Barbelith Underground > Comic Books

Random thoughts and replies to other people...

Grant did very well with the big themes of evolution, giving us many different types, but his characterisation was a bit hit or miss, sometimes sacrificed completely in the name of plot.

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Chesed Awright. So I've been right about EVERYTHING. Except the Apollyon = Fantomex thing, which seems so left field and unnecessary... I know a lot of you are going to be excited about that development, but where's the justification for the reinterpretation of Fantomex into the king of demons? As a Doctor( or was it Professor?) Sublime was responsible for the Weapon X- Super Soldier program. Or possibly, to stop the continuity bleeding, he was involved in it only AFTER Logan had been Weapon Ten. So conceivably Fantomex was always under his control or maybe he roped him back in some time after #150. I don't think Fantomex has an enhanced healing factor like Logan and Sabretooth, it's a function of EVA which means that he can be killed, which is what Sublime likes. Based on what Sublime says about how some mutants could be a threat to him I can see him finding out about the Weapon X program in some way after Logan et al had left it and getting involved as a way of making sure it couldn't be a threat to him in the future.

Chesed Although I read the issue the same way, I DON'T think E.V.A.'s lines imply that the previous page's Apollyon is Fantomex. Well yes, they could be that she was fucked up and mistook Tom for Fantomex, but I think that as Fantomex finally ripped his mask off we have to assume it meant something, and that EVA saw that Fantomex hadn't died/left her after all, he'd just defected to the enemy.

Chesed The Mummudrai stuff and psychic rescue issue was all planted imagery, meant to devour Xavier's nature with guilt, regret, and surprise. Planted by who? Sublime? If he was that powerful why does he piss around infecting people through Kick? Why does Cassie bugger off with the Shi-ar then come back to destroy everything rather than stay around as Xavier and work for Sublime to destroy the mutant race?

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Chesed Emma took Kick! Is THAT why she was killed? She may have, as a telepath, risked Sublime's exposure and hidden motives. She had Sublime in HER then...

I don't now whether Morrison is leaving this open as something unimaginative future writers can work with if they choose, but unless Jean disinfects everything, then Emma, the surviving members of Quire's Omega Gang and countless non-X-Men mutants were or presumerably are Kick users.

However, is Quentin's evolution into an energy being just his secondary mutation or the influence of Kick? If Kick is the carrier for Sublime it seems odd that it seems to make him evolve into a Phoenix (although it now creates a reading of 'Riot at Xaviers' as a reworking of 'The Dark Phoenix Saga' in minuture, with him learning he's an orphan turning him into Dark Phoenix, killing the humans as Phoenix destroying that star system, the Old X-Men as the Imperial Guard taking down the New X-Men one by one, and then nobody able to stop him dying). The Phoenix is what we'll become in the evolutionary supercontext. "Are these words from the future?" "Wake up, try to remember." "Always loved you. Will always love you. Remember to breathe." "Live Scott." "Is AllNow Love." The Phoenix is Barbelith. The X-Men are the Invisibles. Sublime is the Archons and the Outer Church, the dull blunt force of 'obey'.

mdg1 2) Why does Cassandra Nova act/talk like a Feeder?

Based on what Morrison has written, we have to assume pure coincidence.

4) Is Xorn simply Magneto's "light side" after all?

Again, it would seem so.

The Radiator Tap-Dance Club didn't [Apocalypse] help create the Legacy virus?

That was Stryfe (Cable's evil twin), though he did come from the future where Apocalypse ruled so...

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I liked that Morrison has left open the humanity dying thing. I wonder if any writer will ever follow that up?

The Phoenix's job is that of the Monolith from 3001, to remove species that are no longer mutating and evolving. Phoenix has a host in exactly the same way as Sublime. Sublime is the force that tries to stop us evolving. Anyone who watched 'The Truth About Killing' on Channel 4 the last two weeks will be aware of the hypothesis that aggression is not a back brain primitive response. The Phoenix is what life evolves into. Sublime is the mummudrai of Phoenix.

Anyone notice how the Beast relies on overwhelming his foes with strength of numbers and, like last issue, will send in clones that have no healing factor so die almost immediately?

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I'm perfectly happy to accept that Cassie is just what she's presented, the opposite of Xavier. I think that if we hadn't seen her injecting herself with the diseases that are supposed to kill her body once she's swapped with Xavier we wouldn't be asking how she fits in with Sublime. The X-Men, if memory serves, only start falling ill once they tangle with Sublime and the U-Men. I love how those guys looked so foolish at the time but now look kind of creepy now we know about
Sublime. There is the question of exactly how conscious Sublime was. The U-Men seem to be rather crap at genetics and transplants, so presumerably Sublime only had L33T G3N3TX SKLZ when it was Dr. Sublime or the Beast.

