Grant Morrison's New X-men (spoilers)

[Talavar]

I've just been reading the Grant Morrison New X-Men Omnibus and I've got to ask some questions.  First, Xorn: Morrison has stated that Xorn was always supposed to be Magneto, but he's since been retconned by Marvel to have never been Magneto, but an imposter.  Does it work though?  Reading through, Xorn does a lot of un-Magneto-y things, like attempting suicide through a black hole (and I don't think Magneto could fake an event horizon), manifesting a glowing energy head, healing people (though does he heal anyone of something other than nano-sentinels?  Magneto could do nano-sentinels)  and just his general behaviour throughout the run up until close to the big "reveal." 

Next, Cassandra Nova: just what the hell are her powers?  She's got all of Xavier's powers, plus high level telekinesis, can phase out, and can regenerate - what's that all about?  How does she have all those powers?  Also, Emma traps her in the gelatinous form of Stuff, Shiar guardsman thing, with a mental program to re-educate her.  Now, it's suggested that Ernst, the weird, old lady/little girl is actually the mentally hobbled Cassandra Nova, but jump ahead to Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-men, and we see Nova still in the goo bag, and locked in a box, where a mentally compelled Emma Frost works to free her, and transfer Nova's consciousness to a new body.  Can anyone reconcile these apparent facts for me?

[detourne_me]

i think Cassandra Nova is primarily a highlevel telepath that work a little like shadow king.
she takes on host bodies and is able to utilize their mutant powers, or latent mutant powers (which she hyper-activates into a secondary mutation somehow, think of Morrisons other contribution, "The World" where mutants are hyper mutated).
her main body was in the gooey bag of stuff, but she is also able to possess others mentally, but she is limited to only a fraction of her mental powers.  i'm pretty sure Blindfold is her new host, and has significant mental faculties already.

[Jakew]

I'll have a go.

First point: Morrison's reveal that Xorn was Magneto wasn't great. I love Morrison's run, but it didn't feel like a natural progression. Frankly, it felt tacked on ... how the hell would Magneto 'fake' an inner monologue (which was what one issue, focusing on Xorn, had plenty of)? Plus, how Magneto faked Xorn's powers, imprisonment, etc is never really explained. The subsequent retcon and further fiddling with the Xorn character by Brian Michael Bendis hasn't helped.

Second: Cassandra Nova was retconned away from being Ernst by a few writers before Whedon touched it. Whedon is trying to prevent further retconning, while being faithful to Morrison's run at the same time.

[Talavar]

I agree that Xorn as Magneto felt totally tacked on, and it almost makes me believe that Morrison is full of crap when he says it was intended all along.  It's been said that all writers are liars, after all.  The ret-con of having a second Xorn is dumb (not by Bendis), the Bendis ret-con wasn't great either, but he was trying to fix quite a broken continuity mess at that point. 

So Nova was ret-conned away from being Ernst pre-Whedon, who's come back to the topic of what happened to her in his 3rd storyline?  I get it now, I think.  As to Nova's new body, Whedon's 3rd storyline ended with Nova attempting to be transfered into Armor-Girl-Whose-Name-Escapes-Me, not Blindfold, the eyeless psychic girl.  Whether she was successful was left up in the air, one of the things I didn't like about the end of that storyline.  It's suggested by Emma's line "Go to hell," that she returned Nova to the goo-body, and Emma was scanned by the S.W.O.R.D. psychics as being Nova-free, but I don't think anyone has scanned Armor-Girl.  Hopefully more answers to this current storyline come out tomorrow, with Astonishing #20.

[Jakew]

Re: her powers, I think it was something like she can use all the latent mutant powers of the human genome. So she can manifest stuff like phasing power, armour generation, acid blasts, telepathy, healing powers, etc.

In her Stuff body, I think it's just Xavier-like telepathy.

[bredon7777]

I agree that Xorn as Magneto felt totally tacked on, and it almost makes me believe that Morrison is full of crap when he says it was intended all along.  It's been said that all writers are liars, after all.  The ret-con of having a second Xorn is dumb (not by Bendis), the Bendis ret-con wasn't great either, but he was trying to fix quite a broken continuity mess at that point. 

Ignore the "inner monologue" issue (which was forced on Morrison by editors) and go back and re-read the run knowing what you know now.  The whole thing is LITTERED with clues that Xorn isn't what he's claiming to be- he only heals one person and one bird, he kills a whole bunch of U men when he thinks no one is watching- he unmasks for Quentin Quire who then comments as he dies "What if the real enemy was inside yo u all aong"- the interaction with Dust - no, it's very clear that from the beginning that Xorn was always intended to turn out to be a bad guy.

Now the nonsense afterwords trying to shoehorn a good Xorn in - that was just crap.  I'm curious, though- what did Bendis do?

