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In which “Astonishing X-Men” is something of a misnomer; Death has a good look; sometimes you just need a guy who swoops; Miles stops worrying and learns to love Nate Grey; Telekinesis is silly looking; “Wolverine” dies; and nothing really changes.
X-PLAINED:
- Astonishing X-Men (miniseries)
- Ambience
- Nina (again)
- Mannites (again)
- The third-best way to get out of awkward conversations
- The Hulkbuster base
- Bastion (again)
- Bastion’s worst nightmare
- Death (a new one)
- Fiddly bits
- Cable’s Psimitar
- Telekinetic snowboarding
- Headcase
- Darco
- Glub
- Beautiful Dreamer
- Grace
- Totem
- Things to do with a severed head
- The Changing
- The (apparent) death of Wolverine
- How to salvage this miniseries
- Hypothetical X-crossovers
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I can confirm that in Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, “psimitar” is just pronounced “scimitar.” I THINK that’s the only time it’s ever been named in a voiced medium, but it’s totally possible it happened somewhere I didn’t see.
The Inhumans were once positioned to supplant the X-Men. Is there an article or something about all the attempts at next big things that failed?
The “Psimitar” being a spear rather than a curved sword grates on me more than I expected. It’s a culture specific design (and none of them Western Cultures), to see it misused is just lazy writing to me, espcially when “Psimitar” is actually a pretty cool name in and of itself.
Whilst yes, there are many interesting personalities and conversations that this line up could have, looked at purely from a tactical POV, this DOES seem to be a really badly thought out X-Team.
Given that Jean knows Nina is a telepath, and is in trouble, why add three MORE telepaths? If the person they are dealing with is powerful against telepaths, you mix things up a bit. A team with three telepathic telekinetics, the force beam guy, the swoopy one (for whom flight is their ONLY power), and fighty guy seems lacking in flexibility.
No one with enhanced strength or speed? No one who can teleport? (I’m sure there’s a “Pokemon gym leader who ONLY has one type of Pokemon” reference I could make, but I shall refrain)
And speaking of Pokemon yes, thank you! Looking at the design of Death it annoyed me that it reminded me of someone, but couldn’t think of thow it was, and whilst I did wonder if it was X-Cutioner, but it was a Pokemon evolution version of Senyaka I was thinking of without realising it.
Some of Death’s design is great, some less so. The skull belt buckle is sort of marred by it still having little eyeballs, which makes it either slightly goofy thanks to the protruding teeth below, or staring down judgementally at Death’s junk. I also hope there’s an explanation of why his eyes are suddnely glowing fiery orange orbs.
I do wish someone had realised who Death was based on him being this menacing, imposing, scary warrior, but then realising he was STILL only 5 foot 3 inches tall.
Nate casually using the snowboard to fly for the aesthetic reminds me of the 1995 Power Rangers movie, where the movie starts with the rangers in civilian ID’s skydiving for fun, and Tommy (the White Ranger) uses what looks to be a snowboard to skysurf… it would not surprise me if Nate had seen that movie (on VHS of course) and thought “Oh yeah, I’m trying THAT!”
Pedant Mode: Activated – Jay refers to one of the baby-ish Mannite as Beautiful Dreamer (Who was a Morlock), when I think he means Joyboy (of the Technet) Pedant Mode: Deactivated
I’m a little surprised that no one suggests (or even more likely, be worried) that the Mannites, who DO look very, very technorganic in the astral form, might have links to the Phalanx or Technarchy.
But overall yes, as a (failed) launch for the Mannites as the next big thing, AND as lacklustre a “Wolverine dies” as one might hope for, this is a very odd series.
I don’t know if anyone here has read Livewires. It’s a mini-series that is theoretically a follow-up to the Mannites, although they’re just referenced in passing (however, it technically goes into their backstory). It’s irrelevant for X-Men history, but it’s worth checking out.
If I’m not mistaken, the Mannites as being the forerunners of the Livewires is the only mention of the former anywhere close to continuity since these issues.
And the Livewires also fall off the continuity map right after their series ends, IIRC.
I think Livewires is the only time the Mannites are even mentioned after these issues.
And even then, the Livewires fell off the map continuity wise until two issues of Agents of Wakanda in 2020, and I only just learned about that because I decided to check the wiki just to double check.
Also, anyone else think the recent era of X-men would have been the perfect time to bring the Mannites back as a third not mutant not sentinel faction, or is it just me?
Don’t we already have at least two groups who “Are to mutants as mutants are to humans?” running around, we had The Children of the Vault (who did show up in the Krakoan era playing that very role) and the inhabitants of the World are sort of the same deal (I think).
It’s somewhat odd to see Howard Mackie’s general good standard of work on X-Men, as someone who’s primarily familiar with him from his awful run on Amazing Spider-Man.
Gradon Creed is not that bad.
Did someone say ‘prairie dog’?
https://www.instagram.com/poppy_the_prairie_dog?igsh=cGppY2xtdjZzaWhp
The current writer of “X-Force,” Geoffery Thorne, wrote several episodes of “Leverage” – but I don’t think that counts as a cross-over. 🙁
Are we underestimating the fighting potential of Warren’s (feathery) wings? If we accept the adage that a swan can break a man’s leg with blow from it’s wing, can we take it (in the Marvel Universe) that Warren has the proportional strength of a swan? As adult mute swan has an upper weight of 27 lbs. I found a source that gave Warren’s weight as 140lbs. I think that’s a gross underestimate. That same source said he was 5’11” and he has large wings and generally has been more buff then skinny. Let’s run with 140 lbs, but consider it likely an underestimate. So five times the breaking force of a swan’s wing? That’s not breaking bones, that’s shattering them. Maybe explains his dislike of Logan, he’s had to try very hard not to leave a trail of corpses behind him.