Quimper It was said that the U-Men were part of her plan to weaken the X-Men before she returned from space.

When?

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Keith: Question: How can Logan look so damn young 150 years in the future? Does his healing factor put him in a never changing state? He doesn't age at all? Seems counter to the whole Wolverine: The End series out now...

Logan and Sabretooth both have vastly extended lives. They aren't immortal but the healing factor vastly extends their lives because it can successfully repair the 'damage' done by age degredation on the cells in their body. Towards the end of Claremont's run it was being implied that that Logan was at least a century old.

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What's unexplained is the Cuckoo's grim pronouncement in #150 that space and time had gone wrong. Unless they were just feeling the effects of the Phoenix force reaching back from the future to manipulate things so that future doesn't happen.

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I'm Starskey, he's Haus So, hang on... it was a dream, a "what if", or an imaginary tale?

Nope, but it's now one of the not happening alternate futures like the 'Days of Future Past' future or the 'Apocalypse rules' one.

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DaveBCooper: The problem I have with the RNA thing is that it’s just SO big it can never really be resolved – it’s like saying that the X-Men face an enemy so prevalent that they’ll never defeat it.

Cheer up! Today I am good news boy! Sublime couldn't have been all life on earth or else all humans would have been Sublime all the time and there never would have been any mutants ever. I would have thought that as Sublime bartered it's way up the chain of existence, mutating itself, it paid in loosing overall influence. After all, Sublime was the dominant species but there were other 'carbon slime colonies' and 'bacterial mats' for it to do business with. It's the same story again and again. Sublime replaced by better, more 'fit' forms of life. But it survived.

Better forms of life eventually replaced by neanderthal man. But Sublime survived. Neanderthals replaced by homo sapiens. But Sublime survived. The crossover point from homo sapien to homo superior...

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Haus (again): especially as this way we have the frankly rather tacky sight of Scott snogging Emma over his wife's grave

Phoenix effect. Whenever there's something you don't understand, it's the Phoenix.

this is a poor ending, and has been crowbarred in-

Phoenix!

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Flyboy: (on Xorn) how did he heal (cure, not prevent further) blood-poisoning? Phoenix! Phoenix? Oh bugger it... Are you talking about the Imperial arc? Those were nano-Sentinals, which presumerably were made of some sort of iron that he could destroy. He used the nano-Sentinals in Xavier's bloodstream to circumvent the damage to his spine.

How did he simulate the effect of a black hole? By using his incredibly strong magnetic powers? I know this is going in complete contradiction to what I said six or seven months ago and I agree with you that it's a ball that I think Morrison was careless with, but Magneto is strong enough to manipulate gravitational lines of force (or at least he used to be, when I was still collecting X-Men). Considering this, and the fact that Hank has never actually seen a black hole up close, rendering his knowledge theoretical, I think it's not beyond the realms of Magneto to do something that it would be assumed is a black hole.

How come we've seen his Xorn face... yes yes, art fuck-up, but come on? When? I've just rechecked the annual and we don't see his face, those there's a panel where you can just see the back of his head behind the star effect. And an art fuck-up being unlikely? Two words: Artists jam. Maybe Cameron could redraw the annual?

How come telepathic Emma Frost couldn't read his mind when he didn't have his helmet on in China? The magnetic force disruption around his head would have been disruptive enough to block her. I've always thought that would have been enough to block Xavier, I just find it a bit disappointing on returning to the X-Men universe that both the X-Men movies and the first few issues of Ultimate X-Men seemed to push this simplified theory that without his helmet Magneto can be stopped by Xavier's powers.

How in hell did he know to move (an) Asteroid X into the exact position where Logan and Weapon XV were wrasslin' in space, *and* then have things blow up once Jean arrived and send it into the sun? This has confused me. I *think* it's supposed to be coincidence and *luck* that the Weapons Plus satellite crashes on Asteroid M. You could No-Prize it by saying that Magneto had programmed a self-destruct mechanism to make it fly into the sun if there were intruders when he wasn't around. otherwise, you're right that this was sloppy on Morrison's part (if Magneto is powerful enough to remote control his asteroid from a distance, he should have been able to flip the earth's magnetic poles without a problem)

Sublime the magic evil gene "makes deals" with humans (how literal or metaphorical, we do not know), but can also influence or even possess mutants using Kick. So who or what are John Sublime and Dr Sublime? Presumerably humans posessed by Sublime. From this issue: "we lived inside him [humans]... invisible, unchallenged, unrecognised"

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Matthew Fluxington Magneto having telepathy is junk continuity which should never be taken seriously. If you're being pedantic, you can bring it up, but it really doesn't hold up.

