Dan Liebke’s Astonishing Tales

Table of Contents

• #146 - Planet X, Part One Of Five
• #147 - Magneto Superior, Planet X, Part Two Of Five
• #148 - Survivor Type, Planet X, Part Three Of Five
• #149 - Phoenix In Darkness, Planet X, Part Four Of Five
• #150 - Phoenix Invictus, Planet X, Part Five Of Five

Issue One Hundred And Forty-Six - Planet X, Part One Of Five

Things are going completely to shit. The Professor’s panicking like the world-renowned panic merchant he is. “X-Men Emergency!” he shouts, before being overcome by Sooraya, The Mutant Who Can Turn To Dust. Luckily, Xorn is there to help Charles with the dusting from the aftermath of Sooraya’s crazed attack. He sweeps her up and puts her in a jar. Xorn, clean freak.

Uppity Jean, of course, wanted nothing to do with the cleaning. She’s the embodiment of the all-powerful Phoenix Force, not some foxy redhead housecleaner. She told Scott that when he bought her the maid’s outfit for their anniversary. And she’s telling Charles now. Instead, she’s off to space to rescue Logan, who is trapped on an asteroid that’s heading toward the sun.

And Beast and Emma? Flying to Cyclop’s rescue in a plane that’s had a wing blown off. So that’s typically careless. Anyway, it turns out this entire attack is all part of a nefarious scheme unleashed by Magneto, who those of us who had never read a comic book in their life thought dead, but who, instead, turned out to be a) alive and b) hidden within the team all along, disguised as… Xorn! Which you might point out makes no sense whatsoever. But hey, who are you to question writer Grant Morrison with high-falutin’ requests for logic and internal plot consistency? Exactly. You’re just the reader. Xorn is Magneto, Magneto Xorn. Back in your box.

MVP: Got to be Xorneto. He ends this attack on the X-Men by re-crippling Xavier. That’ll teach him to have the temerity to walk. Maybe next time he’ll remove his vocal cords as well.

(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock’s review)

Issue One Hundred And Forty-Seven - Magneto Superior, Planet X, Part Two Of Five

Magneto has defeated the New X-Men. Now it’s time to spend an issue gloating about it. He gathers together the New Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (Beak, Lady Angelbug and their butt-ugly insect children, along with Toad, the banished Quincreeplet and a few other hangers-on (including, startlingly, Phil Donahue)). Call me crazy, but I miss Mastermind and his kick-ass moustache. Anyway, Magneto takes time out to explain to some of the stupider of his henchmen how Xorn was never real and how he was Magneto all along. The henchmen are disappointed. “But Xorn was awesome!” is the gist of their argument.

Despite the blatantly obvious flaws in that claim, Magneto decides the only way to impress his henchmen is to pontificate, Charles-style, to the huddled human masses gathering beneath the building in which they stand. Why this seemed a good idea is left as an exercise to the reader. Still, Magneto does his best, telling the humans about his nefarious scheme - some gibberish about an electromagnetic virus - and how that means he can now destroy them all.

When there is no discernible reaction, Magneto consults Toad, who is apparently some kind of supervillain roadie. For he claims the speakers are distorting Magneto’s voice and that the crowd is sceptical that it’s really him. Magneto, pissed, snorts up some kick and starts ranting at the crowd, tearing up bridges, disintegrating jets, promising death to all the humans and so forth. “Hey,” say the crowd. “I think it’s Gorilla Grodd.”

MVP: Toad. It’s not easy telling your boss that, due to technical and continuity-based difficulties, his deranged ranting is not having the desired effect on the simpering targets of his bile. But Toad did it with aplomb. Kudos, Toad.

(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock’s review)

Issue One Hundred And Forty-Eight - Survivor Type, Planet X, Part Three Of Five

Wolvie and Uppity Jean are trapped on Magneto’s asteroid, hurtling towards the sun, an idea Magneto stole from the movie Sunshine. As you’d expect, Uppity Jean’s bitching about the heat, as well as Magneto’s blatant plagiarism. “It’s so hot. And unoriginal,” she says. Logan would be peeved by her incessant whining, were it not for the fact that she’d sensibly stripped down to her bra.