[crimsonquill]

Ignore the "inner monologue" issue (which was forced on Morrison by editors) and go back and re-read the run knowing what you know now.  The whole thing is LITTERED with clues that Xorn isn't what he's claiming to be- he only heals one person and one bird, he kills a whole bunch of U men when he thinks no one is watching- he unmasks for Quentin Quire who then comments as he dies "What if the real enemy was inside yo u all aong"- the interaction with Dust - no, it's very clear that from the beginning that Xorn was always intended to turn out to be a bad guy.

Now the nonsense afterwords trying to shoehorn a good Xorn in - that was just crap.  I'm curious, though- what did Bendis do?

I beg to differ... Morrison was setting up the whole "mystery bad guy" storyline with Sublime as the real enemy. I know that he wanted to do Magneto behind the mask but that would make the whole point of hiring a ground breaking artist/writer pointless: "We want to do something completely different... PSYCHE!!!!". Sublime had a big plan including using the Kick drug to warp the powers of mutants that would follow him blindly. That was a huge clue because somebody was getting the drug onto the Institute and was manipulating Stepford Cuckoo Esmee into using her power to control Xorn's special class. Another hint is that No-Girl and Martha were always lurking around the school and both had some connection to Sublime. The real question is was Xorn exposed to Sublime's experiments before hand and was just a victim of being a time bomb placed inside the school. Remember that in the Annual which Xorn first appeared the prison was being inspected by Sublime's agents and U-Men. Explaining how Xorn's supposed star for a head suddenly becomes solid and looks like Magneto but acts like a maniac with powers overloaded by the Kick drug is the biggest comic fubar in my book. Magento is too smart to just sit in his HQ at the beginning of New X-Men with the Nova Sentinels bearing down on him with no emotion at all.... then reappear locked away deep inside a Chinese prison under the alias of Xorn with the big plan of attacking his greatest enemies from inside their own home using his students against him. Unless that whole thing is a plan of Cassandra Nova and her Hellfire Club. *ponders* Okay, I think I just got lost trying to make this whole thing have ANY kind of sense.

- CrimsonQuill

[Talavar]

It's littered with clues that Xorn isn't maybe as good as he pretends, it's not littered with clues that Xorn is Magneto.  A lot of what Xorn does, there's no good explanation for how or why Magneto would do it, and there's also no explanation given for why he didn't try to save Genosha, or go hide in a weird, supposedly fake Chinese prison.

Anyway, after the House of M, Bendis wrote a story in New Avengers that had a disembodied Xorn basically taking over some guy and wielding the powers of all or most of the de-powered mutants, going on a rampage, and trying to bond with the real Magneto to wage war on humanity.  The New Avengers separated the Xorn energy from Magneto by apparently killing him, Iron Man put it in a forcefield, and the Sentry threw it into the sun.

[bredon7777]

A taxicab without a driver picks up Esme - there are very few mutants that could pull that off, and that was my big tip off that Magneto was involved somehow..though I will admit that him being Xorn caught me by surprise.

IIRC there was actually a good reson why Magneto didnt save Genosha (beside his powers not affecting the wild Sentinels) - but as my issues are in Minnesota, I'll have to doublecheck the trade since I dont recall what it is.

As for how Magneto did it- there is nothing Xorn did that Magneto could NOT do (with the help of the nano-sentinels, of course) and as for why- he wanted to worm his way inside the Xmen so that the shochk and hurt would be greater when he did betray them- starting with the staging of  Xorn's "rescue".

Once can argue that he was under the influence of Sublime's drug when did so, I suppose..

[Jakew]

Doesn't Xorn bring a bird back to life at one point?

[Talavar]

Yes, Xorn resurrects a bird, and creates the event horizon of a mini black hole - both things Magneto can't do.  By the time Esme takes off it's clear Xorn is meant to be evil, but that's late in the game.  There are also a couple of times we see Xorn sans helmet, and I don't think Magneto can do illusions either.  It's forced and sloppy, and it really comes down to Marvel editorial dropping the ball. 

[bredon7777]

Yes, Xorn resurrects a bird, and creates the event horizon of a mini black hole - both things Magneto can't do.  By the time Esme takes off it's clear Xorn is meant to be evil, but that's late in the game.  There are also a couple of times we see Xorn sans helmet, and I don't think Magneto can do illusions either.  It's forced and sloppy, and it really comes down to Marvel editorial dropping the ball. 

Actually, (and I really wish my issues were here) he reurrected the bird with the nano-sentiels, and using his magneitc powers created the illusion of an event horizon.  Not hard to do with someone with the ability to draw anything with even the slightest trace of metal in it towards him.

And we never saw Xorn sans helmet from the front.  Are you really trying to make the argument "Oh come on- the back of Magneto's head looks nothing like that?" :lol: :lol: