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selenakLife is good when you have fellow addict friends enabling your addiction. Also, Joss Whedon is my favorite drug, but then, I knew that.
A few days ago, I theorized to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rozk that Joss' run of AXM is at least in part a response to several Grant Morrison storylines during New X-Men, and no, not just in the sense of every writer in a continuing saga having to deal with what the previous one did, whether they like it or not. I'd say issue #18 further supports my case. There is the Scott/Emma relationship, of course. Having started with AXM and loving it there, I went back to Morrison to find out how it began and was somewhat disappointed (which is ironic considering that Joss got accused of denigrating it, and Emma, by several fans). Of course, this is a matter of invidual taste, but I defy anyone to read #18, specifically the climactic scene and Scott's word to Kitty, then Emma, and not to say this is a wonderful rendering of a complex and intense relationship. It shows you not just that Scott gets Emma, better than anyone, and without either idealizing or demonising her, but also just why they got together, and why they stay together.
Then there is Genosha: Cassandra wiping out millions. There is Emma as the only survivor from that massacre. There is Emma's fear and guilt at failing her students later in connection with the Stepford Cuckoos, all elements of the Morrison run but not - again, this is a matter of invidiual taste - explored very much in New X-Men by Morrison himself. Kudos to everyone who twigged from the beginning that the appearance of Nagasonic Teenage Warhead in the Hellfire Club could be a manifestation of Emma's survivor guilt. And to those who suggested that the constructed reality for Kitty in the last issue was a huge hint of what's been going on with Emma. Two days ago, when scans of the first panels were posted over at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
whedonesque, I was fascinated by them, starting with the cover, of course - present-day Emma facing myriads of her past selves, including the White Queen from Claremont's day and Emma in the costume of the Morrison run - and by the first exchanged dialogue, which I recognized from Imperial - specifically, from the scene where Emma tricks Cassandra into accepting the artificial body which will trap Cassandra Nova.
This scene, as it turns out, is what Torn and in a way all of Emma's previous storyline on AXM responds to. Because it makes sense that Cassandra would want revenge on Emma for that, wouldn't just want out of the bodytrap but specifically through using the person who trapped her to begin with. And what she uses to get her telepathic hooks into Emma is what Hank, misunderstanding back then, said during that very scene in Imperial - "once a villain, always a villain". The fear of being evil growing into the conviction of being it. The guilt of surviving. Until there is nothing else left. Or nearly nothing. Because Emma even while being manipulated and used by Cassandra has been fighting back. I was so happy that Emma's statement to Scott, a seeming aside which did resonate with me at the time, from #14 - "your personal hell, courtesy of Cassandra Nova. Mine is a little more upscale. You should visit me some time" - turned out to be an important clue and what enabled Scott to understand exactly what happened, and why.
Genosha, and what happened there, has been a recurring image in all three arcs - extensively so in Dangerous, with Danger first recreating Genosha and the dead there in the previous Danger Room, and then going there for her showdown with Xavier, followed by the X-Men. Of course Genosha is where Emma meets the Hellfire Club again, the Hellfire Club which is the product of her own psyche used by Cassandra. Of course it is.
The mirror imagery of the last two issues becomes dozens of splinters here, when we get our look into Emma's mind, with Cassandra and Scott talking to her at the same time. Realities breaking down, though Cassandra is very real. Mind you, we won't know for sure until we see Hisako again, but I think the way the panels are positioned - Cassandra giving her order for Emma to transfer her, Scott telling Emma she's the one who has a choice, Emma saying "go to hell" which could be directed at either, but then Cassandra's shocked reaction - argue for Emma's choice being NOT to give in to Cassandra. It also makes a tie to the first scene of the "Torn" arc, the flashback (or artificial memory?) where Cassandra tells Emma that as psychics go, she just didn't compare and had no choice but to make a deal; that kind of smugness usually gets its comeuppance.
