Grant Morrison's New X-Men

[AbnormallyNormal]

I meant the later years of his initial X-Men run.
I suppose I should have said late 80's...

Fair enough although I don't think I agree about the quality dropped

I do think it got very very very continuity-heavy and Claremont basically assumed that every issue, the readers had great memories stretching back quite a long time

There is a reason basically nobody remembers anything during this era of the X-Men because it got replaced with probably its most iconic era ever shortly thereafter

I still think the issues are very good though just "harder to get into"

[out of control]

Sorry for ressuracting this old thread, but i finished reading New X-Men by Grant Morrison Omnibus short time ago and didn't want to open a new thread to just say a few words about it.

[spoiler] I stated to read The X-Men's Morrison run with big expectations but overall, it was too crazy for my taste. Shi'ar Empire people's designs were just so bad. Uncool has a new name and it is Shi'ar... lol Pantomex was mostly poor guy's mutant Diabolic. Xorn turned out to be Magneto was ridiculous. I liked the Wild Sentinels idea though. Weapon 10 idea was creative as well, but i am not sure if i want to call Weapon X Program the Weapon Plus Program and call wolverine the Weapon 10...

I loved Marc Silvestri's art in the last arc, he drew one handsome looking cool Logan, i especially loved the blue jeans, yellow tiger stripes t-shirt and cowboy hat combination costume that Logan wore. Wolverine is my favoite Marvel character after all, so a cool looking Logan was what took my interest the most.

I couldn't help but chuckle each time the Megamerica, Panafrica etc. names came up in Morrison's crazy X-Men future but i liked how Morrison brought up and tied his Cassandra Nova, Sublime and U-Men stories in the end. He wrapped the whole run up in a good pacage with a begining and end. that was not bad. I give a 6/10 to the run.

Note: When i think about it right now, i can't remember any explanation about how Cassandra Nova became a good guy in the end... I think Morrison didn't explain that... [/spoiler]

[PhoenixStudies]

She was Ernst. Ernst was Cassandra after being re-programmed in Stuff.

Ernst's conversation with Magneto in Planet X and Cassandra being good in Here Comes Tomorrow will make sense with that understanding.

A lot of folks, including some writers and editors, missed that.

[out of control]

****SPOILER******

Ernst was the old lady looking little girl in Xavier's school right ? I don't even know what her power is, she really didn't do anything for the entire run. All i remember from the conversation between her and Magneto is she was asking where did Xorn go, that Xorn was so nice that she missed him. Magneto finally snapped and was like '' Xorn was not real, i was Xorn ! how many times do i have to repeat !'' or something... i don't remember any other conversation between them... May be my brain fails me... lol

[Celestialbodies]

Quitely's art works because he works well with Morrison, but he has real trouble making characters look attractive (I think he managed it with Lois in "All-Star Superman" though). Jean and Emma certainly didn't look like the sexpots they usually are, but then that's part of the whole concept of the run - nothing is exactly like it was before.

I don't think Morrison hated Magneto, I think he just preferred him as a villain. Writers had been trying to turn Magneto back into a villain for more than a decade. Morrison's version only became notorious because it was the first attempt that really, truly worked. And it worked because it was based on something true: no matter how noble a terrorist's goals may seem, no matter what persecution he's been through, most terrorists just are in it because they like killing. If he thought this would be the end of Magneto, he was fooling himself just like every writer is fooling himself when he thinks his story will never be retconned away. But as a climax to his X-Men run, it works, because the story is about generational conflict and Magneto is a guy who is a great symbol of mutantkind to the younger generation, but is, in person, just a horrible old man.

The best thing about Morrison's run was that it was a personal take on the X-Men after a decade when the franchise was mostly impersonal. Harras pushed Claremont out because he wanted the editors to have more control over the growing X-franchise, and from then on, writers on the big X-books were basically interchangeable; not only does every writer from that era have horror stories of having their work rewritten and replotted at the last minute, but everyone was forced to write in an imitation-Claremont style. (Joe Casey asked if he could write an issue of Uncanny without captions and thought balloons, and he was literally laughed at.) Even Claremont's return really seemed more like imitation Claremont. Morrison not only brought a completely un-Claremontian writing style, with the widescreen panels and the lack of narration and thought balloons, but a style that was clearly his own and nobody else's. It was the first time since the original Claremont run that you could pick up an X-Men book and see one person's style and ideas guiding it. That's something that hasn't happened very much since Morrison left, either.

It probably is true that a lot of people like it who weren't regular X-readers before, but that was the whole point of giving the book to Morrison and redesigning the logo and the costumes - to bring in people who hadn't been reading the X-Books before when they were so densely written, and had so many characters, and had so many crossovers with other books. Marvel did a lot of stupid things in a the name of bringing in the elusive "new reader," but this actually worked.

