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New X-Men #154

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Our Lady Has Left the Building

07:51 / 22.03.04

I don't think it's been stated anywhere that the Phoenix lives in the crystal, from what I remember of the original Claremont/Cockrum story she doesn't, and what else I can remember from the various iterations afterwards, up to when I stopped reading about a decade ago she wasn't connected either.

The only three connections between X-Men and Filth is the conception of the X-Men, almost immediately forgotten, as a mutant search-and-rescue, in a similar way to the Filth when they don't decide to kill everyone involved. The second is the human avatar of Mother Dirt is presented in a similar fashion to Xavier sitting in Cerebro. But Mother Dirt is like Sublime, albeit 'her' motives, what little we know of them, don't seem to be malevolent and selfish, but she wants to hold humanity back for it's own good. In fact, if I'm understanding Mother Dirt correctly, then I think the treatment of the idea in X-Men is more successful than it was in The Filth.

07:56 / 22.03.04

I think that the Phoenix is called the child of the crystal and the guardian of the crystal by the Shi'ar - though that might have been in the cartoon series ratherthan the original comics.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:13 / 22.03.04

Jesus Christ, why is everyone getting sucked into this Cassie = Weapon XI nonsense? Some of the twists and turns and revelations we're explicitly told about in NXM don't entirely work as it is (Xorn is Magneto, the Cuckoos are Weapon XIV), other things are strongly suggested but ambiguous (Apollyon is Fantomex, probably), but I so far I've seen nothing to suggest that Cassie is part of Weapon Plus in the actual comics. Maybe people are inclined to do this because Morrison kept shifting his definition of what Cassie was - she's the next stage in evolution after mutants, she's Charles' twin sister, she's a Mummudrai - but people, until you show me some actual evidence that she's Weapon XI, rather than just showing how nicely it slots into your great cosmic symbolism, I reserve the right to call it fanwank, on a par with the idea that Fantomex was Emma's brother Christian...

10:11 / 22.03.04

Oooh, someone didn't have their Weetabix this morning!

Reading NXM154 again, I'm not so sure Apollyon was Fantomex - and not just, as the Beast says, the last U-Man. Even with the hints from EVA it's hardly clear/certain.

Matthew Fluxington

10:37 / 22.03.04

Why is it so hard to imagine that Fantomex had become a U-Man? EVA talks ambiguously about "what happened to him" in the beginning of Here Comes Tomorrow - I'd assume that at some point the two were separated and Fantomex was brainwashed and turned into a U-Man by the Beast.

11:36 / 22.03.04

To be fair BOTH of the Stepford Wives and the Midwich Cuckoos are about non-human people pretending to be human people so I can really see the hint there that there was something else going on with them. The thing I thoguht that was most interesting about them was that Grant actually had them use the name the Stepford Cuckoos, rather than using that as a starting point. Nicely, er, blunt. One thing that's confused me a bit. They say Cerebra is scared and I wondered whether the square bracketted speech bubbles were Cerebra speaking rather than them. I wondered - in essence - whether the new Cerebra was Weapon 14 or whatever. But I haven't got my issue handy of course, so it's not like I can see if that theory makes any sense whatsoever...

11:48 / 22.03.04

Ha! That's what I said a couple of pages ago. But no-one listens to me.

11:51 / 22.03.04

Cosmic symbolism? More like analogous psychological theory. Everything in bold in my post is stolen from internet sites about Spiral Dynamics. I got into SD because I read somewhere that Grant was into it. The parallels between SD and Weapon Plus are ridiculously obvious. Eat me alive, if you want... but I've been right before and I will be right again.

And I trust nothing the enemy says. Xorn lied. Sublime lied. Fantomex lied. Scott DIDN'T lie. Cassie's involvement as Weapon Plus Weapon XI makes sense on the micro evidence scale and macro thematic scale. If you relegate evidence to be only recieved from the scale of human communication, you're gonna be lied to.

And Fantomex's programming imperatives are clearly the same as the U-Mens' "religious" doctrine. Both seek to improve themselves in order to survive. And the U-Men could be descibed as the "next stage of evolution" too.

Keith, like a scientist

11:55 / 22.03.04

well...i think the implication is pretty clear that the Cuckoos are Weapon 14...because of a couple things:

1. It says "Versions 01/02/04" after "Weapon XIV"- those numbers are probably wrong, as I am at work, but you get the idea. 3 versions of Weapon 14.
2. The say they aren't going to let them take them alive and do the whole death-pact "Triplets Rule!"
3. The Weapon 14 speech says that is has initiated a self destruct.
4. Esme recognizes Fantomex at the end of Planet X and calls him Weapon 13.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

12:00 / 22.03.04

I'm with Flux.

