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Underground > Comic Books >

New X-Men #137

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01:03 / 13.02.03

Heerz a spoiler-containing preview, ye hoorz.

I had to read it now.

Matthew Fluxington

02:13 / 13.02.03

Nice. I'm wondering what that bit with Charles looking quite shocked behind the angry diamond Emma is all about. Looks exciting.

06:24 / 13.02.03

i enjoy looking into the future via advanced copies.

*spoiler-esque*

within a couple of pages morrison makes cyclops the MAN!

the art is top notch quitely. some gorgeous panel work.

the cuckoos become...."inspired".

and...."I'm the inhuman torch!" had me laughing 'til i stopped.

23:16 / 13.02.03

OoOoOoo... could Herman Glob be the much-heralded fatality?

13:43 / 15.02.03

Hey krakaboom,

Can you tell us if Jean is in this issue? If she is, does she do anything cool?

So far I think this riot arc is great.

22:32 / 15.02.03

nope. not one drop of jean.

23:02 / 15.02.03

Thanks for replying.

Its been too many months without Jean. The riot storyline is good quality but I'm getting a bit bored without Jean. Oh well I guess we might have to wait for Murder at the Mansion for Jean to show up.

Matthew Fluxington

01:36 / 16.02.03

I would think that there is a very good reason for Jean not being around for the Riot. It's definitely not an accident.

Also, the majority of the issues of the first half of the year were dominated by Jean, I think it's only fair for us to see more of Scott, Xorn, Emma, and Henry.

16:30 / 16.02.03

There's a very good reason that Jean isn't there - the X-Men are without their moral centre/conscience.

I'm intrigued by what Xavier's looking so horrified at - especially with an angry looking Emma right infront of him. Perhaps Morrison's going to throw us off kilter again and the X-men will thrash the Omega gang this issue only Emma goes too far. Either that or she goes mental after one of the Cuckoos is wounded.

I also like Xorn's reaction in the shadows. He could crush Quentin down to the size of a pinhead with his gravity powers but will he step in or bide his time and pick up the pieces, in one way or another?

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

16:00 / 19.02.03

It's not like wow...it's like WHOA.

No small amount of horrible death in this one. I'll wait till everyone else gets it to comment tho.

22:42 / 19.02.03

Not a terribly insightful comment, but -

Xavier, p.8 - tape on mouth.
Xavier, p.11 - no tape on mouth.
Xavier, p.19 - tape on mouth.

Whuh?

Matthew Fluxington

23:10 / 19.02.03

I was just going to mention that. My only guess is that on page 11, it's a non-literal image of Xavier, showing his anguish. But if that's the case, I think Frank should've opted to not have the helmet on. I don't know, I think the page would've been fine, if not better, without the anguished shots of Charles.

spoilers, folks.

Great issue, it went by really fast. I'm extremely happy with how everything Quire is turning out - he's just an obnoxious, pretentious, ambitious kid. I'm hoping that he ends being rehabilitated now, that's the sense I'm getting, given that he's fairly repentent at the end of the issue.

I quite like that the kids are all acting like kids, full of stupid pride and ego. It's really a shame no harm has come to Tattoo just yet. I really can't stand her.

Scott's a very literal man, isn't he? "The next joker gets a broken leg', and then he does it. It's nice to see him actually do something, it's been months now. He's the only real superhero in the comic, it's nice to see him do something superheroic for a change.

I really like how I didn't have any idea where the story was going coming into the issue, and I'm happy with how it all went down. I didn't see the Cuckoos playing into the story this way at all, I thought they would be more passive.

Matthew Fluxington

23:12 / 19.02.03

Best line of the issue naturally goes to Emma:

"Oh, for heaven's sake! Sieze the school and THEN what? And then what?"

SecretlyClarkKent

00:10 / 20.02.03

I just finished re-reading most of New X-Men this past week before handing off the entire series to my boyfriend to read. I realized, as I was reading it, that the best part of the entire series [after Morrison's stories and Quitely's art] is Emma. This issue was no failure in the Emma department. Actually, it wasn't a failure in any department.

SPOILERS:

Despite my distaste for Quire's character, I was happy to finally see someone fuck with Wolverine's mind with little thought or bravado.

The look on Quire's face before the Stepford Cuckoos attack is priceless, and a grand example of why Quitely is perfect for the series. Not only does he look shocked, all of the anger is gone and he looks downright boy-ish, like he should. I only wish he could have looked more like an angry boy throughout the series, rather than a crazed lunatic.

Speaking of anger and shock, I don't ever want to see Quitely draw Xavier shocked or horrified ever again. But that's just me.

