scans_daily | Showcasing the Black Vortex! Transformations!!1!

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Showcasing the Black Vortex! Transformations!!1!

So in Guardians of the Galaxy #24, a Black Vortex amped and power drunk Gamora tries to convince her and Beast's teammates that the Black Vortex is too valuable to be destroyed by showing them what it can turn them into by submitting to the Black Vortex and becoming cosmic versions of themselves.

First to see what she'd turn into is Storm. This vision recurs in the group shot, but I wanted to post this closeup from Guardians of the Galaxy and X-men: Black Vortex Alpha #1

At the end of the same issue, Gamora is the first of the two teams to submit in order to fend of their dangerous attackers.

Adult Beast submits to the Black Vortex in the next chapter Guardians of the Galaxy #24, after a lot of arguing about the ethics of using the Black Vortex. Typical, but wise motto's being "With great power, comes great responsibility" and "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Have to tell you, this dickmove by someone who has been working against Cyclops on topics as power and responsibility had me peeved, but there's a payoff for Beast later. Made me soften to the character, since he can't help the bad behaviour he's been written in. ;) Also, I really like his transformation.

So eventually this happens.

Vortex!Beast cosmic blasts Laura. Vortex!Gamora and Vortex!Beast stand prepared to defend the Black Vortex zealously. I won't show you those pages since someone else might want to write a better summary in combination with panels than I can. (Not my strength).

As Nova arrives on the scene Vortex!Gamora grabs the mirror, jumps to a distance where the entire crew is in sight of the artifact and blasts everyone with it, seemingly transforming everyone.

Venom isn't all that spectacular. He could create that look right now. No surprise Marvel Girl would have a bit Phoenix-y psychic butterfly effect. Rocket Raccoon looks hilarious, but awesome. This Storm looks much better with smoother lines and one less row of dots on her chest. *skips boring Nova* Lockheed becomes a big, awesome dragon. Carol Danvers becomes Black Vortex!Binary!Captain Marvel. Kitty Pride becomes a ghost. I like it's simplicity. To no one's surprise Laura gets a Wolverine-y costume. Drax becomes even more menacing. Star-Lord remains simple, again I like it. Vortex!Magik's design with samurai sword and armor is so good, I wonder whether they'll actually make that happen.

Closeups of Angel, Groot and Iceman coming up.

That's where Guardians of the Galaxy #24 ends, but in the next chapter, Legendary Starlord #9, turns out to not have happened. It seems one has to willingly submit themselves to be transformed.

Rocket Raccoon: Um, NO?
Groot: I AM GROOT!
Storm: Hank, please consider the dreadful nature of what you're suggesting. Before I fry you bald.

O5!Angel, impressed by what he saw in the mirror, submits to become Vortex!O5!Angel. Right after he was helping Laura up. Stay classy, Warren. Or was he in a trance? It's hard to tell.

Skipping a lot of the story again.

In the next chapter in All-New X-men #38, drawn by Andrea Sorrentino, who you might know from his work on Green Arrow and I, Vampire. Here is what he is capable of.

Again, I think the recipents have to willingly submit to the Black Vortex, but the Black Vortex might have it's ways of achieving this.

Here is what these 3 Vortex! amped characters are capable of when they don't hold back.

At the end of this issue O5!Cyclops finds the regular crew, leading into Guardians of the Galaxy #25.

It was such a relief to see this happen.

With O5!Hank recently promising O5!Jean to fix things, I wonder whether this will lead to a story where adult Beast tries to stop O5!Beast.

In Cyclops #12, O5!Iceman, Groot and O5!Cyclops, captured and subsequently on the run inside the enemies' spaceship find the Black Vortex in enemy hands as well. Young!Bobby says it's obvious what they have to do to escape, but O5!Cyclops objects.

He then gets a 1,5 page long psychic encouragement from Jean.

