X-men Blue 34 discussion

[Knives]

And Magneto has a throne again? We move from his dialogue at the end of BLUE #33 to a throne? There is no reason for this. I'm sorry, Cullen Bunn is a DAMN GOOD WRITER, a prose writer, a graphic novel writer, and he couldn't think of a better reason to bring Magneto to this point? Because there is no reason for this crapping up Magneto as a character. Some of you are satisfied with this sh*t, but Marvel owed it to all of Magneto's and the X-Men fans to be fair about this. Like I've said many times before, we invest a lot of money, time, emotional energy into these characters, into comic books, into the X-Men, and we support Marvel for years and years. And this is the best that Marvel can do?

Toad hates Magneto, has fought against him, and never wanted to work with him again. But of course, who cares about consistency or continuity when the goal is to go backward and recreate the Silver Age because someone at Disney or Marvel demands it.

And where is Polaris? No more Polaris, no more Magnus Family. I'm sure Polaris will appear in another X-Men book, given the popularity of THE GIFTED and Emma Dumont's Lorna. But it'll be all "I hate daddy" and "daddy is a monster" from now on.

All cliches, all PIS, no more character development for Magneto.

I understand how you feel but remember that writers often do not make the decisions and should follow what the editors decide which seems to be the case here.

The same applies to the O5s that were imposed on him because marvel and Bendis did not fix their own mess when they should and let other writers take responsibility by need to tie the loose ends and holes in the plot. Of course a lot of things will not make sense because Magneto's journey should never have come to cross the O5's time travel mess.

[MarvelMaster616]

This was a great issue with a powerful ending. Cullen Bunn has done more than anyone to get Magneto back to basics. This issue really helped complete a journey he's been on for a while now, going back to Magneto's solo series. It feels like he's truly back to form as the villain he is at heart. It looks like that whenever the X-men reform themselves after Extermination, he'll be waiting and I can't wait to see him in action again.

[jmc247]

And where is Polaris? No more Polaris, no more Magnus Family. I'm sure Polaris will appear in another X-Men book, given the popularity of THE GIFTED and Emma Dumont's Lorna. But it'll be all "I hate daddy" and "daddy is a monster" from now on.

Lorna's story basically ended the second Havok's inversion was lifted as that is what it was really about all along. The Magneto stuff was a faint for rehabilitating Havok and putting their relationship into a state where it can go to the next stage again under another. She had two goodbye scenes with her ex first in Cry Havok. Its most certainly a sign of what is to come for the character going forward and I have no interest following more three decades old recycled nostalgia for the character that wasn't even popular in the early 90s. Nostalgia goggles obscure that.

[jpmst17]

I didn't think this issue was great. I did like the end with Magneto though. it seems like the x-books are getting back to the basics. villains being villains again and popular heroes coming back

[PsychoEFrost]

Yeah... not a fan.

Mags has not fared well in Blue. Rotating between psychotic at the best of times, and pointlessly dumb at others. Where was the blame for Emma for everything that happened?

[rutog98]

My feelings exactly. Are there two Magnetos? This issue made no sense. Clearly editorial interference that called for a swerve in Magneto's character-arc. I do not like to see this return to Asteroid M and the old costume, and stupid Magneto who is a plot-puppet. Magneto is the same as we've seen for the last 4 years when he gets to the future (BLUE #33); he is saying he doesn't want homage for doing such damage. This continues into this issue #34, until about half way in, then the adult O5 talk to him. Scott and Hank say hypocritical, nonsensical things to Magneto, Jeen keeps saying (how many times has she said this now?) I shouldn't have teamed up with you, I should have stopped you, yadda yadda yadda. Then there is a pointless fight. (And really, a little mutant boy stops the battle of all this mutant power with a bonk on Beast's head? How does that stop all of them and knock the rest of them down?) This might be the worst comic Cullen Bunn ever wrote, if he even really wrote it.

Magneto then disappears back to his own time. Nothing is resolved about the future timeline. Nothing happens to justify ANY changes to Magneto's personality as it has been evolved for the last 14 years! The O5 were pointless in this.

