What's going on with marvel comics???

[bullseye100]

I have been an avid reader of any comics since a young age. I love them all--but lately marvel has started to realy bug me...The death of Magneto, a sister we hardly knew, the death of collosus, the death of psylocke, the beast changed into a cat--and a person who likes his own gender...weapon X, the return of polaris, the return of the pheonix....
First the death of magneto...how can this happen. He was one of the most powerful beings on earth, and he's gone..alright..he was really a persoanl fave..I'll move on...
Cassandra, Xaviers siter pulled from obscurity, where has she been the last 30-40 years? And to be bald--come on...this one one of the corniest story lines to date..
Collosus, dead!!!! This to is kind of personal, but at the same ludicrous.... The x-men are left without thier powerhouse... who is going to be the heavy hitter now? this was the worst move ever....
the death of psylocke really falls under the too many deaths thing...why are there so many? Not everyone has to die? Who's next?....
The beast turned into a cat--ridiculous..maybe an ape, but where do they get a cat from...and he prefers his own gender...come on...he's dated lots of hotties, now he doesn't, unbeleivable....
polaris returns, and her clothes get torn off--how?? She controls magnetism, not fabric--please...she runs around half naked--not that i'm complaning--but it just doesn't make sense.
Now the pheonix is back...talk about rehashing an old story line...i guess they are running out of people to kill....
What do you think?

[sluggo]

First not all of these happened latly, colossus died 3 or 4 years ago. So claiming they are just killing lots of people right now isn't relaly right, just what happens in comics to keep the interesting.

Cassandra, Magneto dying and Phoenix coming back are part of New X-Men, the second best X-Men book out right now in my opinion. I like the changes. Comics always bring up charactesr we've never heard of people from a characters past. Look at Maverick. Wolverine had been around 15 years or so, we knew about his time with weapon X, as a commando/secert agent and about his past with Sabertooth, but we hadn't heard about Maverick before. It didn't make the storyline bad, just added to the story. If nothing new ever added and new characters were introduced past issue one then the books would suck. Magneto dying was more or less to show how power Nova was. And Phoenix is back, but not in the same way. Morrison is using that to explore Jeans Character and is looking how turning into basically a god is going to affect (or any human). The last page of the last New X-Men book was great (Jean "walking in" on Cyclops cheating on her with White Queen).

"who is going to be the heavy hitter now" - Juggernaut has taken that role.

"the death of psylocke really falls under the too many deaths thing" - Not really. It served its purpose's. It kicked of a storyline between Rogue and Vargus (sp). It made Thunderbird grow up and realize that being an X-Men wasn't all fun and heroics. And its really made Angel look at life and he approchs it. Very interesting stuff, it wasn't just a pointless death.

"beast turned into a cat--ridiculous..maybe an ape, but where do they get a cat from...and he prefers his own gender...come on...he's dated lots of hotties, now he doesn't, unbeleivable..." - They've introduced "second mutations" to the universe. Serveral of the X-Men have gone through them. White Queen can cover herself in diamond hard skin. Angel has a healing factor now, and can heal others with his blood. Jean is gaining the "phoenix" powers. Rogue can use ANY power shes ever abosorbed at will. Beasts second mutation was to gain a cats senses, agility, strenght and apperence. And who cares of Beast is gay? And so what if he's had girlfriends in the past, many men go so far as to get married before realizing they are gay. Who cares, it doesn't matter.

[razz10555]

before beast turned into "dandy hank" didn't he say it wasn't true he just wanted to see peoples reactions in order to better understand the world

[krzysztof]

Grant Morrison happened.

There's no way they can kill Magneto. He'll be back.

As for the Beast, I like what they've done with him. I wonder what will happen if he keeps evolving.

And as for Psylocke - Claremont created her so he can kill her. She had a good run, and she'll always be fondly remembered.

[Angelofhate]

And colossus sacrificed himself to stop the legacy virus. That's a pretty memerable and noble way to go out.

[Jin]

also, continuity has never been a strength for comic books. Otherwise all the Xmen, Spider-man and so on would all be in wheelchairs by now.

Amazing Spider-man is definitely my favourite comic at the moment. JMS is doing a wonderful job.

[Wyldstaar]

I think the X-Men are almost required to be the most confusing group in the Marvel Universe. They've had more than their fair share of odd tales.