Vortex!Groot and Vortex!O5!Iceman look like they did in the earlier group shot, with Vortex!Groot breathing fire and sprouting horns and vines. Sadly Vortex!Iceman's armour patterns aren't very visible but they're there and his warrior elf wizard identity matches the image of this Young!Bobby becoming the future Wizard!Iceman we saw traveling from the future to defeat the Future!Brotherhood in the present.

Whereas adult Iceman, who was warned by Thor in the X-Men: First Class series he reminds him of Ice Giants, has had his powers and personality go out of control, most recently in Astonishing X-Men #64 and #65, where he beats Thor and terrorizes a city.

And this seems to be his future. Although that might've been under the influence of evil, mind controlling Charles Xavier II. What I mean to say by this, I like it that that the two Icemen seem to have different destinies or it's just coincidences and I'm making connections.

Both Black Vortex!'ed characters are very epic. Look at them using their powers in new awesome ways. These designs with work put into them are also the reason I think Vortex!Magik might happen and Vortex!Venom might not.

This is the first time we see Vortex!O5!Cyclops. Like with Phoenix!Cyclops, gold, black and red are a great match. Really, Phoenix!Cyclops overall has a much better design. I guess if this Vortex!O5!Cyclops were to face someone the rubies would be aligned vertically. This helmet looks weird, but reading further it seems to have an interesting function in this story.

While trying to escape they run into a battle where they meet up with Nova, Captain Marvel and the other 3 Black Vortex!'ed heroes.

I like his red eyes without the visor. Very cool to see his conversation reflected inside his helmet.

Poor Scott. ;_;

I think I remember that when the Black Vortex was first introduced s_d members asked why there was a need to introduce such an artifact when there are other existing artifacts that could do the same.

Aside from whether this is cool or not, don't you think it works differently than existing artifacts now?

What do you think of the transformations?

EDIT: Adding tags.
Cyclops artist: Javier Garron
Guardians of the Galaxy artist: Valerio Schiti
Guardians of the Galaxy colourist: Jason Keith
All-New X-Men colourist: Marcelo Maiolo
Legendary Star-Lord inker Juan Vlasco
Legendary Star-Lord colourist David Curiel

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Got that Anime BS in my superhero comics. :P

I'm rather amused the Black Vortex actually isn't an Artifact of PURE EVIL. Take that Pryde!

I'd be very concerned about what a cosmic transformation would turn Illyana into... smart odds say a new elder demon god.

See now, this is the sort of cross-book event I'd actually pay money to read. Good times!

Good news: you can?

Gamora, Nova, Jean, Groot, Storm, Lockheed, Drax, Angel and Beasts all range from decent to great designs

But the rest just look awful.

Further anthropomorphizing Rocket kinda misses the point of the character
X-23 just being a recolored Wolverine is just lazy and ignores any individual identity that Laura has ever tried to carve for herself.
Star-Lord is just his old costume without the mask.
They can't even be bothered to design an individual costume for Kitty here. Even when literally everyone else gets a new look she's just a cipher.
I don't even know how to describe Magik's armor. Cubic? Geometric? It doesn't make sense for function or fashion.
Iceman looks like Malekith had a baby with a samurai.
I can't even with Cyclops. Also should we be concerned that he's being tricked by the non-telepathic voices in his head?

Edited 2015-04-02 17:04 (UTC)

Hank is very vague about why he brought the O5 to the present. I thought it was all about "Talk some sense into Scott." Or "Troll Scott." Or... well, something? Has it ever been fully established what his original plan was? Yes, the O5 staying in the present, and finding out they CAN'T go back into the past has "broken" things. But at first...?

McCoy's stupidity at his finest, between Scott's making up this fake threat and Beast's tampering with time, it amazes me the only person helping mutant kind is Magneto.

I'm like 70% sure that it will turn out that the O5 coming to the present was always part of history and when they eventually go back Xavier will mindwipe them all and himself, but implant the suggestion in young Hank's mind to build the time machine and bring them forward once Scott kills Xavier. And the reason the time machine won't send them back is because Hank unknowingly programmed it to refuse them until they accomplish whatever it is they're supposed to. It'll have been a stable time loop all along.

