Dan Apodaca
08-26-2005, 08:09 AM
I found this, and I think a lot of it's really spot-on.
It goes character by character, offering insight and opinions.
Cyclops: Without a doubt, the central character in Morrison’s run would have to be Scott Summers. Prior to Morrison’s run, Cyclops “died” in a sense, becoming possessed by Apocalypse (or his true name, En Sabah Nur as he’s referred to throughout the run). Cyclops acts as a metaphor for the X-Men books as a whole—he’s afraid to change, he’s never been allowed to be anything other than a superhero. In comes Emma Frost, and suddenly, Cyclops discovers a new world that he never knew existed. He feels like he’s suffocating—he feels all these new emotions and has these desires from before. At first, his wife, Jean, explains this as residual from Apocalypse’s possession--“You’re not the only person who was ever possessed by an evil spirit, Scott… the bad feeling goes away.”). Scott’s reply to this comment from his wife shows us that he has changed from the beginning--I don’t know if I feel bad, Jean. I just feel strange and different, that’s all, and I don’t want to hurt you or anyone.” We see other quotes from Cyclops throughout the run that help to identify him as lost, feeling without a sense of purpose or belonging--“I can’t make it feel like it used to…” he says to Jean. It is with Cyclops that the deconstruction of the X-Men mythos begins.
The themes of sexuality are also a very big part of Cyclops and his optic blasts are a phallic symbol. We first discover this in “Germ-Free Generation” when his optic blast strikes the Statue of David in the nether regions. In “Assault on Weapon Plus,” Cyclops is at the Hellfire Club watching as a woman strips and he says it’s sexless and unarousing and there’s a close-up on his visor. After this, he finds he isn’t able to unleash his optic blasts. After Jean discovered about his psychic affair with Emma, he tried to run from his desires, he tried to hide them.
Emma Frost: The former White Queen turned X-Man, Emma represents a hope for the future, a chance for change. She joins up with the X-Men to cause trouble, to shake things up, but she finds herself falling in love with Cyclops, who is arguably the epitome of the X-Men. In this way, Emma is essentially Morrison writing himself into the story. If you look back on Morrison’s interviews which came before his first issue was released, he talked about how he would shake things up. He promised love triangles and soap operas and he promised us change. That’s what Emma promises us, but like Emma, Morrison fell in love with these characters and with what makes them work.
Jean Grey: Another crucial part of NEW X-MEN is Scott’s wife, Jean Grey-Summers. You should notice that I didn’t call her Phoenix and there is a reason for that, which I will address in a moment. Jean is the past of the X-Men books. She knows something is wrong, but she doesn’t know how to fix it, so instead she tries to ignore the problem, hoping it will go away, demonstrated when she says, “…this marriage feels very strange and cold, Scott” as well as her refusal to read Scott’s mind when he asks her to.
Jean is also a power junkie. During the first story-arc, “E is for Extinction,” Jean appears very restrained and uptight and she’s lonely. But at the end of “Germ-Free Generation,” she becomes a different person after her Phoenix manifestation (“…I feel amazing, Logan. I had all these negative feelings about Scott, but… they’re gone now. I feel great. Did you see what I just did?”). Like the old reader, Jean still longs for those power struggles and to bring things back to the way they were. Which is, in a sense, a bit contradictory given that a book like X-MEN is supposed to be about change and evolution, and Jean herself makes note of this contradiction in the “Murder at the Mansion” story-arc--“…I have the worst temper, Bishop. I run around the world preaching peace and brotherhood, and when I come home, the first thing I do is fight.” Because Jean represents the past, this is why it is necessary for her to die at the end of the run, because only with the death can change come about--and her death indeed does cause a change. With her gone, Cyclops first leaves and everything falls apart. Or Cyclops stays with Emma and we see hope for the future. But Morrison knows that even if Cyclops embraces Emma, that even if the X-Men mythos embrace the future and a chance for change--the old ways will eventually return, just like the Phoenix will always rise again.