As someone who has sung Morrison's praises for years on these boards, my opinions surrounding their run has changed
I will ALWAYS have a soft spot for his run because that was the first run I truly remember engaging with in comics. However as someone who has grown to know these characters a lot more Morrison's work on the X-men reads like pessimism. Their work felt like they were better than the property, and character choices felt OOC for no reason other than they could make changes I don't have a real opinion on what they did with Magneto, what I didn't understand was how the version they portrayed was related to anything that came before. The way they haphazardly left the state of the X-men upon their departure also didn't help things imo

[Triniking1234]

She was Ernst. Ernst was Cassandra after being re-programmed in Stuff.

Ernst's conversation with Magneto in Planet X and Cassandra being good in Here Comes Tomorrow will make sense with that understanding.

A lot of folks, including some writers and editors, missed that.

Did they really call Adult Ernst in Here Comes Tomorrow Cassandra? I thought they drew her with Cassandra's appearance but the floating brain was supposed to tell readers she was actually Ernst.

[PhoenixStudies]

Did they really call Adult Ernst in Here Comes Tomorrow Cassandra? I thought they drew her with Cassandra's appearance but the floating brain was supposed to tell readers she was actually Ernst.

It was telling us that Ernst was Cassandra all along. Ernst was Cassandra after she was trapped in Stuff and reprogrammed to be good (by Xavier and Jean).

She is Cassandra Nova and good in Here Comes Tomorrow. She was referred to as Cassie and Miss Xavier and she tells Tito to refer to her as Cassandra Nova and she mentions her brother, Charles Xavier. She tells Martha that she can still call her Ernst in New 153. She had chosen the name Ernst when she became good because her favorite music artist was named Ernst. In New 154, it is implied that she and Martha have been a team for a long time (because they had been since Martha and Ernst were friends).

[out of control]

It was telling us that Ernst was Cassandra all along. Ernst was Cassandra after she was trapped in Stuff and reprogrammed to be good (by Xavier and Jean).

She is Cassandra Nova and good in Here Comes Tomorrow. She was referred to as Cassie and Miss Xavier and she tells Tito to refer to her as Cassandra Nova and she mentions her brother, Charles Xavier. She tells Martha that she can still call her Ernst in New 153. She had chosen the name Ernst when she became good because her favorite music artist was named Ernst. In New 154, it is implied that she and Martha have been a team for a long time (because they had been since Martha and Ernst were friends).

Oh, this clears all the questions in my mind. Thanks alot. Man, You remember all the little details, you have a brain like a computer... I am imperesed.

[Sutekh]

****SPOILER******

Ernst was the old lady looking little girl in Xavier's school right ? I don't even know what her power is, she really didn't do anything for the entire run. All i remember from the conversation between her and Magneto is she was asking where did Xorn go, that Xorn was so nice that she missed him. Magneto finally snapped and was like '' Xorn was not real, i was Xorn ! how many times do i have to repeat !'' or something... i don't remember any other conversation between them... May be my brain fails me... lol

There was a suggestion that she had super-strength, and tied to her appearance as a little girl / old woman. She was basically both her own alpha and omega, and had the Collective Man-like ability to channel all the strength she would have through her entire life, in any one moment during that life. If she might live seventy years, she's got the strength of a normal human woman, multiplied by every day of her life!

But then, she also kind of looked like Cassandra Nova, so instead she was mysteriously supposed to also *be* Cassandra Nova, somehow. Since both were active at the same time, if not in the same scene, it was not clear how that was supposed to have worked. Time travel? More than one body? Never really addressed, that I saw.

Obviously, I preferred the first notion. Cassandra Nova bored me. An evil Xavier. Sigh.

My favorite parts of the Morrison run were the students.

Dave, Keratin, able to grow out the keratin to form claws or even body armor? Dana / Polymer, able to create slippery slicks or rubbery sheets of polymer? (Best girlfriend ever, able to make condoms *and* lube!) Frida / Contact, psychometry, allowing her to pick up Nightcrawler's sword and use it as well as he could by tapping into the muscle memory resonances lingering in the blade? Slick, able to form an illusion so real, so convincing, he was able to fool a long-term girlfriend into thinking he was six foot tall and ripped, when he was three foot tall and... not. (Very not cool use of that power, but think about the utility of that sort of power. He can make you *feel* stuff. "Hey sucker, I'm holding a gun. Bang. I just shot you. *Feel* the bullet tearing through your vital organs, the warmth of the blood pooling down your abdomen, the chill and the numbness and the blurry vision as it all starts to fade away. Psych. I don't have a gun, I don't even like guns. But you can keep the pain and shock and trauma of being shot. My gift to you." "Hey, you over there. I have a chainsaw. This might sting a bit, before the gut-wrenching agony kicks in..."

Tons of creative characters, with, IMO, entirely too much time expended on (characters I didn't like) like Glob and Quentin and Beak.

