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Underground > Comic Books >

New X-Men #153

  
  

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■
18:30 / 25.02.04
OK, it is pretty far-fetched, but this is GM we're talking about here. I admit there is a lot in the later arcs that don't fit. I was trying to start from scratch and build up a theory as I read, but the appearance of both of them in 150 screwed the theory badly.
Still not ready to discard it completely, though. There are so many deceptions and body swaps going on, and for a while it's very easy to fit the two together. I know it's probably a hopeless case and easily shot down, but I'm going to spend come time getting a hypothesis together. I think there is something strange going on with Magneto/Fantomex/Xorn.




After re-reading, though it became pretty clear long before 153 that Ernst is Cassandra. Or rather Ernst is the body the Shi'ar 'Stuff' has the Cassandra Mummudrai stored in.
I rather liked the way there is an Invisibles parallel (apple for teacher and all that) with Cassandra's 'first day at school'.


Xorn WAS real and IS still around IMO. Look at the start of 141 where Sage has seen "A Sun in a box". I reckon that's where the Magneto started to be Xorn. Oh, I almost wish I knew enough about the XMen history to do something good with this...

 
 
houdini
18:33 / 25.02.04
Mafnetox.
 
 
Quimper
18:54 / 25.02.04
The theory that the Super Sentinels, Fantomex included, are grown from Xavier DNA is much cooler than the Fantomex is Mags theory. Sorry, I'm not feelin' it.
 
 
enochen23
18:59 / 25.02.04
does anyone know who is taking over for Grant? i feel sorry for them either way..talk about a hard act to follow.
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
19:08 / 25.02.04
Xorn has always, at least from the first time he was on Camera... Perhaps once there was a "Xorn" that Mags replaced, but it happened before Xorn first shows up.

Before Mags takes credit for the Tau Feng rison being built, I might have said that the switch took place after the first appearence of Xorn, but at this point it's obvious that it's been Mags the whole time.

That dosn't, however, stop Xorn from being real. Xorn's bodyless dialogue from Planet X is correct. Xorn was/is Mags inner star. By taking his best parts, his vision, his detrmination, his power, his hope... and wraping it all up in the Xorn mask he "made Xorn too well".

Fantomex is not Mags, however he is VERY similar to Xorn, and in fact the entire Fantomex plot is forshadowing of the Xorn/Mags switch. Fantomex is a sentinel hybrid from The World, who upon escaping remade himself completely. He created an entire ficticious personna that is so detailed as to be "real". Fantomex is to (arrgghh... what's his name... it's given in Assualt on Weapon X) his original incarnation as Xorn is to Magneto.

Morrison's run hasn't been that rediculously complex. The msot complex thing about his run other than some occasionally obtuse storytelling is the fan theories.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
19:32 / 25.02.04
I just wanted to say that I am thoroughly NOT enjoying this storyline, but very much like all the ideas thrown around here.

Funny old world.
 
 
Quimper
20:16 / 25.02.04
Oh what the hell...

The following names have been involved with the concept of disembodied conciousnesses...specifically, have had their conciousnesses float around the ether for a while...

Cassandra Nova (taking over Chuck)
Charles Xavier (being taken over, Jean's splicing him)
En Sabah Nur (took over Scott)
Emma Frost (upon her "death")
Quentin Quire (upon his "death")
Xorn (as hallucination)
Jean Grey/Phoenix (in the white hot room)
Bumbleboy (upon his death)
No-Girl

Enjoy. BUMBLEBOY ROCKS!
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
22:01 / 25.02.04
Upon rereading Quire's death scene the other night, it becomes quite clear to me that he entered the white hot room.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
22:07 / 25.02.04
My theory re: Fantomex's bullets.

They're not metal. Magneto did not affect the final two bullets as they were specifically shot to free Chuckles Montgomery Xavier.
 