Professor X: Charles is sort of lost in a state of limbo. He’s still trying to cling to his dream, still trying to cling to why he started this all in the first place (Beast: “He’s trying to remind himself what it’s all for.”). He even attempts to embrace the future after the death of Magneto and after Cassandra forces him to out himself. He tries the new way, the pro-mutant way, but in the end, his prize student (Quentin Quire) rebels against him and turns to the “dark side.” But Xavier is perhaps a bit to blame for that, because with his new pro-mutant stance that tends to alienate humans (“We’re in no mood to play chimpanzee politics.”). With Magneto now gone, Xavier has no polar opposite and in a way, he has no one to keep him in check--this is something we’ve seen before, with “Onslaught,” and it is for this reason that one of the memories Xavier loses when Jean contains his mind within her own is the memory of “how good it felt to overcome the monster Onslaught." Xavier is going in circles with his dream and as the architect of the dream, he represents, perhaps, veteran X-Men writer Chris Claremont, who is credited as being the architect of the X-Men. Notice how when Xavier recovers from another evil entity taking control of his body, he is able to walk--but once his old rival returns from the dead yet again to terrorize the world yet again, Xavier loses the use of his legs yet again. It’s all an endless cycle, which is why at the end of “Riot At Xavier’s,” he essentially gives up by stepping down as headmaster and this is why at the end of “Planet X,” he says to Magneto, “Perhaps it is time we put away the old dreams, the old manifestos… and just listened for a while.”
Beast: A frequent criticism I’ve heard of Morrison is that Beast was essentially shoehorned into NEW X-MEN, that the character had no real purpose. This is a bit of an inaccuracy. Beast is the X-Men reader who is on the fence--he has changed since he came into the books, several times and he misses the old days. But at the same time, he realizes that change is inevitable. Notice that all the X-Men go through a sort of evolution in the course of the book. At first, Beast tries to stay with the old ways, which is why he tries to reason with Cassandra Nova as a human being and he ends up becoming mortally injured. Then, he tries to throw away the old ways and go completely with the new, and he pulls stunts to show this off (pretending to be gay, his comment that “all humans look alike to me”).
Wolverine: In a way, Wolverine represents everything that’s wrong with the X-Men. The X-Men is a book about evolution and change and pacifist ideas and who is their most popular member? A mutant who never ages and, in his own words, “all I’m good for’s killing.” There’s a reason Morrison keeps Wolverine in the background for most of his run, and the reason for that is because he understands that Wolverine shouldn’t really have a place in a book about pacifism. And the story-arc where Wolverine comes to the forefront? “Assault on Weapon Plus,” an action-oriented story-arc that focuses on Wolverine, the trigger-happy Fantomex, and a disillusioned Cyclops. And we know that it is contradictory to the X-Men because first Wolverine reminds Cyclops several times that they’re not on an X-Men mission and Cyclops says to Wolverine, “X-jackets off.” And where do they go on this mission? Into The World, where time is stopped and started as the creators please. And who is behind the Weapon Plus Program? Sublime, who I will get to soon.
Fantomex: I would think that it is obvious at this point to most people, but Fantomex was created as satire--a spoof on every mystery bad-ass character created in the pages of the X-books in an attempt to capitalize on the appeal of Wolverine, and we see this in several ways. Fantomex was created by the same program that created Wolverine. Wolverine has a healing factor, Fantomex has a nervous system separate from his body. Wolverine is Canadian, Fantomex is French (or he pretends to be). Both have no scruples about killing. And Fantomex even dresses in the trademark bad-ass clothes--flowing trench coat, hidden face, a “ninja-Matrix freak” as Monet calls him. The irony in this is that the bad-ass acts as if Jean Grey was interested in him, when in reality she seemed to simply pity him for his attempts to prove his attraction. And perhaps the greatest line to come out of Fantomex’s mouth is when he says to Magneto, “is everything you say a cliché?” when in fact, everything both of them says is a cliché. In “Assault on Weapon Plus,” we discover the truth behind Fantomex. He was created by Weapon Plus and Sublime to be the cool stealth killer for their team of Super Sentinels.