And that's why Hank can't seem to come up with any real explanation for why he did this.

This is dumb. It's like a children's cartoon from the 80s thinking it's really clever & original when it's just trying to sell toys, and the toys aren't even good in the first place.

I miss the days when the Guardians of the Galaxy had writers who actually gave damn. Instead, Bendis keeps forcing crossovers with the X-Men & telling idiotic stories that insult the readers instead of a kick-ass space opera.

Bring back DnA.

To each their own taste, but... not really, since Marvel's been doing it for years already.

Like others have noted, there are other enhancing powers/artifacts around the MU to begin with. Sometimes it's meant to be temporary until the next passing of the torch: you get the Enigma Force and end up as Captain Universe for a while. You could have the Power Cosmic, which most often comes with a transformation of Galactus' chosen Herald. Or you might simply Hulk Out.

Should your comment instead refer to the characters' "upgraded" designs... the only one who might actually count seems to be Nova, though I'm unsure whether it's the EVA-inspired chin or the general shape which is very vaguely reminescent of Guyver III.

Rocket Raccoon would be rather at home in Thundercats, and Groot's form is a modern update on the -original- Groot design dating back to the Sixties (he's even shooting vines and thorns, alongside being fire-proof). And there's Bobby, but that design is SO Western RPG I'm wondering why Blizzard didn't call dibs on it.

Most of the others are really generic, IMHO, and Cyclops might even count as a partial reuse of his P5 outfit. New toy line coming up, perhaps?

Edited 2015-04-02 19:20 (UTC)

Snowflake's already a terror to begin with. But yeah, it wouldn't be pretty or at the very least she would turn out to be very... random, given that tiny insanity problem.

Universal or even Multiversal-level threat level, no question. If it ever happens, the people in there should be packing as fast as they can, because all Hell would (literally) break loose... unless the scenario contemplates a crossover with Demonbane.

Edited 2015-04-02 19:18 (UTC)

You know, the toy line thing might not be that far off the mark. I wouldn't be that surprised if Disney or the marketing division folk simply asked Marvel to liven things up and crank out more "alternate" versions to sell.

We'll see, really. The story has some potential, I'm just worried Bendis Time might stretch it out longer than required before the focus goes back to the main cast.

Edited 2015-04-02 19:30 (UTC)

I'm among the few that actually likes this storyline, namely for seeing how the Black Vortex influences each character (however cliched this type of story might seem). Some are bold enough to immediately submit to the Vortex's power, others have reservations out of either being too scared or strong enough to resist the temptation to do so, and many simply refuse to accept the 'gifts' the object gives due to satisfaction of their current state of being.

As shown in the Alpha issue, the Vortex itself isn't inherently evil, just how others could use the power from said Vortex is bad. That's probably why Cyclops, Rocket and Groot didn't become cosmic zealots; they submitted through overcoming their fears of what they could become as opposed to desperation (I.E, Gamora) and impulsive in-the-moment decision-making (á la Beast and Thane).

On an unrelated note, why do people use exclamation points when differentiating two different incarnations of a character within continuity (like 05!Cyclops, Busty!Nina, Inverted!Tony, Farmworld!Finn, etc.)?

Andrea Sorrentino is male:

https://twitter.com/and_sorrentino

Based on the number of replies already here, it might just be my PC, but some of these images seem to be blown up well beyond their best resolution and some of them are too small to even read.

Sending the poor kids back to the past to consign them to losing any growth or development they've had here (Like Jean and Hank becoming a couple, or Scott spending quality time with Corsair) would seem hideously cruel.

I don't know whether my worries about that came across. I think I typed something about it and then backspaced. First the Black Vortex swayes Angel and next Cyclops has a non-existing voice in his head.

Beyond that it has altered it's recipents minds to think the Black Vortex is the greates gift of all. It definitely has a corrupting influence.

Actually, I think it is. See my comment to long_silence below.