All of the X-Men go through hell in "Torn" - well, Logan just goes through embarassment, but hey, someone has to be the comic relief here *veg* ; we see Scott's first, then Hank's fear of devolving becoming real, Pjotr's rage being his downfall, and lastly Kitty. Emma's hell? #18 shows we've been experiencing it all along.
I love all the details. Scott's tactics (to slightly misquote Logan from an earlier issue, this is why he's in charge) coming from the knowledge of his team, that same kind of intimate knowledge previously used to break them, the usually loquacious Hank being so very economical with his words, showing us how deeply the entire episode hurt him, Hisako's rage at Ord (and the cause - yay, continuity, for bringing up Wing again), and the psychological truth of Kitty's reaction. I think even if Cassandra had been physically manifest, thus providing an alternate target for Kitty's rage, she would have gone for Emma. She can't not. And she can't let Peter touch her again, either. (Poor Peter.) I love that the argument Scott uses with Kitty is Emma's death wish, and that he succeeds with that (and not with "Cassandra did it").
Questions for the next arc: if Cassandra is still stuck in the artificial bodymess, can she still influence people, or was Emma able to eject her (and lock her back into the "pocket calculator" entirely? Once Scott can access his powers again, will he be able to control them sans visor or not? I'm assuming Brand will do the ruthlessly practical thing and just hand over everyone, not simply Peter, to the Breakworld, so there won't be any rescue attempts...
ETA: great essay about the entire Torn arc here.
A few days ago, I theorized to
rozk that Joss' run of AXM is at least in part a response to several Grant Morrison storylines during New X-Men, and no, not just in the sense of every writer in a continuing saga having to deal with what the previous one did, whether they like it or not. I'd say issue #18 further supports my case. There is the Scott/Emma relationship, of course. Having started with AXM and loving it there, I went back to Morrison to find out how it began and was somewhat disappointed (which is ironic considering that Joss got accused of denigrating it, and Emma, by several fans). Of course, this is a matter of invidual taste, but I defy anyone to read #18, specifically the climactic scene and Scott's word to Kitty, then Emma, and not to say this is a wonderful rendering of a complex and intense relationship. It shows you not just that Scott gets Emma, better than anyone, and without either idealizing or demonising her, but also just why they got together, and why they stay together. Then there is Genosha: Cassandra wiping out millions. There is Emma as the only survivor from that massacre. There is Emma's fear and guilt at failing her students later in connection with the Stepford Cuckoos, all elements of the Morrison run but not - again, this is a matter of invidiual taste - explored very much in New X-Men by Morrison himself. Kudos to everyone who twigged from the beginning that the appearance of Nagasonic Teenage Warhead in the Hellfire Club could be a manifestation of Emma's survivor guilt. And to those who suggested that the constructed reality for Kitty in the last issue was a huge hint of what's been going on with Emma. Two days ago, when scans of the first panels were posted over at
whedonesque, I was fascinated by them, starting with the cover, of course - present-day Emma facing myriads of her past selves, including the White Queen from Claremont's day and Emma in the costume of the Morrison run - and by the first exchanged dialogue, which I recognized from Imperial - specifically, from the scene where Emma tricks Cassandra into accepting the artificial body which will trap Cassandra Nova. This scene, as it turns out, is what Torn and in a way all of Emma's previous storyline on AXM responds to. Because it makes sense that Cassandra would want revenge on Emma for that, wouldn't just want out of the bodytrap but specifically through using the person who trapped her to begin with. And what she uses to get her telepathic hooks into Emma is what Hank, misunderstanding back then, said during that very scene in Imperial - "once a villain, always a villain". The fear of being evil growing into the conviction of being it. The guilt of surviving. Until there is nothing else left. Or nearly nothing. Because Emma even while being manipulated and used by Cassandra has been fighting back. I was so happy that Emma's statement to Scott, a seeming aside which did resonate with me at the time, from #14 - "your personal hell, courtesy of Cassandra Nova. Mine is a little more upscale. You should visit me some time" - turned out to be an important clue and what enabled Scott to understand exactly what happened, and why.
