"New X-Men: Planet X"

 

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

            Following the attempted murder of Emma Frost/White Queen, Scott Summers/Cyclops left the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning and the X-Men. Cyclops sought comfort at the Hellfire Club as he dealt with the strains Emma put on his marriage with Jean Grey/Phoenix. Logan/Wolverine wished to learn about his past, and Wolverine’s meeting with European criminal Fantomex gave Wolverine a lead on a Weapon Plus facility called the World in England that might shed light on Wolverine’s history before Wolverine became Weapon X. Fantomex himself was the program’s Weapon XIII. Wolverine challenged Cyclops to a drinking game, the stakes being if Cyclops won, Wolverine would allow Cyclops to disappear, while if Wolverine won, Cyclops would accompany Wolverine on his fact-finding mission to the World. Wolverine won, and Wolverine, Cyclops, and Fantomex set out for the World. Upon breaching the World’s outer perimeter, the trio discovered a camera that recorded a group of Advanced Idea Mechanics agents’ encounter with the latest Weapon Plus project, Weapon XV, a part-man/part-machine hybrid being. The trio then encountered the remnants of the A.I.M. unit, after a fire fight, took the A.I.M. unit out. The trio then entered the World, a place where time could be slowed or accelerated or stopped altogether. At the moment they entered, time was on pause. As they explored, time restarted and the trio were attacked by a car-cop, part of the World’s security. After taking the car-cop out, the trio came face-to-face with Weapon XV. After the trio took a beating from Weapon XV, Weapon XV escaped the World and headed for the Weapon Plus orbital base. Cyclops, Wolverine and Fantomex followed Weapon XV into space in Fantomex’ parter/vehicle E.V.A. While exploring, the trio fought Weapon Plus agents and placed charges to blow up the Weapon Plus base. Following the planting of the charges, the trio found their way to a computer. Fantomex was able to access it, providing Wolverine with his history and ten minutes of access before the station blew. As Cyclops and Fantomex made their escape, E.V.A. was attacked, and E.V.A.’s psychic connection with Fantomex left Fantomex weakened. Cyclops was able to help Fantomex escape. When Weapon XV found Wolverine, Wolverine blew up the station.

            Charles Xavier/Professor X planned to step down as headmaster of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, leaving the school under the guidance of Jean Grey. Cerebra, the X-Men’s mutant detection device, located Cyclops and Wolverine in space. Jean left for space in the X-Plane Mark 3 to pick up Wolverine from space, while Emma Frost and Henry “Hank” McCoy/Beast went off to pick up Cyclops. Xorn had a lesson with the Special Class, Angel Salvadore, Barnell Bohusk/Beak, Sooraya Qadir/Dust, Basilisk, Earnst, and Martha Johansson. Dust fled the class to converse with Professor X. Dust suddenly attacked Professor X. Xorn came to Professor X’s rescue, but Dust destroyed Cerebra. Dust attacked the Special Class before Professor X and Xorn were able to subdue her. Jean found Wolverine, and the two realized they were on Asteroid M, former base of the X-Men’s greatest enemy Erik Lensherr/Magneto. The X-Plane was destroyed, and Asteroid M was knocked out of orbit, headed towards the Sun. Beast and Emma’s X-Plane was also blown up over the Pacific Ocean. Xorn attacked Professor X, revealing himself to actually be Magneto, and disabling the Professor’s ability to walk, a gift Magneto had granted using Nano-Sentinels. Magneto destroyed the Xavier Institute and then New York City, redubbing it New Genosha. Magneto deputized the Special Class, Esme Cuckoo, and Mortimer Toynbee/Toad as the heads of his new Brotherhood of Mutants and staged a mutant uprising. He kept Professor X incapacitated in a tank. Magneto planned to use his powers to reverse the Earth’s magnetic poles. He used the mutant performance enhancing drug Kick to boost his powers. As Wolverine and Jean headed for the Sun, Wolverine killed Jean to instantly spare her the pain of their inevitable deaths. Magneto placed Beak in charge of exterminating the remaining humans in New Genosha, a task Beak did not wish to do. Basilisk spoke out of turn, and an accidentally enhanced magnetic pulse from Magneto ended Basilisk’s life. Magneto attempted to end Beak, but Beak managed to escape Magneto’s wrath. Beak was discovered by the resistance, headed by Cyclops and Fantomex, and including Dust, and the Stepford Cuckoos, Phoebe, Mindee, and Celeste Cuckoo. As Esme revealed her romantic feelings for Magneto, Magneto rejected Esme’s advance. The Phoenix Force saved Jean and Wolverine from their deaths and Phoenix brought the two back to Earth. Phoenix found Beast and Emma floating on the wreckage of the X-Plane in the Pacific Ocean. The United States government planned to drop neutron warheads on New Genosha, coded only to destroy mutations and leave all surroundings intact. The resistance attacked Magneto’s base. Fantomex injured Toad and released Professor X. Magneto attempted to take down Fantomex, but Cyclops came to his rescue. Cyclops took out his anger at Magneto with an optic blast. Esma turned on Magneto, and Magneto released a Magnetic pulse on Esme. Beast tried to talk the President out of dropping the neutron warheads. Esme died in Emma’s arms. Beast attempted to neutralize the Kick in Magneto’s bloodstream to weaken him. Phoenix and Professor X confronted Magneto. As the X-Men prepared to take down Magneto once and for all, tragedy befell the team.

