I do want to say of course I do not think that drug use and ultraviolence are cool in the real world. But for the X-men it seemed like something different for them I guess especially with the tone of the story.
The X-men lead dangerous lives. They go up against dangerous foes. Things are bound to get ugly and get out of hand eventually.
I really liked the style of New X-men. Each arc had its own style. Also I'm a fan of movies like Clockwork Orange and Riot at Xaviers was like Clockwork Orange Mutant style ;-)
Lady Erin, I want to say I'm sorry for sounding a bit stand offish. I'm also not very good with debates, but I try! hehe
My parents would qualify as the working poor, so we're not middle class. I live in Eastern Kentucky and there is a lot of poverty here, just like there are in a lot of Appalachia (lets just say I really did not enjoy Chuck Austen's She Lies with Angels arc... where kentuckians were portrayed as dumb racist hillbillies..with guns).
We definitely have a drug problem here too especially with OxyContin. I do know the real life reality of drug use. I have addicts in my family.
Though studying Substance Abuse my ideas about drugs have become more liberal I still wouldn't use any. Nor would I ever encourage anyone to use illegal drugs or any dangerous psychoactive drugs.
But since drug use is so common, to me, it made the x-men feel more real that they had those problems too. Most schools have drug issues and so did the Xavier Institute. Xavier's was like any other school.
Like I said before I do not like real life violence at all. Though we all know violence is everywhere. Violence has always been in the x-books, its just that in this story it seemed more severe.
I do understand why some of you like the new retcon that took away Magneto's most shocking story. My ex bf was a big Magneto fan. Though he did enjoy Grant Morrison's Planet X... he is extremely happy about the retcon and that Magneto being back. I have another friend who has always loved Magneto (he's even a big fan of Joseph) but he agrees more with me.
Call me a GM fanboy lol But I really did enjoy all of his issues in New X-men. I don't think there has been a run in X-men where I enjoyed every issue like I did New.
I still think GM captured the essense of Magneto, because he wasn't all drugged out psycho mags. I love those panels where he is looking out on the city and he goes "One day" All it took was one day. He seemed very introspective in that issue and I think Mags is a very introspective guy.
Also Magneto does have all this power. He has enormous power. He has shown restraint many times before, but after what happened to Genosha? And taking in account his childhood....I could see why he would just say "Enough" and he would just husk off those contraints that have kept him from going all Planet X on the world.
At any rate it will be interesting to see exactly how Claremont explains the imposter.
I do hope it has something to do with Sublime, so it will tie into GM's last story.
Planet X is definitely cheapened by the retcon just like the Dark Phoenix Saga was by Jean's return in the mid 80's.
Chuck Austen did say in an interview that it was editorial's decision to bring back Magneto and Xorn. He said that the editors were hoping that Grant Morrison was going to keep Xorn a character and not make him Magneto. Apparentely they loved Xorn, and obviosly someone really did not like how Magneto turned out in New X-men. So Austen was told to find a way to introduce/bring back Xorn and Claremont was to bring back Magneto.
After Grant Morrison's last issue I really expected Jean Grey to be the first one of the two to return, but it looks like she is going to be the last.
And I do hope you all don't think I just came in here to argue with you all or to cause trouble or anything like that. I post mainly in the off topic nightcrawler forum but I lurk on this forum often
This is a really cool message board, and its cool to share opinions even if we disagree.
One thing about Grant Morrison's run that is hard to deny is that it gave us all a lot of things to discuss, debate, and talk about!
Mike
About Cassandra... I don't think GM was saying she wasn't really evil in the future. The X-men pretty much reprogrammed her mind to learn. This happened in New X-men 126 when Cassandra was trapped in the alien called Stuff's body. Her original body died. So she became child like and they made her into a student. Cassandra was reformed by Xavier and Jean.
I think very few things happen without motivations being behind them. We are all actors on the social stage.As a Sociology major, Mike, you should be able to discern that kind of ploy, shouldn't you? It's not only the characters in the books that play mind games, kiddo... Look at the office politics...and the motivations of the creators...the storylines are as good in real life as they ever are inthe books! And they are revealing as to what is being done by whom in the books. Comics is a mulitlayered world with the books being only the tip of the iceburg. And that, for the multilevel thinker is part of the fun.
GM has been doing interviews, just like all writers do, to promote thier books and get word out on their latest projects.
I don't think Grant Morrison is any different than any other comic writer in that respect.
I know a lot of people say he used a lot of shock value in his books, but to me that isn't a bad thing, because that means he does take risks as a writer, especially someone who is writing mainstream comics.