Astonishing X-Men #21
May. 4th, 2007 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which the Evil One is at his best. (Joss, that is, not one of the characters.) I loved this issue, and the awareness that the current Unstoppable arc is Joss Whedon's last for AXM makes me whine and pout a little in advance. I mean, I'm having a blast with the Buffy s8 issues, and his Runaway run looks promising, but I truly believe that as far as comics are concerned, AXM is his best work.
Firstly, re: Breakworld politics - I think it was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
londonkds who expressed some concern when in AXM #19 the two insightful and weary of violence Breakworlders were female (as far as one could tell) as opposed to the male and thuggish Kruun and his sidekicks. The current issue makes it clear this is not a gender divide thing - not only because there are some bloodthirsty women (and children) around, but because the insightful character introduced in #19 reveals a bit of her past; she was exactly like Ord, a bloodthirsty arena champion. But she stopped, and started to look for a new way.
It's this character who does something very Whedonian - insert appropriate flashbacks to BTVS here -: she reinterprets the prophecy concerning Colossus as the destroyer of the Breakworld. End of a world seen as end of an old word, a world order, with the possibility of rebirth and renewal, and it is very clear the Breakworld needs that. At the same time, she doesn't cast Colossus as their saviour (though he later sees it that way), either - he is "one man" - and one isn't enough - but he could be the catalyst. There is something deeply humanistic, in lack of a better term, here: the belief that a society, no matter how bloody and conditioned, can change. "Mutation" says our Breakworlder. We need mutation, we need change. And of course mutants are, as Neil Gaiman put it in 1602, the Changing Ones.
(He also used that expression for the Deviants in The Eternals. How's that?)
Kruun & Co. see only the destruction of one world or another, the Breakworld and Earth, and thus are well on the way to destroying their world themselves. Meanwhile, Agent Brand, who gets compared to Kruun in this issue, is actually more Machiavellian and a several options kind of woman, though nowhere near as benevolent as Our Heroes or the insightful Breakworlder; it seems she has set up an inside coup d'état parallel to her operation with the X-Men. Makes complete sense and would occur to a smart woman such as herself; if Evil Overlord X is currently well on his way to destroying your home planet, distract him by encouraging his competition to take him out while you use the time gained to make sure neither of them will ever be able to menace you team again. Do I think she'd hand over Peter Rasputin to Kuurn's not so Faithful Lieutenant? Absolutely. But as a part of the distraction and time gaining; as long as the Breakworlders have their world-destroying weapon, they're a threat, and that's why she brought the X-Men along (instead of just Colossus) - to get rid of that threat on a permanent basis.
And did I call it or what? I mean, sure, there could be another explanation for the Brand/McCoy Star Wars scene. But come on:
Hank & Brand: *bicker while setting up shelter in a snowcave*
Hank:...you're amoral, you're abrasive, and you look at me as if I were a ton-ton.
Brand: *removes her gloves* Oh, stop whining. I don't need your guts to keep me warm.
Hank: Oh.
*camera, err, panel changes to outside in the snow, while we hear Hank's voice continue:
Hank: Oh my.
Now, it could be that the next issue reveals Abigail Brand is actually a mutant herself and her secret mutation is something like Pyro's, so she makes some fire to keep them warm, but please. I've read fanfic. I know the One True Way to keep body heat. Joss loves me. I called it! Brand/Hank OTP!
Kitty and Peter are depicted in the process of healing, but really, the couple of the issue award goes to Scott and Emma. This is the first time we see them alone together since AXM #14, aka the mindfuck issue, after they went out of their way to avoid just this in previous issues, and the build up totally pays off here. Excuse me while I wibble. Emma starts with the usual, her stone-cold sarcasm act. Scott calls her out on it and then completely floors her. And then! And then!
You know, in Babylon 5, there are two crucial sentences which have to be spoken by two of my favourite characters in the fifth season; not the same sentences, as they are different men and what happened to them and what they did is different, and they're spoken in different episodes, but they need to say it. It's "I'm sorry" for Londo Mollari, and "I forgive you" for G'Kar. And there is a long build up before either of them can say this. There has to be, given who they are. I'm reminded a bit of this here. For Scott, it is:
"I'm in love with you now."
