Looking back on E for Extinction

[Captain Buttocks]

I've never read the "Morrison Manifesto" in its entirety. Supposedly it is included in https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/9052094?counter=1 the Claremont Papers at Columbia University if anyone has access, report back to us.

Looks like Grant did have more plans for Genosha, including having Gambit 'die' there and become some sort of kinetic ghost. Maybe Polaris/Magneto's recorded message was a recycled version of that.

https://www.xavierfiles.com/2019/10/...ll-on-genosha/

another interesting https://www.xavierfiles.com/2017/03/...ved-the-x-men/ about his run. Evidently he hated Magneto from the start, and that ending was included in his manifesto to begin with. (can someone find that thing...?)

“What people often forget, of course, is that Magneto, unlike the lovely Sir Ian McKellen, is a mad old terrorist twat. No matter how he justifies his stupid, brutal behaviour, or how anyone else tries to justify it, in the end he’s just an old bastard with daft, old ideas based on violence and coercion. I really wanted to make that clear at this time.” -Grant

The Manifesto was included in the first TPB of E is for Extinction, although there were some edited bits, as the book was still being published at the time.

Bits I found most interesting:-

Key role for Moira (as I mentioned earlier) and he wanted Colossus. Both were vetoed by Joe/Bill (using the 'dead is dead' mantra), he took Beast instead for science and oddly enough, someone on his old message board suggested Emma, which he liked, so he shoe-horned her in.

Prisoner X was the original Xorn/Magneto pitch (and it does allude to the reveal by saying "we find out who Prisoner X *really* is and that leads into our big Magneto story" or words to the effect).

I dont recall Storm, Gambit or Rogue being mentioned but it's a long time since I read it. I might try and dig it out of storage if nobody here turns up a copy...

The chat about his Magneto reveals Morrison's biggest weakness to me. For all his talk about mutant philosophy and evolution and culture, he just pays lip-service to it throughout the entire run. There's nothing tangible there to get your teeth into, it's all so superficial, which is fine when A-list artists are drawing it, but is so flimsy at times. When the heroes are stupid and the villains are stupid (and yes, he was having a tough time, but come *on*) there's nobody to root for.

[Lapsus]

Hum, yes, Ian Magneto is a great character… as a bad guy, no doubt about that.

I was going in line with the idea that movie Magneto make everyone sympathetic with the character, maybe raised the popularity but the first trilogy doesnt have any gray area.

Ian played a great role but it was 100% villain, Fassbender play the "Its Complicated" Magneto.

[hulkling]

I was going in line with the idea that movie Magneto make everyone sympathetic with the character, maybe raised the popularity but the first trilogy doesnt have any gray area.

Ian played a great role but it was 100% villain, Fassbender play the "Its Complicated" Magneto.

Fassbender plays the hot magneto that ends up being just horrible.
in dark phoenix: "Erik we can not fight in the middle of the city, if we destroy the main street in a fight between mutants the humans will have reasons to be scared about us"
Magneto: Rises a Train in the middle of the of the street

And the fact that he almost destroys the world because he was full of manpain

[SiegePerilous02]

I won't hold the Scott/Storm thing against him too much since it was an idea that was being kicked around and never saw the light of day.

But bullet dodged.

To be fair, that is Magneto's pre-Claremont core. He had Wanda dance for him. He wanted a mutant homeland from which to lead an army of mutants and take over the world. He was cruel even to his team, especially Toad. Yes, Claremont came in and gave him the Holocaust backstory and all these layers and depth over the course of many stories, but even towards the end of his New Mutants run, his Magneto was already faltering. Then you have his actions in the Savage Land soon thereafter. It's possible Marvel pushed Claremont to steer Magneto back towards villainy for the 1991 series, but even at his best under Claremont, Magneto was on a fragile footing.

I do think Morrison went overboard with what he did in the end to Magneto, but some of his critiques were valid. Magneto's show does get a bit tiresome after a while. Especially modern Magneto, who pretended to be reformed under Utopia, but then goes around like a serial killer in Bunn's solo. There's something dreamy and romantic about Revolutionary Magneto, but that vaneer tends to fall apart if you really dig into it. And Morrison was not even the first writer to compare Magneto with Hitler(I think Lobdell's Eve of Destruction was quite clear in that sense, just before Morrison's run).

