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In which Magneto is a drama llama in any universe (but a remarkably decent parent in at least one); the soap opera hits the Age of Apocalypse; Weapon X is a man made of red flags; Gambit has an OT3; the better man wins; some blanks are better left unfilled; and we would probably not fare too well on Earth-295.
X-PLAINED:
- The other Magnus
- Synchronicity
- Earth-295 (more) (again)
- X-Men Chronicles #1-2
- Selective backstory
- Magneto’s hair
- Wundagore Mountain
- Aesthetics of the Age of Apocalypse
- The X-Men of Earth-295
- Magneto’s pedagogy
- More miscellaneous horsemen
- Weapon X (Logan)
- Cape Citadel, revisited
- The death of the Scarlet Witch
- Disaster Bisexual Gambit
- Wolverine (but not that one)
- Punks who may or may not also be scrimshanders
- Emotionally well-adjusted Quicksilver
- Further miracles of magnetism
- The narrative power of evocation
- Age of Somebody Else
- Jay and Miles of Earth-295
NEXT EPISODE: Summers Family Reunions somehow get even worse.
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Next week – Factor x?
Never mind. I guess I should of looked at the As Mentioned. Tales of the Age of Apocalypse it is.
Quick comment before I forget it, I think Miles might be mixing up the External Gideon and the Acolyte Fabian Cortez.
Gideon has always been the guy who can copy the powers of anyone near him (mutant or otherwise), it’s Cortez who boosts other peoples powers.
Storm and Rogue being there from the oustset never sat quite right with me.
Storm was a kid running around Cairo not that long before the O5 started, and Rogue should definitely be too young. IIRC she was barely older than some of the New Mutants when she came to Xaviers, but had the residue of so many older people’s minds inside her head that she came across as a lot older.
In the case of Jean, I wonder if she had ever had the traumatic incident of telepathically feeling her friend die as a kid that led to the original closing down of her powers by Xavier-in-deeply-dodgy-therapist mode?
The change in timeline makes me more forgiving of changes made to the younger characters because if they weren’t born when Apocalypse came to power, then they would likely have different conceptions, which might mean they have variations on the powers we’ve seen, but I’ll probably mention that more when we get around to Gen Next and X-Calibre.
For me the one who stuck out as being definitely too young to be here was Colossus—he’s in his late teens during Giant-Size, so having him as a peer of the O5 makes no sense. He should be what, twelve here?
Storm is generally about the O5’s age, so her being here makes sense. I’ll give you Rogue, though—her age has to be handwaved throughout AoA, really.
Would the future world in New Mutants v1 #49/50 count as “Age of Sunspot”? The timeline where he and Magma had taken control of the Hellfire Club, and used that socio-economic power to create a mutant utopia/human dystopia.
I always assumed AOA Wolverine was Fabian Cortez.
616 Cortez couldn’t affect humans though, could he?
He said he didn’t know what would happen if he used his powers on a human. I don’t think AOA Wolverine is him though, just looks way too different.
What would have stopped Cortez from trying his powers on a human, I wonder? Moral concerns certainly wouldn’t be an issue.
Plus when his powers first developed statistically speaking the odds are much higher that he’d have tried them on a human before a mutant.
Perhaps Cortez was afraid that what he would do is give humans powers? The thought might offend him on principle.
It’s a very good question! When he’s threatening baby Luna in front of Pietro, Wanda, Crystal, and Jean, he says that since he was a child he’s always been curious about humans, what made them different from “us” and why they hated “us” so much, and what would happen if he used his powers on one.
The fact he said he wondered this since he was a child makes me think he must have manifested his powers very early. Given that his sister is also a mutant, my guess is that she was the one he first affected, and how he learned he was a mutant at all. Maybe he was even born to a mutant family, the way he talks about “us” and makes it sound like humans are these weird outsider species, rather than something he ever considered himself prior to his powers? That’s just my best guess though.
As for why he of all people would never test his powers out on a human just to see what would happen…yeah, got me, I got no explanation there. Maybe he did and nothing happens, but he just wanted to scare Luna’s family!
Maybe 616 Cortez can’t affect humans but AOA Cortez(assuming hes AOA Wolverine) can because of genetic manipulation. Many mutants in the AOA have been enhanced. It would also explain his appearance.