 
Mr Tricks
22:51 / 25.02.04
I feel the urger to suggest that while the first bullets where metal 9& deflected by MagnNEAT-O) the second set where Diamond and hence uneffected by magnetism....
 
 
chairmanWOW
06:27 / 26.02.04
Quinton Quire, little precog scamp. "Manhattan is gone, the school is enormous." He'll wait in the room that's larger than the world, in the white-hot room. He also mumbles something about not even being born yet and something about his parents. Who were his parents anyway? Was it ever disclosed? The White-hot room will play an important part in the resolution of this arc. It's been hinted at since the very beginning. Jean even went there to spread Xavier's consciousness before one of Cassandra's defeats ("white-hot claws"). Just before Quire’s death says something to the effect that humans weren’t the enemy. Isn’t Sublime, in principle, human?
Oh, and Cassandra Nova could definitely be one of those feeder things. "I am what eats your mind,” she admitted in 114. So that would mean in Part 4, Sublime somehow sends a feeder into the womb of Sharon Xavier in the hope of thought-eating the world's most powerful telepath in his infancy or maybe she ends up in a sewer with false memories of her conception and her hereditary link to Xavier, counting down the days. Why anyone would want to go for a trite "Back to the Future" themed finale (or a Legion Quest rerun) is beyond me?
Speaking of Sublime, I think that character was the most self-important flight of fancy Morrison could ever have come up with. He needed a crazy geneticist/eugenicist that would play the central figure in the conclusion of his X-men run but instead of demeaning himself by using other “stupid” writers characters who fit the bill (Sinister and Apocalypse), he comes up with some lame mish-mash of the two.

In addition, I agree totally with everyone who thinks Igor’s art sucks (wonder if he’s wanted a talent graft all his life as well. The only penciler that has ever made Morrison's work standout has been Jean Giraud-lite, Frank Quietly.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
12:54 / 26.02.04
I'm jumping ahead here, breaking the rules, haven't read all the thread yet and need to get my crap idea out on her before I forget and won't be able to verify until I get home and look at the issues in question. Don't know the hows and whys and whatfors, but somehow Beast is/represents the evolutionary force that triumphed when homo sapiens beat neanderthals to become what we know as mankind. This could be retconned into being En Sabuh Neh but previous writers have already defined him too much. People like Flux thinking it is him is because he should be, if we didn't already know that he was the first mutant, changed by Ship into the techno-organic beastie he became, if everything everyone since Claremont had written hadn't happened he'd be ideal. Sometime between the end of 150 and the 'present day' of this storyline mutantkind developes so that there are several different 'types' of mutants, as well as men. His role done, Beast/whoever he is, should have perished, but he evolved the ability and desire to survive. The Phoenix is the representation of the evolutionary force now in the process of deciding which species of life on the planet deserves to be the next stage of 'mankind'.

Otherwise, David Lynch doesn't explain everything at the end of a project because the questions are part of the fun. The Wachowski Brothers don't explain everything at the end of the Matrix films because they lack the wit and intelligence. Personally I think Grant is aiming for Lynch but will only achieve Wachowski level. Argument after #154 will be between those that consider him a Wachowski and those that consider him a Lynch.

I may edit this later...
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:10 / 26.02.04
I think you have a point, Flowers.

I'm beginning to think that this Sublime character's identity may be left ambiguous - he doesn't necessarily NEED to be anyone, he's really just the evil manifestation of evolution itself.
 
 
Quimper
13:18 / 26.02.04
So, basically, Sublime is the Monolith from the neanderthal beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Phoenix is the second 2001 Monolith they found...on...the...moon. HEY!!!!
 
 
A beautiful tunnel of ghosts
14:49 / 26.02.04
From Comic Book Resources (http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=3327)

"...the biggest news is the revelation of what the general premise of X-MEN 3 will be about... According to Singer, the idea behind X3 is what would happen if humans and mutants went up against evolution itself..."

With Spider-Man, Daredevil, X2, The Punisher all adapting existing comic storylines, could Singer be adapting Morrison's New X-Men?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
16:17 / 26.02.04
the overarching theme of Grant's run is 'what happens when mutants, as opposed to man, are in the position of no longer being at the top of the genetic tree'. Unfortunately, I don't think Grant has done particularly well at imagining what post-mutant life would be like. Grant said ages ago that his last X-Men story would be 'the last X-man story', so don't expect it to tie into present day events with Cyclops and Emma, or Xavier. It'll tie into the start of Grants run, maybe, and will explain who Sublime is, if we're lucky, but it'll probably just be the end of the Phoenix's role on Earth. I suspect the fact of it being years into the future may turn out to be completely ignored/irrelevent.
 
 
doyoufeelloved
17:05 / 26.02.04
"...the biggest news is the revelation of what the general premise of X-MEN 3 will be about... According to Singer, the idea behind X3 is what would happen if humans and mutants went up against evolution itself..."

