Morrison,His Place in History

Agreed about the flaw with expecting the readers to basically figure out how the changes happened. If you're going to introduce something entirely new to the world of something the responsible thing to do as a writer is show or explain how it happened or at least give some tidbits as crumbs for the readers to piece it together. We really didn't even get the tidbits/crumbs about Mutant Town. It was just there.

Agreed about Beast. While Claremont was sort of 'meh' in X-Treme X-Men I do think Beast might have gotten a better development there instead of the secondary mutation and such. Morrison sort of just used him as a supporting character and really screwed with and abused him as mentioned. Pretty much since then he's never really been the same. Which leads to the way he was treated to leave the island. That is one thing I wont' fully blame on Fraction as he was following what had been set up for Beast over the last few years. He could have changed it to his own thing, but I think that a lot of the X-Writers just don't really have the interest left in Beast since Morrison handled him. At least Brubraker is giving him his spotlight again.

As for the Shi'ar, yeah I really didn't like them that much in New X-Men. Like you BC I too have that special space for the Shi'ar and the space stories. A lot of people don't like the X-Men in space but hell if the FF and Avengers go there all the time why not the X-Men I say. A fun romp off planet is a good story most times. With Morrison though he ripped them apart and then pretty much just left them destroyed midway through his run and never touched them again. I sort of can see how the abuse of Lilandra's character through that run led to them killing her off recently. Quite a lot of toys that Morrison touched and changed and abused have gotten fixed up to erase his touch or tossed aside to be forgotten or trashed quickly.

Most of Morrison's characters are shallow.

And yeah Beast beating up Beast...*rolls eyes*. And double eye roll to Beast being too weak to lead the X-Men.

His Jean, his Emma, his Beast, his Cyke, His Magneto were all horribly written. They weren't X-Men characters, they were MORRISON characters.

I really don't see the "Morrison character" argument. I never once thought anyone was out of character while reading his run. The argument about Beast being too weak to lead the X-men is an interesting one, but why is Morrison to blame? Dark Beast was established in AoA as the Beast that would come to be if everything went to hell.

Originally posted by Blackcyclops Wow, that's interesting to hear people say because All-Star Superman is considered by many (and I'm not talking the fringe internet fans like us but from sales figured, interviews, and awards) to be one of the best Superman stories ever. So its funny to hear people say he doesn't write a Superman story lol...

This is what I hate about Morrison. Been a Superman reader for quite a number of years and All-Star was indeed a helluva good story. He combined Silver Age-ness with more modern story ideas and sensibilities. It sounds crazy but it worked..perfectly.

Same with his Doom Patrol. Read the first TPB of Morrison's run and it was wild and exciting which surprised me.

But I didn't get his Final Crisis plans and I firmly believe now that Batman, as a whole, will never recover from his machinations.

I either love him or hate him which is why I've always been reluctant to read his X-run. I've read some issues from the beginning of his run but never followed the rest. I would say I'd hate him simply because he broke up Scott & Jean but I'd have no basis beyond my own favorite conjections.

Otherwise, judging by everyone's comments here, I'd do best to avoid his run. Seems like everyone at Marvel has. And that's a good thing, right??

wow with a statement like that I assume you don't read the comics now?

@Cyke- The verdict on Morrison I believe isn't so cut and dry. I will agree that some characters he definitely didn't get. But the one thing he did and many people give him credit for is bringing the X-Men back to the essence of their mission, which is to help mutants integrate into the mainstream. He turned it back into an actual school, created much more outreach, and turned it from a clandestine guerrilla army to a type of mutant rights group. He definitely touched on some controversial parts of the mythos (the Phoenix Force) and made a bold statement about some core aspects of the mythos (the idea that Civil Rights Era ways of thinking are antiquated).

For me the issues I have with Morrison are less his themes and ideas and more so his characters. Although I didn't so much like his Emma, Magneto, or Wolverine...I dug his Cyclops...

Edited by Blackcyclops - 23-Jan-2011 at 10:10pm

Emma was his biggest disregard to continuity. It was like her years in Generation-X never happened. Everyone mistrusted her and acted like she just reformed, whenever she brought up her 'old students', it wasn't in reference to the Generation-X crew but in references to the Hellions, whenever she thought of the death of her students, it wasn't in reference to say Synch or Skin, but to the Hellions or the kids who died on Genosha. Not once was her time in Generation-X mentioned or even implied, it was like the death of the Hellions had just happened because it was 'still haunting her' even though in Generation-X she found redemption from her guilt in her Generation-X students.

But none of that was her. No, it was like Emma had just put away her sexy lingerie(except well, she didn't since that's all she basically wore, again something she stopped doing in Generation-X).

As with Jean, he didn't once reference the fact that it wasn't Jean who was the Phoenix back in the 80's. In fact it was implied or if I remember even said, numerous times, that, that was actual Jean and not the Phoenix clone. And Jean's "All I ever did was die on you" pretty much retroactively ruined any other good Jean moments in Morrison's run. If that's the big moment he built her character too(and a stroke at the hands of Magneto) it just ruins her "badass" moment in Emma's mind(which was a tad on the 'woman scorn side' for Jean. Why go after Emma? Torture Scott ). So combined that(which I consider one of my least favorite moments in reading X-Men ever, and honestly I'm not even a huge Jean fan and a bigger fan of her now than I was then) with the whole ignoring Jean's history as the Phoenix was another continuity, character blunder.

I guess I'll give him Scott. This guy sucks at relationships. He left his wife for Jean, so why not cheat again? So not only is a d-bag, he's a scumbag! But remember folks, Xavier is the bad one.