I just wanted to highlight a great little bit from Jay. “Rube Goldberg machine of feelings.” Great stuff!
Does the story read differently given what happens with Apocalypse in HoXPoX? Half the Summers’ time travel shenanigans was based on doing ‘whatever it takes’ to stop him.
– I love the New Men! My favorite ones are Bova (so king!), Lady Vermin (she’s a ratty!), and Churchill (sweet bulldog)
– ooh that’s an interesting point about the original X-Men costumes evoking radiation signs!
– Pietro and Wanda being X-Men, and starting lineup X-Men at that, is such a neat concept and I love it and IM MAD WANDA DIED! It’s some bullshit fridging shit to show us “the stakes” and…hook up Magneto and Rogue which is all KINDS of sketchy to me since Mystique basically left her in Magneto’s custody and like…how old is Rogue? Even if she’s over 18 it’s still skeevy to me, how would you feel if you entrusted your daughter to a MUCH older man with kids her age and HE MARRIED HER? While being her teacher!
– I like the idea of Rogue permanently absorbing different people in different universes
– I think I’m the one Gideon fan there is, lol. Also yeah as another commenter noted, Gideon has always been a power-absorber, the power-amplifier is Fabian Cortez.
– Man, I liked Nemesis as a ponytailed pretty boy named Nemesis. I do not like him calling himself Holocaust. I GET HE’S A BAD GUY BUT DAMN
– “This is where the soap opera gets lathery” is TERRIFIC. As is “Rube Goldberg machine of feelings”
– I thought the AoA Wolverine was Crule of the Externals too
– Aw, I like the idea of a Rogue/Pietro friendship!
– OMG AGE OF HAVEN, THAT’S BRILLIANT! I’d really love to see that, though as Jay says it’d have to be done carefully. I also think she’d get a much better death this way. Like she’d still DIE but it’d be really cool and dramatic like Maddie Pryor’s end in Inferno. Maybe she sacrifices herself to help the X-Men/X-Factor destroy the Adversary inside her or something! Also would be SUPER here for an Age of Frost or Age of Magik!
Also an Age of Haven would probably also have AMAZING HAIR
Based on above comments, I have drawn Fabian Cortez as Weapon X. I know the comment was about him being AoA Wolverine but this was more fun, and I curse myself for writing “The Fabverine” instead of “Weapon Fab”. Also he has Jean there to moon over his sexy Toxic Masculinity, “frails” love that!
https://66.media.tumblr.com/fb0c839285bbf4774324dfbaed7fad6b/649329a83d6240d4-19/s1280x1920/8ec8a3d2c58936bd35050a05c4fa1dc6f60feeba.png
XMChronicles1 is the shiiit. Pretty epic ISH. Got a great wrap-around cover. Not as good as XMAlpha’s wraparound cover though! …shiiiny…
MGS reference! mmMA’MAN (Miles)!
Wolverine: Ohhh u delicate hipster/SJW’s think everything makes u…pff… “uncomfortable”.
Oh man, imagine how badass an R-rated AOA movie would be!
I would want to see the Age Of Bernard The Poet.
A couple of quick thoughts:-
-The big question that AoA is raising for me is whether its extensive referencing of the past is a symptom of the changing audience for superhero comics. Does this event represent a recognition that, with the collapse of the market, the core readership was now disproportionately composed of devoted long-term readers? A reader with thatkind of in-depth knowledge does seem to me to be the one Implied by a comic that is in intertextual dialogue with UXM #1 from1963. Cf.all the M’Kraan stuff and the appearance of Jahf.
-On the same note: as with the Phalanx Covenant – but still more so -, I’m not sure that I see the “new stuff” here that Harras and Lobdell apparently thought that they wanted to do. This is all doing a good job of referencing the past, but that’s the sort of good job that it’s doing.
-Our hosts made some very good points about this version of Logan. But I have to wonder (please bear in mind that I don’t really remember where this is going), was he *meant* to be as negative a figure as they are reading him as? I have a horrible feeling that this is intended to be generally Kewl in a way that is, unfortunately, very much of its time – a Logan for the worst tendencies of ‘90s superhero comics.
– “Goal-oriented” is maybe a little too generous as a way to describe Silver Age Magneto. Also, I’m not sure that Miles uses the word “badass” with quite the same meaning that it communicates to me…