I Am NOT the Beastmaster: New X-Men: Fanboy Style

Okay, now that all that’s out of the way, I have some fanboy gushing to do. “Here Comes Tomorrow” is chock full of sudden twists and suprise revelations meant to reward the longtime reader of New X-Men. While I slowly came to appreciate the thematic continuity of Morrison’s ending after a couple of readings, my first go-round was spent in sheer jaw-dropping astonishment as Morrison cleared out all his lingering secrets, and now I just have to share. I realize these observations will only have meaning to somebody who's read all the comics, and will appear quite nonsensical to anyone else, but it’s my weblog so screw you.

Be forewarned now - major spoilers ahead. Among the revelations of Morrison’s final issues:

• Martha Johanssen’s mutant brain was, in fact, No-Girl all along.

• And, for that matter, Ernst looked and acted so weird because she was Cassandra Nova, still stuck in the body of that shapeshifting Shi’ar scout-computer, slowly being reeducated from childhood. Both of these were strongly hinted at back in the “Riot at Xavier’s” arc, but it’s nice to see Morrison come back and confirm them. (Even if, frankly, such confirmations have almost no place in this arc. Although you’d think Morrison might have made more of Martha’s history with Sublime.)

• Beak, we are told, grew up to become one of the greatest X-Men, the founder of a heroic legacy. This isn't exactly a long-hidden secret, but I mention it because Barnell is one of my favorite of Morrison's contributions to the X-Men mythos. (With Nova, Sublime, the U-Men, the wild Sentinels, all the new kids, X-Corp, Weapon Plus, and Fantomex, he's actually added quite a bit to rejuvenate the franchise over his relatively short run.)

• The Stepford Cuckoos were actually Weapon XIV. (The timing of this is somewhat screwy, as Emma’s girls showed up in Morrison’s second story arc, well before Weapons XII and XIII broke out of the train, but it is somewhat plausible – their collective consciousness isn’t all that different from Weapon XII, “Huntsman’s” powers. However, I must admit, I had always harbored a hope that the girls were originally five completely different telepaths, shaped into one persona by sheer force of Emma Frost’s personality. It just seemed more characteristic of Emma to remake the girls into five little clones of her.)

• The Kick drug isn’t just created and distributed by Jon Sublime, it is Sublime, and that’s how he’s been manipulating events like Magneto’s extremely uncharacteristic murder of Phoenix. (And by the way, this should further cement how straight-edge Morrison has become since the end of The Invisibles… drugs aren't just bad, they're an evil sentience bent on forestalling human evolution! Those bastards!)

And, perhaps best of all…

• Quentin Quire actually did ascend to a higher world, just as Xavier said he did, and he’s become part of some interdimensional Phoenix corps. (I didn’t catch this one until the second reading; I knew he looked familiar but thought he was Marvel Boy. That isn’t as dumb a confusion as it sounds, since the characters look alike and are both essentially Morrison’s avatars for youthful rebellion, albeit Quentin is an avatar whose author knows how fruitless and selfish youthful rebellion can sometimes be.)

This is the great thing about Morrison’s writing: when he’s at the top of his game, he knows how to walk that fine line between innovation and convention, providing something new while at the same time satisfying all the visceral desires of the fan. “Here Comes Tomorrow” fulfills all our “Days of Future Past” expectations while also confounding them; it’s a story chock full of X-Men soap opera and secrets revealed that also ends with a characterstically Morrison apotheosis. I think this series will end up rivalling the Jiminez issues of The Invisibles for its effortless combination of classic Grant Morrison themes with an expertly constructed narrative.