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Astonishing X-Men Year Two

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Quimper

16:03 / 22.02.06

Wow. Uh. Whoa. THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is a retcon.

Advanced pages from popcultureshock above. Be warned. Major SPOILERS!

Thank you, Joss.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

16:08 / 22.02.06

Holy Crap!

Dear Joss Whedon, I am sorry I called you a hack who can only write one character well. Well, I am only sorry until I read the rest of it, really, but you get the idea.

Aertho

16:22 / 22.02.06

Horrid.

But only because I'm a purist.

Spyder Todd 2008

16:26 / 22.02.06

....

Ahem. Is it April yet? So I can buy the hardcover of Volume 1? I know I haven't been reading the book so far, I thought I would wait for the hardcovers permanently. But now I'm tempted to pick this up right away...

Michelle Gale

16:40 / 22.02.06

Joss gets it, lovley stuff.

I like the fact that Cassandra only real "superpower" is that she is just really really horrible, and will destroy your confidence.

They better not turn Emma "evil" though...

Robert B

17:06 / 22.02.06

Holy Crap! That looks great. I was losing interest in Astonishing but this perked it back up.

Slim

17:42 / 22.02.06

I'm going to go ahead and place myself in the minority here and state that I wish they hadn't done this.

Sniv

17:43 / 22.02.06

Ummm. I'm thick, I didn't get why this is such a big deal. Anyone care to explain it to me? I've mainly stayed away from the X-men in my comic reading life, I read the two Astonishing trades over Christmas, enjoyed them, but that's all the x-men I've read. I've seen the films and cartoons, so I'm familiar with the characters, but mainstream continuity? No idea.

Anyone cool enough to fill me in?

Slim

17:48 / 22.02.06

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra_Nova_Xavier

There's the Wiki entry for Cassandra Xavier. She's a creation of GM and is therefore kind of a fan-favorite 'round these here parts. That and she's Prof. X with balls.

Aertho

18:10 / 22.02.06

I'm with Slim. Does that make me Emma or Jean?

Robert B

18:14 / 22.02.06

I'm going to go ahead and place myself in the minority here and state that I wish they hadn't done this.

Probably good reason to be weary. Though after the last Joss storyline, seemingly ripped straight from Star Trek: TNG, this seems like it could be loads better. And give me a reason to read the series besides Cassady's artwork.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

18:15 / 22.02.06

I'm with Slim. Does that make me Emma or Jean?

Well, if you are a purist what answer would you choose?

Yeah, thats right, go towards the red head :-P

Optimistic

18:20 / 22.02.06

Are you sticking your tongue out or is that P for Pryor?

The Falcon

18:29 / 22.02.06

Yeah, I'm totally Colleen Wing about this. Pretty lame, I reckon.

Fortunately, I don't have enough money to waste on such fripperies anyway, and I therefore won't have to look at myself in the mirror afterward.

Quimper

18:38 / 22.02.06

omg. Why is everyone being so Lee Forrester about this? It'll be a hoot!

Mark Parsons

18:41 / 22.02.06

I love Cassandra. This hooks me right back in...

Triplets

19:14 / 22.02.06

Cassaday Nova Xavier is good.
Quitely Nova is best.

Aertho

19:18 / 22.02.06

Word.

Billuccho!

20:22 / 22.02.06

Oh, rordy.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

13:34 / 23.02.06

Read the issue last night.

Pretty good "laying the groundwork" storyline. Way better then the Apocalypse crap going on in the other X-men book.

The woman in the hood with white gloves, Madelyn Pryor back Jason Todd style? Jean maybe, back and evil, for some reason? Selene maybe? My main hope is that it isn't a new character, because so far Whedon's own creations in the series have been a bit crap as far as I'm concerned.

Spoilerish question below:

Do we have any idea how Emma could have somehow saved Cassandra Nova? She says in this issue that she did, but last I knew Cassy was thinking she was a kid who looked old

Aertho

13:47 / 23.02.06

Explain for us the reappearance of Negasonic Teenage Warhead.

Lama glama

15:20 / 23.02.06

Negasonic Warhead says in the issue that she dreamed herself back to life. Maybe that's just her power. Of course, it's terribly likely that this is the old cliché of Emma simply punishing herself for her past deeds by dreaming up all of these people. It could also be Cassie No-longer Ernst-va creating the other people, I suppose.

I can't say that I'm especially fond of the line wide bitchification of Emma that seems to be happening. Over in New X-Men she's trying to bump off X-23 in quite a nasty manner. Incidentally, Ernst makes an appearance, albeit brief, in this months New X-Men.