With Spider-Man, Daredevil, X2, The Punisher all adapting existing comic storylines, could Singer be adapting Morrison's New X-Men?

I suspect that's going to be the film's treatment of the Phoenix, as a force for evolutionary good (the way Morrison's been spinning it in HERE COMES TOMORROW). It's not like you could actually make an X-Men movie in which the Phoenix eats the D'Bari and wrecks the Shi'ar empire and etc. etc., after all. (OK, you could. But it would be really, really terrible.)
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
01:46 / 27.02.04
I'm pretty sure the opinion on the boards isn't that Igor sucks, as his work on Cable was brought up at one point and it is very good. His X-Men work is very sadly horrible, though. I'm also pretty sure because I got all pissy when Igor got attacked for what reason I can't recall and some vocal critics recanted, saying his NXM work in specific is terrible. I'm also very sure he was rushed and turned in work that was for some reason printed. I've been to cons where I've seen amazing X-Men art pages from artists who just didn't meet that deadline. Sad sad sad.

My big question is, and I don't expect or want much attention drawn to it, what will we do if Grant doesn't bring any of these threads together? I mean, we've been reading this damned book for a few years now (most of us) and he's had Chuck's evil twin with mad Sentinels, a modern space-opera that felt like my memory of Claremont's Shi'ar stories, trans-human-mutant grafting, riot at Xaviers, a murder mystery that just kinda ends, the Weapon Plus story that just kinda ends, Magneto's revenge and now a jump into the future and somehow (I'd like to again say I'm much more entertained by the theories presented on these boards than what I get out of the issues) he's going to wrap it up with Sublime/Beast and a future X-Men team fighting Nightcrawler pirates and the usual ideas placed haphazardly about. Like I said, you guys are getting much more out of this than I and kudoes to you.

My point is, what if it has nothing to do with Apocalypse? What if Charlie's twin doesn't travel back through time (which begs the question why call it 'Here Comes Tomorrow'?)? What if it just... ends with the future X-Men fighting pirates, Sublime/Beast and the Phoenix eats the Earth? Then the we get Chuck Austen, diapers and tight buns... and probably those silly Jim Lee pouches on straps.

Myself, I'll just be very sad and a bit upset if it doesn't wrap up well because I enjoyed it so much up until the Murder Mystery storyline. So many great characters, like Beak and Xorn and Phantomex... Ah. To be a virgin New X-Men reader again. And everything is new rather than closing up. I can't be the only guy out there who as of today (surely many will change that opinion) plans on not collecting nxm after Grant, can I? I mean, I could care less what the next team does with Grant's ideas, but that last issue has a lot of weight for me.

Sorry, this is a very selfish post. But I'm a selfish guy.

And I love Quitely's NXM and want those figs linked on this board not long ago. Esp if they got Emma's camel toe right.
 
 
Quimper
11:27 / 27.02.04
I myself wouldn't be jonesing for a wrap-up so much if bloody Beast didn't say that he almost realizes how everything fits together.
 
 
FinderWolf
15:00 / 27.02.04
Good point, Quimper.

As for me, I've gotten OD'd on all the speculation, some of which I'm convinced is far more elaborate than Grant has planned, and I'm just waiting patiently for the final issue. My expectations are high, but I wasn't thrilled with the last issue and I think Grant's last two story arc on NXM have been sort of sub-par overall. So we'll see what happens when #154 comes out. But I want sooo much to love it!!
 
 
TroyJ15
15:38 / 27.02.04
1.
"My theory re: Fantomex's bullets.

They're not metal. Magneto did not affect the final two bullets as they were specifically shot to free Chuckles Montgomery Xavier."

Okay, but one bullet hit Magneto. How? I dont think Magneto would not be able to dodge a bullet with his powers. I understand two were intended to miss.

2. Sublime is Sublime. I dont think it runs deeper than that. He's not Apocalypse in my opinion. He is who Grant described him to be. A geneticist with a game plan. The question is how did he survive the fall out of the building and is he the one who sent Cassandra back in time to destroy the X-Men. Even more of a question is...how the fuck did she get inside Momma Xavier's womb if she is a Sublime creation.

