New X-Men: Planet X - Part 2

[history79]

"Magneto’s an old terrorist bastard. I got into trouble—the X-Men fans hated me because I made him into a stupid old drug-addicted idiot. He had started out as this sneering, grim terrorist character, so I thought, Well, that’s who he really is. [Writer] Chris Claremont had done a lot of good work over the years to redeem the character: He made him a survivor of the death camps and this noble antihero. And I went in and shat on all of it. It was right after 9/11, and I said there’s nothing f*****g noble about this at all."

- Grant Morrison

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/2624941/grant-morrisons-playboy-interview/

Comments

[cyberghostface]

Well Grant, at least you were being honest that what you did was shitting on Claremont. Fortunately Marvel had the foresight of retconning your mess only a few months after you wrote this.

[every_spiegel]

Few months after? Was it stated in some interview or is it an assumption?
It's probably just me, but when I read it I got a feeling that the last chapters of Planet X arc were written with the knowledge it will be "That Was Not Him" retconned. That of course didn't stop Morrison not in the least (and I love that) but even the X-men went all "Nay, you're not Magneto!" during the final confrontation... Maybe that's my wishful thinking.

[sarahnewlin]

And lo, it would be the last time we got to see Jean Grey....

[scorntx]

She, uh, did come back in that "Endsong" thing.
Which then put her on a bus forever.

"The editorial mandate took her. She died forever. And from that moment on, any Jean Grey in her shape would only be a worthless copy."

[sarahnewlin]

Yes where she told Scott is was okay and to go with the homewrecker Frost lol.

Was it really an editorial mandate? Ugh so is that why we haven't seen her in 14 years? She needs to come back. Get rid of the rude, uncouth, homophobic, idiot teen!Jean....

[scorntx]

... actually, it was Grant's last issue that had Scott go with Emma.
(Because if he didn't, the X-Men would fall apart, Beast would do drugs, get taken over by an evil bacteria and everything would go to hell.
Also there would be clones of Nightcrawler everywhere.

Don't do drugs, kids!)

[sarahnewlin]

Do you think we'll ever get adult Jean back?

[scorntx]

Probably not until Teen Jeen is gone.

Which might be a while.
(Still, it's only been over a decade so far...)

[dcbanacek]

Where are all the New York based heroes at this moment? Spider-Man wouldn't put up with this shit and aside from Magneto, his crew looks like a bunch of jobbers.

[scorntx]

The Avengers were distracted by a fake black hole... thing-y Magneto created (or something), which explains why they weren't there.

As to the rest of the New York heroes, that's easy enough to ex-
WAIT, WHAT IN THE WORLD CAN THAT BE?
*runs away*


... but in all seriousness, the reason they aren't there is because otherwise this story would've lasted three issues, the third of which would have been Xorneto being beaten up by the Fantastic Four.

(It's that "Superman Stays Out of Gotham" problem.)

[lordultimus]

It's a common problem with Grant Morrison comics - he tends to pretend that no other hero exists outside of the ones he's writing. There are exceptions to this, of course, such as Aztek and his run on JLA, but in general he barely gives outside heroes a token mention of their existence. For example, his Batman stuff and All-Star Superman never have the other heroes "on screen", while his Action comics run had the non-Batman members of the Justice League appear for a whole three or four pages.

[mrstatham]

This. It got ridiculous because the Black Glove in his Batman run was revealed to be an utterly useless and pathetic threat that the Joker a - talked to death, and b - Batman promptly dismantled with far too much ease himself.

[cainofdreaming]

Charles Xavier breathes out from his penis? Kind of unexpected secondary mutation for a psychic.

[lilacsigil]

Hey, it could just be farting. Out of his penis.

[scorntx]

Y'know, Grant Morrison is a good writer.
He writes intriguing stuff, filled with creative ideas (or madness, depending on your point of view).
Over his career he's writ many a good yarn. Okay, yes, his coherency is hit and miss, and of late he's had a serious problem actually finishing anything (how long did it take to make Wonder Woman: Earth One?)
But good stories none the less.

But this is nowhere near his best.

[starwolf_oakley]

Given what Magneto did in X-MEN (Vol 2) #1-3 (a Claremont story) and in FATAL ATTRACTIONS, his behavior here isn't TOO out of character.

In X-MEN (vol 2) #25, Magneto triggered a world-wide EMP that killed thousands of people, and justified it with "Look what the flatscans made me do!"

[flint_marko]

He only did the emp to disable the satellites the humans put up to prevent him from returning to earth. He wasn't directly trying to kill humans like he is here.

And we never actually saw any of the people who supposedly died because of it.

[lamashtar]

...Evacuated beforehand, right?

[zylly]

To be fair, I remember reading Byrne pretty much making the same criticisms of Claremont's Magneto ages ago, saying he had basically transplanted Doom's personality.

Not that anything excuses this. I realize that Morrison was the hot commodity then, but really, some editor should have just said no.