Morrison tends to write characters with as much of their full histories intact, across all eras, as if it actually happened to them. For better or worse, that includes Magneto, who was capable of being quite a bastard in the original Silver Age incarnation and I assume off and on throughout the 90s as well. Claremont's take on the character is definitive, but even his original additions to the backstory and characterization are very jarring when they first appear compared to what came before. Don't forget Claremont's first writing of Magneto has him be a sadistic bastard that traps the X-Men in chairs that make them behave like infants. it would read as a massive retcon and letting Magneto off the hook if it weren't for Claremont having a rare decade + opportunity to shape the character and make him better than he was before.

But the dude did try to casually kill some kids from the next generation of mutants when they repeatedly stood in his way, among other things. I definitely wouldn't want Magneto written this way all the time, but in this instance it was Sublime controlling him and ramping up all his worst traits anyway. Nobody at Marvel was paying attention to that apparently, hence the Xorneto BS, but then they missed that Ernst was Cassandra Nova as well.

[CRaymond]

Everyone moans about Magneto when they should be talking about Sublime.

49C03655-901E-408F-8D12-70BEAFF164C1.jpg

[spirit2011]

The Manifesto was included in the first TPB of E is for Extinction, although there were some edited bits, as the book was still being published at the time.

Bits I found most interesting:-

Key role for Moira (as I mentioned earlier) and he wanted Colossus. Both were vetoed by Joe/Bill (using the 'dead is dead' mantra), he took Beast instead for science and oddly enough, someone on his old message board suggested Emma, which he liked, so he shoe-horned her in.

Prisoner X was the original Xorn/Magneto pitch (and it does allude to the reveal by saying "we find out who Prisoner X *really* is and that leads into our big Magneto story" or words to the effect).

I dont recall Storm, Gambit or Rogue being mentioned but it's a long time since I read it. I might try and dig it out of storage if nobody here turns up a copy...

The chat about his Magneto reveals Morrison's biggest weakness to me. For all his talk about mutant philosophy and evolution and culture, he just pays lip-service to it throughout the entire run. There's nothing tangible there to get your teeth into, it's all so superficial, which is fine when A-list artists are drawing it, but is so flimsy at times. When the heroes are stupid and the villains are stupid (and yes, he was having a tough time, but come *on*) there's nobody to root for.

Gambit and Rogue are mentioned, Ororo isn't.

The idea was make Rogue like the movie version, because Morrison thought it didn't made sense for a woman that can't touch be so positive and confident.

Then he also wanted to inverted gambit and Rogue, by making Gambit almost die on genosha and become some energy that Rogue would be pining for him trying to make him mutants again.

The biggest bullet dodged for sure was Rogue.

Magneto thing shouldn't have been retconed. If Morrison is so a good writer, everything he wrote should be canon.
Editorial resolved to save a male character of course

[CRaymond]

The fact that they decided to double up on Xorns and add shapeshifting when they could’ve just as easily used nano-Sentinels to resurrect Magneto is baffling.

Morrison was controversial but what followed was a travesty. There were so many simpler, easier ways to go than Austen. I prefer to skip all that and jump directly into Reload.

[SiegePerilous02]

The fact that they decided to double up on Xorns and add shapeshifting when they could’ve just as easily used nano-Sentinels to resurrect Magneto is baffling.

Morrison was controversial but what followed was a travesty. There were so many simpler, easier ways to go than Austen. I prefer to skip all that and jump directly into Reload.

Barring some of Mike Carey's stuff, I plan on skipping right from Morrison to Hickman in my X-Men library and re-reads.

It'll be like Jean and Magneto never left!

[CRaymond]

Barring some of Mike Carey's stuff, I plan on skipping right from Morrison to Hickman in my X-Men library and re-reads.

It'll be like Jean and Magneto never left!

Honestly, imagine if Krakoan Rez protocols were how ALL the dead were returned. HoXPoX opens with a team comprised of Cyclops, Wolverine, Phoenix, Nightcrawler, Magneto, and Betsy Braddock. We’d all be like... wtfuuuuuu... and then we learn Cavier defeated death itself and all the X-Men are back baby.

[SiegePerilous02]

Honestly, imagine if Krakoan Rez protocols were how ALL the dead were returned. HoXPoX opens with a team comprised of Cyclops, Wolverine, Phoenix, Nightcrawler, Magneto, and Betsy Braddock. We’d all be like... wtfuuuuuu... and then we learn Cavier defeated death itself and all the X-Men are back baby.

This is exactly my head canon for how Magneto came back after Planet X.

Resurrected with Sublime purged from him. With how Hickman utilizes some of Morrison's stuff, I'm kinda hoping we get a reference to what should have really happened.