As for Magneto, I still don't see him taking drugs nor do I see him becoming a one note monster. It isn't like he 'becoming everything he hates' is something that bothers me. Magneto has always been on the edge of that, heck when he did that EMP thing that was pretty bad. But his behavior, his, what I would call, blood lust and sudden psychopathic tendencies were way over the line. I think that no matter what, Magneto would show some form of regret. He wouldn't enjoy doing what he was doing but per usual feel it is necessary. Instead he went out in a cliched villain sort of way, asking to be made immortal or w.e. He killed Esme, he killed Jean, he killed countless humans and yet not even an ounce of remorse? Even if Genosha failed, it wasn't the humans which did it, which he knew at that point. It failed because of people like him, in some ways people even more extreme, but still with the same basic ideals(though okay honestly I can't remember why Cassandra did what she did...).

That's three examples for me. I guess, in Magneto's case, it's how you view the characters. And maybe even the same with Jean in how you choose to view her convoluted mess of a history(Have I mentioned how I HATE the Phoenix?) but it's how I view the characters so it all just comes off as wrong to me.


Edited by XtremeOne1 - 24-Jan-2011 at 4:10am

Emma- I gotta agree with Xtreme. If nothing else this was the most glaring example...then again he should have just resurrected Colossus and left Emma waiting for someone who really cared.

Jean- Me and Xtreme have already gone back and forth on this one. Alot of the stuff Jean did I liked, but the way it was vaguely implied (I think Pak did the best Phoenix story since Claremont in Phoenix Endsong and tried to clear up the mess Morrison made...plus it was the best Land X-Men art EVER LOL) that Jean was the Phoenix who died because she is apart of the Phoenix, that stuff really annoyed me.

Xavier- I think his Xavier was actually spot on. I mean Sometimes I think people forget that their was a X-Men writer before Claremont, and Xavier was really kinda a pervy bastard (He wanted underage tang, lied to students numerous times, etc) but like alot of great people that doesn't take away from the fact that he's still a great man with a great dream. Morrison played that up strong and showed that Xavier was passing the torch but still was effective.

Beast- Like someone else pointed out and I did earlier, the Beast hasn't been treated like a "superhero" since he was on the Avengers. He was the lab guy. I didn't like "gay" thing, it felt weird. Other things felt like a critique of the science minded, like Morrison has issues with people who only think in science.

Wolverine- I mean he had his moments.

Cyclops- Xtreme just doesn't like Cyke LOL which is cool...I think Morrison did his best work with Cyclops. He showed that the experience Cyclops went through changed him. Not in the "under mind control" way but in the "I just faced the EVIL inside of me and I need to change my life". I'm not condoning his choice of cheating on Jean (not at all), but just like Xavier his personal faults didn't change the good he was trying to do. Morrison really deconstructed Cyclops and built him back up to a man that was exactly what Xavier had been training him to be (again reading the original 5 stuff Xavier puts Cyclops in alot of positions where he is supposed to be the next leader and lead the way he wants).

Magneto- The character I'm most torn about. On one hand I see what Morrison was trying to do. Magneto was essentially a man who had found out that his dream was obsolete. It was a very innovative thing to do with a guy who really has never had consistent characterization (if we have to do the whole in and out of character thing). The way he really was so messed up in the head that infiltrated the X-Men like that showed that he was cracking up. That said, his reckless and wanton destruction and violence just doesn't fit Magneto post Eve of Destruction. I mean killing humans, that I can see. But when he killed Esme, I mean the guy freaked out when he thought he killed Kitty. I felt like that was too off the edge. The use of Kick, again torn on. On one hand people who feel disillusioned like that do resort to artificial highs. But it just felt like it wasn't a "Magneto" thing to do. His killing of Jean, I don't know...it just never felt right to me.

He introduces some great new characters- THe Cuckoos and Dust. I actually don't hate Fantomax and he's getting a great showing lately. Cassandra Nova is a character I like, just don't like her origin and the confusion all of it causes. His depiction of the Imperial Guard was okay, nothing special.

I wouldn't call his run great. But I'd call it momentous. Despite a lot of the retconning I think a lot of the Morrison tradition remains. In fact I see a lot of Morrison in Fraction (take that as you will) in the sense that they both seem to like to correllate the X-Men with current day trends like genetics and social media and rebellion against authority and what have you. So in that sense I think there were some good broad trends that Morrison set the basis for.

However I think it's been said before but I will reiterate it, Morrison's blatant disregard for certain X-Men characters in favor of his versions of his favorites still doesn't sit well with me. And Claremont created cat-Beast but Morrison ingrained it into memory so hard it will never die apparently, thus perpetrating the worst visual decision in the entire history of the franchise. So deduct ten points off of his grade just for that alone.

Originally posted by Blackcyclops I thought Morrison made Cat-Beast? If it's Claremont, it all makes sense...lol

I guess we should just be grateful it wasn't Dino-Beast or Beast-tooth, all ideas I'm sure Claremont toyed with.

Originally posted by XtremeOne1 Originally posted by Blackcyclops I thought Morrison made Cat-Beast? If it's Claremont, it all makes sense...lol I guess we should just be grateful it wasn't Dino-Beast or Beast-tooth, all ideas I'm sure Claremont toyed with.

Dino-Beast...(,-_-,)

Haha now I am remembering Dino-Rachel. Ewwwwww.

I love Morrison's New X-Men. It got me into comics. He completely blows most other X-Writers from the past decade out of the water.

Haha, great summary line at the end there. But yeah, totally agree. LOTS of ideas, sure, but I don't think Morrison took the time to pace them well, and see what the current status quo for a lot of the characters actually were prior to his run. The franchise became HIS sandbox, and woe betide anyone who had read the X-Men for any amount of time prior to him taking over.