[scorntx]

-basically transplanted Doom's personality-
...
Okay, sure.
If we ignore that Magneto's much less operatic than DOOM, is much more pleasant towards most people than DOOM, isn't obsessed with defeating Xavier, just proving he's right, doesn't have as much of a god-complex as DOOM...
Doesn't have an army of robots, never stole the Silver Surfer's power...

[zylly]

Well, granted, Byrne's opinion on anything is down to a lot of personal biases.

On the other hand, Claremont did take what had been a more or less one-note terrorist villain who seemed more interested in personal power than the mutant race as a whole, and turned him into "actually noble, tortured, anti-villain."

So there's some similarities, even if the specifics aren't the same. Though Doom, other than maybe his first appearance or two, never really was anything less than he became.

[gnarll]

Also, the center of Dooms personality is his ego. Magneto has a huge ego, but it does not rule him the way Dooms does. Magneto is driven by his cause, and is capable of overruling his ego if he judges it for the better of his people.

[cyberghostface]

Thing is Byrne had an extremely black and white view on morality for villains. Look at what he did to Sandman after he was reformed.

[zylly]

Yeah. Some of that, per what I've read, was the change in what it meant to be on the FBI's most wanted list between the 60's and the 90's/00's and Byrne not getting that, and some of it's just his flat out contrariness.

And yeah, I'm not entirely convinced Byrne ever thought Doom was a bad guy.

[informationgeek]

"Magneto’s an old terrorist bastard. I got into trouble—the X-Men fans hated me because I made him into a stupid old drug-addicted idiot. He had started out as this sneering, grim terrorist character, so I thought, Well, that’s who he really is. [Writer] Chris Claremont had done a lot of good work over the years to redeem the character: He made him a survivor of the death camps and this noble antihero. And I went in and shat on all of it. It was right after 9/11, and I said there’s nothing f*****g noble about this at all."

So screw character development and evolution! We're going backwards instead of forwards!

Seriously Morrison, this is the Talia situation before Talia. We go from interesting anti-hero/anti-villain with lots of gray and swings to the bad side alot, but they still feel complex and memorable... to generic supervillain.

[scorntx]

That is kind of one of Grant's problems, re: supervillains.
They're usually kind of one-note.

It's alright when you're dealing with a character like Darkseid, who really only needs the one, or Doctor Hurt (because who cares about Doctor Hurrt?) but...

And it does sort of sound like Grant's admitting he screwed up there.

[mrstatham]

The thing is, Darkseid had been given way more depth that Grant wanted to acknowledge. Darkseid had tons going on from even the Kirby days that it was kind-of insulting to just declare him 'god of Evil'. The only things I found really neat about Final Crisis was the application and scale of what was going on - the idea of Darkseid dragging existence down *with* him as he dies to the point time and space begin to blur (to the extent he can kill his own son in the past, from his point in the future)? Amazing. That whole chapter ending with 'give in' and the thumbs down? Great. But just.. The tendency to just go 'evil' with these villains is incredibly disappointing.

[an_idol_mind]

Morrison is an amazing writer. For some reason, though, he has a big weakness when it comes to writing villains. He's really obsessed with presenting bad guys who are flat clichéd characters.

[every_spiegel]

I believe it is based on how he sees the world, and yes, it's basically black-n-white.
Though I can't call Morrison's "Magneto" flat. He's evil and weak in his evilness, and corrupted by his power, and that's exactly what the author wanted to say even knowing all that retcon backstory of Magneto.
That was an audacious call, and it is very controversial so it's understandable a lot of people don't like it (myself, I have a very complicated lovehate relationships with this story arc).

[panelsarewindows]

I would say his Lex Luthor in All-Star Superman was very interesting and well-done, but almost because he was very flat and cliched, yet thought he was smarter than he was. On the whole however I think you're right.

[lyricalswagger]

Damage Control is gonna make tons of money rebuilding all the bridges and fixing Lady Liberty.

[scorntx]

Damage Control should probably own most of Manhattan by this point...

[flash_fan]

This run was reductive to Magneto's character development but I do kind of understand Grant's sentiments here. A lot of X-men fans tendency to see Magneto as noble or as an "anti-hero" is eye rolling. I've noticed a trend where people don't view well developed villains as villains.

[cyberghostface]

Magneto is a pretty clear-cut antihero, I don't see why that I would elicit eye-rolls.

[wizardru]

Yes, exactly this. Magneto didn't wake up one day and suddenly become a non-villain. Claremont spent literal years transforming him into a more complicated character who may make ethically compromised choices, but whose goals are noble and whose motivations are rational and understandable. Dr. Doom is just a narcissistic asshole; an incredibly talented, sometimes charismatic and definitely dangerous one, but still solidly a monster.

Magneto had the self-awareness to feel horror when he realized he was close to killing a child (an a Jewish one, at that) and recoil from it, acknowledging that he was in danger of becoming what he despised. Magneto has no problem retaliating with lethal force if someone threatens him (and proportionate response is NOT his strong suit), but he has always been solidly an anti-hero since the 1970s (and arguably might have been considered one back to the Neal Adams days).