The panel where the Cuckoos attack Quire: absolutely gorgeous and amazing.

And, to finish it off, I really hope that Emma doesn't lose her anger before she gets to punish Quire for Sophie's injury. The Cuckoos are easily the second most interesting characters after Emma [although Xorn rates up there] and it bugs me that the comic cut right after revealing the effects of Cerebra's usage when mixed with Kick. There's not much that Xavier, or anyone else, can really do to Emma when she's in diamond form, is there?

I have more comments, but I can't remember them.

-Jared

00:36 / 20.02.03

Wow. I really liked this issue alot. I don't have any insightful discussion all i want to mention is how much liked....

S

P

O

I

L

E

R....
The stand off between Tattoo and Frost. That was so much fun to read.

Favorite line of dialogue...

"I suppose you think this is some between youth and experience? Anarchy and authority? People like you always miss the point, Quentin Quire. It's all about IN. VERSUS. OUT.

Matthew Fluxington

02:21 / 20.02.03

I'm pretty sure that Sophie's a lot more than 'injured', man.

03:17 / 20.02.03

I haven't read that Origin miniseries, so I didn't really get what was going on in the M.C. Escher panel - or is it merely meant to depict him trapped inside a maze of memories?

Interesting use of Scott's eyebeams - I always took them to be like heat-rays, not solid force. Thought he'd just disintegrate a leg by looking at it, not break it. Kind of neat.

Matthew Fluxington

04:25 / 20.02.03

Yeah, it's always been established that Scott's beams are physical force, though some artists have made the mistake of making it seem more like heat in the past.

I didn't read Origin either, but my understanding is that Logan grew up as sickly kid named James in the 1800s, and I think that's about all you really need to know for that panel. You know, he's just stuck inside a warped version of a deeply buried memory.

Matthew Fluxington

04:31 / 20.02.03

Careful inspection of that panel reveals a lot of care and thought put into it by Frank - you can see Logan being operated on (presumably by the Weapon X program), some samurai types fighting (Logan's spent a significant chunk of time in Japan), a classroom, an i.v. next to his bed from his sickly youth, a few Colonial-era scenes, a lonely attic, and Cerebra.

Oh yeah...and it looks like all the women have Jean's current hairstyle.

04:36 / 20.02.03

So, what's the death toll then? Two? Dummy and The Cuckoo? The special class did a little less than I expected them too. Martha hides behind Beak, and poor Dummy's protective suit is ripped in half by shrapnel. While everyone else holds their hands over their faces because of the bad smell from Dummy's death, Beak holds the empty costume in his hands. Poor Beak.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

10:00 / 20.02.03

You know, I'm thinking. (Wait, that'll be important later). Professor X? With the whole tape on his mouth? I think he put it back on. I mean, his hands are completely untied at this point and I think he wanted to explicitly confront Quentin with his thoughts (one might read: dreams) and prove to him that they were more important that speaking or, metaphorically, rhetoric. Quentin, of course, has no interest in doing anything other than speaking. For all his supposedly Omega Level telepathy, not once does he attempt to speak to someone in their minds, he merely points them in directions with it or traps them somewhere. He does a whole a lot of speaking though, even uses a megaphone at one point.

The best part is, Xavier has absolutely no control over the situation. In the middle of his grand, dramatic, orchestrated confrontation, the Cuckoos (read: chaos) come along and take matters into their own hands.

I like the linking between Dreams and Telepathy that has been going on in the whole series. It brings a nice new depth to the whole point of Xavier's X-Men.

Matthew Fluxington

13:55 / 20.02.03

That's a great theory about the tape, Benjamin. You should send that in to Marvel, they'll give you a No-Prize.

Seriously, I think it was just a goof. And Xavier's hands are tied behind his back while the tape was mysteriously absent.

It appears that a lot of innocent bystanders get hurt (killed?) in the riot - there's lots of people in the background throughout the issue fighting and getting wounded.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

14:44 / 20.02.03

I think it could have easily fallen off due to the force of his agonized shreiking, quite honestly. And he's in no hurry upon walking out of the place and would have had plenty of time to remove it, as he does when the Cuckoos approach and his grandiose gesture is undercut (and as he did when he removed the helmet). It could be a goof, certainly, but I like to believe that both Quitely and Morrison's attention to detail and Marvel's freewheelin' ability to alter artwork to fit editorial needs would have caught it at some point. If he found a way to free himself from the helmet and the ropes, the tape would've been no problem and most likely would have come first. What with all the tortured yelling.

