Astoning X-Men #13
Mar. 3rd, 2006 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe Big Damm Movie on DVD is mine, and I've also provided more money for Joss to send his kid to college by aquiring Astonishing X-Men #13.
As Joss has made me somewhat fond of Miss Frost and she took a distinct back stage in the second storyarc, I was delighted to find her firmly featured in the new one. Now, though I've been trying to catch up on X-Men continuity, I still had to make some educated guesses. For example, the bald female person named Cassandra whom Emma was talking with in the opening pages is Xavier's evil twin or something, right? I seem to remember it was mentioned somewhere he had one. However, the scene and ensuing ones work without that knowledge, as the principle is familiar to any longtime Jossverse affiniados - villain X (no pun intended) tells ambiguous character Y that Y will at the end of the day be selfish and fall in line with X because X knows Y's true nature, and besides, X is more powerful than Y and could eat Y for dinner anyway. That kind of smug assurance is your basic setup for X being proven wrong about Y at the climax of the story.
This speculation aside, the revelations here are very interesting. So Emma got her secondary mutation, her ability to turn into diamond form, from the Hellfire club? The single male member, this Sebastian, regards their objective as "a holy mission" (which reminds me, as I also rewatched the BDM and thus have encountered the Operative again, that villains convinced of the rightness of their cause are always more effective), but the women are both in charge and more interesting. There is the newest incarnation of the murderous Ophelia archetype Joss is so fond of (see also: Drusilla, River, Dana), though presumably as she was in the big revelation panel of the last issue she is an already established character, not one he created, and the character with the Destiny-of-the-Endless outfit whose face we don't see and who is called Perfection, the recognized leader.
And speaking of familiar archetypes: I'm feeling entirely too smug about something I said to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
karabair a while ago regarding Scott Summers, but come on, is there someone who looked at the last panel of the current issue and had seen Angel: The Series and didn't think of Wesley and Lilah in Supersymmetry?
"Torn", the title, seems to relate to Emma and her navigating between her Hellfire Club past/obligations on the one hand and her love for Scott on the other ("with all my predator heart" demands an icon, btw), but I guess it's also the title for the new storyarc, as this was the pattern with the previous issues ("Gifted" for the first, and it related to the serum that took away mutations and its effects on the X-men, and "Danger" of course was the sentient Danger-Room as well as the state they were in). "Torn" is definitely something Hank and Scott feel in this issue as well. May I say, not for the first time, I love the Hank and Scott conversations and did from the first arc onwards? Hank spending every free minute in the lab would indicate to me he's still researching the serum sample he has - after all, he did tell Scott at the end of the "Gifted" arc that all he could promise was not to use it right now - and of course Scott had his argument with Emma at the end of the Danger arc, both because of the immediate puzzle (why she took a time out in the middle of a fight) and the deeper problem (his awareness of Emma's "ends justify the means" convictions). As, stubble and post traumatic stress syndrome aside, he's not Wesley, I don't think he'll react to the Jean Grey thing in the last panel by telling Emma to keep it up...
Meanwhile, we're also reminded of Agent Brand (another person full of ends-justify-means convictions but as opposed to Emma depicted with a complete lack of self doubt) and the ORD storyline. My current guess: whatever the agenda of the Hellfire Club is will probably cause the desctruction of the Breakworld, and thus the two forces of zealotry will clash, with the X-Men caught square in the middle, and whatever Emma does then might on the one hand save the day for the X-Men but on the other destroy her relationship with Scott.
Sidenote: will have to check this, but I think you could postulate that never questioning yourself is not a good thing if you're living in a Joss Whedon written universe. For all the fanon cliché about the heroes being self-righteous, they actually aren't, whereas most of the villains - and certainly those who die instead of surviving - are. Self-doubt is displayed by Buffy, Willow, Giles and Xander, but not by the Master, Glory, Mr. Trick, Major Wilkins; it's in ample evidence in Angel, Wesley, Gunn, Fred, but not in Holland Manners, Lilah, Holtz, Jasmine or any of the S5 villains. Those ambiguous characters who cross the line to and thro between heroes and villains camps, like Faith, Connor or Spike do display self-doubt. In conclusion: having periods of wondering wether what you do and how you do it makes any sense at all is A Good Thing.
As Joss has made me somewhat fond of Miss Frost and she took a distinct back stage in the second storyarc, I was delighted to find her firmly featured in the new one. Now, though I've been trying to catch up on X-Men continuity, I still had to make some educated guesses. For example, the bald female person named Cassandra whom Emma was talking with in the opening pages is Xavier's evil twin or something, right? I seem to remember it was mentioned somewhere he had one. However, the scene and ensuing ones work without that knowledge, as the principle is familiar to any longtime Jossverse affiniados - villain X (no pun intended) tells ambiguous character Y that Y will at the end of the day be selfish and fall in line with X because X knows Y's true nature, and besides, X is more powerful than Y and could eat Y for dinner anyway. That kind of smug assurance is your basic setup for X being proven wrong about Y at the climax of the story.