We're at "NOW" in the book, and Magneto is saying goodbye to Danger for what reason? He's visiting the laboratory of emotional-robotics for what reason? He destroys the lab for what reason? He raises a statue to himself, like he did when he was psychotic during the Silver Age, sometimes when he was suffering from a psychotic break in 1990s comics, but for what reason? There is ZERO explanation for Magneto's sudden return to stupid villain status. Suddenly we have Asteroid M--a big hunking space station. When did that get built? And another bunch of mediocre mutants for a new "brotherhood." But why? What in-story reason to collect this bunch of mediocre, loser mutants? Only Exodus being there makes any sense. Were these the left-over mutants that other writers didn't want?

And Mothervine. The story is moving forward, Magneto is forced to kill mutants to survive, he suddenly has an attack of the stupids and blames Emma Frost for everything. He *immediately* hunts her down in the most ridiculous, inefficient, half-assed way based on what Briar tells him--BLUE #31. Magneto is in his old costume again, he's snarling like a Silver Age cartoon villain again--something made him like this. We're told it's something he witnessed in the future. But now we've seen the future. Nothing happened to make him like that. In fact, he finds out about Mothervine before it happens. Why doesn't he do something to stop it, then? He has a f*cking time platform, he can return to the past at the exact moment before Mothervine starts. But no, in BLUE #34, Magneto returns to "NOW" and is still reasonable, not at all concerned with Emma Frost or Mothervine, and is blowing up future-Reaver labs.

He's still Bunn's Magneto until he raises a statue to himself--because? it makes people look upon his works and despair? Magneto isn't that stupid. Marvel seems to have to dumb him down, make him a cartoon villain, and can't let him return to the adversarial role in a natural, consistent, good-storytelling way. Raising statues to yourself doesn't make people despair and fear you, it makes them laugh at you. Magneto knows that. That's why in the past he did things like bring Avalon down hovering over New York, scaring the sh*t out of people, making them launch the "Magneto Protocols."

So, the reasonable Magneto--still an anti-hero when he brings down the lab that would eventually build the Reavers--is still reasonable in the art and writing when he becomes Marvel's plot-puppet and raises that ridiculous statue to himself (in his old costume of course). You can see the moment there, when good writing and good sense are thrown out the window.

When did Magneto take time out to chase down Emma Frost? Back in the old costume, then backs down and becomes reasonable again when Jeen confronts him. So the moment he leaves Jeen in BLUE #32 leads directly to Asteroid M, the terrible times coming for mutants, guiding mutants? When does he say goodbye to Danger? When he is building Asteroid M again? So, Magneto is making these momentous plans to save mutantkind, building Asteroid M, collecting another batch of second-hand mutants (except for Exodus), and he pauses in his progress to take time off to go on a ranting rampage to hunt down Emma? *Well that's over, Jeen calmed me down, back to work.*

And Magneto has a throne again? We move from his dialogue at the end of BLUE #33 to a throne? There is no reason for this. I'm sorry, Cullen Bunn is a DAMN GOOD WRITER, a prose writer, a graphic novel writer, and he couldn't think of a better reason to bring Magneto to this point? Because there is no reason for this crapping up Magneto as a character. Some of you are satisfied with this sh*t, but Marvel owed it to all of Magneto's and the X-Men fans to be fair about this. Like I've said many times before, we invest a lot of money, time, emotional energy into these characters, into comic books, into the X-Men, and we support Marvel for years and years. And this is the best that Marvel can do?

Toad hates Magneto, has fought against him, and never wanted to work with him again. But of course, who cares about consistency or continuity when the goal is to go backward and recreate the Silver Age because someone at Disney or Marvel demands it.

And where is Polaris? No more Polaris, no more Magnus Family. I'm sure Polaris will appear in another X-Men book, given the popularity of THE GIFTED and Emma Dumont's Lorna. But it'll be all "I hate daddy" and "daddy is a monster" from now on.

All cliches, all PIS, no more character development for Magneto.