Meanwhile, back in New York, Magneto’s conquering of humanity is still not going precisely as envisioned. After last week’s technical difficulties with the PA system, this week he’s suffering from bad reviews from the focus groups. Once again, Toad is forced to be the bearer of bad news. “87% of conquerees in the AB demographic find your speeches to be ‘too Shakespearean’”, he reports. He goes on to reveal that almost 70% of conquerees in the CD demographic find them ‘less interesting than America’s Next Top Model. Enraged, Magneto puts the show on hiatus. Such is his dread power.

Back in space, there’s still a lot of floating and ‘hoo boy, it sure is hot in here’ talk going on. Tragically, however, Uppity Jean has failed to strip down any further. As a result, when she goes on to ask Logan whether it’s ‘hot enough for ya?’, he is left with no choice but to impale her on his adamantium claws and put them both out of their misery.

MVP: Magneto. Not only is he cancelling television shows left, right, centre and left again, he’s also planning to reverse the magnetic poles of the Earth, thereby devastating compass-manufacturing businesses and befuddling orienteerists the world over. Does Magneto’s criminal insanity know any bounds?

(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock’s review)

Issue One Hundred And Forty-Nine - Phoenix In Darkness, Planet X, Part Four Of Five

Magneto’s plan for world domination continue to turn emphatically to poo. This may have something to do with his insistence on sending humans to the gas chambers. When challenged (by renowned history buff, Beak), Magneto claims that this is not Nazism in any sense, although he does have a hard time explaining away his sudden obsession with invading Poland.

Annoyed with Herr Magneto, Beak falls back in with the remaining students from what’s left of Xavier’s school. This includes the TriCreeplets, Sooraya (The Mutant Who Can Turn To Dust) and, uh, Matter-Eater Lad. They plan to rise as one against Magneto and crush him. Beak, to be frank, doesn’t think much of this plan. “You’re all pretty useless, frankly,” he says. “Magneto’s just going to swat you away with a Kick-enhanced flourish of his magnetism. Aren’t there any real superheroes around here?!”

“There certainly is, Beak,” says Cyclops, dramatically emerging from the shadows in a failed attempt to make himself look cool. Of course, he’s standing beside Fantomex, who defines cool, so he never really had a chance. “Now,” says Scott. “Where are the rest of the X-Men?” And Beak explains about, y’know, the imprisoned Xavier and the plane-crashing Beast and Emma and the into-the-sun antics of Wolverine and Uppity Jean. “I see,” says Scott, rubbing a beard in thought (not his own, alas). “Then maybe we just hide out down here for a bit and see if this thing blows over.”

MVP: Cyclops. When told about how Wolverine and Uppity Jean had been hurled face-first into the scene, Scott’s response: “I don’t believe for one second that Jean and the others are dead.” Now, there’s a man who knows how comic book ‘deaths’ work.

Issue One Hundred And Fifty - Phoenix Invictus, Planet X, Part Four Of Five

It’s the one hundred and fiftieth issue of The New X-Men and that means it’s time for the gang to put an end to all this Magneto nonsense. First step, Uppity Jean returns to life near the sun thanks to a burst of Phoenix Consciousness™, which, I believe, is an all-new energy drink. She builds a spaceship out of molecules, which is the slow way to go about it, but it gives Logan time to regenerate his eyes and stuff.

The pair of them zip back to Earth and rescue Beast and Emma, who have been rafting the Atlantic for the last three days. While this is going on, the X-Men attack on Magneto is led by, uh, Beak and that blasted titanium baseball bat. When that proves a shambles, Fantomex and Scott provide backup, with Fantomex using his mutant ability to shoot people in the knees and Cyclops blasting Magneto’s helmet to shreds.

None of this stops Magneto completely, who rushes outside to turn the world’s magnetic poles upside down. He seems hellbent on doing this, for reasons nobody can quite explain. The X-Men are hellbent on stopping him, because they’re killjoys like that. Eventually, Charles, now free, gives Magneto a stern lecture on how to be a legend. This is enough to drive Magneto completely off the deep end and he gives Uppity Jean a ‘planetary-scale stroke’. Ouch! This causes a) a poignant death scene between Scott and Uppity Jean and b) Wolverine to slice his head off.

MVP: Uppity Jean. Because the one who dies has to get the award. Unless, that is, they’re stabbed through the head by their own earrings like Esme, The Evil Quincreeplet. Because that’s just lame.

Next: Here Comes Tomorrow

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