The whole Beast thing has been very confusing. It was revealed a couple of months ago that he's not really gay. He's been telling people he's gay to 'push the limits', whatever that's supposed to mean.

The secondary mutation story has potential. I can't wait to see who changes next. I honestly don't think Wolverine will have a secondary mutation. He's not from the current generation of mutants. That combined with his healing factor's constant battle against adamantium poisoning would make it unlikely. I think Cyclops is next. He's the only one of the original X-Men who hasn't changed yet.

Phoenix- adapted to re-summon the Phoenix Force
Archangel- Healing factor & healing blood
Iceman- turning to solid ice, and unable to return to flesh
Beast- feline appearance and abilities
Emma Frost- Living diamond
Black Tom Cassidy- Woodmonster (probably due to the genetic tampering that was done to him about ten years ago)
Rogue- complete access to all previous borrowed powers


Who's next?

[sluggo]

"Iceman- turning to solid ice, and unable to return to flesh" - Where did you get this? Pick up a copy of Uncanny, Iceman is flesh.

One guy I want to see mutate again is Nightcrawler.

[Kaitouace]

Feh. It's all junk IMO. The whole "Beast is a cat" thing happened even before they mentioned "secondary mutations". They didn't have much of an excuse for it until they started that. Plus the White Queen also had that "diamond form" junk before they came up with that "term" as well. They just wanted to mess with a few characters and came up with that as cover and ran with it. And Beast "liking men"? HAH! Even the characters in the book didn't buy that line. What was the basis of that? Hank just said he thought he was. Despite ALL his history showing otherwise. Not once was he even shown to even "liking" another guy and all of a sudden he's all over guys. It was a stupid idea and no one paid attention to it. Of course the current writers just HAVE to have more edginess to their comics. The Beast thing didn't work? Ta-da! What do you know? Out of nowhere, Northstar joins the X-Men. And in less than 2 issues magically has a crush on Iceman. WhatEVER!

Jean as Phoenix. More junk. Anyone who's read the old books knows that Jean and Phoenix weren't the same person. Jean's body was kept protected in Hudson Bay (I think that was the body of water) while the Phoenix Entity took her place. While there may be some empathy between the characters there's NO way she should be able to actually USE the Phoenix Force considered she's NOT that particular Phoenix. She may be able to harness some of its power at times but she shouldn't be able to considering Rachel Summers came back to their timeline thanks to Cable. Of course I doubt they even noticed that little deal.

Cassandra. Whatever. Lamest. Idea. EVER. She was the poorest excuse for a plot device I've ever seen. Morrison had the gall to resurrect Magneto (he was "killed" by the previous writer just before) for only one panel just so his Cassandra powered giant Sentinel could kill him again. All to give his lame story more credibility. And Vargas in X-Treme is the exact same thing. Some super powerful villain made just to kill off some X-Man or powerful foe just so the writer can say "Hey! I killed off Psylocke in MY run of X-Men." Chances are we'll never even see Vargas ever again. Much like the Neo. Yet ANOTHER "Superior" race of mutants that was supposed to be the end all huge turning point that magically vanished from the X-Comics without a trace. The Cassandra storyline only served 2 purposes: To make Prof. X walk AGAIN and to make him go public with his being a mutant. All the other stuff that could have been with that storyline (the microscopic Sentinels were very interesting to me) vanished within 2 issues of the end of that plotline. Cassandra is SUPPOSED to still be at the school being taught like the rest of the kids. Have we seen her in a panel since? Nope.

Only good thing that's come from current X-continuity? Juggernaut joining (more or less) the X-Men to fill that Colossus void. Great irony (and a great issue dealing with his feelings and being called a "villian") and he gets along great with the kids at the school. The only part of this suddenly public school thing I can stand.

[Wyldstaar]

Uncanny is where I got it from, though it hasn't happened completely yet. He's trying to keep it a secret. He only told nurse whatshername.

[Kaitouace]

Oh. The Iceman thing. After their fight with Black Tom, Iceman had a big wound. He secretly showed the new human doctor that it was filling with pure ice to heal. No flesh at all.

And the Rogue thing is ridiculous. Another lame plot device. They give her that ability (basically making her the most powerful mutant that's ever existed) just so she could beat off that alien army by herself. As soon as that was done? Boom! Now she's totally powerless. At least until we can figure out how to write ourselves out of that corner.