Cassandra is the primary manifestation of Sublime vs. Xavier, on the purely genetic level. SublimeNA meets with Xavier's full potential and creates Cassie. I think the stairs comment is actually Genetic Sense Memory. This moment, the moment of Cassandra's "murder", was so critical to Genetic Evolution, SublimeNA had such a huge part of it, that everything, including the Feeder creature, which also undoubtedly came about SubGenetically (like, "SubConscious") because of SublimeNA's presence, that it still remembers it. It was so "hungry" because it had just been robbed (albeit temporarily) of the prospect of building so much yummy genetic goodness in the form of the literally multi-talented Cassandra Nova. Truly an "explosion" of genetic potential and SublimeNA meddling. If you want to call her anything, call her Weapon Omega, the purest form of Sublime's attempts at creating anti-mutant soldiers, but completely unrelated to the Weapon Plus program.

Matthew Fluxington

12:34 / 22.03.04

That "triplets rule!" thing bugs me because they're not triplets! They are the survivors of a set of quintuplets!

13:54 / 22.03.04

must admit when I saw the self-destruction routine for weapon XIV I first read the "version" numbers as a date.

14:27 / 22.03.04

Well... I've avoided to post lately, because I've yet to read 154 (next Thursday, I hope), but I think there are a few misconceptions here, brilliancy aside.

Cassandra being a Mummudrai or Weapon 11 is NOT mutually exclusive! She can well be BOTH the Mummudrai (as I'm positive she is, given the 'Global Brain' reference) AND Weapon 11 (Sublime, in one of his many iteractions, could have collected Cassandra's chaotic cellular matter in the sewers and used her as a meaning to his ends).

As I theorized many months ago, Cassandra's genetic imprint (which means Charles' genetic imprints) might have been used to create the subsequent Weapons.

And there are MANY references to Cassandra being connected to Weapon Plus, from the nanosentinels to the Phoenix related Shiar incursion, not forgeting the mention she does about clones being created from the institute's mutant genetic database.

And tell me something: in issue 154, the reference to GUS, THE GOOD DOG is near a reference about a BLEEDING HEART?
Because in issue 123, Jean mentions Gus, EXACTLY IN THE SAME PAGE we see that BLEEDING HEART SHAPED thing forming over Xavier's head, as drawn by EVS. Clever, hum?

15:00 / 22.03.04

I'm interested in Cassie's Global Brain reference. Where does she use it, and in what context?

Cassie Volume One: Thesis

Cassie Volume Two: Antithesis

Cassie Volume Three: Synthesis

18:56 / 22.03.04

In response to Matthew Fluxington's comment:
I think it may be folly to think that the Three-in-One are the same as the Stepford Cukoos. Morrison played many tricks with identities in this arc. The Beast was not good old blue Beast, it was a personification of Sublime. Cassandra Nova may not have been who she appeared to be. Even some people may have been confused about whether the new Beak and the old Beak were the same character. It's particularly telling that he calls them "the mysterious Three-in-One" as though we have no idea who they are. I may be wrong, but I don't know if they are the Cukoos. If this is the case then who could they be?

Matthew Fluxington

19:00 / 22.03.04

Nah, I think it's pretty obvious that they are indeed the Stepford Cuckoos, especially since they are referred to as being the Three-In-One during Planet X.

19:08 / 22.03.04

re: The Triplets/Cuckoos

If they're the same, then they lived 100 years and they triumphantly re-defined themselves as 3 instead of 5

19:15 / 22.03.04

Who wants to bet that we're never going to see ANY of Morrison's kids next semster? No more Glob Herman, no Tattoo, no Radian, no Redneck, no Cuckoos, no Beak, no Angel, no Martha, no Ernst, no Irina, no Retarda, no kid with type on his shirt and really long arms.

And that's a damn shame too, cuz i think they could carry a title.

19:34 / 22.03.04

The Beast was not good old blue Beast, it was a personification of Sublime.

in the Beast's old body, and apparently using Hank's knowledge of mutant genetics.

Even some people may have been confused about whether the new Beak and the old Beak were the same character.

are these people who actually read the comics in question?

Who wants to bet that we're never going to see ANY of Morrison's kids next semster? No more Glob Herman, no Tattoo, no Radian, no Redneck, no Cuckoos, no Beak, no Angel, no Martha, no Ernst, no Irina, no Retarda, no kid with type on his shirt and really long arms.

And that's a damn shame too, cuz i think they could carry a title.

some of GM's student characters are supposedly going to be in New X-Men: Academy X

Matthew Fluxington

19:41 / 22.03.04

Yes, all of the Grant characters will get a chance to be butchered by future X-writers for years to come. It's not as if they are going anywhere. If you've ever read a non-Morrison X-comic, you'd know that there is always a demand for second and third string characters to star in X-Men spin-offs.

