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Underground > Comic Books >

New X-Men 125

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The Natural Way

09:00 / 18.04.02

S'not really "coming out of nowhere" - I've assumed the Beast's gay for ages (as, I'm sure, has Grant). But not being interested in humans, I'm keen to see what kind of "guys" he hits on..... Grant's playing the "OTHERNESS!!! GET USED TO IT!" card to the hilt. Groovyness. Art was better than last time, but still a bit rubbish (yeah, Flux, I'm positive Kordey's pencils are fudging the info, and that double spread w/ the ad stuck in the middle of it..... What the fuck?) - pretty entertaining ish, though. Really looking forward to the conclusion. Don't buy the "Cyclops saves the day!" thing, Flux - this is clearly Charlie's fight, innit? But I'm sure everyone will play their part.

Matthew Fluxington

13:02 / 18.04.02

I think that every single X-Man plays their part - it's set up that way, and it was already hinted at earlier with the "we'll beat her with cooperation, she has no concept of cooperation" line from Jean. I think that Scott is going to do or say something that's going to be important...I'm pretty sure that the way Scott was icy and calculating while Cassandra was attempting to rip him up means something - if not just to show that Scott is so far gone emotionally that vicious little insults won't get him down.

I don't really know what to expect from Charles - he has barely been in this series so far, so I don't know what he might do with Grant writing him. I'm sure we're going to get a lot of revelations and all the Cassandra/Charles stuff will be cleared up.

About Henry - that character has always been very camp, every since the very beginning. Some writers wrote him fruitier than others - if you ever look at comics in which Chris Claremont wrote him, or old issues of The Avengers, this isn't much of a shock.

13:24 / 18.04.02

Plus he wears an ascot from time to time. That's pretty much a dead giveaway.

A

15:09 / 18.04.02

in the Invisibles, the AIDS virus was revealed to be nano-robots that attack the immune system, which is exactly what the nano-sentinels are in this issue.

Kordey's art was much better this issue, for the most part. I didn't realise that was a two-page spread split in half. no wonder it didn't make any sense.

"Bum-face". that's gold.

The Natural Way

15:18 / 18.04.02

Yeah, I liked "bum-face", too.

15:43 / 18.04.02

Arthur, I wasn't sure if Beast was taking the piss or not either. I guess we'll find out. And now the first couple of pages actually make sense. Maybe I'll cut them out and put them back together properly.

Zoom.

Matthew Fluxington

15:55 / 18.04.02

Well, it's just the same to bend the page back so that the images fit together....

16:03 / 18.04.02

Oh yeah.
Hee hee.

Zoom.

16:21 / 18.04.02

If you do the page foldover thingie there's a caption bubble that forms and says 'What, Me Worry?' .

17:58 / 18.04.02

I'm astonished at the split double-page spread. That's a colossal error.

I'm curious if it is perhaps part of why editor Mark Powers was fired a few days ago...

Matthew Fluxington

18:08 / 18.04.02

An editor could be fired for an error that minor, relatively?

I imagine if they were looking for reasons to get rid of him, that may have been a decent one...

18:12 / 18.04.02

I hate to say it but as far as AD sales go content is what fills up the spaces between ads-

The premium ad space for sales is the right hand page- the earlier the better - If marvel's ad sales dept. could get a high premium price for early right hand pages on their biggest selling title- you better realise that the story would be the first thing to be sacrificed...

Having said that its good to see marvel actually havving lots of ads in their comics as opposed to a lot of DC titles where apart from the covers there is rarely an interior ad that is not a house ad

19:02 / 18.04.02

"That was Mr. Logan, our most Shadowy & mysterious member of the X-staff."

yawn - thing's buddy

20:53 / 18.04.02

hmmmm. i don't think grant's 'space between the panels' scripting style works with an artist as shit as kordey. Philip Bond - yes. Quitely - yes. Igor - no.

A year on, I'm finding this title tedious.

I need filth.

now.

bumface? - didn't ennis fart that one out years ago?

This is not a title that will attract new readers to comics. production values, advertising, poor art and some wonky scripting (meaning some great writing and some really bad shit) just won't tickle the collective fancy.

I'm off. But then I always thought the xmen were crap.

that said, x-force is sooo primed for buffyvision. I hope it happens.