Jean and Hank are a couple? What issue did that happen?

Well we used to have a name like that for Superior Spider-Man. :p I don't remember what it was exactly. The '!!1' in the title was intentional as well. I really like this book, but the transformations are fun to poke at nonetheless. I just really liked to do that everytime. Does it read off?

I think the Vortex' intentions have yet to be revealed.

I wonder how Cyclops, Iceman and Groot will interact with the three zealous ones and whether they will show any off behaviour at all.

Oops. I'll correct that.

Sorry, icon_uk. I actually added image resolutions that were included in the posting rules. All images show up as the same width to me. If anyone else has this issue and can tell me how to fix it, I'll happily oblige.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclamation_mark#Internet_culture

The origin of this usage is unknown, although it is hypothesized to have originated with certain Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures, for example, "Football Player! Leonardo", "Rockstar! Raphael", and "Breakdancer! Michelangelo".[citation needed]

Well, I might have learned something today.

It's the objeccts displaying at the same width which I think is part of the problem, since the images themselves are not the same width.

Normally when you post an image into a post, it'll use the default width of the image, which can then be manipulated using the html or Rich Text editor (The Rich Text editor is perhaps easier to use, since you can drag and resize the image with a mouse, and view it in real time.

I was hoping Psylocke would be with them....

Between this, the Phoenix Force, and Fear Evil, Marvel sure likes making alternate costumes for their characters lately.

Guess they can sell more toys and DLC that way.

For me, the Marvel cosmic stuff ended with Thanos Imperative.

See also: Runaways and Brian K. Vaughan's run.

Hideously cruel seems to be the default setting on how modern Xavier is written so that won't be a problem.

Also I'm not sure if Jean and Hank are actually a couple or if there was just some attraction and hints between them. Jean knows how Hank feels and they've kissed but I don't think they've really gotten together.

Oh, no, that doesn't read off. I was just confused.

In any case, whom do you think will succumb to the Black Vortex next?

Edited 2015-04-03 08:26 (UTC)

Hi icon_uk :) I read your message last night, but it was late. Could you tell me which images so I can have a better understanding and tinker with them, even if for future postings?

Well, going by the cover for Cyclops I was expecting it to be Marvel Girl.

Now, I'm not so sure. Kitty could only be driven to it in a dire situation since she's such a vocal opponent to this, so I secretly want her to become the cosmic ghost.

No prbls

Small pictures made too large would be, counting from the image above the cut as #1

#1, 2, 3, 4, 17, 21, 22

Large images made too small

# 5, 6

The rest seem fine.

Thanks!

#1,2,3,4 are really pictures that are TOO big and were scaled down.

I scaled #1 down to 300 pixels wide and 400 high. I guess the width isn't in proportion to the heigh so I'll try 275. I wouldn't know what ratio pages are made in. I should grab a measuring tape and calculate since I'm good at that. :p

For #2 to #4 and #22 I used 831 pixels wide and 1280 high. I found those in the Posting Checklist from 2012. Pages 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 18, 20, 23 are full pages set to the same resolutions.

What goes for all the pictures that are made too large, they were scanned that way. The ones I cut into I only determined a width for them and html adjusted hight.

As for #5 and #6, since they were double page spreads I didn't contain their resolutions so they can be read better. So they're supposed to be seen as big as on my screen. How do I fix it so anyone's browser / computer can see it properly?

I know I saw it very early in Buffy fandom with regard to Evil!Angel and the like - I guess the Ninja Turtles action figures came before that?

Just wait until the lunchpails and soundtrack albums start hitting the stores.

Note: I have no objection to multimedia marketing and merchandising in theory, just to marketing considerations driving the story rather than the reverse.

Edited 2015-04-03 14:51 (UTC)

Gotta say, I like the way Black Vortex Drax combines his old "Hulk's dumber cousin from space" look (the gold wrestler belt with skull on, for instance) with his current one. It's a nice callback.

Agreed. :) Also, the original mask on his head.

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