The Stepford Cuckoos Appreciation Thread

[Ambaryerno]

What do you guys think about the possibility X-23 is going to be battling *against* them though? What's that about?

A recent interview with Tamaki suggests they'll be working together. The cover to #2 is just a cover.

Link.

[AbnormallyNormal]

A recent interview with Tamaki suggests they'll be working together. The cover to #2 is just a cover.

Link.

Cool it sounds like the Cuckoos will be in the X-23 book a lot. I might actually need to check it out then

[WhiteQueenEmmaFrost]

Cool it sounds like the Cuckoos will be in the X-23 book a lot. I might actually need to check it out then

I'm excited about this now. I was worried they were going to be turned into odd villains.

Turning them back into identical triplets and their also identical ties to Weapon Plus.

[xhx23x]

A recent interview with Tamaki suggests they'll be working together. The cover to #2 is just a cover.

Link.

Yes, that at least is better.

[RBerman]

I don't have a problem with it. Because in Morrison's book it was weird how those characters appeared out of nowhere as pseudo Emma daughters, with Emma calling them my girls, and nobody asked where they came from. With Quentin Quire at least we got to know he was adopted.
IIRC Morrison wanted to make Here Comes Tomorrow like 6-8 issues long, but Marvel didnt let him, so he compressed everything in 4 issues. There is another character who appears "out of nowhere" in the school, that is Ernst, and Here Comes Tomorrow also makes it explicit that Ernst is Cassandra Nova (alothough to be sincere, it was easy to deduce, Ernst appears the next issue after Cassandra is defeated, and Cassandra is defeated by reprogramming her into becoming a student). We probably would have gotten info if Morrison had been allowed to write some more issues.

I also think Sublime is a very underused villain, what they did a few years ago of him DATING Rachel, was extremely stupid. He should have become as big as Sinister.

In his book Supergods, Morrison says that he couldn't wait to leave X-Men and get back to DC to do Seven Soldiers and All-Star Superman. Morrison announced his intention to return to DC at San Diego Comic Con 2003 in the middle of a panel discussion, to the chagrin of Joe Quesada, who was caught off-guard. Morrison would have left six months earlier if he could, because he wanted to work with Jim Lee on All-Star Superman. He was happy with Frank Quitely when the project finally came about, though.

The actual plot of the "Here Comes Tomorrow" arc is quite decompressed and could have been told in two issues if there had been six or nine panels per page instead of 2-4. But that would have required sacrificing all of the Kaballah symbolism he was weaving into the arc. And of course nothing that happens in this arc is canon (except Scott kissing Emma over Jean's grave) since the whole thing is Jean's dying dream.

[RBerman]

the cuckoos remind me of this

that's because the Stepford Cuckoos are based on the Midwich Cuckoos, from the 1957 British sci-fi book of that name, which was subsequently made twice into the movie "Village of the Damned." But people in America don't know "The Midwich Cuckoos" as a thing, so they were Americanized into "The Stepford Cuckoos" to link them with an American "eerie people who are similar to each other" story.

[AbnormallyNormal]

In his book Supergods, Morrison says that he couldn't wait to leave X-Men and get back to DC to do Seven Soldiers and All-Star Superman. Morrison announced his intention to return to DC at San Diego Comic Con 2003 in the middle of a panel discussion, to the chagrin of Joe Quesada, who was caught off-guard. Morrison would have left six months earlier if he could, because he wanted to work with Jim Lee on All-Star Superman. He was happy with Frank Quitely when the project finally came about, though.

The actual plot of the "Here Comes Tomorrow" arc is quite decompressed and could have been told in two issues if there had been six or nine panels per page instead of 2-4. But that would have required sacrificing all of the Kaballah symbolism he was weaving into the arc. And of course nothing that happens in this arc is canon (except Scott kissing Emma over Jean's grave) since the whole thing is Jean's dying dream.

Wait how do you know it's Jean's dying dream?

[lurkerforyears]

In his book Supergods, Morrison says that he couldn't wait to leave X-Men and get back to DC to do Seven Soldiers and All-Star Superman. Morrison announced his intention to return to DC at San Diego Comic Con 2003 in the middle of a panel discussion, to the chagrin of Joe Quesada, who was caught off-guard. Morrison would have left six months earlier if he could, because he wanted to work with Jim Lee on All-Star Superman. He was happy with Frank Quitely when the project finally came about, though.