Now, I only read the Morrison stuff once, being less than enamored with the way Morrison wrote the Scott/Emma storyline there. I had an appalled look at what's his name's directly post-Morrison issue, and a more friendly one at the House-of-M stories, plus I did read Phoenix: Endsong, which imo makes the mistake of telling instead of showing when it comes to Scott/Emma. So I might be missing something. But I think he never said this to her before. He said other things which one could interpret as love declarations, but not the exact words. And note the phrasing. "I'm in love with you now." He wasn't when they got together; Emma was one way out of his marriage crisis, which is one reason why the set-up for their relationship felt so dissatisfying. And let's face it, playing out fantasies is not a good way to get to know someone. How could he love her when he didn't even know her that well?
But by now, they've been to hell and back together (and not just the hell she recently sent him to). By now, he has seen her at her worst and he has seen her at her best. "I see everything very clearly now," Scott says to Kitty near the end of Torn, and he's not just referring to the Cassandra Nova situation. The searing insight Emma-under-the-influence displayed and used in #14 cuts both ways; he has it now into her, which is why her attempt at avoidance by sarcasm doesn't work at the start, and why that simple sentence stuns her into silence. And then she says what she never said before. Not to Scott, anyway, and possibly not to anyone. And it's as simple and profound as what he said.
"I'm sorry."
Of course, this being a Joss Whedon tale, disaster immediately strikes, and we get to see that Scott was dead-on with his assessment of Emma's motives re: Kitty in Torn. (Which up to this point was open to debate if you wanted to believe Scott was deluded re: Emma.) She is suicidal. (Which is why Scott agreed earlier with Brand's assessment, too.) Mind you, as cliffhangers go, I'm not much worried, despite Blindfold's prediction not all of the X-men would come back. For one thing, AXM is clearly set pre-House of M, which means there is no question of Scott and Emma surviving Danger's attack. For another, the way it looks to me Emma is set up for a rebirth experience, in tandem with the death-rebirth theme of the arc connected to the Breakworld. She didn't get suicide-by-Kitty in Torn. Now she tries for suicide-by-Danger, but otoh, she has just made a major breakthrough in her relationship with Scott, and with acknowledging her actions. Danger might be a tad surprised by the request, and might suspect a trick, but will undoubtedly then proceed to oblige her, and this is why Scott is out cold again; he needs to be. If Emma is to realize she wants to live (live with what she did, live again, live with the new awareness between Scott and her), she needs to do so on her own merits, not because Scott urges her on. So, my prediction: Danger will strike, the survival instinct in Emma will kick in in the last second, and fighting back, she's realize that she actually wants to live.
But we'll have to wait till bloody July to find out, which is so unfair. In the meantime: considering that Joss is in his third year of writing AXM, does that make Scott/Emma his most longterm adult couple? And how long will I hold out before I write Hank McCoy/Abigail Brand snowcave bodyheat sharing?
ETA: And what do you want to bet that Scott will wake up from this latest plane crash with his power restored? Remember his origin story?
Firstly, re: Breakworld politics - I think it was
londonkds who expressed some concern when in AXM #19 the two insightful and weary of violence Breakworlders were female (as far as one could tell) as opposed to the male and thuggish Kruun and his sidekicks. The current issue makes it clear this is not a gender divide thing - not only because there are some bloodthirsty women (and children) around, but because the insightful character introduced in #19 reveals a bit of her past; she was exactly like Ord, a bloodthirsty arena champion. But she stopped, and started to look for a new way. It's this character who does something very Whedonian - insert appropriate flashbacks to BTVS here -: she reinterprets the prophecy concerning Colossus as the destroyer of the Breakworld. End of a world seen as end of an old word, a world order, with the possibility of rebirth and renewal, and it is very clear the Breakworld needs that. At the same time, she doesn't cast Colossus as their saviour (though he later sees it that way), either - he is "one man" - and one isn't enough - but he could be the catalyst. There is something deeply humanistic, in lack of a better term, here: the belief that a society, no matter how bloody and conditioned, can change. "Mutation" says our Breakworlder. We need mutation, we need change. And of course mutants are, as Neil Gaiman put it in 1602, the Changing Ones.
(He also used that expression for the Deviants in The Eternals. How's that?)
