Best First wrote:
the fcat that you don't like something doesn't make it bad writing.
and
BF wrote:almost as if he is chaning, evolving you might say, its almost as if THAT WAS THE THEME.
Bingo.
Beast is undergoing a secondary mutation, which he clearly states several times is affecting not only his appearance but his thought-processess; this in turn is used as his psychological weakness when Cassie attacks him. It's his fear. Here Comes Tomorrow also shows that had Pheonix not amputated the timeline, he would eventually have become utterly stressed, despondent, have a nervous breakdown and end up taking Kick and becoming infected by Sublime....making him the villain of the whole story. Hmm. Beast's character progression is one of the central strands of the whole thing. Sorry that you don't like it. More detail is required to disabuse some false assumptions though.
When Quentin starts to behave in a manner seen as different and
new (ohmigod look at the title of the book) one of the first things said to him (by the Beast) is "It's possible you may be undegoing a secondary mutation." The links between secondary mutations and change in mindset are made several times. The characters are supposed to be EVOLVING.
Beast gay/all humans look alike? Perhaps you should reread the riot at Xaiver's storyline.
The cop (an old friend of Hank's) mentions something that happened between them ages ago, when Beast saved him and his wife; Beast replies (paraphrasing) "Oh, was that you? Sorry, all humans look alike to me, it's always save this one and save that one..."
To which the cop laughs and says Beast was making
jokes like that all the way when he drove him to hospital and that he loves that
dry wit Beast is
known for.
Is Beast just joking? Is the cop an ignorant flatscan to stupid to realise Beast's dry wit is insults in disguise? What's up with the Beast? Have his jokes always been like that....hey, he was always insulting Wonder-Man, Gyrich, Cyke, Sabertooth, Bishop wtc with jokes...was he doing that all that time?
Wow, I'm asking questions about a character who had previous just been a big furry funny safety blanket! Beast is suddenly more interesting than he has been in years!
Morrison's writing has layers that makes you question and think, rather than just lol Beast made a joke luv it when he does that.
In case the metatextual humour is still not obvious to the reader, Cyke next objects to being photographed as he hates his photos; he always comes out looking "
stiff and
inhuman". To which the cop makes a crack about Cyke always looking like that in pictures. Shallowly seen by the masses in pictured form as uptight and a symbol of scary mutantcy? Cyclops? Really? Nahhhh.
Then Beast and the cop (who call each other by first names) talk some more and the cop congratulates Beast on coming out. To which Cyke says "He's
not gay. Hank, you're
not gay.
I know you're not gay,
you know you're not gay, what's with all the gay stuff?"
Beast tells him he said it to spite Trish Tilby, who broke it on the news in revenge, and he just decided to run with it. He was breaking new barriers and it was a good image to promote for both the homosexual and mutant communities. He wants to be a role-model for confused young people.
The overt ties between the two forms of bigotry are the next thing he goes on about when saying that all his life he's been attacked for the way he looks, behaves, dresses and in fact for just being who he is - he "may as well be gay! I'm as gay as the next mutant!"
Bigoted view of mutants = bigoted view of homosexuals. Being a mutant = being gay.
Cyclops then tells him that the only person who will find that funny is the Beast, but that he supports him...but is worried about his friend's behaviour of late (OMG is he acting out of character!?).
To take the simple (wrong) fact that "Beast is gay and hates humans." from what is a complex piece of writing showing the themes of what GM was doing with the characters, the depth he's putting into them and the decision to simply equate mutant-bashing with gay-bashing right there on the page is...an error, IMHO. Sorry.
Finally, mutants are a community, with their own ghettoes, lingo, fashion styles, concerns...they are a real community who lay claim to their rights and they're everywhere and they are just people who are mutants...rather than 20 people in the NY sewers who are not in any way relatable to.
And as much as everyone knows the X-Men are a metahpor for race/sexuality issues, seeing it put right there on the page was nice and it was about time someone did it some more, especially with homosexuality. Educating comic-readers is a good thing.
Magneto. Was addicted to Kick. Which is a drug. People change when they become drug-addicts. And he's done worse things in the past than [composite word including 'f*ck']-up Manhattan and instigate murder of baseline humans.
'Magneto had a lot of good ideas, Professor."
'Yes; he could also tap-dance, was kind to animals and by the way he was a psychotic mass-murderer.'
Magneto-worship is dangerous thinking...
Kick is also the aerosol form of Sublime.
Sublime is sentient genetic code, who is shown to be able to inspire pessimisim, self-destructive urges and be able to manipulate people to attempt to destroy/subjugate their fears. It's almost like a metaphor for both the personality changes that can come on from both drug-abuse and those encapsulated in bigotry. Sublime is literally an intelligent replicating matrix that makes people fear and hate what they don't understand...he was deliberately created to be an embodiment of the metaphor the X-Men are always supposed to be fighting.
And it's like the things the X-Men do (Beast 'coming out', inviting TV into the school) are designed to weaken those urges. Some public relations does more 'fighting' bigotry, fear and misunderstanding and therefore showing the X-Men to work and do stuff that matters to their world in 5 minutes than punching out Apocalypse in a 12-issue crossover event ever did.
Sublime was manipulating Magneto.
Magneto manipulated Esme.
Esme manipulated Angel.
Angel shot the White Queen.
The White Queen had just taken Kick and had become a target of Sublime's.
Mag's plan is also shown as clearly not working. He's a relic, trying the same silver-age plots over again. Blow something up and killing people, give them a spectacle. That only works for a short while and then they need another hit. Magneto's face on a T-shirt is more powerful.
Xorn did more for the mutant cause than Magneto.
Prof X going 'black panther'. Wait, how? Coz a lot of the stuff he did that was 'shocking' was really done by Cassie Nova. I need more, as setting up X-Corporation buildings, making the X-teams International Rescue, opening the school up, giving talks and hosting public events seems to indicate he was actively doing things to bring humans and mutants closer together. Ooh, he was literally walking the walk as well as talking the talk for a change.
It's like it was crafted by a very clever writer to be a linked over-arcing plot with one one theme that referenced the entire previous history of the franchise and updated it to be more relevent while still retaining continuity and characters, but taken to the next logical step that everyone had been prevaricating about going for the previous umpteen years.
Or maybe it's just bad writing.
Sorry it wasn't 'your' X-Men, but I loved it. Most interesting thing II've seen dowe with the franchise in years. Anyway, most of it immediately started getting retconned and we're retrograding with DeciMation...
