can be described as the point where all of space and time and thought and EVERYTHING condences into a single (and infinite) point.

I ain't got no clue how QQ is fitting into this final end of the story, but I look forward to it.

The line that resonated in me was Tom's "so it's intimacy or death, huh?" That works on a lot of things, like the "in versus out" confrontation.

Matthew Fluxington

15:12 / 23.01.04

Well, it just means that maybe En Sabah Nur was much older than his Egyptian body.

15:16 / 23.01.04

So are you suggesting that Egyptian mutants were running around before the time of dinosaurs, much less before the cambrian explosion? Maybe you are, but I want to know exactly what you're saying.

i think that the question is moot if you're willing to entertain the notion that the ancient Egyptian mutant is not the first incarnation of the force that Apocalypse embodies, which seems to be where GM's going as far as i can tell. perhaps En Sabah Nur thought he was the first for a time, but sometime between 2004 and 2154 he may have achieved some sort of enlightenment on that point and reclaimed memories back to the beginning, before his current incarnation.

another Invisibles-y thing, to me, was the last stand of the Proud People, defending Jean in the Phoenix egg, which reminded me for all the world of the 2012 Invisibles cell defending Robin in the timesuit.

15:41 / 23.01.04

I would buy the retcon that Apocalypse was the first mutant to be inhabited by En Sabah Nur, the 3 billion year old anti-evolutionary force.

Let's also remember that everything is happening at once. Scott quiting and the events in Here Comes Tomorrow are simultaneous.

Question: Did Cassie have dreams with US in them. Are we who she is talking to. I hope so. It shows that this universe is backwards, wrong. She shouldn't be able to see us. But perspective has been reversed. She entered the meta-universe and was able to see us watching.

Or was she talking to an Xavier statue?

Matthew Fluxington

16:31 / 23.01.04

Well, En Sabah Nur would just be the name of the Egyptian mutant, right? If we're right about this, then he just has a lot of names like the devil in Bible - Grant was calling this The Beast of Revelations, right? Hint, perhaps.

17:17 / 23.01.04

Given that we've seen the name "Sublime" as three different individuals now (John Sublime, the Weapon Plus Dr. Sublime, and now the Beast of Revelations Sublime)... it is likely that Sublime is an alias of sorts. Which probably is Apocalypse, at this point... Tho what gets me is would Magnus have been able to play Apocalypse so easily as Xorn? Maybe...

uncle retrospective

17:18 / 23.01.04

So no one else though it was dull and that the horrible 90's artwork was the reason they though Marvel comics were for retards?

Just me?
Ok. Two more issues and I'm out of buying what has turned out to be the worst comics in my colection.
Yes I am pissed off.

17:19 / 23.01.04

kether. so i supposed correctly! mwah mwah. so with morisson's theme of yin and yangs...is beast/sublime the phoenix's true averse sephira?

17:32 / 23.01.04

Cool. I think we're all on the same page with the En Sabah Nur thing.

I noticed that shiznit with Cassie dreaming about us, too... Are they meta-aware of their fictionverse in the future?

And I don't think the "Beast" is the Phoenix's yin or yang or qlippoth... I think she's the final form for him to take on, and in order to do that, he has to die - but he doesn't know that yet. Maybe.

Matthew Fluxington

17:46 / 23.01.04

Uncle Retrospective - though I definitely see where you're coming from, I think the art is actually really perfect for this storyline. It suits the "dystopic future," the crazy ranting villains, and throwaway characters very well, and there are some images that I think are particularly strong in this issue. I've always had a soft spot for Marc Silvestri, though - he was the artist on the book when I was 8/9/10.

Compared to some other NXM illustrators, Marc's actually in the middle of the pack, as far as I'm concerned. I'm enjoying his art on this book a lot more than Igor Kordey, who was horribly inappropriate for the series and provided less attractive art that was obviously rushed and sloppy. In terms of readability and page layout, Silvestri's issues are considerably better than Chris Bachalo's Assault On Weapon Plus. I don't have anything against Ethan Van Sciver's work on the book, but the Silvestri issues seem to have a lot more pep to them. They are less visually static, and seem less labored and are more fun to read. (I cut Ethan a lot of slack, because it's pretty clear from his issues that he's learning on the job rapidly, and each issue was better than the last.) And then there's Leinl Yu's issue, which was just a mess.