15:22 / 20.02.03

Emma stands out in this issue - she goes 24 carat on the Omega Gang's collective arse. Contrast how she handles the situation with Xavier's pathetic posturing.

I really like the mirroring here - Quentin coveted Xavier's position and both of them - and their dreams - end up looking pathetic. In contrast Emma and the Cuckoos are dynamic, ingeneous and courageous.

Ironic that despite his "see through" mind - which can strip away people's self-image - Quentin could not see through his own image - which is exactly what the Cuckoos do - strip his mind down to reveal a foolish, arrogant, posturing boy.

I rather expect Emma to challenge Xavier's deam after this - interesting that Logan tells Quentin he sounds more pompous than Charles ... the Riot may have only lasted minutes but the ramifications are deeper than Quire's psi-talents. When Jean gets back I can really see the teachers at each other throats.

Xorn's inaction in this issue was also troubling. Why didn't he do anything? He could literally have brought everyone to their needs with his gravity powers.

Again Charles' inability to deal with this Riot contrasted sharply to Xorn's handling of the U-Men.

Matthew Fluxington

15:38 / 20.02.03

Well, I hate to be a pedantic stickler, but going back to that weird no-tape Charles screaming bit - how does he even know what's going on? He's got the helmet on! I'm sure he can hear stuff going on, but still. If it were up to me, when the comics are collected, I would have those images removed from that page. They're really unnecessary and just get in the way.

One of the llittle things that I liked in the issue was the reminder that Emma hasn't had the best luck with her students - her Hellions were a bunch of thugs who ended up getting murdered, her Generation X students didn't turn out to be much, and her Genoshan students were all wiped out. Sure, Emma may have some good ideas and be a good challenge for Charles, but fairly or unfairly, she doesn't have the best track record as a teacher. And then this whole mess with Sophie dying, it just adds up.

I'm surprised that Xorn didn't do anything, but I reckon that has more to do with Grant wanting the story to happen without some godlike figure stepping in and fixing everything. Xorn's powers can too often be a boring deux ex machina, and I'm glad that Grant doesn't abuse that. Same goes for the Cuckoos, but at least this time, it all backfired.

15:50 / 20.02.03

No I think Grant was right for Xorn not to save the day - it adds to the feeling that Xorn's bidding his time and he will end up running the school.

Your right though, "troubling" was the wrong word to describe his inaction. I don't think he's planning to usurp Xavier - it just seems that he's more atuned to the cosmic forces that Xavier feels are shaping humanity's destiny. He can restore life or destroy the world - he really is beyond human rules while Xavier is still bound by them.

BTW I don't see that he would simply defer to Cyclops or the other teachers given how he handled the U-Men's attack on the Special Class last issue.

Yeah, Emma's got a poor track record but post-Genosha she's been a lot more on the ball than Xavier.

Matthew Fluxington

16:08 / 20.02.03

I don't know, I really doubt Xorn is "biding his time" or that he will eventually be running the school. I think the guy was just a) overwhelmed b) unwilling to interfere c) deferring to Scott, Henry et al who have seniority over him.

I think it's also a case in which it would have been ridiculous for Xorn to alter the natural course of the story simply because he has the power to do so. The story is a lot more dramatic having a bit more reality to it - that's why Xorn is idle, that's part of why Jean is absent. The story becomes a little too easy with them around.

16:23 / 20.02.03

Xorn:
I thought it was perfectly appropiate for Xorn to stadn back a little... His whole comment on shifting human gravity or some such. I figure his grasp of the essance of what was going on allowed him to remain equanamus as the individual dharma(s) where played out. On a smaller scale I'm sure he has great respect for Cyclops (how kicked royal ass btw... demonstraiting his ability to do exactly what he says) and would wait for word from him to take any overt action.

Think Xorn will go after Herman and SKOOL him kungfu stylie?

16:57 / 20.02.03

Xorn's idleness:

I don't have the book, so I don't know for shoor, but one thing that Grant has done thus far in this book is make everything very natural and not a showcase for mutant power grandstanding. Grant's first words in the book areas Cyclops: "Wolverine. You can stop doing that now."

Hencer, the proliferated increase in telepathy wars. Telepaths have always been the ridiculous trumps in any battle, which is why they consistently lost their powers so often. With New X-Men, they are only doing what's natural, and that is: fighting without moving, controlling every action, and going over heads by going through them.