Matthew Fluxington

22:46 / 18.04.02

If Kordey wasn't drawing some of the issues, the issues would not come out on time, and you'd all be complaining about that instead.

Murray Hamhandler

23:09 / 18.04.02

I'm kind of half-hoping that Beast really does turn out gay, if only to expose the old X-Fans that have stuck around to something that they may have thought that they'd never (or rarely, at least) have to deal w/in their X-books.
Arthur Sudnam, II

23:35 / 18.04.02

I don't think the beast is actually gay. In context it seemed like the classic "You dumped me, now I'm dumping you" situation.

And Igor's art is much improved this issue. I can live with it now...

02:07 / 19.04.02

It was always Bobby Drake that pinged my gaydar, but who's asking?

yawn - thing's buddy

07:14 / 19.04.02

nah flux. I wouldn't complain if quitely was the only artist and it was shipping late.

I do think that kordey is really harming this title tho.

The Natural Way

07:56 / 19.04.02

Yeah, I don't think Yawn's criticisms can be dismissed that easily.

The 'between panels' thing? I was thinking exactly the same thing myself.

The 'gay' thing: Beast isn't petty enough to toy w/ Trish's head like that. And, remember, Grant's recently mentioned a 'stunning revelation' emanating from the bigbear area. Not only that, but I understand the evolving sexuality thing as part of the whole mutation/evolution theme that runs through this comic. Grant's trying to introduce as much alien stuff to a mainstream title as he possibly can - that just seems so obvious to me. The X-Men is about otherness, for fuck's sake.

So he's gay.

Alright?

I really enjoyed that sequence w/ Cyk and Cassy, esp. the way Scott probes the contours of the immensity w/ his mutant vision - like a blind person, or a scientist. Unlike Flux, I'm not sure how much damage she's doing w/ her words, but I like the way he talks as though she's a lab animal, or summat.

Matthew Fluxington

11:53 / 19.04.02

About Kordey - look, I don't think the guy is appropriate for New X-Men. At all. But he's not entirely awful, and he is capable of drawing a lot better than he has in New X-Men when he's not rushed or forced to draw alien superheroes.

Conspiracy theory: I think that part of why Mark Powers may have been fired could have to do with hiring Kordey for New X-Men. It may have been one of Grant's grievances with Powers, instrumental in Powers' dismissal. Remember: Kordey got this job not because of Morrison, but because of the fact that he is pals with Powers.

I really enjoyed that sequence w/ Cyk and Cassy, esp. the way Scott probes the contours of the immensity w/ his mutant vision - like a blind person, or a scientist. Unlike Flux, I'm not sure how much damage she's doing w/ her words, but I like the way he talks as though she's a lab animal, or summat

no, no! I think that she was doing NO damage with her insult attack, and her whole confrontation with Scott was half-assed because she was terrified of him for some reason - otherwise, why wouldn't she just try to kill him? It seems like she knew that she couldn't fuck with Scott... I think that it does have to do with how Scott was just standing there, sizing hir up.

The Natural Way

12:41 / 19.04.02

Maybe I wasn't clear: I'm not sure Cassy was failing to get through Cyk's clenched emotional armour. I mean, by 'sizing her up' he was effectively absorbing himself in another activity, as opposed to listening to what she had to say....
That's it, Scott, focus on the job at hand, ignore the nasty woman... Why? Because she can hurt him. Perhaps she doesn't see him as a threat. Perhaps she really does think he's a mess. I mean, Scott's intense, cyclopian focus - it's part of his neurosis. Remember Logan's words in the X Wing "That's what I admire most about you, Summers - your icy calm lunacy under pressure." The operative word here is "lunacy". Scott needs to thaw out, to lose focus, to split, crack...whatever. I think the sequence w/ Cassy only serves to underline his nuttiness - it's a classic example of Cyks "Icy calm lunacy."

Apologies for awful punctuation and grammar - rushing this.

Matthew Fluxington

13:05 / 19.04.02

Ah, see now I like yr interpretation a lot more, Runce.

I guess I'm still a bit caught up in the "how will they beat hir?" thing...

The Natural Way

13:25 / 19.04.02

Just think it's gonna be an X-version of the "Lost one...come home.." type-thing.