Kruun & Co. see only the destruction of one world or another, the Breakworld and Earth, and thus are well on the way to destroying their world themselves. Meanwhile, Agent Brand, who gets compared to Kruun in this issue, is actually more Machiavellian and a several options kind of woman, though nowhere near as benevolent as Our Heroes or the insightful Breakworlder; it seems she has set up an inside coup d'état parallel to her operation with the X-Men. Makes complete sense and would occur to a smart woman such as herself; if Evil Overlord X is currently well on his way to destroying your home planet, distract him by encouraging his competition to take him out while you use the time gained to make sure neither of them will ever be able to menace you team again. Do I think she'd hand over Peter Rasputin to Kuurn's not so Faithful Lieutenant? Absolutely. But as a part of the distraction and time gaining; as long as the Breakworlders have their world-destroying weapon, they're a threat, and that's why she brought the X-Men along (instead of just Colossus) - to get rid of that threat on a permanent basis.
And did I call it or what? I mean, sure, there could be another explanation for the Brand/McCoy Star Wars scene. But come on:
Hank & Brand: *bicker while setting up shelter in a snowcave*
Hank:...you're amoral, you're abrasive, and you look at me as if I were a ton-ton.
Brand: *removes her gloves* Oh, stop whining. I don't need your guts to keep me warm.
Hank: Oh.
*camera, err, panel changes to outside in the snow, while we hear Hank's voice continue:
Hank: Oh my.
Now, it could be that the next issue reveals Abigail Brand is actually a mutant herself and her secret mutation is something like Pyro's, so she makes some fire to keep them warm, but please. I've read fanfic. I know the One True Way to keep body heat. Joss loves me. I called it! Brand/Hank OTP!
Kitty and Peter are depicted in the process of healing, but really, the couple of the issue award goes to Scott and Emma. This is the first time we see them alone together since AXM #14, aka the mindfuck issue, after they went out of their way to avoid just this in previous issues, and the build up totally pays off here. Excuse me while I wibble. Emma starts with the usual, her stone-cold sarcasm act. Scott calls her out on it and then completely floors her. And then! And then!
You know, in Babylon 5, there are two crucial sentences which have to be spoken by two of my favourite characters in the fifth season; not the same sentences, as they are different men and what happened to them and what they did is different, and they're spoken in different episodes, but they need to say it. It's "I'm sorry" for Londo Mollari, and "I forgive you" for G'Kar. And there is a long build up before either of them can say this. There has to be, given who they are. I'm reminded a bit of this here. For Scott, it is:
"I'm in love with you now."
Now, I only read the Morrison stuff once, being less than enamored with the way Morrison wrote the Scott/Emma storyline there. I had an appalled look at what's his name's directly post-Morrison issue, and a more friendly one at the House-of-M stories, plus I did read Phoenix: Endsong, which imo makes the mistake of telling instead of showing when it comes to Scott/Emma. So I might be missing something. But I think he never said this to her before. He said other things which one could interpret as love declarations, but not the exact words. And note the phrasing. "I'm in love with you now." He wasn't when they got together; Emma was one way out of his marriage crisis, which is one reason why the set-up for their relationship felt so dissatisfying. And let's face it, playing out fantasies is not a good way to get to know someone. How could he love her when he didn't even know her that well?
But by now, they've been to hell and back together (and not just the hell she recently sent him to). By now, he has seen her at her worst and he has seen her at her best. "I see everything very clearly now," Scott says to Kitty near the end of Torn, and he's not just referring to the Cassandra Nova situation. The searing insight Emma-under-the-influence displayed and used in #14 cuts both ways; he has it now into her, which is why her attempt at avoidance by sarcasm doesn't work at the start, and why that simple sentence stuns her into silence. And then she says what she never said before. Not to Scott, anyway, and possibly not to anyone. And it's as simple and profound as what he said.
"I'm sorry."