I always thought that "retarda" was an insult rather than a proper name!

Please note that the Omega Gang are all in jail.

19:46 / 22.03.04

I thought Retarda was an insult too, but a name's a name and a panel of reference when it comes to Grant's books. There's no expository or student roster.

And The Omegas all have offensive and typically understood powers: heat, light, phasing, superstrength. Like jail is gonna stop a hack from pulling them in for a fight scene.

I think Acadmey X was renamed New X-Men.

20:24 / 22.03.04

Um, the Three-in-One are described as the Cuckoos flat out on the "Triplets Rule!" page. Whether the Weapon XIV caption refers to them Cerebra is is a fair question.

As for their survival...I can't help but think that the fact that they _never_ left the Cerebra room is somehow relevant.

20:26 / 22.03.04

I also think the fact that they are part machine is relevant.

20:35 / 22.03.04

I read this again and now that every thing else isn't a surprise I had time to let the smaller thread sink in. I actually felt a bit sad this time by the Three-in-One's self destruction. It seemed pointless.

20:37 / 22.03.04

I'm fascinated with the bleeding heart image in Imperial when Jean tells the comatosed Xavier in Cassie's dying body that Gus was a good dog.

This brings me to two things about Xavier:

1) I think the bleeding heart image came from him, from inside Cassie's body. Was he trying to tell Jean something? Was he trying to instruct her to do what the Phoenix Collective eventually keyed her into? Or was he trying to communicate with her about how HE felt, not what Jean should feel?

2) His presence in the future. A telepathic speech balloon answers the winged X-Woman's prayers to Xavier. It says it can't help her due to the feeders. It was in direct response to a prayer cast directly AT Xavier. The speech balloons appear in front of the Xavier statue. Was it Xavier? Was Xavier's conciousness part of the dystopian future?

I am one of the culprits to bring up the genetic similarities between the Super Sentinels and Xavier/Cassie? Were there any other than...

• Fantomex's name being Charlie Cluster
• Huntsman and Xavier's mirror-image battle
• All the assumptions that go along with Cassandra being Weapon XI, or at least part of WP (including she is not his twin, but a genetic construct; or her supplying the Xavier DNA)?

20:41 / 22.03.04

The Three-In-One detonated within Cerebra in order to slow the spread of the Feeder army. Last thing Wolvie and the future team needed was more telepaths and a super-telepathy machine turning on them. And how come NOBODY is guessing that the Feeders were evolved from Weapon XII bodies?

20:44 / 22.03.04

Telepathy is the only real weapon in the MU. That much is made clear from Volume One.

21:54 / 22.03.04

Are we ready yet to start annotating formally? I think there's enough in the threads already but there's a lot of stuff which is clearer now that takes up a lot of space. Is it worth everyone doing one post a week on each issue?

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:56 / 22.03.04

I read this again and now that every thing else isn't a surprise I had time to let the smaller thread sink in. I actually felt a bit sad this time by the Three-in-One's self destruction. It seemed pointless.

I think it is the equivalent of Franklin Richard's death in DoFP, for what it's worth.

22:06 / 22.03.04

The Three-In-One detonated within Cerebra in order to slow the spread of the Feeder army. Last thing Wolvie and the future team needed was more telepaths and a super-telepathy machine turning on them.

NO, I know why they did it... it just seems pointless in the face of the Phoenix's amputation of the timeline. And I mean, I felt this way about all of theri deaths but not really with the 3-in-1 cause they really didn't do much to begin with but after a reread I felt bad for them too.

22:07 / 22.03.04

I think it is the equivalent of Franklin Richard's death in DoFP, for what it's worth.

Haus, what's DoFP?

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

22:10 / 22.03.04

And how come NOBODY is guessing that the Feeders were evolved from Weapon XII bodies?

Well, I basically did, quite a while ago, somewhere. Saying that the feeder scene was directly echoing the chunnel, basically to refute any involvement by Xavier in the scene. I also brought up the whole bleeding heart image, asking Ethan to clarify. Don't anybody let me see the postcards you got from Lacuna or it will totally fuck with my head.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

22:10 / 22.03.04

Days Of Future Past

Matthew Fluxington

22:20 / 22.03.04

I think Acadmey X was renamed New X-Men.

Unless I've missed something, the title of the series is New X-Men: Academy X.

22:27 / 22.03.04

Days Of Future Past

Oh, duh, sory It's been a long day... What happened with Franklin?

As an aside, I love when they include Franklin in X-Men story lines. I t's great that the kid of Marvel's most beloved family is a dirty mutie.

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