3. I think Morrison will wrap up enough, and honestly I think not everyone will be happy (unfortunately that may include me) but it has been a wonderful ride (okay parts of Murder at the Mansion and Planet X were bothersome, but still fun nonetheless)

4. David Lynch sucks! Sorry, but I was not digging Mullholland Drive. I thought it was a gimmick instead of a story.

5. The Wachowski's suck! I'm not apologizing for that.

6. Chuck Austen is going to kill my X-Men jones! Bastard!

7. I will not read an X-Men title until Whedon's does Astonishing X-Men. So I agree with the previous poster.

8. In the Marvel Previews (available in stores now with copy of Previews) there is a scene from the Astonishing X-Men comic book #1! It does explain why they are back in costume! The dialouge is pretty entertaining.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
16:53 / 27.02.04
Trying to think of the bare minimum of things that need to be answered in the next issue:

1) Are these words from the future? Well, are they?
2) Quentin's death-vision of the future. Well, possibly this is just a general thing rather than specific to Morrison's run.
3) The whole Sublime/Beast thing. Was Beast Sublime or was Sublime Beast? If Sublime and Beast had no connection at all, how did Sublime get his hands on X-Men DNA? Who was making Kick in the X-Labs? What about the shadowy guy involved with Weapon X?
4) The whole thing of time and space being fucked up by Magneto killing Phoenix.

I think that's all there is (the whole ridiculousness of the Magneto being spirited away to be disguised as Xorn thing aside), so lets see whether Grant explains it or leaves it hanging for a future writer to explain if he needs to use the characters.
 
 
Shrug
10:20 / 28.02.04
Possible spoilers if you haven't read 153 yet...

There does seem to be a Cassandra Nova-Feeder link which someone has mentioned previously. For example when the feeder-Ko Ko says something like that "that day when we fell down the stairs""we were so hungry".... when Sharon Xavier fell down the stairs... geddit? Of course it could be a wrongfoot.
But my theory simply is that Dark Beast (and by that I mean the AOA throwaway) or possibly Sinister is Sublime and the current Beast. As they both of the ability or means to engineer their form, this could be possible. Both could have had the foresight and interest in genetics to to keep tabs on Xavier and/or Cassandra as powerful emerging mutants. Possibly find Cassandra still born in the sewers as the Alley was Dark Beast's personal genepool. Plus if you remember your X-men Dark Beast had that large tissue/cells brainlike creature in a vault. Eh never mind I just ran out of steam.. but does anyone see where I was going...?
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
14:53 / 28.02.04
How many dangling plot points are there left to be resolved? I mean, really...

1) The Phoenix/Flaw in Time thing. Since it's pretty core to Here Comes Tomorrow, I think that one will be wrapped up, easily.

2) Sublime with his connections to the Beast and whatnot. Also a core part of this storyline and will almost definately get wrapped up.

Now I'll grant that I may be forgetting something, but what else really hasn't been covered and put to bed in the book itself?

Fantomex has been covered in detail.

Quire's vision of the future has been shown to be all too real.

Cassandra Nova has been dealt with. The last bit of her dangling questions just got wrapped up in #153.

There isn't a lot more that needs answering, is there?
 
 
MFreitas
15:35 / 28.02.04
I'm sorry, but even mentioning Dark Beast or Sinister at this stage is utterly ridiculous.

There's something that baffles me absolutely: most of the people here seem to love Morrison, but at the same time they don't seem to trust him one bit. And they don't seem, especially, to read the stories carefully, or some issues wouldn't even be raised.
 
 
The Falcon
16:45 / 28.02.04
True.

Flowers, I seen Charlie speaking words inna future last ish.
 
 
Shrug
16:55 / 28.02.04
Yeah but how probable was Magneto being Xorn. For what its worth I didn't actually think that Dark Beast or Sinister would be introduced this far into the story either (just theorising for fun). But I do think there is a Feeder-Cassandra Nova link and that Beast/Sublime being Dark Beast would fit just so continuity wise.
 
 
Mario
17:11 / 28.02.04
Here's a random thought....

What if Cassandra isn't a feeder, but the feeders are Cassandra? In other words, they are an aspect of her powers, which infected the Crawlers during that attack (she was around, she must have been doing _something_).