Of course, this being a Joss Whedon tale, disaster immediately strikes, and we get to see that Scott was dead-on with his assessment of Emma's motives re: Kitty in Torn. (Which up to this point was open to debate if you wanted to believe Scott was deluded re: Emma.) She is suicidal. (Which is why Scott agreed earlier with Brand's assessment, too.) Mind you, as cliffhangers go, I'm not much worried, despite Blindfold's prediction not all of the X-men would come back. For one thing, AXM is clearly set pre-House of M, which means there is no question of Scott and Emma surviving Danger's attack. For another, the way it looks to me Emma is set up for a rebirth experience, in tandem with the death-rebirth theme of the arc connected to the Breakworld. She didn't get suicide-by-Kitty in Torn. Now she tries for suicide-by-Danger, but otoh, she has just made a major breakthrough in her relationship with Scott, and with acknowledging her actions. Danger might be a tad surprised by the request, and might suspect a trick, but will undoubtedly then proceed to oblige her, and this is why Scott is out cold again; he needs to be. If Emma is to realize she wants to live (live with what she did, live again, live with the new awareness between Scott and her), she needs to do so on her own merits, not because Scott urges her on. So, my prediction: Danger will strike, the survival instinct in Emma will kick in in the last second, and fighting back, she's realize that she actually wants to live.
But we'll have to wait till bloody July to find out, which is so unfair. In the meantime: considering that Joss is in his third year of writing AXM, does that make Scott/Emma his most longterm adult couple? And how long will I hold out before I write Hank McCoy/Abigail Brand snowcave bodyheat sharing?
ETA: And what do you want to bet that Scott will wake up from this latest plane crash with his power restored? Remember his origin story?
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 01:24 pm (UTC)Actually, I'm fairly sure that Marvel has now declared that the Torn and Unstoppable arcs haappen AFTER current 616 continuity -- not only after HoM but Civil War AND the current arcs going on in the other X-books.
So, when the storyline finishes up in the fall, it will more or less merge back into continuity.
Granted this doesn't make a WHOLE lot of sense in context of the transition between Dangerous and Torn, but it seems to me that they've deliberately avoided any specific timeline significers -- and the thing is, a few years from now when people read this in trade, it won't matter thatn much.
The point is, Joss has the chance to make major changes, including killing characters and/or making a permanent change in Scott's power. Neat trick, Marvel.
Will respond to the substance of this later (gotta go to work), but ge sure to check out the discussion in
no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 01:56 pm (UTC)It's a nice full circle moment for Emma and Danger, since the last time they fought Emma willingly let down her guard and allowed herself to be defeated. This time I think Emma's going to do something quite different... and I suspect it's going to be awesome.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 02:10 pm (UTC)And, I don't share your faith that we know AXM is set anywhere in the timeline -- see Deuce's remarks above -- because it is SO formlessly it's own thing.
Though someone, somewhere, said that Kitty is not in any of the other titles, ever, and if they kill her I will be MIGHTY IRRITATED.
Ahh, I'm still not coherent. :) I was trying to explain what was so good about this issue to someone, but it's all tangled up in all the other issues, and we don't know how it's going to end, and, and, and . . . aiee!
I am DELIGHTED that you managed to write coherently about it!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 02:49 pm (UTC)That said: she'd be the death least expected, due to the universal conviction she's Joss favourite...
no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 02:51 pm (UTC)Will they notice that during the entire conversation, Emma and Scott are working smoothly and effectively as a fighting team and that Scott got broken first (and rather thoroughly)?
Looking forward to your post!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 02:53 pm (UTC)Yes, I loved all those aspects. And oh, the Scott and Emma mixture of working smoothly as a team and having a searing connversation!
Brand and Hank = Han and Leia?
no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 02:56 pm (UTC)Will check out the discussion. Have decided Brand and Hank are Han and Leia, with Brand as Han and Hank as Leia, of course.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 03:22 pm (UTC)I think, I hope, I really do, that the summer stuff will pull some of these threads together. But, this is Marvel, and we all know that their summer shenanigans usually make things more confusing, and not less.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-04 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-05 02:19 am (UTC)Ooooh. . .wasn't the conclusion they reached in the Danger arc that they had to behave in ways that were out of character in order to catch Danger off guard? That adds to the theory that Emma could be faking her resignation, for Danger's sake, while waiting for Scott to regroup -- I mean, maybe realizing Scott loves her is the thing that gives her the renewed will to live --
no subject
Date: 2007-05-05 05:06 am (UTC)I totally agree about what the future holds for Scott, though I hadn't made the origin story connection. Awesome!
BTW, you've really just been calling it, all along, with this series. You totally have a mindmeld with Joss.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-05 06:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-10 02:35 am (UTC)