[sluggo]

Well that Iceman thing hasn't stuck.

And I'm sure Clarmont has aplan for Rogue

[Kaitouace]

Speaking of the Vargas storyline and making Thunderbird "grow up".

When was the last time we SAW Thunderbird? Wasn't he starting to have a thing with Lifeguard? Who also magically left when her plot device use was over. And don't get me started on her brother. He was definitely NOT a mutant when he first appeared. Then "Gee traveling around the world is hard. We could use some kind of teleporter." Ta-da! Her brother is "jump-started" and all of a sudden he can surf/teleport. Good thing too since he was a surfer beforehand.

GOD was that ever stupid. And now they're gone. Never to be seen again.

[bullseye100]

amen brother...

[Wyldstaar]

I think Rogue doesn't have any powers now because she simply burned herself out in that battle at Madripoor. They did the same thing to Wolverine after his battle with Magneto. His healing factor had to work so hard that it stopped working after the repairs were complete. After about a year (real time, not comic time), his healing factor came back even stronger than before since it wasn't having to constantly counter the effects of adamantium poisoning. In a year or so, Rogue will have her powers once more. Sure, she'll be the most powerful mutant on the planet, but that's not a dead end for her. That's a lot of responsibility for a young woman to deal with. With access to all of those powers, she's a cosmic level entity. She can go toe to toe with the big boys like Silver Surfer and Thanos.

[sluggo]

I've said before that the only thing I really don't like about X-Treme X-Men is the poor character managment. Red Lotus showed up, then disapeared, then showed up and disapeared again. Lifeguard is gone (I'm hoping that her and Thunderbird are just not in the new storyline and we will get filled in on where they were). At least with Slip Stream they explained why he left.

No Slip Stream wasn't a mutant when they met him, but Sage has the power to trigger a mutants second mutation (she did to beast) and in human shes can trigger just first mutations. This is what she did to Slip Stream.

"Sure, she'll be the most powerful mutant on the planet, but that's not a dead end for her" - I think they will etiehr scale her powers down alittle, or slowly turned her into a villian. A hero who can do everything is boring. They have hinted that the villians shes absorbed could over run her mind. That could be an interesting story.

[Kaitouace]

Actually I think it was the combination of that energy ray that was siphoning Gambit's powers, her contact with Gambit at the time, and the fact that Vargas stabbed them both at the same time with a spear going through both their bodies. Remember that Gambit is powerless now too. So I doubt it was just simple exhaustion. If it was that fighting exhaustion, then Gambit shouldn't be powerless. If it was just the beam then Rogue shouldn't be powerless. She was only exposed to the ray briefly. Her powers must have glitched with the combination of all of that and screwed both of them in the process. And I'm sure the spear through the back (and then through Gambit's chest) didn't help either.

[sluggo]

Whatever the reason for Rogues powers to disapear, they will return.

Another new change that I like is how far Nighcrawler can teleport. His max. distance used to be about 1/2 a mile. He's now able to travel 4 miles.

[sluggo]

Kaitouace - If mean how Rogue's power changed it was Sage. Rogue even told Sage to advance her powers into the second mutation. It had nothing to do with Vargas or Gambit. Her losing her powers may have something to do with that, but not her second mutation.

Another new change that I like is how far Nighcrawler can teleport. His max. distance used to be about 1/2 a mile. He's now able to travel 4 miles.

[Kaitouace]

I knew how they changed. I just think that it was a rather dumb idea. Basically making her uber-powerful and it was done for the sake of the position she was in. If that is her "secondary mutation" then she basically is the ultimate hero. She has the powers of hundreds of mutants and super beings at her command and she can change at will.

If that wouldn't be the most boring comic in the world, I don't know what would. Which is why I think they took her powers after the story. To find some way to lessen her "mutation" so she can still be all new but not uber-powerful.

[sluggo]

I agree that it makes Rogue way to powerful. She will either get her old powers back, or get the news on back and turn into a villian. A person that powerful would make a great villian.

