The Sexism of Grand Design

[Mike_Murdock]

I care more about the art than the story; to be honest.

I care about the whole production. He's the first person to write, pencil, ink, color, and letter his own Marvel comic (I believe he was even involved or responsible for selecting the paper stock they ended up with).

[Gray Lensman]

do you really want to read about Xavier perving on kid Jean? because that's her part in the story. Xavier was grooming her.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of Jean's trauma induced insanity (experiencing death and all that) and Xavier helping her out of that - even though I know comics Xavier can be a very dark guy I still prefer the one who tries and occasionally takes the easy route rather then the right one. The human Xavier who slips up from time to time rather than the guy who merely pretends to be a decent human being.

[Mister Mets]

I mean seriously, where are they hiding the women? Amelia Vought? Astra? Bova? Tessa?!?! All pivotal figures in both Xavier and Mangeto’s formative days and not a sign of any of them. But we get to see Scott’s pimp Jack dominate the poor thing in his tighty-whiteys for some reason.

Despite that and some other continuity nibbles I did enjoy this though. But really it’d have been better if they started out with the original O5: when Logan, Ms. Alder and Mr. Raven met Kitty and Rachel in 1920s Scottland. Probably too many women for that I guess.

I doubt it's sexism, as much as obscurity. I've read many of the key X-Men stories (Essential X-men volume one, the Neal Adams run, Uncanny X-Men 94-180, Sienkiewicz New Mutants, Peter David X-Factor, Morrison's New X-Men, Whedon/ Cassady's Astonishing X-Men) and have no idea who Amelia Vought, Astra, Bova, Tessa are.

[Triniking1234]

Amelia Vought showed up for Acolyte stories. She's probably dead.

Astra is a retcon (Magneto recruited her for his Brotherhood but it didn't work out). She's probably dead.

Bova? Really? HAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

Tessa is another retcon character. She's forgotten but she was cool in Uncanny and X-treme though.

[PhoenixStudies]

My comic shop didn't even get this.

How was Jean Grey and/or Phoenix handled in this?

[yogaflame]

My comic shop didn't even get this.

How was Jean Grey and/or Phoenix handled in this?

Eh. I'm too much of a purist to be kind. I'll say they did review the Annie-incident, they did show the Phoenix Force, and they showed Jean helping the team in her debut.

[wano]

My comic shop didn't even get this.

How was Jean Grey and/or Phoenix handled in this?

She's no damsel in distress or love interest

[silence.]

Eh, I don't agree. This is a retelling/mashup. There's not much women involved because ... well lets keep it real, the stories being told didn't involve a lot of women doing much of anything at the specific stories being retold. Even then we saw Moira working with Xavier (#WomenInStem), we saw a Storm cameo, we saw a lot of Jean/Annie/Power potential (More than the other O5 got tbh), and we saw Jean saving everyone, hell the ending was a Jean cliffhanger.

Amelia, Astra, and Tessa did not appear because they were either retcons no one really cares about or no one cares about these stories to begin with. I don't know why you'd expect Tessa to pop up before the Hellfire club, it would've muddied the narrative waters. I'm not stressing that they didn't include the Emma retcon cause it wouldn't have made sense to looking at the aims of this specific work. You could counter with the Mister Sinister bit, but even them he's a big figure in Scott, Jean and the team's character development down the line, which you can't say for the other characters listed.

[silence.]

For goodness sake, does everything have to be identity based? Who cares. This is X-Men. There has never been an all men book that I can remember but we've had all women casts at least twice (or majority women I should say). And if the cast is 50/50 the women quite often took center stage especially under Claremont. It's not a big deal. Don't make it a big deal.

I don't agree with the OPs point but you're literally talking about a franchise where the metaphor is minority identities.

[DDM]

Casey had an all male cast. Then he added a literal prosititute.

[wano]

Casey had an all male cast. Then he added a literal prosititute.

Stacy X? Who's run is casey? For scientific research purposes

[ChildOfTheAtom]

Geez. What’s with all the women hating Cyclops fans?

Cyclops fans troll Storm, Phoenix, & White Queen fans. But they troll Cyclops too though so it's even I guess.

[yogaflame]

This book aligns very closely with continuity established from 1963-1991. So far there hasn't been a single retcon.

-pretty sure it was Magneto's attack on Cape Citadel not Namor's attack on the surface world that really kicked up mutant hysteria(Cyke helped with his blast being seen on live news destroying a construction site). (Namor is principally an Atlantean, and it was an Atlantean army, not mutants per say, though Namor is a mutant too)

-Nor was Brian Xavier/Kurt Marko involved in a relief effort to stop Namor's attack. Brian Xavier/Kurt Marko were involved with a Manhattan Project-like scenario, though and that is attributed as the source of Charles' mutation(but he doesn't go bald until late teens, he has hair as a young child and even when he first manifests).