Brains work on electrical impulses, Magneto can control electrical forces, it's not too much of a leap to say that his power can be used in a telepathic way, as I said above. What's daft is the idea of a helmet, either for Magneto/Xorn or Fantomex that can block telepathic scans.

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So, a 75% 'good wow' about this comic. All I really wanted was an explanation of what Sublime was. I agree there are flaws with the run, I think the 'Assault on Weapon X' stuff should have been spent on team development to position everyone, including Phoenix, for the roles they played in 'Planet X', rather than opening on that and saying 'here is where they all stand now'.

Too often we learnt plot things from the 'Previously' page. And who was writing the last few issues ones? 'international conflict has given way to species warfare as various emerging species- including mutants... as we understand the term all the future species would be mutants. That smacks of the lazy writing of the people that do the letters page and seem not to understand what Grant is writing.

Mkraan Crystal:
I choose to think of it as the navel of the universe. Go inside of it, and you're in the interior workings of the the kosmos. Thinking that it COULD be the White Hot Room makes some ind of sense, but I'm not going to hinge any theories on it. It's just, at this point, post-Jean NXM, it makes a LOT of sense to have the Mkraan crystal be the spacetimemind-knot for the kosmos, considering all the "fixing"(surgery/disinfection) being done by the Phoenix -who "lives in the crystal".

I don't think there's ANY line in NXM that says "one-man gangbangs".

Alright, I owe Tom Coates a rerun of stuff i started at the top of this page of threads. Whether or not they were derived from Xavier DNA, I believe that the Weapon Plus Weapons IX-XVIII are based on Vmeme expressions of Mr. Charlie Xavier.

Weapon IX Nuke
The First Level — AN Beige vMEME Code that produces instinctive skills in the rain forest, the savanna, the bush, on the tundra, in the inner city, as well as in cases of serious deprivation and human tragedy. Entering new Tier. Solidifying old Tier. Unaware of new Body / self. Express self for physiological survival. "I process any survival threats to ensure my personal survival."

Nuke represents Xavier's fears of what mutants might become. What he himself might become in a world where he doesn't develop his dream. Here is an augmented human being(muscular strength in Nuke's case, psychic strength in Xavier's) who is thrust into a world of weaklings. Everything is "other" and must be defended against.

...introduce relationships to get...

Weapon X Wolverine
The Second Level — BO Purple vMEME Code that creates animistic thinking, bond humans to closely-knit groups, and enriches inanimate objects with vMEMETIC meanings and magical significance. Awareness of the Proximate Self - feels new connections between old parts. Mystical, as can't make sense of it. Uses old understandings to try and get a grip on the newly perceived reality (e.g. Purple instills Gross forms with "magical" powers of the mind) Sacrifice self to maintain the ways of old. "I deal with worries about not
belonging, about not being loved." (e.g. deprived of unconditional love as a child when expected it unconditionally from the parents)

Xavier took in Wolverine becasue he recognized something in him that was in himself. Wolverine is very much the tribal leader of the X-Men. He's a trained samurai and defender of mutants and especially the X-Men family. His sense of mutant family is what Fantomex used against him to get his alliance(concern for Dust). Wolverine is not telepathic, but has incredible empathic sense within his group and team. His empathy amongst the team exists to supplement Xavier's, who must exist in higher realms of the media and culture.

...introduce domination to get...

WEAPON XI Cassandra Nova
The Third Level — CP-Red vMEME Code that awakens individual senses of the impulsive self while generating powerful images of aggressiveness, conquest, predator/prey relationships, and pontifications from on high perches — high horses, kings of the hill, and queens of the valley, or vice versa. The age of fiefdoms. The new Basic Structure arrives on the scene big time! For the first time, the Self becomes aware of its new self, and announces its presence very clearly for all to hear. Red is the emergence of the
Gross self (which we have chosen to call Ego). Express self impulsively at any cost without shame or fear. "I need to be the best, or be a victim."

Here you DO get the dark mummudrai anti-self of Xavier. Cassandra is telepathic mutancy at its most terrible and ego-driven. She rapes minds and obliterates her oppostion. She bears no compassion and isn't weighed down by any empathy.

...introduce heirarchy to get...

WEAPON XII Huntsman
Te Fourth Level — DQ Blue vMEME Code that engenders transcendent purpose, impulse control; creates abstract causes, principles, explanations, and orders, while imposing authority-driven command structures. The new self becomes aware of the bigger context which it is a part of, and creates the necessary maps to generate the order which helps it make sense of its place in its world. Blue sees a mental energy world of right and wrong, polarities, and creates a world to suit, where the mental self can feel right. Sacrifice self for reward later. "I deal with death and worries about what happens after the
disintegration of our Gross body."