Genosha, and what happened there, has been a recurring image in all three arcs - extensively so in Dangerous, with Danger first recreating Genosha and the dead there in the previous Danger Room, and then going there for her showdown with Xavier, followed by the X-Men. Of course Genosha is where Emma meets the Hellfire Club again, the Hellfire Club which is the product of her own psyche used by Cassandra. Of course it is.
The mirror imagery of the last two issues becomes dozens of splinters here, when we get our look into Emma's mind, with Cassandra and Scott talking to her at the same time. Realities breaking down, though Cassandra is very real. Mind you, we won't know for sure until we see Hisako again, but I think the way the panels are positioned - Cassandra giving her order for Emma to transfer her, Scott telling Emma she's the one who has a choice, Emma saying "go to hell" which could be directed at either, but then Cassandra's shocked reaction - argue for Emma's choice being NOT to give in to Cassandra. It also makes a tie to the first scene of the "Torn" arc, the flashback (or artificial memory?) where Cassandra tells Emma that as psychics go, she just didn't compare and had no choice but to make a deal; that kind of smugness usually gets its comeuppance.
All of the X-Men go through hell in "Torn" - well, Logan just goes through embarassment, but hey, someone has to be the comic relief here *veg* ; we see Scott's first, then Hank's fear of devolving becoming real, Pjotr's rage being his downfall, and lastly Kitty. Emma's hell? #18 shows we've been experiencing it all along.
I love all the details. Scott's tactics (to slightly misquote Logan from an earlier issue, this is why he's in charge) coming from the knowledge of his team, that same kind of intimate knowledge previously used to break them, the usually loquacious Hank being so very economical with his words, showing us how deeply the entire episode hurt him, Hisako's rage at Ord (and the cause - yay, continuity, for bringing up Wing again), and the psychological truth of Kitty's reaction. I think even if Cassandra had been physically manifest, thus providing an alternate target for Kitty's rage, she would have gone for Emma. She can't not. And she can't let Peter touch her again, either. (Poor Peter.) I love that the argument Scott uses with Kitty is Emma's death wish, and that he succeeds with that (and not with "Cassandra did it").
Questions for the next arc: if Cassandra is still stuck in the artificial bodymess, can she still influence people, or was Emma able to eject her (and lock her back into the "pocket calculator" entirely? Once Scott can access his powers again, will he be able to control them sans visor or not? I'm assuming Brand will do the ruthlessly practical thing and just hand over everyone, not simply Peter, to the Breakworld, so there won't be any rescue attempts...
ETA: great essay about the entire Torn arc here.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-11-16 04:26 pm (UTC)Still good, huh?
no subject
Date: 2006-11-16 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-16 06:28 pm (UTC)I loved how this issue echoed so much of the entire run, from Hanks ball of string which he talked about in a very different context to Logan during the cure arc to Emma's vision of herself shattering which reminded me of Kitty's monologue upon returning to the mansion in the very first issue - how her memories were shards, pieces of herself. There's such a lovely coherence to all of AXM now, Emma's story is the arc for the entire series.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-16 06:42 pm (UTC)Opening page: yes, that was a flashback/memory/echo of the conclusion of one of Morrison's arcs, "Imperial", wherein Cassandra Nova was defeated by Emma tricking her, which resulted in Cassandra being trapped in that mess we saw Kitty take in the previous issue, the one she thought was her baby.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-16 07:13 pm (UTC)So on another angle, do you think Blindfold's pronouncements mean somebody is going to die? I'm going to be the first to go on the record and say everybody comes back alive. Which means. . .I don't know what the prophecies mean, but something else. Joss likes to get all Macbeth-like that way.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-17 06:03 am (UTC)*hurries over to your post*
no subject
Date: 2006-11-17 03:30 pm (UTC)dammit, do I have to get a Scott/Emma icon?
