"New X-Men: New Worlds"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “New X-Men: New Worlds” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            The X-Men are a team of mutant outreach workers who fight for the peaceful coexistence between the two species of both baseline human beings and those born with mutations that set them apart from normal human beings. Their base of operations is the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, located in Salem Center in New York’s Westchester County. There the X-Men teach young mutants both a regular education and how to use their gifts to protect themselves and benefit human and mutantkind. They were founded by Professor Charles Xavier/Professor X, and include Scott Summers/Cyclops, Jean Grey-Summers/Phoenix, Henry “Hank” McCoy/Beast, James Howlett/Logan/Wolverine, Emma Frost/White Queen, and Xorn.

            The presence of a “monster” from “Mutant Town” was sparking riots in New York City. Xorn, who grew up in China and had been jailed since his mutation emerged and had been considered a monster himself, went to Mutant Town to investigate. He found a woman and her son, the “monster,” a young mutant who was ten days away from reaching his genetic potential. After his mother died, the young mutant went on a rampage, and the cops stepped in, and during the confrontation, the young mutant was never able to transition to his true form.

            As part of his mutant outreach program, Charles Xavier opened the X-Corporation, a worldwide agency of X-Men teams. Professor X and Jean Grey-Summers went to visit one of the offices in Europe as part of Professor X’s lecture tour. This team consisted of Theresa Rourke/Siryn, Monet St. Croix/M, Jamie Madrox/Multiple Man, Julio Richter/Rictor, Sam Guthrie/Cannonball, and Leynia Petrovna/Darkstar. Jean informed the team of a gene-hazard involved in a trainwreck in the Channel Tunnel leaving one hundred and fifty-one people trapped in the wreckage. While the team was dispatched, Jean asked Professor X to talk to the Phoenix to learn if her new powers were a threat since the last time the X-Men dealt with the Phoenix, the force turned malevolent and caused destruction on a cosmic level. They were interrupted by the arrival of Fantomex, a European mutant criminal seeking sanctuary, and a military unit sent to apprehend him. He informed them the gene-hazard on the train was Weapon XII. Cyclops turned to Emma Frost for marriage counseling. Professor X and Jean helped Fantomex escape from the military and retreated to Fantomex’ home, where Fantomex tried to sell Professor X information on the Weapon Plus Program, the operation that created Weapon XII and gave the X-Men’s own Wolverine his adamantium skeleton and wiped Wolverine’s memories of his past, but Professor X refused to be bought. Fantomex had been on a quest to kill Weapon XII. He, Professor X, Jean, and the European X-Corporation team were able to end the threat of Weapon XII, but Darkstar did not survive. Afterwards, Jean allowed Fantomex to escape after learning Fantomex himself was actually Weapon XIII.

            Warren Worthington III/Archangel was teaching a flying lesson to several students at the Xavier Institute, including Barnell Bohusk/Beak and Angel Salvadore. Beak was unable to fly, and Angel offered him motivation by giving Beak a kiss. Although unable to fly, and although Angel had been put up to it, this caused Beak to develop feelings for Angel. Cyclops and Emma’s counseling sessions began to turn into more than just counseling.

            Professor X, Jean, Ororo Munroe/Storm, Ruth Bat-Seraph/Sabra, Neal Sharra/Thunderbird, and Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver went to the ruins of Genosha, the former mutant island homeland that had recently been destroyed by Cassanda Nova’s Sentinel attack. Unus, one of the refugees hiding out on Genosha, reported seeing ghosts and a green-haired woman, leading Professor X to believe Lorna Dane/Polaris, daughter of Erik Lensherr/Magneto, the President of Genosha, might be somewhere on the island. The group searched for Polaris and found she was going insane, causing magnetic fields, and replaying voice recordings of people’s last moments alive on the island before the destruction. Polaris was building a monument to her father and played the last words of Magneto as Professor X and Jean calmed Polaris down.

            Wolverine went to Afghanistan to find a newly discovered mutant named Sooraya Qadir. Professor X and Jean flew to Mumbai to meet up with them and the Mumbai office of X-Corporation. At the airport, Jean prevented Lilandra Nerimani, Professor X’s wife and Shi’ar Empress, from assassinating Professor X. Lilandra believed her husband to still be possessed by Cassandra Nova, who had recently corrupted the Shi’ar Imperium. Due to this, Imperial Sage Araki annulled Professor X and Lilandra’s marriage and cut all ties between the Shi’ar and the planet Earth.