Look, Cassy is birth trauma. What defines her? Fear, anger, hate - her whole thing/world/universe is defined by her struggle in the womb. Charles just has to reintegrate this poisonous stuff. Fuck knows how all this'll take place plotwise, but I can guarantee the themes. I think.

Cassandra'll be redeemed before the whole things through.

And I'm not really sure Cyk will (or, indeed, can) have a great deal to do w/ that process. It is, as I've said before, a matter for Charles to deal w/, and Charles alone
(well...p'raps w/ a little help from Jean).

Professor Silly

15:52 / 19.04.02

Runce,

Are you suggesting they might have Cassandra and Xavier reintigrate into a single body/persona, with all the complexity that might entail? Sort of reminds me of the first story with Karma I just read in "The Complete Frank Miller Spider-Man" (which was written by Clairmont, by the way).

16:39 / 19.04.02

I'm liking that reintegration theory. Cassandra's a gnostic demiurge (or 'mummudrai' or 'immensity' or whatever), and what do you do w/ gnostic demiurges when they get too big for their britches? You eat them. That's what Jack Frost did in the invisibles.

Also waiting for cerebra to achieve some sort of machine sentience, but that's something to discuss on down the road...

18:41 / 19.04.02

isn't that what happend to Cerebro?

as for scott... I think Cassanda got him with the Black Bug Room thing... but that could only work once considering Scott's experiences... "Tough as a roach" remind you of anyone?

To me they reached a stalemate... Cassandra could no longer effect him, even with the lame threat of another Black Bug Room & Scott couldn't bring himself to do any damage to Charle's body.

Still, I suspect a combination of Scott's "leadership/focus" and Xorn's POWER... will play a major role. Perhaps she will be absorbed into the Sun of Xorn brain...

wouldn't that be a sort of enlightenment?

02:40 / 20.04.02

If it it weren't for Morrison's comment about a major revelation from the Beast, I would assume Hank was joking. Considering Morrison's own sense of humor it's still possible that he was joking. But it doesn't seem to be "coming out of nowhere," remember that the Beast has been undergoing radical genetic mutations.

03:38 / 20.04.02

Is the Beast's being gay all that major a revelation though? What he said to her after that, about not wanting to have a relationship w/ a human being I think is a bigger thing. What did Edie say to Orphan over in x-force, about having their own mutant morality and not apeing the humans' outdated systems?

And what's this about cerebro now?

14:31 / 20.04.02

On the previous page, flux said: "What are the Cuckoos planning? What could they do with the Cassandra DNA? I'm not sure - are they planning on finding a way to exploit her apparent healing gifts? Any ideas?"

I reckon the only way they're going to get rid of Cassandra is to kill her - and Charles' body with it. As Jean is now hosting Charles' mind in her own, what are the chances they use the Cassandra DNA to clone a new body for Charles - effectively bringing him back as a woman? It sounds like the type of thing Grant would go for.

yawn - thing's buddy

16:01 / 20.04.02

i wonder if grant had his own birth trauma.

whats his obsession with reintegration?

should he be exorcising his demons (and then eating them) in front of so many children?

I don't know if we shoud speculate on this.

Maybe he's ill.

Maybe we should help him.

oh yawn, your so funny.

ha ha.

yawn - thing's buddy

16:56 / 20.04.02

ok, some more on the beast as homo issue.

ku wote:

'but...the truth is I'm not really interested in a relationship with a human being right now.'

'In fact I think I may be gay.'

right. that's either a poop piece of scripting or proof that beast is not gay.

whadam I tawkin bout?

vell, you see, in the abuv quote we got beast saying he's not interested in gettin down wid humans, and extends this belief by stating he might be gay.

which is a bit insulting to fags, no? ie. gay relationships are not human.

oh dear poor writing.

OR

beast is rambling in order to ward Trish away from him and using the 'I think I'm gay' pater to put her off.

OR

Morrison believes gay relationships are inhuman.

strange shit, man.

Murray Hamhandler

02:30 / 21.04.02

Or Beast just wants to carry on gay relationships w/other beasties.
Arthur Sudnam, II

04:14 / 21.04.02

I'm glad you guys are talking about this comic cause I've quit buying it.

yawn - thing's buddy

12:36 / 21.04.02

Sadmun:

oh, I hadn't thought of that.

in fact please just ignore my previous comments.

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