The other half of Xavier's darkness relates to his sense of supreme authority by dint of his being the ultimate telepathic talent on the planet. The Huntsman infects and commandeers several bodies to do his whim and obey his directives. Similar to Xavier's actions on the plane over Mumbai.

...introduce mortality to stimulate calculatedness to get...

WEAPON XIII Fantomex and E.V.A.
The Fifth Level — ER Orange vMEME Code that frees the autonomous person, creates the algorithms of strategic changeability, and shifts the thinking away from fatalistic ideology and into pragmatics and positivism. The Proximate self begins to sense the limits of its being. As the emerging energy begins to interfere more, the picture becomes on the one hand more cloudy and relativistic (not as clear as at stages 3 and 4), but on the other hand it is more energised due to the interference of the more complex and subtle energy from the emerging Tier. Orange no longer sees right and wrong as being about mental opinions, but judges things by performance and achievement. Express self for self-gain, but calculatedly.

Fantomex managed to fool the two most sophisticated telepaths on the planet with "misdirection". Though no mention of HIS telepathy is made, I cannot doubt he has some kind of psychic talent. Fantomex is a version of Xavier we never really get to see. Here, Xavier may be released to explore true flexibility in his talent. P erhaps his installation of the X-Corps is an expression of him using his talents to his advantage and the advantage of others.

...introduce plurality to get...

WEAPON XIV The Stepford Cuckoos
The Sixth Level — FS Green vMEME Code that rejects authoritarian and materialistic codes while awakening the individual to inner states in a search for harmony, and external communities in a quest for peace and caring. The old Tier self starts to dissolve to make room for the new Tier self. The old concepts feel inadequate, everything gets lost in a relativistic mush as clarity dissolves. The best we can do is keep our heads down and try to blend in as well as possible. This is very clear in Green relativism and need for acceptance. Sacrifice self to get acceptance now.

Should Xavier ever experience an assembly of peers, it would probably evolve into a Cuckoo group. Here, beautiful and telepathically talented young mutants operate in synchronicity. They are his dream exemplified unto its most perveted sense.

...introduce respect for all to get...

WEAPON XV Ultimaton
The Seventh Level — GT Yellow vMEME code that restores human viability to a world of vMEMETIC chaos, while legitimizing and enhancing all of the vMEME codes as they produce healthy whorls along the Spiral. Express self with concern for, and not at the expense of, others. "I do what needs to be done for the good of the whole. I don't struggle."

XV represents Xavier as he is at the end of Planet X. He is released of his prior responsibilites and able to confront life as something other than who he was before. XV is a supremely powerful mutant who annihilates opposition by looking at it -he doesn't recognize anything as opposition, just more experience to be learned from. His power signature does not appear to be telepathic, but it may not have to be. His head lights up and destroys problems -an analogy for flexible telapthic talent.

...introduce total unity to get...

WEAPON XVI Xorn
The Eighth Level — HU Turquoise vMEME code that detects the holistic energy flows that bind everything together and permeate every aspect of the Kosmos. This code “sees” everything before “doing” anything. Turquoise gives mental concepts to causal reality: "everything is interconnected, we cannot make differentiations, everything just is, and there is nothing more than the great Emptiness" - because the mind can't cope with the mental nonduality of the causal reality. Sacrifice self to existential realities. "I belong in this universe and feel safe here, as there is only this here and now."

Xorn is Xavier's dream in its most elevated sense, that much can be agreed upon. While not strictly designated a Weapon Plus agent, Magneto was able to use Xavier's most intimate ideals to lull him. Xorn, the fictionsuit, was an abused mutant who through experience and spirituality chooses to engage the world to heal things. He is headless, but acknowledges a bright star for a brain -another analogy for telepathy.

...introduce ground of "being" to get...

WEAPON XVII Sublime
Express without shame or guilt for evolution's sake. "I act and express myself fully and impulsively; I don't need to fight others to do that. I am fully here."

Sublime is Xavier should he ever drop out and become a completely astral entity -similr to Jean's trick in hiding him from Cassndra in all mutant minds. Sublime acts as a mind among several bodies working in unison to achieve a single goal.

...introduce evolution to get...

WEAPON XVIII Phoenix
Teal sees a causal world where the universe is the context, and creates a world of universal order, where the task is to connect to the emerging evolutionary potential of the universe itself. Sacrifice self to emerging existential potential. "I carry out my role in the universe. If I do this connected to the evolutionary flow, there will be later reward for the whole."

Jean Grey surpasses her teacher by tapping into a universal understanding that empowers her with a divine sense of rightness -at the expense of her individuality.

New X-Men #154