            Mutant fashion designer Jumbo Carnation died in Mutant Town, apparently murdered by a group of human teenagers. Beast and Cyclops investigated the crime scene where Beast discovered a Kick inhaler, a drug that temporarily boosts a mutant’s powers. The Xavier Institute was getting ready for Open Day, where humans would be invited to tour the school grounds and interact with the mutant faculty and students. Promising student Quentin Quire learned he was adopted and began undergoing a secondary mutation, greatly impacting his sense of identity. He became extremely rebellious, began using Kick, and sporting a provocative new haircut and fashion statement. Xorn was assigned to teach the Special Class at the Xavier Institute, Angel, Basilisk, Beak, Martha Johansson, Ernst, and Dummy. He began by taking them on a walk in the woods around the Xavier Institute. Quentin assembled a gang of students, and they began dressing the same, using Kick, getting matching tattoos and attacking humans outside of Mutant Town. Xorn and the Special Class were attacked by the U-Men, a group of human fanatics who harvest mutant organs and then implant them into themselves in the hope of gaining mutant powers. They managed to win the fight. Cyclops and Emma’s relationship continued to intensify. Quentin and his gang knocked out Professor X the night before Open Day and used a helmet on him to inhibit his telepathic powers. They caused a riot at Xavier’s on Open Day, attacking the humans who had come to visit. The X-Men fought the gang Emma Frost’s prized students, the Stepford Cuckoos, joined the fight, using Kick to boost their telepathic powers, and stopped Quentin, but not all of them survived using the drug. Following the conclusion of the riot, the school year came close to wrapping up. Professor X announced he would be stepping down as headmaster of the Xavier Institute. On Prizegiving night, Angel revealed to Beak that she was pregnant and was afraid the two of them would be kicked out of the school. Jean discovered what her husband and Emma had been up to. She was not happy to say the least. Jean and Emma had a psychic argument, and Cyclops fled the Institute. Emma admitted to Wolverine that she had fallen in love with Cyclops. Beast came to check on Emma later, only to discover she had been shot while in her diamond form and shattered into millions of pieces. Professor X called in Lucas Bishop and Sage, mutant investigators, to try to solve the crime. Everyone in the school was a suspect. The outcome of the investigation led to the uncovering of an even deeper conspiracy going on within the Xavier Institute right under the X-Men’s noses.

