X-Mutants ( The "all -things- X" topic)

[Rollo Tomassi]

Prompted by anarky's mention of Fraction and Land on Uncanny, I found this from Wizard World LA.

I'm going to give Fraction a pass since he's co-plotting with Brubaker and that seems to work well on Iron Fist. But the whole "Hey were moving to San Fran! Why? No reason. La ladeda deda dedoo..." They aren't so much a team as just hanging out and people are coming in and out of the series, like, whatever y'know?

It's like the whole X-Universe is in a state of "Meh."


It's Marvel's frustrating decision to try and keep the X stuff seperate from the Avengers stuff. but since the Avengers stuff now includes Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and everyone else it's hard to justify from a story aspect to keep the mutants separate. Civil War? The Initiative? World War Hulk? Xavier's kids used to be knee deep in the Marvel U and now they are thrown tangential, periphial bones in the forms of Limited Series or what have you.

Plus, what is with the new X-credo "Find the enemies and KILL THEM!" that Cyclops has adopted? Is he a fucking skrull? X-Force, and now Young X-Men are both based on the premise that the X-Men are now preemptive ass kickers. Not a school.

Has the X-Universe ever been in more dire straits than it is now? And I don't mean "Ohmigod, theres only 200 mutants left they are fingting for their lives!" I mean creatively, the whole thing is bankrupt. I don't really like Peter David that much, but he's turning out the only decent X-book right now with X-Factor. And even that I'm not X-cited about....

[anarky]

Okay, I'm not reading the books, and it seems obvious Cyclops is a Skrull from the little bit of info I have.

First, he cheated on Jean with Emma. This isn't a matter of "I like Cyclops, and I want him to be honorable." Cyclops and Jean was one of the great love stories of comics. He isn't going to simply get bored and drop her for a semi-reformed villain, even if she does have a mutant power to never actually put on a second layer of clothes. He certainly wouldn't have full-on hooked up with her, what, two days after Jean was killed.

Grant Morrison can get away with it. No one else can. And, besides, everything else Morrison did has been retconned.

Second, the whole "Professor X is in a coma, woe are we!" How many times has Professor X been killed? I don't mean comatose, I mean dead (disregarding the fact that he always got better)? Cyclops would know more than anyone (except maybe Jean or Storm) how important it would be to carry on. It's what Professor X wanted.

Third, a Cyclops-sanctioned wetworks team? Two of them, in fact? So wrong and out of character it's not even funny.

Fourth, telepaths (even Professor X!) can't detect these Skrulls, who seem to have been doing an amazing job of impersonating folks. I'll explain this one later, as it's really important, methinks.

Fifth, Emma has to explain to Cyclops what a Celestial is. How long was the storyline in X-Factor where they dealt closely with Celestials? I understand the story was written by one of the guys with almost encyclopedic knowledge of backstory, so it's unlikely that this was an oversight and that every editor and assistant who looked at the book missed this, too.

Sixth, the interviews over the weekend indicated the X-Men would "re-assemble," but how would be a secret.

Here's my bet: "Cyclops" was one of the first infiltrators. He was chosen because of his position of authority within the X-Men, as well as his close contacts with three powerful psychics. It was a sort of test as to how well they could conceal themselves from telepaths. Once it was clear that this was not an issue, he began to sow discord. How better to do it than to start an affair that could potentially shatter the X-Men into two camps? And Emma's so fucking full of herself, she was oblivious to it.

Another Skrull impersonated Xorn. That's the only possible explanation they can come up for the mass of conflicting retcons there. And killed Jean.

After the Magneto/Xorn/Xorn's Brother/We Don't Know/Skrull fiasco in Manhattan, the relationship with Emma was more "above the table." This elevated her to a position of greater power. Sure, she had experience with Generation X, and she was pretty certainly confirmed to be a "good guy" by this point, but some resentment must have remained.

After the next massive crossover (which must've been known to be coming; these guys have to be used to massive battles involving all the teams every few months or so, their time), he used the excuse of Professor X being shot to disband the X-Men. Taking them more or less out of the picture at the time the major invasion begins. Storm is no longer in the picture, and Jean is dead, so no one would question his authority.

And he also plays to the more violent tendencies of some of his teammates, allowing them to play dirty, likely hoping they'll discredit the team as a whole.

So, what if the psychic defenses weren't strong enough, and he was found? There's enough plausible deniability of a full-scale invasion. All he'd have to do is claim this was an attempt at revenge on Professor X and the Summers clan for their involvement with the Shi'ar.

