X-men comics: plot developments?

So, I’m low on funds and far from a comic shop. I was wondering what the latest developments in Uncannny Xmen and New X-men were. I’ve been hearing good things about New X-men since they got a new team of writers not too long ago, although the last time I turned my back on it, Scott and Jean broke up shortly before Jean died (again) as a result of Scott cheating on her with the White Queen (who now also turns into a being made of diamond)

So yeah. What’s new, and can anyone explain who Cassandra Nova is and what’s up with the secondary mutations? does wolverine have one? is wolverine still involved with Domino, or was that just a rumor?

thanks!
bamf

A) The good new writer left–That was Grant Morrison. The current new writers are the increasingly horrible Chris Claremont (forget his brilliance from the ‘70s, this stuff sucks) and the dreaded and loathed Chuck Austen (who, allegedly, was kicked off). There’s a book called Astonishing X-Men that’s wonderful–character development, solid plots, action, humor…excellent all around. Th’ guy who’s doing it is (IIRC) connected with Buffy the TV show or something.

B) The Cassandra Nova stuff is from Morrison’s first story arc. She’s like Prof. X’s long lost twin sister who he tried to murder in the womb or something. She’s creepy but with poorly defined powers.

C) The “secondary mutiations” thing is an excuse to mess with characters’ powers and looks. Thus the White Queen can become living diamond and Toad becomes more like the movie version. The idea is that you get your first mutation around puberty and later in your mid-20s or later, you get a secondary one maybe (not everyone does…only those who’s powers/looks the writers want to screw with get 'em). Wolverine does not have one. (He’s also not seeing Domino any more–I wasn’t even aware that he ever did!!)

I recommend getting Astonishing X-Men, and maybe whatever “New Mutants” just changed it’s title to and take all the money you’ll save on the other X-Books and use 'em to get the the trade paperback collections of the Morrison X-Men

Fenris

That’d be Joss Whedon, writer of Buffy, Angel, Firefly and from the looks of it, a bunch of other good stuff. (Toy Story? Some early writing credit for early Roseanne episodes. I’m ignoring the Aliens 4 credit!).

New Mutants became New X-Men: Academy X, but it’s still written by the same guy. They messed around with the concept a bit (the original New Mutants reopening the school with a new class) by putting the X-Men back in charge and demoting Dani, Xian, and Rahne. Yeah, Scott and Emma don’t have enough to do being on both the Claremont and Whedon teams, they need to be the headmasters of the school as well.

NYX and Exiles are also pretty good, and a good deal better than the Claremont and Austen titles. NYX deals with a group of police officers who patrol a mutant neighborhood in New York, and Exiles deals with a group of alternate universe X-Men who hop among alternate universes to fix things so that the multiverse doesn’t collapse. It’s easy to get into; just pick the beginning of a new storyline, and hop on board.

The secondary mutation is dumb, and the writers seem to have no memory. Nightcrawler’s secondary mutation is the ability to become invisible in shadows. Not so bad, except that he had this ability introduced in Uncanny 100; he’s essentially always been able to do this, but the writers never bothered to use it since its introduction.

Seeing as how they turned his father into a demon, is he still considered a mutant? But yeah, I remember him also having that ability for quite some time.

Nope, that’s District X. NYX is a book about young, urban mutants living in NYC, and isn’t an offical “X-book.”

Also, my quick answer:

Astonishing is maginificent after only two issues. Killer writing, great art (courtesy of the guy who draws Planetary), and it’s just everything that the X-books used to be.

Uncanny remains abysmal. X-men dropped the “New” and shows signs of getting really good, if traditional (it’s a far cry from the magnificent tenure of Grant Morrisson, arguably the greatest living comics writer). New X-men Mutant Academy , formerly New Mutants, was dead on arrival and is now sinking even lower. Unimaginitive characters, boring plots, bad art = no reason to read. Excalibur is absolutely atrocious so far (2 issues), and a real insult to not just the original book to bear that name but to anyone who’s read X-books before.

