X-Men United #1

[mastermahan]

X-Men United, originally solicited as X-Men Arsenal*, is the follow-up to Exceptional X-Men. Same creative team, same core cast, but an altered premise. It's the training book, but with more characters, and now they have a mental plane headquarters named Graymatter Lane.

*Go on, get the football jokes out of your system. It'll feel good.





Hey look, Galura gets to do something beside being Xuân's girlfriend!



Scott does a point. The last time they tried using Mr. Sinister's technology it led to a thousand years of dystopia.

Still, I'm sure he'll voice his concerns in a calm and reasonable manner.





Goddamn it, Scott.

Comments

[numeronone]

Arsenal: still one of the funniest portmanteaus in the English language.

"X-Men United! Except for the one guy whose memory goes back further than three months apparently"

[cainofdreaming]

And the contractor was just a week away from having finished the latest rebuild.

[dan_ingram]

You think they care?

As many times as the school has been blown up, it's probably put a few kids through college and resulted in the purchase of at least a dozen summer homes.

[panthyr]

No, Scott, Glob has the definition of intransigent right. By the way, it suits you even more than them.

[scorntx]

-"Galura gets something to do besides being Karma's girlfriend"-
Does she, though?
Does she really?

... just checking, but when they say student mentors, does that mean the New Kids are the mentors to the rest of the students, who almost all seem to be equally as new as them?
(also, Loolu's old enough to be a student now? She was all tiddly-size two years ago.)


Yeah, Scott, you don't know what it's like. Kitty's been killed. Emma's seen her students die.
You, a man who died in front of Emma, can't possibly understand what that's like!

... oy.

also also: Pretty sure Glob and his bud Quentin Quire once started a riot which killed people, including at least one of Emma's students.
So he's maybe not the best choice of character to be making that argument.

[mastermahan]

I'd be more persuaded by Glob’s argument that Emma watching her students die meant she’ll be more safety-conscious if she'd only lost students once or twice. As it is, being Emma's student has a survival rate normally only seen among people who sleep with Matt Murdock.

[cainofdreaming]

I wonder what would happen if Emma took Matt under her wing and then they started dating? Maybe they could also both marry Wolverine for added effect.

[sabertoothlotus]

a man who died in front of Emma, can't possibly understand what that's like!

And that wasn't even the first time he died!

[scorntx]

I know he died when he got the face full of terrigen, but when did he die before that?

[mastermahan]

Cyclops got merged with Apocalypse and died in The Twelve storyline back in 2000.

[scorntx]

Huh. Thought that was just Apocalypse possessing him and then doing a runner.

[mastermahan]

No, Cyclops officially died. Though your confusion is understandable - Scott just shows up as an amnesiac wanderer later on, with no explanation of how he became alive again.

He managed to come back just before Dead Is Dead, too.

[sabertoothlotus]

Back in the 90s when he merged with Apocalypse to save Cable from the same fate. It was a whole thing; Cable joined the X-Men, Jean was in mourning... when he did come back, he was seriously damaged psychologically, and I trace his current militarism and darker worldview to that incident.

[mastermahan]

I've also seen it suggested that his telepathic affair with Emma was influenced by his Apocalypse trauma, though I'm not sure there's anything canon to support that.

And if you prefer a Doylist explanation, Scott came back in 2001. A lot more got more militant and cynical that year.

[deh_tommy]

Did they even get the mansion back before it burned down? That’s got to be a new record.

”Scott does a point. The last time they tried using Mr. Sinister's technology it led to a thousand years of dystopia.”

Oh, so it’s only *now* that it’s a problem when they use Mr. Sinister for something?

[scorntx]

After the whole Krakoa era, it's impossible to believe it's a fiendish strategy to confuse their foes by burning everything down before they get there.
But it is a lot easier to think they're being like the pirates from Asterix.
"Don't worry, Professor! I already burned the school down!"

(and about the only foe they've got who'd probably be put out by the X-Men blowing everything up first anyway is Evil Beast.
"No fair! I was gonna blow up the mansion!")

[shakalooloo]

It's a literal mind palace, so I'm confused as to what the final page represents. There is no physical location to burn. If Cyclops shows up to blast it with some beams of concussive force, the psychics can just imagine it back to factory settings.

Then again, I'm confused how this mind palace works when a character in the Danger Room can draw a concealed knife. Powers appear to be replicated, but can someone just imagine having a weapon and get it in their hand?

It's a nice concept, but the practicalities of it don't bear thinking about too much.

[mastermahan]

It's very unclear how this concept works. Thao gets teleported from Greymatter Lane directly to France, which suggests she's there physically.

[shakalooloo]

And then the Danger Room scene has Wolverine explain the whole "you die in here, you die in real life" schtick, suggesting that the school is apart from the physical world.

I think... I think that the Empathy Engine scene is in the real world. The machine is real, and Rift teleports everyone there through his powers. That is also how Melee gets to France. Mariama does not get transported to the school by Rift; when she's counting down, she uses the mental door that Emma explained, so is back in the mind palace (which she sees as a white void) and her body remains in France.