This speculation aside, the revelations here are very interesting. So Emma got her secondary mutation, her ability to turn into diamond form, from the Hellfire club? The single male member, this Sebastian, regards their objective as "a holy mission" (which reminds me, as I also rewatched the BDM and thus have encountered the Operative again, that villains convinced of the rightness of their cause are always more effective), but the women are both in charge and more interesting. There is the newest incarnation of the murderous Ophelia archetype Joss is so fond of (see also: Drusilla, River, Dana), though presumably as she was in the big revelation panel of the last issue she is an already established character, not one he created, and the character with the Destiny-of-the-Endless outfit whose face we don't see and who is called Perfection, the recognized leader.
And speaking of familiar archetypes: I'm feeling entirely too smug about something I said to
karabair a while ago regarding Scott Summers, but come on, is there someone who looked at the last panel of the current issue and had seen Angel: The Series and didn't think of Wesley and Lilah in Supersymmetry?"Torn", the title, seems to relate to Emma and her navigating between her Hellfire Club past/obligations on the one hand and her love for Scott on the other ("with all my predator heart" demands an icon, btw), but I guess it's also the title for the new storyarc, as this was the pattern with the previous issues ("Gifted" for the first, and it related to the serum that took away mutations and its effects on the X-men, and "Danger" of course was the sentient Danger-Room as well as the state they were in). "Torn" is definitely something Hank and Scott feel in this issue as well. May I say, not for the first time, I love the Hank and Scott conversations and did from the first arc onwards? Hank spending every free minute in the lab would indicate to me he's still researching the serum sample he has - after all, he did tell Scott at the end of the "Gifted" arc that all he could promise was not to use it right now - and of course Scott had his argument with Emma at the end of the Danger arc, both because of the immediate puzzle (why she took a time out in the middle of a fight) and the deeper problem (his awareness of Emma's "ends justify the means" convictions). As, stubble and post traumatic stress syndrome aside, he's not Wesley, I don't think he'll react to the Jean Grey thing in the last panel by telling Emma to keep it up...
Meanwhile, we're also reminded of Agent Brand (another person full of ends-justify-means convictions but as opposed to Emma depicted with a complete lack of self doubt) and the ORD storyline. My current guess: whatever the agenda of the Hellfire Club is will probably cause the desctruction of the Breakworld, and thus the two forces of zealotry will clash, with the X-Men caught square in the middle, and whatever Emma does then might on the one hand save the day for the X-Men but on the other destroy her relationship with Scott.
Sidenote: will have to check this, but I think you could postulate that never questioning yourself is not a good thing if you're living in a Joss Whedon written universe. For all the fanon cliché about the heroes being self-righteous, they actually aren't, whereas most of the villains - and certainly those who die instead of surviving - are. Self-doubt is displayed by Buffy, Willow, Giles and Xander, but not by the Master, Glory, Mr. Trick, Major Wilkins; it's in ample evidence in Angel, Wesley, Gunn, Fred, but not in Holland Manners, Lilah, Holtz, Jasmine or any of the S5 villains. Those ambiguous characters who cross the line to and thro between heroes and villains camps, like Faith, Connor or Spike do display self-doubt. In conclusion: having periods of wondering wether what you do and how you do it makes any sense at all is A Good Thing.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-03 01:53 pm (UTC)Have you roleplayed Emma anywhere?
no subject
Date: 2006-03-03 02:11 pm (UTC)But I might write a drabble or two about her one of these days.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-03 05:42 pm (UTC)Yes, me too. I'm getting completely confused with the Hellfire Club and Agent Brand and Colossus...and everybody.
May I say, not for the first time, I love the Hank and Scott conversations and did from the first arc onwards?
Me too. At the moment I'm voting for more Emma, Scott and Hank and significantly less Kitty who is grating on my every last nerve. I know I'm supposed to like her, but I don't. I much prefer conflicted Emma.
didn't think of Wesley and Lilah in Supersymmetry?
LOL. This is where my lack of knowledge of canon is a real handicap because I had to presume it was Jean's costume without actually knowing it was.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-03 05:55 pm (UTC)This is where my lack of knowledge of canon is a real handicap because I had to presume it was Jean's costume without actually knowing it was.
Ah, but earlier on when Scott was knocked out in the "Gifted" arc he had a brief Jean hallucination (telling him he was pathetic), so I recognized the costume from there. (Well, from there and from Phoenix Endsong which however you don't have to read. I thought it would be interesting, centring on Jean, Emma and Scott, but alas it showed what Joss contributes to the franchise, to wit, the dialogue of all three was horrible and melodramatic and whatnot. No snarky Emma is just wrong.)