[QUOTE=Freejooky]
X-men dropped the “New” and shows signs of getting really good, if traditional (it’s a far cry from the magnificent tenure of Grant Morrisson, arguably the greatest living comics writer). QUOTE]

COUGHalanmooreCOUGH!

Sounds like time for a trip to The X-Axis.

And then there’s this “Sublime” guy who’s been causing trouble for awhile. There’s…

a) John Sublime, a young millionare commanding an army of “U-Men” augmented humans. He’s dead.

b) John Sublime, the director of the revived “Weapon X” program, who also also commands U-Men. He’s alive.

c) Sublime, a 3 billion year old sentient bacteria strain, that’s been plotting through the ages to destroy all life, or something, for some reason or another. Apparently, he’s/it’s infected and possessed people through the ages, founding the Weapon X program and making Magneto kill Jean Grey. I think Jean ended up erasing it from the timeline.

So, the first two “Sublimes” might be clones, or Anakin Skywalker-esque human manifestations, or something.

My info, of course, is prone to being somewhat…confused. Corrections would be appreciated.

Ooh, sounds like a nasty hack in your throat. You out to get that looked at. :smiley:

Well-played, old bean. Well-played.

(But Moore… a hack? OUCH!)

Ha! I’ve got some trivia Fenris doesn’t!

There was an New X-Men Annual (printed sideways) wherein Domino and Wolvie are trying to do break someone out of something. Wolvie asks Domino if she would like to go back to her place and fuck and she says something to the effect of “One night of animal passion with no regrets? Why not?”

I believe it was also the first appearance of Xash or whoever that guy that turned out to be a star/Magneto was.

Well, his dad’s not a demon. Just a very old demon “from biblical times” who looks like a demon. The whole story about Draco was cooked up by Chuck Austen and was, as you can probably guess, crap. And Nightcrawler’s my fave.

I prefer the “blend into darks shadows” to the “become invisible in darkness” thing myself, but different writers have had a tendency to go back and forth over the years. However, the recent Official Handbook endorses my version (IIRC). So there too!

That would be Xorn. He turned out to be Magneto and Wolverine cut his head off after he killed Jean Grey.

Xorn however is back as of X-Men 158. They found him in China surrounded by mangled, twisted bodies. After a battle with the chinese “Immortals” team, Xorns helmet is cracked and it begins to suck in everything. Black hole anybody?

I’ve been avoiding most of the X titles with the exception of X-Men. Havok has always been one of my favorite characters, and I like the addition of Juggernaut to the X-Men team. I am wondering what happened to Lorna Dane. I know she went a bit off and tried to kill everyone after Havok married the nurse, but now she seems to be doing fine. What happened there?

And now apparently Magneto’s back in Excaliber. I don’t read the book because, well, just thumbing through the first few pages convinced me it was crap…anyone care to explain how they brought Magneto back so quickly after killing him off just ONE STORY ARC EARLIER!!!

They haven’t explained yet. That’s just another one of Excalibur’s “charms”.

UGH, Excalibur. Yeah, so far, it’s looking like the justification is “uhh…that wasn’t REALLY magneto that wrecked the earth and stuff…it was…uh…an impostor?”

FUCK! What’s wrong with the X-books these days? At least when Claremont wrote everything, you had continuity!

You think that’s bad? As I remember, right before Magneto “died” in the destruction of Genosha, one of the books had had Wolverine gutting him with his claws.

They quickly changed that, so in the next time you see him, he’s badly wounded and in a wheelchair, but alive.

Of course, as I remember, I think they had a Sentinel crash into his room and explode, like a few seconds later. So he either miraculously escaped, or it was another imposter that got greased.

Personally, I think he’s actually a ghost or a zombie, and everyone’s just been too polite to point it out. :smiley:
Ranchoth
(“If you really care about the future of mutantkind…you’d let me eat your braaaains!”)

The E for Extinction storyline was the first X-Men storyline I picked up in a good while, mainly to see where the new team took it (I loved The Authority in its first run), and when I saw Magneto die there, I thought “Wait, I thought they just killed him not too long ago?” (I do thumb through a few issues here and there). That man seems to have more lives than, well, an animal with a million lives. Maybe that’s his second mutation?