It goes character by character, offering insight and opinions.
Cyclops: Without a doubt, the central character in Morrison’s run would have to be Scott Summers. Prior to Morrison’s run, Cyclops “died” in a sense, becoming possessed by Apocalypse (or his true name, En Sabah Nur as he’s referred to throughout the run). Cyclops acts as a metaphor for the X-Men books as a whole—he’s afraid to change, he’s never been allowed to be anything other than a superhero. In comes Emma Frost, and suddenly, Cyclops discovers a new world that he never knew existed. He feels like he’s suffocating—he feels all these new emotions and has these desires from before. At first, his wife, Jean, explains this as residual from Apocalypse’s possession--“You’re not the only person who was ever possessed by an evil spirit, Scott… the bad feeling goes away.”). Scott’s reply to this comment from his wife shows us that he has changed from the beginning--I don’t know if I feel bad, Jean. I just feel strange and different, that’s all, and I don’t want to hurt you or anyone.” We see other quotes from Cyclops throughout the run that help to identify him as lost, feeling without a sense of purpose or belonging--“I can’t make it feel like it used to…” he says to Jean. It is with Cyclops that the deconstruction of the X-Men mythos begins.
The themes of sexuality are also a very big part of Cyclops and his optic blasts are a phallic symbol. We first discover this in “Germ-Free Generation” when his optic blast strikes the Statue of David in the nether regions. In “Assault on Weapon Plus,” Cyclops is at the Hellfire Club watching as a woman strips and he says it’s sexless and unarousing and there’s a close-up on his visor. After this, he finds he isn’t able to unleash his optic blasts. After Jean discovered about his psychic affair with Emma, he tried to run from his desires, he tried to hide them.
Emma Frost: The former White Queen turned X-Man, Emma represents a hope for the future, a chance for change. She joins up with the X-Men to cause trouble, to shake things up, but she finds herself falling in love with Cyclops, who is arguably the epitome of the X-Men. In this way, Emma is essentially Morrison writing himself into the story. If you look back on Morrison’s interviews which came before his first issue was released, he talked about how he would shake things up. He promised love triangles and soap operas and he promised us change. That’s what Emma promises us, but like Emma, Morrison fell in love with these characters and with what makes them work.
Jean Grey: Another crucial part of NEW X-MEN is Scott’s wife, Jean Grey-Summers. You should notice that I didn’t call her Phoenix and there is a reason for that, which I will address in a moment. Jean is the past of the X-Men books. She knows something is wrong, but she doesn’t know how to fix it, so instead she tries to ignore the problem, hoping it will go away, demonstrated when she says, “…this marriage feels very strange and cold, Scott” as well as her refusal to read Scott’s mind when he asks her to.
Jean is also a power junkie. During the first story-arc, “E is for Extinction,” Jean appears very restrained and uptight and she’s lonely. But at the end of “Germ-Free Generation,” she becomes a different person after her Phoenix manifestation (“…I feel amazing, Logan. I had all these negative feelings about Scott, but… they’re gone now. I feel great. Did you see what I just did?”). Like the old reader, Jean still longs for those power struggles and to bring things back to the way they were. Which is, in a sense, a bit contradictory given that a book like X-MEN is supposed to be about change and evolution, and Jean herself makes note of this contradiction in the “Murder at the Mansion” story-arc--“…I have the worst temper, Bishop. I run around the world preaching peace and brotherhood, and when I come home, the first thing I do is fight.” Because Jean represents the past, this is why it is necessary for her to die at the end of the run, because only with the death can change come about--and her death indeed does cause a change. With her gone, Cyclops first leaves and everything falls apart. Or Cyclops stays with Emma and we see hope for the future. But Morrison knows that even if Cyclops embraces Emma, that even if the X-Men mythos embrace the future and a chance for change--the old ways will eventually return, just like the Phoenix will always rise again.