            Grieving from the fallout of the battle with Magneto, Cyclops lost heart for the X-Men and left the team. Without him, Beast tried to head the school. Under great stress, Beast tried Kick. Unknown to Beast was that the drug was the aerosol form of Sublime. Continued use of the drug supplanted the Beast’s persona, turning him into a mad scientist. 150 passed and humanity was nearly extinct. The Phoenix Egg was discovered on the moon. Tom Skylark and his Sentinel partner Rover were tasked with bringing the Phoenix Egg to the Institute. On his trek, he was attacked by Beast’s creations, the Crawlers. Rover took them out except for one that managed to teleport inside of Rover. Tom met with E.V.A. at the Institute. The Crawler that hid inside Rover had been spliced with genetic codes from Jamie Madrox/Multiple Man, and the Crawlers were able to multiply inside the Institute. Tito Bohusk/Beak tried to help Rover and E.V.A. destroy the Crawlers, but the Crawlers were able to teleport away with the Phoenix Egg. The X-Men (Wolverine, E.V.A., Beak, and Cassandra Nova), Tom and Rover prepared to fly to Beast’s laboratory in Transatlantis. Beast forced the Phoenix Egg to hatch, releasing a reborn Jean Grey. As the X-Men fought an army of Crawlers, Tom and E.V.A. had an intimate moment in front of Rover. This caused a distraction for Rover, and Rover was destroyed. Beast implanted himself with Phoenix traits, an act he had promised to perform on his loyal servant Apollyon, the U-Man. The X-Men faced the reborn Phoenix, and Wolverine was able to reach the Jean Grey inside of her. Beast faced the X-Men in a final battle, and the fate of the universe rested in the hands of Jean Grey.

            Okay, we have the plot synopsis out of the way, let’s move on to my individual segments of this review, shall we. We’re going to start, as I always do, with my own personal opinions on the book. I will say that I absolutely loved this book. I’ve been a reader of Marvel Comics since 2001, and New X-Men was actually one of the first two series I ever subscribed to. I looked forward to getting the new issues every month, and this series has been a favorite of mine for twenty-five years. Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men is one of my top three all-time favorite comic book runs to this day. This conclusion was just fantastic, and I was completely blown away. Reading this book again twenty-two years later was still just as good as it was the first time I read it. I remember being totally shocked when it turned out that Xorn was really Magneto. And I loved how Jean truly became Phoenix at the end of “Planet X.” The final showdown between the X-Men and Magneto in this book was totally epic. And I loved the dystopian future in “Here Comes Tomorrow.” Beast’s transformation into Sublime was a great twist. These stories were, in my opinion, peak. As far as the art goes, I have a love/hate for Chris Bachalo’s artwork. It’s unique, and I kind of like it, but it is a little wonky. Phil Jimenez and Marc Silvestri did bang up jobs on their penciling. In general, I liked the artwork, but Bachalo’s work was a little off-putting at certain points. Next up in things I critique about Epic Collections is the title. The editors had a few choices, including “Assault on Weapon Plus,” “Planet X,” or “Here Comes Tomorrow,” but the main arcs did tend to have subtitles, so the editors could have run with one of those as well, or else pulled a rando title from out of nowhere for this book that they thought would be good. That said, I thought “Planet X” was the best choice of titles for this book. It was the longest story arc in the Collection, and I feel like it fits the book as a whole as well. Finally, I’m going to talk about the cover. It’s actually very simple, just Cyclops shooting off an optic blast. Was it the best choice for a cover for this book? I’d say it wasn’t. I feel like there were other covers in this book that would have been more perfect. That said, it’s not a bad cover. Cyclops does play a major part in this book, so his gracing the cover seems appropriate enough. Unfortunately, I do have to question how he’s firing an optic blast if he’s not pressing the studs on either the sides of his visor or in his palms. Plus, I do feel Cyclops’ face does look a little odd. But I’m not going to fault the cover on technicalities such as these. Overall, I thought this book was fantastic, and I really loved it.