That said, that two page spread with the TOTALLY UNNECESSARY shot of Wolverine with his arms stretched out was really obnoxious/ridiculous.

18:08 / 23.01.04

I think Cassandra was talking to Wolvie - saying that she's seen him in dreams. Remember, he wasn't just walking around this future, I don't think - it seems he showed up a few hours or days before the shit started hitting the fan in their world.

Mer-Mex, the Welsh mutant telepathic whale, is my new favorite character. Mer-Mex miniseries!!!!

The Maker is like Forge, I guess. I suppose Corona is the woman with the halo and wings (who shot beams from her radiant non-head head, looking much like a Grant M. DOOM PATROL villain) at the end of the book. But does she host the human body for the Phoenix Egg, or are we going to see more of why she got a STAR TREK II-type brain sucker in her head later?

Magic Car = Magic Carpet Ride for the future.

Yeah, I liked the Kether stuff with the white hot room and the crown. Very cool. The En Sabah Nur/Apocalpyse theories are interesting too - Grant must have been hinting at SOMETHING with the 3 billion years comment.

Glad to see Rover is still alive & kicking. "DESTROY." How bizarre - and strangely sweet - was the line "I think he loves you, Tom."

Beak II (or III? the Wizard interview said it's Beak's grandson)'s name is TITO!!! That means Germaine Beak might have been Beak the Second!

And no flashback to the present with Scott & Emma like last issue? Darn.

DESTROY.

18:13 / 23.01.04

And because dizfactor made me think of it (old SNL 80s reference)...

"Who gets the magic car?"

"I get the magic car!"

"Why?"

"The question is moot!"

18:20 / 23.01.04

I can't stop posting about this issue!!

>> Apparently it doesn't really translate. 'En' means 'That', 'Sabah' means 'a morning' and 'Nur' means 'light'. So, if anything, it means 'That Morning Light'.

Hmm...sounds like...the Lightbringer, the Morningstar. LUCIFER Morningstar? Could it be.....SATAN???

You know, if QQ does show up again in this arc, how weird will it be to see him drawn by anyone but Frank Q.?

Matthew Fluxington

18:33 / 23.01.04

Well, Keron Grant drew an entire issue of Quire.

But does she host the human body for the Phoenix Egg, or are we going to see more of why she got a STAR TREK II-type brain sucker in her head later?

There was no special reason for her to be killed in terms of the plot - she was a captured princess, and Sublime just wanted to test his new weapon on a telepath. It's kind of like how blowing up Alderaan isn't key to the plot of Star Wars, but it's there to show that the villain means business.

20:03 / 23.01.04

That's right, I forgot about Keron. I always picture QQ looking like he was drawn by Frank, tho'.

06:19 / 24.01.04

We've had the theme of opposites and balances throughout this run, and Sublime would seem to be Jean's. Look at what she's been established as...

Jean is an evolutionary force. She's to judge the species, and/or guide it on it's proper evolutionary path. She "burns through" what doesn't work, which sometimes includes entire species like the Asparagus People. The evolutionary process isn't always gentle, after all. Just ask the dinosaurs, or the example Cassandra used at the beginning of the run, the Neanderthal. And, don't forget one of her titles, the Chaos Bringer. According to Death, who should know (from one of the old Claremont stories), crafting chaos is part of her job.

Now, let's look at how the 3-in-1 described what Sublime would do: "Whole genomes will be enslaved. Evolution will grind to a halt. The future will belong to mass-produced biological conformity." Sounds like an exact opposite to our chaotic evolutionary force, to me.

I think Sublime's downfall will be in trying to control someone who is, by her very nature, uncontrollable.

09:40 / 24.01.04

Apocalypse being Sublime fits in with the whole thing Grant had about no-one dying, they just change. Magneto>Xorn. Old Sentinels>Nano-Sentinels. Cassandra Nova>Ernst. Now Apocalypse>Sublime.

While for a good part of it Silvestri's stuff is a bit mediocre, his spread pages more thna make up for it.

A much better issue than last, which was a bit underwhelming.

Matthew Fluxington

14:37 / 24.01.04

If I'm disappointed by anything, it's that the wild sentinels never came up again in New X-Men. I hope that some smart future X-writer uses them, because those things are terrifying, and could make for a really scary/brutal story somewhere down the line.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

15:37 / 24.01.04

Claremont's used em in his Kitty Pryde LS, and they were supposed to turn up again in Xtreme before that book was cancelled, I believe.

