Grant Morrison is a big, fat idiot!
OK, not really. I just wanted to get your attention as I continued my rant which didn't get as many people yelling at me as I expected. I guess we don't have the rabid Morrison followers here. As a disclaimer, I do consider myself a fan of Grant Morrison and I enjoy almost everything I have read by him. X-Men is the exception.
As the issues came out I didn't really enjoy them, it was like an over-the-top parody of the angst, violence, and destruction of years past. The whole "secondary mutation" element feels just thrown on without much consideration. (I love the scene in X-Men/Fantastic Four where Reed looks at Beast like he suddenly started spouting new age hoo-hah when he casually mentions Emma's secondary mutation. The subtext of "that makes no sense, how can you just sit there and accept it?" made me laugh out loud.)
As I read the stories in a large chunk I did enjoy them for the most part. The Cassandra Nova storyline, combined with the Shi'ar empire stuff, was really fun (114-126). We hadn't seen a truly frightening villain in the X-Men world for quite a while and Cassandra fit. Though the "Xavier goes bonkers! Or is he just possessed?" thing can easily get old. I hope they wait another decade before doing it again. The secondary mutation thing that was introduced seemed to be there because they wanted to make some changes to characters but didn't want to do any work on explaining it. Two words: lazy bastards. We have the developing break between Scott and Jean which, upon the re-reading, does seem more natural than it did the first time I read it. I still think he was an idiot for going to Emma instead of someone trustworthy that would have understood going through extreme change, like his old friend Warren. Then it could have all ended with Cyclops and Archangel making out. Or maybe not.
Then we had the introduction of the Weapon Plus program (128-131). It is actually a very interesting concept and I would love to know who all of the Weapons are. It looks like Captain America was Weapon I. And 154 shows that the Stepford Cuckoos are Weapon XIV, but it seems that subsequent writers either missed it or have forgotten. Fantomex is not only an arrogant jerk but to say that his abilities are ill-defined is like saying King Kong is a big monkey. Maybe Fantomex's secondary mutation is to be vague. He was actually well handled in the Weapon X series "War of the Programs" storyline. (The Weapon X series was under-appreciated, I feel.)
Then we had Riot At Xaviers from 133-138. OK, fine. And it makes a lot more sense with the revelation that Sublime was behind much of this in the form of the Kick drug. And we have the first hint of Xorn not being all Zen cool when he kills a bunch of humans. But otherwise he is being very friendly.
Murder at the Mansion 139-141. Esme under orders from Xorn/Magneto makes Angel shoot Emma. Uh-huh. Again, kick was used so we can assume Sublime had some control going here. It is never revealed who knocks out Sage in 140 and though they wonder if it was Scott in 141 I am assuming that it was Xorn/Magneto. Whatever.
Assault on Weapon Plus 142-145. This is back to being fun big over-the-top action and violence, with amusing banter. Maybe Grant should write Deadpool. My main problem was in 142 when Sebastian Shaw is talking about using telepathy. SHAW IS NOT A TELEPATH. Were the editors too scared of Grant to tell him he did something wrong? Maybe if they had mentioned it he would have just added some line about Shaw's secondary mutation being telepathy. becasue that would make sense. Yeah. What? Oh, well, ignoring that we see plenty of Fantomex but still don' know much about what he can do. The real fun is Weapon Plus and The World. Mutant killing super soldiers presented to the public as super-heroes. It actually makes a lot of sense.
Planet X 146-150. This is where is all falls apart because Xorn is revealed to be Magneto and was the one behind the attempted assassination of Emma in 139. We are supposed to believe that Magneto's followers were able to set up the mutant prison Xorn was found in. I'm sorry, I cannot buy that. Re-read X-Men Annual 2001. There are too many people with history. Too much in the government. And where are these followers of Magneto that would be powerful enough to do that? The only follower to show up during Planet X is that perennial loser, Toad. Then we had 127 which was written from Xorn's point of view. How does this jive with him actually being Magneto? Did his all powerful and un-seen follower write a surface personallity over Magneto's? I doubt it. I don't think Magneto would let anyone tamper with his brain after all he has been through. My take is that this was some other mutant, a shape changer, influenced by Kick. Maybe he was exchanged for the real Xorn before the X-Men could rescue him in the Annual, and was a plant by Sublime to fuck with human/mutant relations since Sublime was the one holding him at the time. This jives more with "Magneto's" instability during the episode. The many has gone truly bonkers, moreso than Magneto ever had. The wholesale destruction of New York without any sign of the other heroes also left me feeling like this was Grant playing in his own little sandbox. Sorry, there's no way he could have timed things to have EVERY hero out of New York. NO WAY IN HELL. Maybe the editors decided at this point that they didn't want Morrison fucking with any other heroes and told him not to use any (As far as hints of Xorn not being cool and actually a sociopath in disguise, the better example was in Uncanny X-Men during the Draco storyline where he talks about Annie spreading her racism to her son. He seems very touchy. So, another writer did a better scene of forshadowning than the core writer of the story. That's sad.)
Here Comes Tomorrow 151-154 does redeem Morrison's run in my eyes. This is an interesting tale of evolution gone overboard, and with Sublime's manipulations exposed it gives credence to my theory that Xorn/Magneto was a shape changing imposter planted by Sublime to soe destruction and confusion.
Cross posted to my LJ.