            Next up on the docket of things to discuss, we’re going to talk about accessibility. I know I’ve talked about this over seven dozen times at this point, and every time I do a review, I have to explain it, so to the people who have read reviews by me before, bear with me while I explain to my newbs just what exactly I mean when I talk about accessibility. So, I’m going to pose a question here: is this book accessible? What I mean by that is, can a person who knows absolutely nothing about the X-Men pick up this book, read it, and understand the story as it is presented with no outside knowledge of the stories before, around, or during the time of the issues contained in just this volume? I will say the answer to that question is no. This Collection is marketed as Vol. 3 and directly continues from stories started in the previous volumes. However, I feel that if you want this book to be accessible, you just need to read the first two volumes of New X-Men as presented in Modern Era Epic Collection format (“E is for Extinction” and “New Worlds”). I feel like Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men was self-contained, and it was where I started reading comics knowing almost nothing about the Marvel Comic Universe of the X-Men. It doesn’t directly cross over into other series or tie into other storylines or events from the time. On its own, I will say that this particular volume is not a good book to choose as your first book if you’re trying to start reading Marvel Comic books, but this series is a good series to get into Marvel Comics with if you’ve never read a Marvel Comic book before and you’re looking for somewhere to start your journey into the Marvel Universe.

            Moving on, I’m going to give this book a numeric score. I know some of you might consider this the most important part of my reviews, but I feel like to some of my readers, every one of my segments might be what they consider my most important segment. Now, of course, it’s important to go over how I score a book. I score on a scale of whole numbers ranging from one through ten. If I score a book as a one, that means that this book is one of the worst things I have ever read in my entire life and reading it was actually an experience that was physically and emotionally painful. However, if I score a book as a ten, that means that this book is one of the best things I have ever read in my entire life and the hours I spent reading it were some of the best few hours of my life. To be honest, I don’t usually give out tens simply because a ten means this book was perfect and I could find no flaws or things to complain about. I primarily base a book’s score on the story, but since this book is a graphic novel, I’m judging this book on art as well. Also, I take the title and cover into consideration, if I feel they properly apply to this particular book. So, taking everything into account, the score I feel I am going to give this book is… a nine! I loved the story, I thought the title was perfect and that the cover is adequate to represent the contents inside this volume, but I did feel that Bachalo’s artwork was a little wonky here and there, but overall, this book was truly exceptional and I thoroughly loved reading it.

            Finally, I’m going to give my recommendation segment. This segment answers two separate questions. The first question is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my readers? The second question is, regardless of if I would actually tell you to read this book or not based on my personal feelings, whom do I feel is the target audience, beyond the obvious of fans of Marvel Comics, the X-Men, or the creators? The answer to my first question is a resounding yes. If you’re reading this review and are so intrigued based solely on the words I have just spent the past few hours tying that you now want to read this book, I will say go to your preferred online retailer, your nearest bookstore, your favorite comic shop, your local library, or your Marvel obsessed friend or family member and try to get your hands on a copy of this book and read it at your earliest convenience. As for who I feel the perfect audience for this book is, I’d say it’s best for people who love stories about infiltration of secret facilities, near-catastrophic disasters, and post-apocalyptic futures. If you read this book, please feel free to leave a comment on this blog site, or a comment or tweet on the social media site you found this blog post on about your feelings about this book. I’d love to hear your opinions. Everything I say on this blog is my own personal opinion and I am not trying to force my feelings on you. I leave it up to you to feel how you want to about anything I say whether you want to agree or disagree with me. That’s the beauty of being human is that we all have our own opinions about everything, and I totally encourage you to have yours. If you read this book and think it’s horrible, I’d love to hear from you about your thoughts about this book and why you thought it was so bad. And if you loved it, I’d love to know your favorite parts of this book. I’d love to have a community vibe going here, although no one seems to want to do that yet, but I’m always hoping it will happen, so please feel free to start things going if you want to say something, you’re welcome to it.

            Okay, we’re getting to the point where I’m just about ready to sign off. There are a few things I do have to say before I sign off. The first is that I’ve been doing this blog for almost six years now. I’ve done over 190 posts, so if you have some more free time, check out more content on timcubbin.blogspot.com and see what else there is to like. I’ve done several kinds of posts, such as shorts stories, poems, essays, articles, and editorials. My primary focus at the moment is reviews. I’ve done reviews of prose novels, manga, comic book events, and a lot of reviews of graphic novels. Right now, I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after it is released and if possible, put up a review. If you liked this review and have some more time, feel free to check out my reviews of “New X-Men: E is for Extinction” “New X-Men: New Worlds” “Astonishing X-Men: Gifted” and “Astonishing X-Men: Unstoppable” for more X-Men content. I post on a very frequent basis. My next post is going to be “Ultimate Fantastic Four: Frightful” which will be posted on this site within the next two months, but you can probably expect it to be a lot sooner than that, I’m just giving a rough estimate based on my availability to get the book, how long it takes to read it, and when I’m free to draft the review, but if you want to see more of my work, keep checking back until it’s posted. That’s all I have to say for now. Until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!