The X-Men search for answers and a way forward
Originally Published September 2001
We begin with Dr. Hank McCoy's trademark bedside manner.
 |
| What, no "Alas Poor Yorick"? |
Despite Beast's insistence that there is nothing living here (except for some workmen who chide the X-Men for thinking they have any kind of official status but nonetheless invite them to help move debris) Jean senses some thoughts underground and begins to dig.
Buried under the remains of the school is Emma Frost, whose skin has mysteriously transformed into a diamond-hard substance, allowing her to survive the catastrophe. She cradles the remains of young Ellie Phimister, aka Negasonic Teenage Warhead.
Meanwhile back at the school, much like many of us would do in fall 2001, Charles Xavier is glued to the cable news network, mainlining trauma.
They have captured the mysterious Cassandra Nova and placed her in a zero-gravity holding cell designed for the Juggernaut. Wolverine, aware that Nova had used voice codes to activate the Sentinels, has slashed her vocal "cords."
 |
| When she gets her voice back, it's going to be horse. |
In the infirmary, Hank examines Emma and determines the extent of her new "secondary mutation," a phenomenon he links to Jean regaining her telekinesis and his own continued transmogrification.
Jean arrives to try to give Emma the hard sell on joining the X-Men now that Genosha is no more. Her approach -- that Magneto's dead so they're the only game in town -- seems only marginally more tactless than Nightcrawler's toward Chamber. Emma calls her out on it, saying this is exactly the time to get radicalized.
Turning his attention to Nova, Beast surmises that she is neither human nor what they understand to be mutant, but the first of a heretofore unknown species that preys on mutants -- which is kinda funny that she should be a new anything, since she looks at least as old as any of them.
Nova may be here to hunt mutants, but she hasn't got a care for humans, because she seems aware of what Henry himself has just discovered: that deep within the human genome is a genetic trigger for extermination, which appears to have just been switched to on.
That's right, humankind is about to extinguish itself, and honestly, if you look at the landscape here in 2026, you might think there's something to what Hank is saying here.
Anyway, guess who wakes up from her nap.
With broken glass everywhere (and no word about what's going on on the stairs) the assembled X-Men try to mount a counter-attack against their mysterious foe, to no avail.
Scott is sent to his mental "black bug room," where three giant insects stand ready to tell him all of his problems. I hope they've cleared their schedules.
The fight is not going well, and Scott chooses now to try to have a heart-to-heart with Jean about their relationship (on the advice of the bugs.)
The X-Men's first couple pull it together long enough to stun Cassandra Nova while she's locked up with Wolverine, causing her to scamper off in search of her true objective.
Outside, Emma Frost asks her cab driver to take her to a high end jeweler in the city so she can have herself valuated. (I'm dubious she'd fetch much all things considered: yeah, she's a 110-lb diamond or whatever, but her cut and clarity is lousy.)
Instead, she has an "epiphany" and reverses course.
Despite their best efforts, the X-Men are unable to stop Cassandra from accessing Cerebra, which she could use to fry every single mutant mind on Earth, but she only has eyes for one...
But seemingly before she can reach out and touch somebody, she's stopped by a very likely suspect.
Emma, it seems, is a little bit peeved about that whole mutant genocide thing Nova did. Scott expresses his gratitude, saying he knew Emma wouldn't abandon them, but Emma insists she was just coming back for her Louis Vuitton handbag.
Nova, however, is not quite finished, as she writhes on the floor moaning something about Charles this and Charles that. Yeah, we know, you hate Charles, no need to actually form a whole sentence around it, I'm sure.
Before she can say whatever she was going to say, which surely would have been some kind of desperate lie, Charles finishes her off with his Chekhov .45 Special.
The X-Men are stunned, but ultimately pretty accepting of their mentor's sudden turn to violence -- they kinda always knew what he's really about after all -- and Charles declares that it's time for things to change, invoking his famous catchphrase.
 |
| As it happens, this tends to get said by fake Charleses a lot. |
Later, Jean is in bed, watching Charles' latest appearance on the nightly news, with Cyclops once again watching standing up with his arms folded.
Jean determines that now is an appropriate time to have a conversation about their relationship, but Scott isn't so good with talking much. He's been distant ever since that whole "mind merge with a 3000-year-old enemy." Jean tries to relate, given she has literally gone through the same thing. (Well, she has and she hasn't.)
Their discussion is interrupted, however, when Charles makes a shocking revelation for the public...
Support us on Patreon and get access to exclusive posts!
Further Thoughts:
One thing that's a little vexing as you ingest the entire history of the X-Men is what the public knows and thinks about them. As recently as the debut of X-Treme X-Men, the organization seemed to be shrouded in secrecy, even as they continually appear alongside famous mutant expert Charles Xavier, who is supposedly believed by the public at large to be a flatscan human. It becomes a little incredulous, over time, that Charles wouldn't openly be the face of mutants everywhere, but that's taking the story into a whole direction that most writers seemingly didn't really want to go. Leave it to Grant Morrison, then, to open the forbidden door and examine what's on the other side.
Like all of the Morrison-Quitely issues to date, this is an elegant issue because it's so simple but contains so much. It addresses the grief and mourning around Genosha as well as the need to move forward. It also positions Nova as somewhat of a standard comic book villain, but Quitely doesn't depict the fight like a big, intense battle; it carries the same languid, relaxed rhythm everything else does. That's your signifier that something else is going on here.
Which is not to say the fight isn't depicted well -- it very much is, but it's more than that. This is a fight that's meant to take the place of a big climactic battle, but is really just the beginning. After all, could Nova really be defeated so simplistically? Are the X-Men beating their bad guys with neck-snaps and hand guns now? Something is up.
Within the panels are ideas, ideas, ideas. The "extinction gene" is one. The idea of Nova as something that is beyond "mutant" is another (funny, Chris Claremont is playing that song in X-Treme, too.) It's even briefly mentioned that she bears some resemblance to Charles -- what about that? What is the black bug room, and why does it make Scott choose an inopportune time to try to open up to Jean? What is going on in their relationship? There are ideas, concepts and notions that are meant to foretell the direction of the series, and there are ones that are just meant to signify that Grant Morrison is twigged into some crazy frequency and has put a lot of thought into building -- or rebuilding -- this world.
And into all this walks Emma Frost, who is clearly, first and foremost, a conduit for Morrison's bitchiest wit. Her arrival is also an indication that there will be a big focus on clashing personality, that this will be a team of people who might have respect for one another but don't always see eye to eye ideologically -- which the X-Men has often been at its best, but has also often attempted and failed in recent years.
I am very cognizant that, certainly in 2001 and maybe even today, this change in tone, tenor and content was certainly not for everyone. I was skeptical then but I was won over, and now that I've ingested every X-Men comic for the nearly-40 years preceding it, I'm very ready for this. As long as you don't have any particular expectations of what a superhero comic has to do (which anyway I think we can mostly agree the X-Men comics have faltered at for at least five or maybe up to ten years) these may be the best X-Men comics since the very height of the Claremont run.
With every issue, Morrison and Quitely cement their series' status as a true radical overhaul of the X-Men, living up to the hype. If you need something more safe and familiar, by various degrees you can check out Casey and Claremont's contemporary takes, but in terms of doing what they said they would, Morrison and Quitely are just killing it.
No comments:
Post a Comment