Professor X: Charles is sort of lost in a state of limbo. He’s still trying to cling to his dream, still trying to cling to why he started this all in the first place (Beast: “He’s trying to remind himself what it’s all for.”). He even attempts to embrace the future after the death of Magneto and after Cassandra forces him to out himself. He tries the new way, the pro-mutant way, but in the end, his prize student (Quentin Quire) rebels against him and turns to the “dark side.” But Xavier is perhaps a bit to blame for that, because with his new pro-mutant stance that tends to alienate humans (“We’re in no mood to play chimpanzee politics.”). With Magneto now gone, Xavier has no polar opposite and in a way, he has no one to keep him in check--this is something we’ve seen before, with “Onslaught,” and it is for this reason that one of the memories Xavier loses when Jean contains his mind within her own is the memory of “how good it felt to overcome the monster Onslaught." Xavier is going in circles with his dream and as the architect of the dream, he represents, perhaps, veteran X-Men writer Chris Claremont, who is credited as being the architect of the X-Men. Notice how when Xavier recovers from another evil entity taking control of his body, he is able to walk--but once his old rival returns from the dead yet again to terrorize the world yet again, Xavier loses the use of his legs yet again. It’s all an endless cycle, which is why at the end of “Riot At Xavier’s,” he essentially gives up by stepping down as headmaster and this is why at the end of “Planet X,” he says to Magneto, “Perhaps it is time we put away the old dreams, the old manifestos… and just listened for a while.”
Beast: A frequent criticism I’ve heard of Morrison is that Beast was essentially shoehorned into NEW X-MEN, that the character had no real purpose. This is a bit of an inaccuracy. Beast is the X-Men reader who is on the fence--he has changed since he came into the books, several times and he misses the old days. But at the same time, he realizes that change is inevitable. Notice that all the X-Men go through a sort of evolution in the course of the book. At first, Beast tries to stay with the old ways, which is why he tries to reason with Cassandra Nova as a human being and he ends up becoming mortally injured. Then, he tries to throw away the old ways and go completely with the new, and he pulls stunts to show this off (pretending to be gay, his comment that “all humans look alike to me”).
Wolverine: In a way, Wolverine represents everything that’s wrong with the X-Men. The X-Men is a book about evolution and change and pacifist ideas and who is their most popular member? A mutant who never ages and, in his own words, “all I’m good for’s killing.” There’s a reason Morrison keeps Wolverine in the background for most of his run, and the reason for that is because he understands that Wolverine shouldn’t really have a place in a book about pacifism. And the story-arc where Wolverine comes to the forefront? “Assault on Weapon Plus,” an action-oriented story-arc that focuses on Wolverine, the trigger-happy Fantomex, and a disillusioned Cyclops. And we know that it is contradictory to the X-Men because first Wolverine reminds Cyclops several times that they’re not on an X-Men mission and Cyclops says to Wolverine, “X-jackets off.” And where do they go on this mission? Into The World, where time is stopped and started as the creators please. And who is behind the Weapon Plus Program? Sublime, who I will get to soon.
Fantomex: I would think that it is obvious at this point to most people, but Fantomex was created as satire--a spoof on every mystery bad-ass character created in the pages of the X-books in an attempt to capitalize on the appeal of Wolverine, and we see this in several ways. Fantomex was created by the same program that created Wolverine. Wolverine has a healing factor, Fantomex has a nervous system separate from his body. Wolverine is Canadian, Fantomex is French (or he pretends to be). Both have no scruples about killing. And Fantomex even dresses in the trademark bad-ass clothes--flowing trench coat, hidden face, a “ninja-Matrix freak” as Monet calls him. The irony in this is that the bad-ass acts as if Jean Grey was interested in him, when in reality she seemed to simply pity him for his attempts to prove his attraction. And perhaps the greatest line to come out of Fantomex’s mouth is when he says to Magneto, “is everything you say a cliché?” when in fact, everything both of them says is a cliché. In “Assault on Weapon Plus,” we discover the truth behind Fantomex. He was created by Weapon Plus and Sublime to be the cool stealth killer for their team of Super Sentinels.