            Okay, I feel that wraps up our overview of the synopsis. I tried to include as minimal spoilers as I could for this review as I don’t want to make it superfluous for you to read the book if I tell the entire story including the ending in this review, so I’m giving you a teasing reason to want to read this book so you can find out some of the bigger surprises, like who shot Emma. Anyway, you’re probably wondering now what I’m going to say next. I know some of you have read my reviews before, I’ve done over four dozen of them at this point, so there’s a good chance that some of you reading right now aren’t new to this blog. Anyway, at this point, I’m going to tell you my thoughts on this book. Okay, so I’ll start by saying I’ve been reading Marvel Comic Books regularly for almost twenty-five years now, and I read these issues when they first came out back in 2002-2003. Let me say, Grant Morrison’s run on “New X-Men” is actually up there as one of my all-time favorites. So last year, when the first volume of “New X-Men” as a Modern Era Epic Collection was announced, of course I was thrilled. Unfortunately, I had to wait a full year for volume two, and I have a feeling Marvel intends to do another full year wait for volume three, which is a pain because this book does leave the reader hanging, not everything is resolved at the end, there’s still the conspiracy that isn’t solved, Cyclops has fled, there are a few other loose ends, so a year long wait will be torture to get the conclusion of Morrison’s run on the series, and I remember thinking back then that waiting a month for the next issue was torture every time I finished. But hey, there are plenty more Modern Era Epic Collections coming out between that time, so at least I’ll have other series to read. Anyway, I thought Morrison was a brilliant writer. That first story about the “monster” in Mutant Town was just devastating, my heart broke while reading that issue. The X-Corporation story was great, too. I loved the scene where Professor X met with Phoenix. Fantomex is a character I have always enjoyed. I loved the X-Men team Morrison put together that looking back was basically the team Peter David took and used for his “X-Factor” series a few years later, which is another one of my all-time favorite comic book runs, and with David’s passing, I hope Marvel decides to use his run on the series as a Modern Era Epic Collection series, I would totally love that. I liked how Morrison decided that when Wolverine was called “Weapon X” he was actually Weapon Ten, and that there were more Weapons in the Weapon Plus program, I loved that whole development and it led to a lot of great stories in the time after that. I loved the story with Polaris, especially how she replayed Magneto’s last words, I thought they were immensely powerful. I loved how Morrison shipped Cyclops and Emma Frost, I actually liked them together better than I did Cyclops and Jean Grey. The confrontation scene between Jean and Emma was fantastic, in my opinion, by the way, the way Jean totally tore Emma apart, and I loved Emma’s reveal that she had plastic surgery to make herself pretty. I loved Xorn’s Special Class of misfits, Dummy was funny, but I honestly don’t feel like it’s appropriate to discuss him on this blog, you’ll have to read the book if you want to find out about him. I loved the “No-Girl” jokes, especially since eventually she actually really did exist. Quentin Quire has always been a character I’ve enjoyed over the years, he’s gone on to have some really great storylines and has been a very entertaining character and Morrison did an excellent job creating him the way he did. I always loved the Stepford Cuckoos, they’ve also had great stories throughout the past two decades. I loved the story of Emma Frost’s demise, that really kept me going for months when it first came out, I remember waiting for so long for the truth to finally come out, and when it did, I was blown away, but the big reveal doesn’t actually happen in this book, so if you’ve never read it before and you read this book right around the time of me writing this review, you’re going to have a long wait to find out. I loved Angel and Beak’s storyline, their bizarre relationship was entertaining, especially at the end of this book. Beast had an unusual storyline that I don’t feel is appropriate to discuss, but it made for a few good laughs. There was so much I loved about this book. But there is a major problem with this book for me, that being the artists. This book had six artists, and I did not like a single one of them. This book for me was a visual disaster. I wanted to love this, the story was so good but looking at this was just absolutely awful. This just ruined the book for me. Also, I caught a mistake in #135 with the art. In the teachers’ meeting scene on one page, Jean Grey-Summers is sitting in a chair wearing a skirt with bare legs, and on the next page, she is wearing pants. This is one of those minor details that they probably later thought no one would notice, but it did not escape me. Also, Emma’s outfit changed many times over the course of this book, none of them honestly being appropriate to wear in a school for teenagers. Some of the artists also did a terrible job drawing Beak, one in particular made him look even more unnatural than he already should. If this book had different artists, this book could have potentially been more appealing. But as far as Morrison’s work went, the book was great, I loved that, but the art just ruined something great.

            Anyway, I’ve gone on for quite a while, let’s move on to some other topics. Next up on our agenda is the accessibility segment. I’ve said this over four dozen times now, but I have to say it once again because I know some of you are newbies to From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin and have no idea what I mean by this. Anyway, accessibility simply means if a reader who knows nothing about X-Men can pick up this book and comprehend all the details they are reading. So, this is Vol. 2, and I will tell you that if you haven’t read Vol. 1 “E is for Extinction” you will be very lost. This is a direct continuation from there, picking up on many threads from the previous volume, so not reading that is very harmful to accessibility. I will tell you if you haven’t read “E is for Extinction,” don’t even try to read this book. However, if you have read the previous volume, this book is fine to read, this has no direct ties to any other series or events from the time and is completely self-contained, so continuing from there is no problem at all, and Vol. 1 is highly accessible, it’s where I started reading twenty-five years ago, so feel free to follow in my footsteps. If you want to start reading Marvel Comics or X-Men after reading this review, start with “New X-Men: E is for Extinction” then move on to “New Worlds,” it’s a good jump on point.