[drop19]

Originally posted by Kaitouace
Feh. It's all junk IMO. The whole "Beast is a cat" thing happened even before they mentioned "secondary mutations". They didn't have much of an excuse for it until they started that. Plus the White Queen also had that "diamond form" junk before they came up with that "term" as well. They just wanted to mess with a few characters and came up with that as cover and ran with it.
Well, the issue was addressed pretty clearly during the initial arc, I'm not sure if you are expecting a big expository speech on page 1 or a hand written letter from Morrison to explain it to every reader. It's an ongoing part of the series and is something that is still being developed. Unless you've seen Grant Morrison's initial proposal to Marvel or you were sitting in the room during editorial summits how are you so aware that it was something made up later? Chris Claremont would introduce story elements that weren't cleared up for years at a time. The Xbooks of the 90s did similar things with storylines like the Twelve. Somehow complaining about a few months seems a bit of a stretch compared to the length of time some of these other stories took.

And Beast "liking men"? HAH! Even the characters in the book didn't buy that line. What was the basis of that?
The basis of it was an instinctual reaction to being spurned by his biggest love of the last few years. She is turning him away as he becomes more mutated and in a moment of distress he said something to make it sound like it didn't matter to him anyway. When people get dumped one of the natural instincts is to put up a defense mechanism and try to downplay the relationship. After the fact he realized that he could use the opportunity to present the world with a notion that not all Mutants fall into any nice neat category and that mutant society contains people of different appearances, gender, beliefs, and orientations, just like real society does. It was a pretty naieve type of thing to do but he was hurt, lashed out, and wanted to take the opportunity to try to turn it into a positive. Maybe, and I'm going out on a limb here and trying to actually read into the story, he wanted to provide a role model for those who are so frequently spurned for being different. Just like he had just been spurned. :eek:

The Beast thing didn't work? Ta-da! What do you know? Out of nowhere, Northstar joins the X-Men. And in less than 2 issues magically has a crush on Iceman. WhatEVER!
This is the same book where a woman has a crush on a man in a coma, and you are worried about someone being attracted to someone else conscious? One seems a bit more unbelievable to me than the other. Movies, television, novels, music lyrics, comics, books and just about any other form of fictional expression has utilized the idea of love/attraction at first site. What's different here other than Northstar being gay?

Cassandra. Whatever. Lamest. Idea. EVER. She was the poorest excuse for a plot device I've ever seen.
I dunno, I can deal with her long before Apocolypse, Onslaught, Mr. Sinister, Stryfe, or any other of the interchangeable villainous masterminds. It's a bit of a stretch to have her as Xavier's long lost twin, but no more so than Mystique being Nightcrawler's mum, Jean Grey lying at the bottom of the Hudson, Psylocke reincarnated as an Asian assassin, the Summers family being the key to most major storylines, etc. The one thing about Nova that I find it hard to deny is that her plans resulted in a major change in the X-men status quo. For the first time in 40 years the public knows who Charles Xavier is and what his school represents. Now we get stories with the X-Men trying to train the next generation as citizens and how the group interacts with the real world. It's a big step up from good guy mutant teams vs bad guy mutant teams ad infinitum.

[gladiator1518]

Originally posted by Jin
also, continuity has never been a strength for comic books. Otherwise all the Xmen, Spider-man and so on would all be in wheelchairs by now.

Amazing Spider-man is definitely my favourite comic at the moment. JMS is doing a wonderful job. Spider-man has always been my favorite Marvel character.Nowadays the only Spidey title I buy is Amazing Spider-man.I really do miss Todd Mcfarlane's talent though.I don't think anyone has ever drawn Spidey as well as he did.Probably no one ever will.

[Valandar]

BTW, originally, Nightcrawler could teleport about two miles east-west-up, or three miles north or south. The upgrade to 4 miles isn't that big a jump.

[metzgarob]

Originally posted by gladiator1518
Spider-man has always been my favorite Marvel character.Nowadays the only Spidey title I buy is Amazing Spider-man.I really do miss Todd Mcfarlane's talent though.I don't think anyone has ever drawn Spidey as well as he did.Probably no one ever will.

although toddy mac was pretty good i do think that JR JR is the best spidey guy close second is humberto ramos (whose spidey is being made into a toy come september)

[Briel]

Claremont is known for having single panel moments that are suddenly important three years down the road. In case no one noticed, Vargas had a statue of Psylocke in his house like a day after he killed her. Way too soon. I think the statue is really her, and that he left behind a dummy corpse.