[out of control]

There was a suggestion that she had super-strength, and tied to her appearance as a little girl / old woman. She was basically both her own alpha and omega, and had the Collective Man-like ability to channel all the strength she would have through her entire life, in any one moment during that life. If she might live seventy years, she's got the strength of a normal human woman, multiplied by every day of her life!

But then, she also kind of looked like Cassandra Nova, so instead she was mysteriously supposed to also *be* Cassandra Nova, somehow. Since both were active at the same time, if not in the same scene, it was not clear how that was supposed to have worked. Time travel? More than one body? Never really addressed, that I saw.

Obviously, I preferred the first notion. Cassandra Nova bored me. An evil Xavier. Sigh.

My favorite parts of the Morrison run were the students.

Dave, Keratin, able to grow out the keratin to form claws or even body armor? Dana / Polymer, able to create slippery slicks or rubbery sheets of polymer? (Best girlfriend ever, able to make condoms *and* lube!) Frida / Contact, psychometry, allowing her to pick up Nightcrawler's sword and use it as well as he could by tapping into the muscle memory resonances lingering in the blade? Slick, able to form an illusion so real, so convincing, he was able to fool a long-term girlfriend into thinking he was six foot tall and ripped, when he was three foot tall and... not. (Very not cool use of that power, but think about the utility of that sort of power. He can make you *feel* stuff. "Hey sucker, I'm holding a gun. Bang. I just shot you. *Feel* the bullet tearing through your vital organs, the warmth of the blood pooling down your abdomen, the chill and the numbness and the blurry vision as it all starts to fade away. Psych. I don't have a gun, I don't even like guns. But you can keep the pain and shock and trauma of being shot. My gift to you." "Hey, you over there. I have a chainsaw. This might sting a bit, before the gut-wrenching agony kicks in..."

Tons of creative characters, with, IMO, entirely too much time expended on (characters I didn't like) like Glob and Quentin and Beak.

I can't tell if Ernst and Cassandra Nova were in the same panel at any point in the Morrison Run... I just took PhoenixStudies' word for Cassandra Nova was reprogrammed in the stuff computer, machine or something and turned into Ernst. I don't really remember that part very clearly. All i remember is Cassandra Nova was trapped into somekind of machine or something and prof x and Jean were aducating her in a virtual realty class or something so that checks up with what PhoenixStudies say, but i don't remember the details very well.

[PhoenixStudies]

Ernst and Cassandra were NOT active at the same time during Morrison's run.

Later in Whedon's run, he brought Cassandra back and didn't realize Ernst was really Cassandra, making them co-exist and making everything convoluted.

[Odd Rödney]

Ernst and Cassandra were NOT active at the same time during Morrison's run.

Later in Whedon's run, he brought Cassandra back and didn't realize Ernst was really Cassandra, making them co-exist and making everything convoluted.

Lol, nice one Whedon. Guess he didn't do his research. Still, not the worst thing he's known for.

I'm glad you cleared that up as I too was confused about Ernst and Cassandra. It has been a good while since I read those runs though, in my defense.

[out of control]

Thanks alot for clearing everything, PhoenixStudies. I read New X-Men by Grant Morrison Omnibus in 2 years... I had to give breaks to it because it suffocated me to read it none stop, it was not really my thing so i took many other comics that i enjoyed more inbetween reading it. That is why the details are blury for me.

[Sutekh]

Lol, nice one Whedon. Guess he didn't do his research. Still, not the worst thing he's known for.

I'm glad you cleared that up as I too was confused about Ernst and Cassandra. It has been a good while since I read those runs though, in my defense.

Yeah, I was never clear on it. Some things seemed to change between Morrison and post-Morrison, like the whole Xorneto nonsense, or 'No-Girl' (Basilisk's imaginary girlfriend his friends made up to convince him that a girl he couldn't see was sweet on him) was conflated with brain-in-a-jar Martha Johannsen, or the drug-fueled telepath 'Kid Omega' went from needing a drug to be half the telepath one of the Cuckoos was to being an 'omega' telepath *and* a telekinetic *and* a Phoenix host candidate, which made me sometimes feel like nobody actually read the Morrison run, after Morrison left the building, and just sort of randomly changed people around, confused their names, etc.

[Odd Rödney]

Yeah, I was never clear on it. Some things seemed to change between Morrison and post-Morrison, like the whole Xorneto nonsense, or 'No-Girl' (Basilisk's imaginary girlfriend his friends made up to convince him that a girl he couldn't see was sweet on him) was conflated with brain-in-a-jar Martha Johannsen, or the drug-fueled telepath 'Kid Omega' went from needing a drug to be half the telepath one of the Cuckoos was to being an 'omega' telepath *and* a telekinetic *and* a Phoenix host candidate, which made me sometimes feel like nobody actually read the Morrison run, after Morrison left the building, and just sort of randomly changed people around, confused their names, etc.

Yeah, a lot of that was dealt with in a very "hand-wavy" sort of way, it seems.