A bigger artistic distinction between what is in the real world and what is in the construct would have been very helpful for this book. One time where having two artists may have actually been beneficial!

[numeronone]

That and making the construct world seem reomotely interesting? There's pages of buildup only for the bulk of "Greymatter Lane" to be exposited in half a page of montage between Kitty and Kurt. Where's the page spreads, where's the layouts and maps?

[cainofdreaming]

Also, I haven't seen it but I'm still chiming in bad me, it sounds kinda like they just remade Legion's Altar but with less frills.

[shakalooloo]

The whole thing feels a little rushed. A way to get everyone back at the school, while also allowing the other books to continue, and having Krakoa without Krakoa (even magic gates!).

I think back in Wolverine and the X-Men was the last time we got an OHotMU-style map.

[zachbeacon]

The fact that the Exceptional kids are considered qualified mentors is hilarious to me. At least two of those "students" are adults...

(having flashbacks to when they tried to give Wolverine demerits)

...and the The Outliers (Uncanny kids not pictured here) have significantly more field experience than any of the other new mutants.

This is the fastest turnaround I've seen from helpless baby to leadership that I've seen since Hope Summers. Heck, Rift wan't even really a series regular, he just lost control of his powers and accidentally abducted Kitty.

(Also not sure how Glob and Prodigy are more qualified than Sophie. David and his respectablity politics were the worst part of NYX and that series prominently featured Empath and Mojo. At least Glob can cook; that's useful...maybe not "on the team" useful but still...)


So Scott's doing that thing where he is completely right and everyone acts like he's a monster? I mean, we got a little of it in From the Ashes but this feels like the All-New era.

(Admittedly blowing up the school isn't a great look ... but maybe if they rebuilt without Sinister tech...)

[beyondthefringe]

Yeah, seriously, the Exceptional cast as student mentors makes no sense given how many MUCH MORE EXPERIENCED X-characters exist from the New Mutants, Generation X, Morrison era, Young X-Men, etc etc etc etc etc eras. The Exceptional kids have been around for all of 5 minutes and their only qualification is having been trained by Kitty and Emma for at least three of those minutes.

At least Glob and Prodigy have the benefit of actual Xavier School education going for them. But Sophie deserves a promotion.

I want to like Eve Ewing's stories more but sometimes she makes very confusing narrative choices.

[zachbeacon]

Yeah, the reason I mentioned the Outliers is that they're the most contemporary group of new mutants and I don't think comparing them to the 2026 New Mutants is fair ... but the 1980s New Mutants went through more BEFORE becoming a team than the Exceptional kids have in their short time together. Same with 90s Gen X.

(Using baby Magik or Jubilee as examples seems like cheating ...but their teammates also went through a lot)

Kitty's "training" was mostly a desire to protect the kids from the outside world (and Emma) and that lasted up until they stumbled headfirst into a Mister Sinister plot. Their only experience as "real" X-Men was rescuing one of their own from Sinister and rescuing Kitty from Rift.

Don't get me wrong, I think Bronze might become a decent X-Man (if her idiot teammates don't get her killed) but she has no business being anyone's mentor right now.

[shakalooloo]

Characters do complain about the kids outranking the adults in the issue itself, so some people are at least aware of the weirdness.

In some ways, you could think of this school as a continuation of the Exceptional training programme rather than the old Xavier facility, and so the three get seniority based purely on having been students the longest! :P

[iamrman]

Wait, Kitty died?

[scorntx]

During the Krakoa era. (Unless something else happened since that Glob's talking about?)
She had a bit of difficulty coming back for a while because her powers would activate on reflex before she was all the way back, futzing with the whole process.

[iamrman]

Oh, right. I thought it was a reference to a more recent death.

[bruinsfan]

Did they ever explain why it was that Krakoa's teleport gateways wouldn't admit her?

[scorntx]

According to a check on the wiki, it's just an extension of her phasing powers not working with tech applying to bio-tech as well.
Until apparently Fall of Krakoa, when suddenly she could use them.

Apparently the editor at the time said it was just because of her powers and nothing else. So the alternative answer seems to be "because drama."

[cainofdreaming]

Or the forbidden alternative, which can be deciphered by combining the letters "N", "E" and "O" in correct order.

[thezmage]

The Neo? Are they still around?

[cainofdreaming]

Evolutionaries did away with those that weren't depowered by Scarlet Witch. And I don't think they resurrected them on Krakoa, so probably not.

[mastermahan]

No, I don't think O*N*E was involved.

[petermilley]

Glob immediately becoming alarmed when Cyclops says "I'm handling it" is a cute touch.

[petermilley]

Also:

Rogue: "Why am I facing this way the camera's over there...oh damn it Emma this is supposed to be for the brochure!"
Emma: "Exactly, dear."

[beeyo]

Rogue and Emma's placement on the cover is hilarious. Just really needed to squeeze some TnA in there, huh?

[zylly]

They’re trying way too hard to make the different x groups adversarial to each other.