[jjreason]

Entirely possible. I read Uncanny 496, more beautiful art and it was nice to see Kurt, Peter and Logan enjoying a brew together in a backwater bar (albeit in Siberia). X-Men 208 on the other hand has already disapparated from my memory - it's like I never even read the book - yesterday.

Okay, now that I think a bit more about it there was some pretty nice John Romita art covering the part of the story where we're in Prof X's mind - even though he's comatose and being maintained by Exodus. Oh, and Magneto's back again.

Read Wolverine Origins (whatever number came out last) as well, and it's not bad. Logan and Deadpool fighting, Deadpool being crazy. I love the creative team on this book, but it seems VERY much like they're being held back on the story that's REALLY supposed to be told here. I'm going to hang onto it until Dillon and Way are done - with any luck they'll get a chance to show Wolverine figuring out who Romulus is, and separating him into many parts. That would rock.

I also bought the first issue of the Logan miniseries, but since it's only going to be 3 issues I'm not reading it until I have the whole thing.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

I picked up Young X-Men #1 yesterday...

What the FUCK is going on with the X books lately? Cyclops is acting like a complete douche. is this intentional or do the editors and new writers on the X books just not adhere to anything thats come before?

I'm thinking Cyke IS a skrull or some baddie is posing as Scott to dupe the rookies into forming a new X-Men team and go after the "New Brotherhood"

OR

The old New Mutants really ARE the New Evil Brotherhood, these books have jumped the shark, and everyone in the X-office has ceased to care about anything because the Avengers books are kicking their asses in sales after 30 years of being on top.

Sad.

[jjreason]

We have to fight the power and rebel by not buying shit until they're back down to a reasonable number of books. I think that's the only way things can turn around. They "core" X-books (whatever the fuck THAT means anymore) are ALWAYS still way up there.... people MUST - HAVE TO BE buying them just to have complete runs. Honestly... why the fuck else could convince an otherwise normal person to part with money for X-FORCE????? Very confusing.

[anarky]

Y'know, given that new issues aren't worth jacksquat three months down the road (unlike the golden days of speculation), one could pass on them knowing they will cost cover price or less at a convention a year later. If enough people did that, it could send a message.

[jjreason]

Could and should - but I still can't seem to stop buying Uncanny. This time it was issue 497, the third part of Divided We Stand (in Uncanny, though this premise is running through all of the x-books I'm assuming).

It was actually pretty good. Piotr, Logan and Kurt got trapped in Russia by some big-ass robots (Russian Sentinels basically) but still managed to kick some ace. Scott and Emma are investigating "the Goddess", a new super-power responsible for creating a big time-shift in San Francisco that has the whole city hippied-up again a la 1969. 2 fairly good storylines and some sweet-ass art made this book worth the money.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

I hated that cover and was prepared to hate the issue, but I really enjoyed Choi's art. The story is mediocre and I feel like its a filler storyline until we hit UXM 500. Which pisses me off that the editorial staff thinks because you have a landmark issue on the horizon you can take a five month, five issue, $15 break until then. Fuckers.

[anarky]

This is apparently the real cover to a book that collects the new X-Force #1-3.

A lot of people are praising it and saying they'll re-buy these issues just for this cover. I think it's funny, but not "all that."

[Diabolical]

Comicbookresources.com has a preview of Giants-Size Astonishing X-Men #1 (without words).
It does show something that was already confirmed in Secret Invasion #1.
Looks like its actually coming out May 21.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

That link bounces back to this topic, silly.

[jjreason]

Try this one - I'm not sure if they modified his or not:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page ... e&id=16217

Fucking AMAZING.

[Diabolical]

That link bounces back to this topic, silly.

Huh, weird. Its posted now, so it's all good.

[Diabolical]

Grimlock suckles the cock.

Looks like GIANT SIZE ASTONISHING X-MEN #1 will finally be out Wednesday.

[jjreason]

Uncanny 498 was good. I don't mind the San Francisco storyline, and it's gotten a lot more interesting seeing the last pages of this issue. I'm really not sure about Matt Fraction coming on board - are they going "Amazing" on us and running 2 creative teams or something?

Still haven't read GS Astonishing yet - being totally spoilered (as well as about 4 months too late) has pretty much taken my excitement about that book away. I hope it comes back when I start reading it. I've got about 3 issues of (formerly New) X-Men Legacy to catch up on as well as the Colossus one-shot and the latest issue of Origins - I'll report back when they're read and put away.