[CRaymond]

Did we ever learn in the years following NXM that Sublime was in EVERYTHING, and Kick just amped its effects? Given all the “what if the real enemy was inside all along” lampshades, it’s too bad merry mutants never learned the inherent violence of superheroism was intentionally implanted.

[spirit2011]

The fact Emma abused her position and she totally should have been called out by that because seriously who would trust her as a therapist after that?, doesn`t mean Scott was sexually assaulted, probably it`s just the art but it was obvious, at least to me, since the begining she was flirting with him and called it therapy but it was him who agreed to keep going with her for it.

That would make Cyclops look really bad, but I don't think it is on the execution. The therapy was taken seriously by Scott, he even asks about it. I think there is shades as she made a pass into him before, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't act professional.
Morrison wrote sexual assault on his batman run, he made Damian being conceived when Thalia drugged Bruce. It wasn't present on the story that inspired Morrison.

Yes but Jean`s relationship with Logan wasn`t made up by Morrison So if we are gonna tackle it probably it would be better to bring the motivations of all the characters involved.

there wasn't a relationship with Logan. It was him that started the kisses, it was a attraction at best.

[SiegePerilous02]

That would make Cyclops look really bad, but I don't think it is on the execution. The therapy was taken seriously by Scott, he even asks about it. I think there is shades as she made a pass into him before, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't act professional.
Morrison wrote sexual assault on his batman run, he made Damian being conceived when Thalia drugged Bruce. It wasn't present on the story that inspired Morrison.

Talia is painted as a villain due to it though.
If Bruce is even remembering it correctly. A flashback in the later issue shows the drugged drink as being untouched when they get down.

there wasn't a relationship with Logan. It was him that started the kisses, it was a attraction at best.

Jean reciprocated in a lot of the kisses.
It's not as if the movies and cartoons that used this dynamic before Morrison's run even came out pulled this stuff out of nowhere. Claremont even preferred the pairing due to being bitter about the whole Madelyn situation

[spirit2011]

Talia is painted as a villain due to it though.
If Bruce is even remembering it correctly. A flashback in the later issue shows the drugged drink as being untouched when they get down.

First thing Bruce do is ask that she drugged him; there was other retelling that had it 100% consensual.
A huge numbers of readers think it was rape

Jean reciprocated in a lot of the kisses.
It's not as if the movies and cartoons that used this dynamic before Morrison's run even came out pulled this stuff out of nowhere. Claremont even preferred the pairing due to being bitter about the whole Madelyn situation

There wasn't a lot of kisses. one time she threw him away, other he asked when he was about to die, on austen run he forced the kiss.
It wasn't anything serious or a treat. even the kiss on Morrison run was about Scott and not their attraction

The delays were due to art, Quitely is known for doing four pages a month. Marvel admitted as much in the letters page of issue 119. The lateness was nothing to do with scripts. If it was - how could Kordey draw it in a week? Also - the last issue to ship late was issue 120 in 2001. The book ran completely on time from 6th January 2002 when the Nuff Said issue shipped.

Indeed the book shipped 14 issues in 2002 after getting back on track.



I'm no calendar expert, but reasonably sure July 2003, when Morrison left (specifically 20th July at the DC panel in SDCC), happened BEFORE October 2003 when Jemas left. Do you even read what people post? Oddly enough - that actually refutes you saying Joe Quesada saying the row didn't happen, because the reported reply from Joe when Morrison made his famous quote was "Forget him! He wont be here much longer anyway!" (Due to Ike Perlmutter getting angry phone calls IIRC)

You are right. Morrison was announced as DC exclusive on july 2003.

They had 3 artists, script not being late turn things easier to put right into schedule without sacrifing artists with 2 weeks to draw a issue

quitely barely draw some issues

[SiegePerilous02]

First thing Bruce do is ask that she drugged him; there was other retelling that had it 100% consensual.
A huge numbers of readers think it was rape

Bruce was cuddling with her afterward, the drinks were untouched when they started having sex, and only brought up being drugged when she started talking about getting pregnant.
Talia's even deliberately playing up the femme fatale and orientalist theme villain cliches to get his attention because she knows it's what his childish superhero mind responds to.

It's ambiguous because Morrison, as revealed in his script for Arkham Asylum, views Bruce as kind of childish and has a limited view in some of his interactions with women. They are either his sainted mother or the sexy femme fatales.
From Talia's POV, she's still a creep for even trying to use the drug even if it was ultimately untouched. And the narrative doesn't change that she's a damaged person, the product of being raised by her whack job father and her discarded mother's only bit of advice is to act like a femme fatale so everyone underestimates her. No wonder she's so screwed up (and the first time I've ever found her interesting).