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

16:33 / 24.01.04

The over the top Wolverine 2 page spread, seems mainly to be a dilvery system for the "I've had dreams, you know. Dreams with you in them." panel as well as the very X2 Cerebra display of earth and its mutant lights winking out.

I hope that the issue actually being out has killed the Fantomex/Apollyon theories?

"I'm sorry... I was in the crown..."
Jean comes back, burning like a star, from Kether itself.

I fucking love the fact that the last New X-Men team is 3 Mutants, 1 Post-Mutant, 1 Human and 2 Sentinels. It could only be more perfect if there was a Third-Species person in there.

Hmmm... sentinels... I wonder if they're one of the "different emergent species" discussed in the opening. Hell, given that he appears to be part-machine, Mer-Max could be a Scots telepathic whale wild-sentinel. See, I can speculate wildly too.

I'm still not sold on Apocalypse being Sublime. Apocalypse has been sold and has presented himself in that past as someone simply wanting to drive evolutionary forces into conflict. If that's the case, then he'd me no more "the enemy of all intelligent life" than the Phoenix.

The Phoenix herself, seems to consistently acting as an intelligent extension of The Lucifer Principle.

16:35 / 24.01.04

I think the three billion years quote refers to the time in the World (from the arc "assault on Weapon Plus"). We know that time in the World is not the same as in the real world. In issue 150, the stepford cuckoos says : " Something gone wrong with the WHOLE UNIVERSE now."
In the same page we can see a white space which begin to grow between the pictures, on the next page when Jean dies all become white.

Perhaps the World has merged in the real world (comics real world) and become the WHOLE UNIVERSE, it will explain the resurrection of Sublime ( who could be born and reborn in the world), the 3 billion years quote, and the fact that Jean will reboot reality in the end of "here comes tomorrow".

Since "assault on weapon plus" we know that the Weapon Plus program has planned a big offensive against mutants, but we never see it, I think "here comes tomorrow" is the big attack, and Magneto/Xorn was only a pawn in the Weapon Plus program, as Cassandra, the U-men, Sublime, the Riot...

Remember what Beast says in the beginning of issue 150: "It's all adding up... Sublime, Pharmaceuticals, Feng Tu, the Kick Drug, human agression..."

16:40 / 24.01.04

Mer-max appears to be the obligatory Grant Morrison "minor character with heavy Glasgwegian "Brogue" "

17:03 / 24.01.04

Thats a very good point Stank, if breaking out of The World caused everything to speed up in certain areas (which would explain why some X-men or the students are still alive) then everything that has been happening could be powered by the time accelorators from The World.
Its all a bit of a blur in my mind but I can see GM using this.
And Beats's line is very telling... he can't have been Sublime then.
Its all so difficult to explain. Its like a HUGE jigsaw puzzle with lots of bits that don't belong and a few key pieces that do. Determining which pieces are key is the hardest pasrt.

17:12 / 24.01.04

If I'm disappointed by anything, it's that the wild sentinels never came up again in New X-Men.

I think the nano-sentinels, at least, have to still be around in the present arc, else how to account for so many of the players being alive and relatively unchanged 150 years later? Aside from Logan, none of the characters have any plausible reason for lasting that long. Nano-maintained longevity in the form of ongoing bodily repairs at the molecular level, or possibly nano-manipulation of the mutant genome to produce "natural" longevity, would be the obvious answer.

22:19 / 24.01.04

Well, we don't know that the 3-in-1 of Here Comes Tomorrow are the remaining Cuckoos, or descended from one of them, yet. And, there's so much we don't know about the Cuckoos, anyway. This Beak is established as not the original, probably a son or grandson. Cassandra would still be in Stuff's body, so that explains her longevity. As for Hank, everyone forgets that Logan isn't the only one who heals quickly. His healing ability isn't on Logan's level, but it's far beyond most people's.

E

gotham island fae

22:31 / 24.01.04

While for a good part of it Silvestri's stuff is a bit mediocre, his spread pages more thna make up for it.

Right, right. But the old Silvestri would have such a spread as half a page. This two-page Here Come the XMen spread is patently impressive. However, it's every bit as simple a piece of art as any of the Rogue & Rachel & the others tableus I remember from those two issues that came to me one X-mass way long ago. Here and now he just has more room for cross-hatching. I like the spread. It just seems like a blown up polaroid rather than the panoramic span it wants to be.

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