I can see it now...They attack, Sublime counterattacks with feeders, and they have no effect at all, because they are coming home....
 
 
MFreitas
17:26 / 28.02.04
There's still some plot points missing, so I'll just mention them. And I don't think it will be that hard to tie them, since they're all related:

- What will revert the extiction trigger present in the human gene?

- What caused the breach in the universe?

- How will Xorn mend the broken universe? (and no, I'm no loonie)

- What is Sublime (a gene? a bacteria? a meme?) and how did he orchestrated everything from the very beginning? How did he manipulate Cassandra Nova, John Sublime, Quentin Quire, the Weapon Plus Program and Magneto?

- Who created Kick? What or who was the Kick? Dummy?

- How was the Cassandra Nova Feeder sent into the past and how will that timeloop/"curve in time" be stoped?

- Is there really a connection between Cassandra's and Charles' genes and Weapons 12-15?

- Was Martha being controlled or was she controling others at several keypoints?

- How is Martha's deluxe Alzheimer's related to one of Cassandra's original body's form of decay or Esme's Alzheimer?

- Will Dummy be revealed as the Weapon Plus' mole at the institute?

- Who is the time-traveller EVA mentioned who arrives in the future?

- Who is Apollyon? Most likely John Sublime.

And Xorn WILL come back. And no, I'm no loonie...
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
18:24 / 28.02.04
I don't get the obsession with Dummy. He's clearly the NXM version of those guys in the red shirts on Star Trek, just like Darkstar in the New Worlds story.

Martha has Alzheimer's because she's just a REALLY OLD brain.

I think the extinction gene thing is meant to be open-ended.
 
 
Mario
22:21 / 28.02.04
I thought "The Traveller" was Wolverine...
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
23:03 / 28.02.04
What will revert the extiction trigger present in the human gene?

Doesn't Henry say he has the cure in Planet X?
 
 
Quireboy
07:39 / 29.02.04
Re-reading NXM114 I was struck by how Cassandra described herself as the first, the oldest enemy. - Now she may just have meant Xavier's first and oldest enemy (if you accept that she is his twin in some way), but it may point to a connection between her and the Beast. (Doesn't she also say something like "I am what's eating your mind"? Bringing in the possible connection to the feeders.) Later in Imperial the mummundrai (sic) is described as anti-life - which made me think about the Sumblime entity and whether it's something that jumps from host to host (Apocalypse, etc), or replicates their genes.

I wonder if we will see what Cassandra/Ernst's powers are. We saw her interfacing with the X-plane? Why were the crawlers clutching their heads as the X-plane flew over - was that Martha's telepathy, Cassandra's or a weapon of the plane (or the noise of its engines)?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
09:50 / 29.02.04
The Falcon Flowers, I seen Charlie speaking words inna future last ish. Really? I missed that, what with him being nothing more than a statue...
 
 
Quireboy
13:42 / 29.02.04
The guy who writes the X-Axis reviews thinks Sublime could be Morrison's interpretation of something called That Which Endures created by John Byrne. I found this on a site called the unofficial chronology of the Marvel Universe:

"3,500,000,000 Years Ago
The first single-celled organisms were formed on Earth. Upon the cell's first division one of the new cells mutated, causing a slight genetic difference from the original cell. This mutant cell then invaded the other, absorbing it into itself, becoming one cell again. When that cell split and divided, the genetic modifications of its parent cell were present in its offspring. This modification would remain present within the genetic structure of all the various forms that evolution would help mold Earth's life into.

"Millions of years after the creation of the first single-cell organism on Earth, the genetic modification that had evolved in the organism developed an unconscious collective sentience. This intelligence eventually manifested itself in some of Earth's life. Observing conditions on Earth, the carrier mutation came to a conscious decision to maintain its existence by surviving in Earth's dominant life form, allowing its brethren in other life forms to fade away. While other forms of life continued to evolve and prosper, the mutation specifically guided its dominant carrier to evolve and thrive, allowing That Which Endures, as the mutation would come to be known, to survive. Once every one hundred thousand years from that point onwards, That Which Endures would achieve sentience again, specifically guiding the evolution of Earth's life to ensure that it continued to exist."
 
  

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