So here: a Riot started by a telepath's angst, killing without conscience, and believing himself in some kind of control. Xorn probably quickly and accurately assessed that he would be needed AFTER the fight to help heal the injured. Assume now what would happen if he used them trademark gravity powers to halt the battle succinctly? With wild and dangerous telepaths, living or dead is just a matter of flicking a switch. If Xorn had trumped QQ by using those powers, he would've made himself a target for quick assassination. Instead, he let the "Good" telepaths hold their own on a battle only they could fight. See now why Xorn is so cool?

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

18:17 / 20.02.03

I also think it's implied heavily that Scott Xorn and Hank are going to do serious clean up and that's when it's Xorn's time to shine!

It wasn't till Hank cleaned his glasses that I realized that he's Giles and New X-Men is structured exactly like a Buffy-style TV show. Ending pages that are so tremendously solid, they practically scream for an Executive Producer Grant Morrison credit to add the final beat. Characters that don't show up for whole issues (episodes) but their presence is vaguely implied (i.e. "We don't have them signed for a whole season of episodes so they'll just be on the sidelines or mentioned").

The first hardcover reads exactly like a really great season of a TV show (which is why I didn't mind the artist changes too much. You can't have every episode directed and written by Joss, although at some moments it was like, say, David Fury writing the season finale. [ack! too many Buffy insider references!]).

And this is why the whole book works for me.

Thanks for cleaning those glasses, Beast! I wouldn't have figured it out without you!

And Flux, to desecrate the horse's corpse a moment further, I didn't think Charles "saw" it, but hearing and imagination undoubtedly freaked him out enough. It is HIS dream getting shat on.

19:11 / 20.02.03

Okay, I just ran out to get my issue/episode of New X-Men. I completely agree and love the television structure of it.

I think Xavier DID put the tape back on. And I think Sophie is DEAD. And I think I want to change my favorite character ever to White Queen. And I get the creepy impression that Xavier wasn't shocked so much that Sophie died, as that he couldn't sense her death.

I want QQ's rehab to be him becoming a Cuckoo. It's necessary for them to be a five-in-one, one died, and who knows what that effect will have on them as a unit. Sure, he's a boy, and he's Omega-level, but so what? Perhaps becoming one of them will serve as a nice reminder to everyone that we must annihilate opposites...

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

19:25 / 20.02.03

God that would be fucking perfect, Chesed.

Matthew Fluxington

19:51 / 20.02.03

You think so? I'm not crazy about that idea at all, it seems very contrived. I think part of the point is that they will have to learn to NOT be 5-of-1, breaking up the hive mind and embracing their own identities. We don't even know three of their names! The Cuckoos need to find out who they are outside of the context of themselves.

I don't think that Quire's lesson doesn't have much to do with that at all, aside from his crush on Sophie.

20:44 / 20.02.03

Oh I agree, Flux.
I think eventually, the Siamese brains will have to separate so that they can grow up.

in the meantime, The girls and boy may have to help fix each other. I agree that it seems contrived too, and very nineties plotlineish, but I can see where it would hold some kind of significance.

One thing I've noticed is that they don't seem psychic with each other when it's just them. When others are around, they do the creepy hive-brain.

22:35 / 20.02.03

Great portrayal of telepathy in this issue. Quitely's art really got across how the Cuckoos stripped away Quentin's own self-image.

Quentin's rebellion may have achieved nothing but Xavier's dream now looks as shallow and meaningless as the Omega Gang's agenda. Makes you wonder how Charles will pick up the pieces.

Emma's comment to Quentin at the end of the issue - "You didn't think this through at all" - could just as well have been aimed at Xavier. He clearly didn't think through the consequences of taking in so many students. The X-Men haven't been up to the job at all. Again I go back to my US foreign policy analogy - it's like the CIA training and arming guerrilla groups which end up turning on them.

(Lots of war on terrorism overtones in this issue as well - e.g. Glob Herman, suicide bus bomber.)

What does the Prof use Cerebra for next issue with Quentin defeated - damage limitation by wiping the media's minds? Psychically sedating the remaining rioters? He needs to reassert his authority.

The contrasts between the male and female characters are really stark in this issue as well - Quentin and Charles pontificating, each planning dramatic showdowns, while Emma and the Cuckoos just get stuck in without any bullshit.

I liked the way Emma dealt with the rioters in diamond form rather than telepathically as well. Given Esme's comments about tragic fates of her former pupils, it made me think Emma knew she could only deal with this situation without being troubled by her memories of their deaths i.e. shutting off her emotions.

(It also made me wonder yet again whether she's learned to integrate her telepathy and her diamond form, so that she can deflect psi attacks - otherwise she'd be taking a risk with an Omega level telepath on the loose. I guess we'll find out soon enough when she goes up against Jean.)

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