This is how I feel about Marvel treating characters I care about. Yes, we have our favorite characters, and many of them A-listers like Storm, Magneto, Emma, etc. Marvel doesn't exercise common sense and good judgement when it comes to the treatment of some fan favorites. It makes for a lot of lackluster stories loaded with PIS, CIS, and WIS. No wonder why fewer and fewer people are collecting comics. As you've so aptly stated, we readers have invested a lot emotionally and finacially in the characters that we connect with over the years. Marvel doesn't seem to care about that fact. It makes me glad to see the continually dropping comic sales. I hold out hope that the bad sales will finally open Marvel's eyes and start forcing them to produce good stories again that treat the characters with respect.

[Mitteloss]

With all respect to Bunn, this issue certainly confused me too. I concur with what Rivka said, it seems so contrived in particular with regards to Magneto's state of mind and actions.

And I'm still waiting for a conclusion to Lorna's story. Will she get anything independent of Havok? What is Polaris going to do? Atleast Danger got some closure. Still two issues to go...

Art was good

[Master of Sound]

I was hoping to see more of the Riksha. Guess they will be in limbo from now on.

[Havok83]

With all respect to Bunn, this issue certainly confused me too. I concur with what Rivka said, it seems so contrived in particular with regards to Magneto's state of mind and actions.

And I'm still waiting for a conclusion to Lorna's story. Will she get anything independent of Havok? What is Polaris going to do? Atleast Danger got some closure. Still two issues to go...

Art was good

lorna got her conclusion in her last scene with Alex which seemed pretty final. Didn’t think we’d see her after that

[Rivka]

A low note? You call this a low note?




Not everything is gonna be babyfed to the audience. We may not know how the New Asteroid M came into being, but we can assume he built it. He's saying goodbye to Danger because he's seveeing all ties to the Blue team, hence why he's fashioned himself with a new team that he feels is capable of doing what needs to be done without a "Psylocke" or "Jeen" there to check him. And the whole future arc was about events that had happened, inclusing the Reaver Virus. He ensures that never comes to pass once he destroys the lab before they begin any in-depth research. Most of these are things already addressed. And as for the timeframe: After he leaves Jeen, he's literally wearing the same outfit he did when he says bye to Danger, visits & destroys the lab, and erects the statue. Then, fast-forward, we see him on a New Asteroid M with his team. There's enough of a gap to imagine that he recruited the members, got the Mothervine mutants, and made Asteroid M because there is no set time between.

It's not "baby feeding" to explain important plot points in a story. It's called good writing. Asteroid M appears because the plot requires it. I expect better from good writers.

It's not just why he's saying goodbye to Danger, it's his timing--there is no more Blue Team, yet he's sending her on to "take care of the X-Men" and that doesn't make sense. And this "new brotherhood" can do what exactly? It's nothing but nostalgia, a regression. Not a reasonable team, not a reasonable evolution of Magneto's character. The Acolytes made sense, the story was interesting, complicated. It was Claremont trying to retain Magneto's growth as a character vs. editorial interference. X-MEN #1 had internal logic--the Acolytes chose him, Magneto was in a deep depression, isolating himself on Asteroid M. The whole thing was a set up initially by Cortez, for game points, with the goal of assassinating Magneto.

What we have here in BLUE #34 is incoherent, slap-dash, let's throw in a few Magneto-villain tropes. The parts don't add up. The swerve of the story doesn't make sense.

And by the way, if Magneto destroys the Reaver virus, and the apocalyptic future doesn't take place, then how does Magneto see the future that makes him a "villain" again? (Of course Marvel will now say, Magneto destroying the lab--an anti-hero thing to do--will unleash the virus, meaning it was just another way to make Magneto look even more of a villain.)

And there is still no explanation for his rampage against Emma Frost. He leaves "Jeen" in the same outfit AFTER he goes back to the old costume so he can rant and rave and blow up buildings while hunting Emma down. There is no gap long enough to explain how he managed to build Asteroid M, get a pack of left-over mutants together (with Briar?). This is a team of mutants that can get anything done?