            This has been pretty lengthy at this point, so I’m going to move on to our next segment, which is my numeric score. Now, everything that goes with a numeric score has a specific scale. My system is extremely simple. I score on exact numbers between one to ten. One is the worst score I give and means this book is completely unreadable and I hated every second I spend consuming it. Ten is a score of perfection and is not a score I give very often. My roommate often says “Tim, why don’t you give books a ten?” and I reply “I can’t give out a score of a ten to a book with flaws, it has to be perfect to get a ten,” to which he replies “but there’s no such thing as perfection,” to which I say “that’s why I don’t give out many tens.” To get a ten, a book has to have a story that I find no problems with, and the art has to be consistently visually pleasing. As far as the story goes with this book, I would really love to give this book a nine. I don’t quite feel the story was complete perfection, but it was absolutely amazing. But we have the art, which was consistently displeasing, so for that, I have to deduct points. And unfortunately, in this case, that really hurts this book. I found very few panels in this book that I actually enjoyed artistically looking at, even though I loved reading the story. So, I’m just going to move on to giving this book a score since I’ve been rambling on for a while now and you’re probably getting tired of me. So, taking everything into account, the fantastic story but the horrible art, we put it all together and I throw out to you… a six. I really wanted to like this book, and for the most part, I enjoyed reading the story, but the art was just so horrendous that reading this was slightly unpleasant.

            Next, we’re moving on the my recommendation section. In this segment, I tell you, my reader, if I personally recommend this book to you, and if I do or don’t, who I think should be reading this. So, as far as if this book gets the Tim Cubbin personal recommendation, that is a resounding yes. Story wise, this book is fantastic and a delightful read, if you can get past the art. If you are a fan of X-Men, I totally recommend reading the “New X-Men” Modern Era Epic Collections. I feel like Morrison did a fantastic job and any X-Men fan should read this amazing run. If you’re a fan of Grant Morrison, definitely read this, his work on this series was stellar. I’ve never read anything else by Grant Morrison personally, so I can’t speak for him as an author, but I feel like if you’ve read his work on anything else before and enjoyed it, you should definitely read “New X-Men,” I feel like it’s a fantastic series and deserves a read. If you’re a Marvel Comics reader, I think this should definitely be on your queue of things to read.

            Well, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time, this has certainly taken up a lot of my time, so how about we all move on with our lives in just a wee bit. First, I do have a few more things of note before I sign off. Okay, I’ve been doing this blog for five years at this point, and as I’ve said, I’ve done over four dozen other book reviews just like this one, so if you enjoyed reading this, check out timcubbin.blogspot.com for plenty more book reviews. I’ve posted on this site over 160 times, I’m sure you’ll find something else you’ll like. I’ve done a review of “New X-Men: E is for Extinction” so if you liked this review, please check that one out if you haven’t already. I will tell you I post of a very frequent basis, Marvel puts out at least one Modern Era Epic Collection a month, and I buy every single one of them and try to throw up a review as soon as I possibly can. I have a few I haven’t reviewed yet, I might remedy that someday, I’m not totally sure. One book I didn’t review since I spent too much time after reading it before attempting to write a review, it centered around multiple Marvel events which I never read so I didn’t fully understand it, and the details just left my mind before I could review it, but if another volume of that series comes out, you can expect that review to come out. There are a couple of other series that might not get other volumes and I didn’t have this laptop at the time I read them, so I couldn’t write reviews at those exact moments, so I’m not sure if those will get reviews, but who knows, I might decide to go back and fix that. I also collect Marvel Ultimate Epic Collections, and I review those. So, every month, there’s probably going to be something to read. I’m expecting another delivery today, but it’s running late, so I’m not sure when I’ll be getting it, but you can expect to see a review of that one sometime in the next three weeks. If you’re into other styles of reading, I’ve also written a few short stories and poems, plus I’ve done editorials, essays, and articles, so you can check those out as well, if you’re so inclined and have some time to kill and want to continue hanging out with me. If you think this review seems pretty professional, I have a degree in journalism, but due to cruddy life circumstances, I can’t get a job in the field and am relegated to working as an Instacart shopper at a local grocery store instead of getting paid for blogging as was my dream job, but you have to go with what life gives you, so I do these reviews for free to feel like I’m somehow using my degree. I will continue to post for as long as I can, so that’s likely to be a long time coming. So, expect me to keep coming back and I hope you become a fan of me and keep coming back too. So, I’ll say goodbye for now, but until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!