The actual plot of the "Here Comes Tomorrow" arc is quite decompressed and could have been told in two issues if there had been six or nine panels per page instead of 2-4. But that would have required sacrificing all of the Kaballah symbolism he was weaving into the arc. And of course nothing that happens in this arc is canon (except Scott kissing Emma over Jean's grave) since the whole thing is Jean's dying dream.

it's compressed, very compressed, if you take into consideration Morrison would probably have expanded many of its plotlines, like the relationship between EVA and Apollyon.

[RBerman]

Wait how do you know it's Jean's dying dream?

That is the whole point of that arc. Jean's dying brain is connecting all the experiences of her recent life. She imagines what will happen after she dies and Scott has no one to look after him. (Remember "Wake up, Emma. Scott needs you" back in the Whodunnit issue?) So Jean reaches out through time, past the moment of her death, to push Scott and Emma together. There is no actual future segment in the story. It's Jean's dream NOW, set in an impossible future.

In the previous issue, as Jean Grey is shutting down, we get a two page scene set on the Blue Area of the moon where Jean died the first time, and two astronauts in a pink convertible (because it's a dream) are walking through ridiculous lunar graffiti (it's a dream) to retrieve the Phoenix Egg. Then the very first panel of the "Here Comes Tomorrow" arc tells us outright that the story takes place "here and now," (during Jean's death throes) not in the future at all. That's why the geography of the dream world is all screwed up, with the Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower inside "The Manhattan Crater," which refers to Magneto's ravages in the Planet X story where Jean died. Because it's a dream.

The title "Here Comes Tomorrow" is misdirection, referring to the character Tom Skylark, who is an amalgam of Golden Age characters Tommy Tomorrow and E.E. Doc Smith's "Skylark of Space." The entire story is a Wizard of Oz dream populated by versions of the characters of Morrison's X-Men run. Logan is there to chastely catch Jean and stroke her cheek platonically when she falls. The three Cuckoos are there, and Quentin Quire, and Martha Johannson. Cassandra Nova is there, wearing the French Foreign Legion outfit that she was wearing when Cyclops first met her in Ecuador.

Sublime/Beast is an amalgam of Sublime and Dark Beast and Magneto, terrorizing the earth as each intended to do individually when Jean knew them. Beak is there too, but he's cool and strong, still wielding a baseball bat like he did in the previous issue. Apollyon looks like Fantomex but acts like Esme Cuckoo, fawning along behind her master, looking for scraps. I could go on, but just go back and re-read the story through this lens, and you will see how many of the apparent plot holes are actually brilliant symbols, some derived from Morrison's fascination with Kabbalah and the occult.

[RBerman]

it's compressed, very compressed, if you take into consideration Morrison would probably have expanded many of its plotlines, like the relationship between EVA and Apollyon.

But Morrison wouldn't have, because he already said everything there is to say. E.V.A. and Apollyon represent dying Jean's conflicted emotions about Fantomex, the desire she felt for him (playing out vicariously through E.V.A's flirtation with Tom) but the repulsion of his mercenary nature. This whole arc is not about plot. It's a big bucket of symbols, and the people in it are not actual characters; they are just Jean's opinions of the different people she knows.

[Alex.]

People in this forum seems to hate morrison for some reason, but is there any other writer who we can have such kind of argument, trying to see through his lens or anything like this?

[RBerman]

People in this forum seems to hate morrison for some reason, but is there any other writer who we can have such kind of argument, trying to see through his lens or anything like this?

I completely agree, and this X-Men arc is a case in point. I used to hate it myself. It just seemed dumb and full of inconsistencies and half-realized ideas. But I eventually realized that I was the dumb one, and Morrison was the smart one. We're so used to being spoonfed the narrative and assuming that what we read in comic books is being presented as true within the framework of the comic book. But anyone who's read, say, William Faulkner knows about unreliable narrators, and how often the narrator's story is telling you more about them than about "what happened." Morrison's "Here Comes Tomorrow" is a story like that. It tells us absolutely nothing about X-Men canon. But it tells us a lot about what's inside Jean Grey's head.

[darkalamator]

When will Laura meet/fight the Cuckoos? This week?

[Alex.]

When will Laura meet/fight the Cuckoos? This week?

I believe next week.

[darkalamator]

People in this forum seems to hate morrison for some reason, but is there any other writer who we can have such kind of argument, trying to see through his lens or anything like this?

I love Morrison. I think Claremont and Morrison have been by FAR the best X Men writers.