-Magneto didn't have his powers in the camps. He and Magda survived the camps(the malnourishment kept his powers from activating until much later in life) for a long time, but he did eventually fight back and they escaped(but without his powers, just as a man).

-also, the Anya/Magda scene was much more nuanced than that. Magda doesn't die in the inn fire, only Anya. Magneto is being arrested(he had an unconscious flare up when the boss man tried to stiff him) and can't use his just newly manifest powers well enough to save her in time. As she falls lifeless from the burning heights, the boss man taunts him, says it's all his fault. Magneto loses his shit and his powers just go wild, killing everyone in the town except Magda. He tries to take her hand and walk away and she recoils. She calls him a monster and runs away(already pregnant with Pietro/Wanda, who are born at Bova's help on Wundagore). That breaks his heart and breaks his connection to humanity. It's Magneto's ultimate story and it's been badly mistranslated twice now in this and in Apocalypse.

-Moira and Charles met in grad school, not at a protest. They planned to marry and he joined the war effort. She broke up with him(to marry her abusive local boyfriend) while he was still away(that and losing Cain in the jungles broke his heart). He was not paralyzed in Cain's incident either, that came a bit later(from Lucifer). He went on vacation when his military contract ended, first to Greece(not meditating on a high peak like a monk).

-Charles was just happening to be in Cairo, he wasn't looking for Shadow King, nor did Shadow King intentionally send Ororo to pick his pocket(nor was she ever his slave as a child).

-That is a very poor representation of the Gabrielle Haller situation.

-Charles also just bumped into Magnus in Israel, he didn't know he was a powerful mutant ahead of time(in fact, other than Shadow King and lil Storm in Cairo, Xavier hadn't met any other mutants yet, and hadn't developed Cerebro yet, nor did Moira walk out on him like that(that's more like what happened with Voght, but she came later too).

-Pretty sure the Shi'Ar had their own thing going on in Earth space long before Jean's manifestation, but what a way to make Jean responsible for Scott's family being taken away!

-Cyke did not blow up a hospital upon waking from his coma(Sinister already had him on lock and was suppressing his powers during his experiments on him while he lived at the orphanage). I don't recall him killing anyone either. He left the orphanage because he accidentally blasted a construction site and it was caught on live news. He gets chased by a mob in the city and figures he can't go back to the orphanage. He approaches the homeless men by their fire seeking warmth. Then Diamond Jack takes him in. Xavier did help him escape from him(the FBI contacted him and showed him the footage), but I don't remember it going down like this exactly, but I don't care enough to check.

-Iceman's recruitment scene is basically similar, but I think Bobby killed that dude he froze and the towns people almost lynch Scott(who Xavier does send in after him) and Bobby, before Xavier saves them and mindwipes the whole town.

-Angel's story is basically right, but I think only Hodge was his school mate(and only college, if I remember correctly from early X-Factor), and he had his own knock out gas gun, none of this blackmail or grand conspiracy thing. If anything the Sentinels should be tied into the Council of the Chosen/Hellfire Club through Lang and Shaw's original sponsor Buckman.

-Beast's backstory is ok in the broad strokes(no Toad though), but Jean was not on the team yet and Xavier did most of the heavy lifting(or mind-wiping as is his deal) to save Hank.

-none of this humanitarian stuff with the 05

That's a couple retcons.....

[PhoenixStudies]

Ok, so I just bought the digital copy.

The idea that the Phoenix Force noticed Jean when her telepathy activated as Annie died has been around for a while. It has been a part of her bio for years. And it was sorta implied in the Classic X-Men #43 backstory during Death's conversation with Jean. Is that where the idea originates? Are there any other issues that touch on this?

[yogaflame]

Ok, so I just bought the digital copy.

The idea that the Phoenix Force noticed Jean when her telepathy activated as she experienced Annie's death has been around for a while. It has been a part of her bio for years. And it was sorta implied in the Classic X-Men #43 backstory in Death's conversation with Jean. Is that where the idea originates? Are there any other issues that touch on this?

That part does have a Classic X-men foundation. Annie's death does tie into this all somehow. I think there is even a connection between that moment and the Phoenix and Scott, like Jean could see Scott(in the hospital) or something, but I'm not a Jean/Phoenix expert.

But I'm pretty sure I've seen stories that say the Shi'Ar had scouts in the area long before that(maybe even multiple generations?), they knew this area to be a backwards, unsophisticated civilization, but they already had spies here(Shakari, aka Eric The Red, had been here for some time already).