Date: 2006-11-17 12:56 am (UTC)I was thinking about this some more, and remembering back to when the gifted arc was just finishing up, you commented something to the effect that one of the things you admired about Scott in this relationsip was that he never made any attempt to hold Emma's past against her. I'm sure that's true of Joss's arc (Scott's even dumbstruck when Fury REMINDS him that Emma has a criminal past). I was wondering if that would change in the wake of issue 14 but in fact it doesn't -- for Scott, I think, "you've always been evil and just biding your time" (which is what Kitty basically ASSUMES, and even what Emma projects onto herself) is not even an option on the table for Scott. He doesn't consider it, period, which is one reason he seeks an alternative explanation, and figures out the truth.
I don't remember if I've mentioned this to you or not, but I've gradually realized that the Joss protagonist Scott reminds me of the most is not, in fact, Wesley or Buffy, as I originally thought, but (despite their dramatically different personal histories) Angel -- and in this issue, his actions toward Emma reminded me of Angel's treatment of human Darla, at certain times, and most particularly of Faith. The dynamics are different, but there's a certain similarity between the climax of this book and my very favorite AtS scene -- Faith (Emma) and Angel (Scott) in the alley at the end of five by five, as Wesley (Kitty) looks on.
I'd be interested in hearing more of your theories about how this relates to the Morrison run -- ironically, as famous as I apparently am for the Morrison-hate, I've been trying to work a Jean story from that era, lately, and thoroughly appreciating HER characterization. Togetether with the interesting use of the Nova plot, and Joss's rehabilitiation of Scott/Emma, and the OMG CHUCK AUSTEN IS SO MUCH WORSE factor -- I'm feeling fairly charitable.
Re: dammit, do I have to get a Scott/Emma icon?
Date: 2006-11-17 06:28 am (UTC)Fanboy level: So you had Emma dress as Jean in Scott's mind. Boy, am I going to show you what a mindfuck is. (cue Emma/Scott/Jean/Logan)
Bug room? Here's how you put your characters through hell and confront them with their fears. (cue Kitty)
Serious level: Morrison had some important ideas - Emma as the only survivor of Genosha, for example - and of course the Scott/Jean breakup and Scott/Emma affair. But the execution was lacking - we hardly see any effect Genosha had on Emma after the immediate one, when she's dug out holding Nagasonic Teenage Warhead's dead body, and as for the execution of the Scott/Jean/Emma triangle, well, I agree with you on that one, especially as to Scott's characterisation. Why should either Jean or Emma care about Morrison's Scott, frankly? And why should we believe Scott and Emma have anything in common? Well. Joss, in his run, shows us. And not just the survivor's guilt etc. at the end - right back at the start, when they talk about school, for example, in the middle with her teasing Kitty (yet being utterly sincere) about how sexy she finds him when he's making plans, with him talking to her in her temporary stillness, saying he doesn't care if Danger has managed to shut down all the other psychics, she's Emma Frost, he knows she can get out of this - this is a believable couple. With problems, absolutely, but I believe these two people got together for more than a none night stand and want to be together.
So: response to canon. In the best way, not by complaining but by writing fiction. Joss is such a fanboy.
Re: dammit, do I have to get a Scott/Emma icon?
Date: 2006-11-17 01:05 pm (UTC)A quick thought out the substance of the post. One of the things about Scott's response to Emma -- which, in a sense, is so obvious I didn't even notice it -- is that he doesn't say "I love you" -- which, I think a lot of writers would be tempted to fall back on in this situation. The majority of the speech is directed at Kitty (even while he knows or believes Emma can hear it) -- which, among other things, allows Joss-the-writer to fit in exposition in a way that fits into the scene. Then he just turns to Emma and tells her that she has a choice -- which, like the "You're Emma Frost" scene you mentioned (and the parallel scene at Benetech where Emma is flailing over the injured Scott), conveys the idea of love in a way that's pretty much unarguable. Whereas if he had said "I love you" I guarantee we'd have people arguing about whether he meant it.
Re: dammit, do I have to get a Scott/Emma icon?
Date: 2006-11-17 04:13 pm (UTC)