And NO, at his "heart" Magneto is not a "villain." Max is a complicated fictional human being, the most human of all the mutants (ironically). When he was young, he wanted to be a hero, but on his own terms (hunting Nazis as a double agent for MI6 and Mossad, for example). Max's reality has been too extreme, his pain and suffering too great, to leave him a conventional "good" guy. He has said, that serving in the Auschwitz Sonderkommando to stay alive meant he was damned, and could never be a hero. But no man of passion, who wants to change the world, even for the best of intentions and motives, ever thinks *if I can't play the hero I'm determined to play the villain.* I refuse to look at my Marvel comics like a 6-year-old's story book. I expect a level of sophistication, of intelligence with my Marvel and X-Men comics. Magneto is motivated by personal pain, and by politics. He wants to protect his people, mutants, at all costs. He's a damaged man who does extreme, terrible things but his motivations are heroic. How do you define hero? If your people are the victims, your country occupied by a bullying great power, and you do terrible things to get your people free, who are the heroes and who are the villains? That's why I hate those terms, I hate the stupid, moronic application of those terms to the X-Men and Magneto and other great characters. This is not how the X-Men work. They are seen as "villains" when they are actually heroes. Can an adversary like Magneto be viewed as an "evil monster" by most of Marvel Earth and still be a hero? Or heroic? To whom? How does Magneto see himself? (And building a craptastic lame-looking "throne" atop a pile of steps like a wedding cake from the Wizard of Oz doesn't provide any answer to, "how does Magneto see himself" it only throws out the question.)

Someone at Marvel made the decision to do this to Emma Frost. Someone decided to do this to Magneto. Many other great characters have been treated to this regressive, constrictive attempt to eliminate character diversity, complexity and development in the last 6 months.I don't know who's responsible, I don't know why it's happening. But it's a crime, a crime against Marvel's greatest characters. This is the baby-food. This is the pablum. Taking complex, 3-dimensional characters and regressing them to antiquated, outdated, 1-dimensional cliches from past eras because Disney/Marvel thinks comic-book readers are too stupid to understand complexity and shades of gray.

[Hephoenix]

Unusciones, 100% sure. And she appeared as a "victim" of Mothervine in previous issues.

Unuscione

Carmella_Unuscione_(Earth-616)_001.jpg

Amelia Voght

Amelia.jpg

[nandes]

Well I thought the end of the Mothervine arc was rushed but the last few issues have been on a whole 'nother level. Sad that Bunn had to end things this way

[jmc247]

With all respect to Bunn, this issue certainly confused me too. I concur with what Rivka said, it seems so contrived in particular with regards to Magneto's state of mind and actions.

And I'm still waiting for a conclusion to Lorna's story. Will she get anything independent of Havok? What is Polaris going to do? Atleast Danger got some closure. Still two issues to go...

Art was good

I think Havok83 was right her scene with Havok was her conclusion in much the same way this was Magneto's conclusion.

One would think after a year in the comics of on and off working with her father to fix something seriously wrong with Havok she would be interested in Magneto's kind of extreme changes, but she said after taking to him in the past she didn't think he would blame Havok or come for him due to Magneto thinking Havok was mentally unbalanced somehow and that seemed good enough an ending note in the story for her.

At a larger level to TPTB Havok is now where he should be and Magneto is now where he should be so everything has been fixed.

[zinderel]

Not happy about Magneto doing a heel turn again, because I really liked the morally grey Magneto who worked with the X-Men, but occasionally killed a bastard who needed dying. He was kinda like old school, pre-sanitization-for-mass-consumption Wolverine. Now, he's back to being, apparently, the megalomaniacal, genocidal, 'mutants first and only!' Villain. Bleh.

But I am weirdly happy to see Marrow again. And, other than Toad - who I wish someone would kill off and never use again because he's just the worst, stupidest 'villain', next to the Blob - I dig this new Brotherhood. IF Magneto is back to mustache twirling, world conquering villainy, I'm curious to see where it goes, and how long it lasts until Magneto is 'killed' again for a while.

[JB]

The majority of the issue, to me, was alright but that's because I'm ready to see the O5 go home. But I found the ending very exciting and Bunn has said in interviews that he always viewed Magneto as a villain and never agreed with Erik trying to follow Xavier's dream. I know editorial forced a lot on him (if he wanted to write the book), so I'm glad he at least is getting to write Magneto in a direction he agrees with. Is it horrible that I want to see this badass Brotherhood kick the O5's asses?