Mr Tricks

16:43 / 23.02.06

I'm wondering if that white gloved robe figure might be a Qlippoth of the ascended White Phoenix of the Crown. I love the fact that this series is working so hard to pick up from GM's work.

Love Emma's secondary mutation being manufactured.

I'm also speculating that Cassandra Nova could simply be a sort of Tulpa... left over from all of the previous conflicts. Perhaps a sort of unifying of opposites between Ernst and the Cassandra Tulpa is located somewhen in their future.

Eskay Doss

19:12 / 23.02.06

Perhaps the members of this new Hellfire club are all Tulpas. The robed figure, Perfection (revealed in this issue to be a woman), is very likely Emma herself. The name fits Emma's aristocratic conceit, and the fact that she's the only one that knows what Emma's really feeling may also suggest they are one and the same. Besides, they both wear the same white gloves.

Perhaps when Jean brought Emma back to life (after being shot and shattered in Grant's run), Emma's psyche splintered, and those broken bits of self took form and independent life. Ernst is still around, and perhaps may be a key player as the story unfolds. At least I hope so. Ernst is a great character just waiting to be used, and an Ernst/Cassandra Tulpa showdown would be fun.

Also, if this is indeed where Joss is going, perhaps we'll see the return of Xorn. If anyone can fix the mess that character has become, Joss can.

Optimistic

19:33 / 23.02.06

Wasn't it Emma who tricked Cassandra into the Shi'ar alien shape shifter blob thing in the climax of that story? My guess is she did something there.

Oh, and did anybody else think the last page was a really poor attempt at a sex kitten Jean Grey?

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

20:34 / 23.02.06

the facial expression in the last panel scared the shit out of me. Were I Scott, on seeing that look it would be "Adios erection, hola late night tv"

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

21:45 / 23.02.06

Wow. Put me in the minority but jesus, this is crap.

I fail to see how a "Emma may be a villian" plot is groundbreaking, interesting or... eh... anything positive. Wheedon will have to pull something amazing out of his ass for me to pay any more attention to this.

MJ-12

00:34 / 24.02.06

did anybody else think the last page was a really poor attempt at a sex kitten Jean Grey?

Isn't that something of the point? That Emma is seriously conflicted with her feelings for Scott?

lonely as a cloud...

07:48 / 24.02.06

Question here - I've read I think the first three or four trades of GM's NXM run...should I read the lot to better appreciate what's going on now?

Aertho

11:44 / 24.02.06

You should read NXM in its entirety on principle.

The Falcon

11:45 / 24.02.06

You should read the lot and then probably just stop. Whedon's tried, he really has, to use stuff from Grant's run but it's all gone to pot ultimately.

Aertho

12:00 / 24.02.06

I feel the same as Dunc. Two overextended and decompressed storylines down, and Whedon's gone for the retcon... of Morrison's work. And better yet, we can't tell if this is real or if it's another telepath-gone-crazy.

There's nothing new here.

FinderWolf

15:08 / 24.02.06

Not sure if I like this or not...I'll go along for the ride for the moment. Maybe the big scheme of "Perfection" is all ultimately going to help Scott and the team? I'm a bit uneasy about the retcon as it ruins Emma's St. Paul/road to Damascus moment, but we'll see.

And yeah, the face on the final page looks a bit odd somehow.

I like the small character bit given to Hank.

Cassaday's Cassandra looks extra-jowly. Could use a slight toning down of the jowls.

Peter & Kitty, very fun. It seems like they almost never had good strong 'we're actually dating and happy for more than 5 minutes' moments, nice to see some here.

FinderWolf

19:46 / 24.02.06

and is 'perfection' this character's super-code name or just a term of endearment by a subservient Hellfire Club members? Or a bit of both?

LDones

21:01 / 24.02.06

I can see how you feel this is a retcon, but...

Where is Whedon dismissing anything Morrison wrote? His only major intimation was that everything that happened post-Imperial was still part of Cassandra and the Hellfire Club's plan. Oh, and that Emma's secondary mutation was engineered.

Emma was unaware she was acting out someone's plan until some unknown point. Still in love with Scott. Saved Cassandra's life by not killing her when they could've, by dumping her into the Shi'ar shapeshifter's body.

She's obviously not comfortable with the current knowledge that her will has not been entirely her own - and we still don't know what the deal is with the mystery figure, or if this is all in her head.

Where's the retcon, aside from the mutation? How is this throwing away anything Morrison did? We still don't know what's happening.

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