Liz, Magneto, Ultimatum

I've been thinking about Ultimate Spider-Man, and Liz having her powers suddenly flare up. She's probably a mutant, but for some reason I think she's actually the result of some genetic tampering, like Spider-Man, or Geldoff. Poor Geldoff, so disliked by the fans it drove him to the miserable 616 reality, where he probably got killed by KIA in Avengers: Initiative. Just a hard luck case. Where was I?

I guess I'm thinking of Peter mentioning his concerns to Aunt May about all the people with superpowers that have been appearing. And there was the Geldoff thing, which is several years in the past now, but I wouldn't put it past Bendis to go back to it now. And Ultimatum is going to have something to do with all that, isn't it?

At any rate, Magneto seems likely to appear soon, and I'm curious how he would react if he thought Liz was your everyday, run-o-the-mill mutant, and instead found out her powers were the result of genetic engineering. First off, would that make Liz feel better or worse? She thinks people with powers are freaks, or at least puts on a facade of feeling that way. It probably wouldn't make a difference to the kids that would heckle her, because teenagers are jerkasses regardless of the circumstance.

As for Magneto, would he make a distinction? Powers obtained through unusual DNA sequences are powers obtained through unusual DNA sequences, regardless of how the DNA got like that, after all. Would he feel bad for her, that she was being experimented on by callous humans, or angry at this sign that humans were trying to usurp Homo sapiens superior's birthright through technological means?

Well, DC Isn't Using Young Justice, So Why Not?

So the cover for the upcoming Ultimate Spider-Man issue showed Magneto with Spidey, Iceman, and Liz (Ultimate Firestar, I guess) charging towards him. I'd really like to see those three, plus Kitty and the Human Torch all trying to throw down with Mister Master of Magnetism to stop him from, I presume, getting his hooks into Liz. I have to say, given Liz' expressed feelings about mutants (assuming she is a mutant, and not the result of genetic tinkering like Sandman or Electro), Mags is going to have a hard sell, trying to convince her to hook up with his mutant supremacist group.

Magneto: Join our noble cause of destroying humanity.
Liz: No! Mutants are gross freaks!
M: *blinks* But you are a mutant, child.
L: Ugh, don't remind me. It's so awful, my life is over.
M: *takes deep breath, squeezes stress reduction ball*

That would probably go for some time, given the writer involved, but I'd hope for at least one panel of Magneto looking flabbergasted at Liz' dislike of her current situation.

If that's what Magneto's going to be up to, as opposed to, say, trying to attack the Triskelion after the damage it sustained during Norman Osborn's most recent escape. Per Ultimate X-Men, one of his followers (Mastermind?) is stuck there, posing as him, and maybe Magneto wouldn't see any reason to leave him stuck there any longer.

But I think it would be kind of nice to see a group of teenage heroes trying to take on what is presumably the greatest villain on Ultimate Earth these days. Remember, Dr. Doom is in the Zombieverse, Osborn's dead (still a little surprised over that ending), Fury is on trial in the Supreme Powerverse, Kingpin's under arrest, and Apocalypse hasn't done anything yet. Other than Magneto and maybe Ultimate Namor, the cupboards are a little bare for serious baddies in the Ultimate Universe. Hmm, maybe it's time for Shocker to up his game a little. There opening is there, if he could just stop losing so easily.

Anyway, I think the battle of those five teen heroes against the big bad would be fun, given the different powers involved, and with all the interpersonal relationships between the good guys. And perhaps Kong or Mary Jane (or both) could play some sort of pivotal role.

I really just want some sort of grand "dogpile on the villain" story, I think. It would be a nice change of pace for Spider-Man, since he's frequently outnumbered, or in the middle of some mess where there are dozen different people involved, and either they're all on separate teams, or they keep switching allegiances (I'm thinking of that fight with Spidey, Shang-Chi, Iron Fist, Moon Knight, Elektra, Hammerhead, and the Black Cat, with the cops outside just waiting for somebody to shoot. That was a crazy fun fight, though). This time he'd actually have numbers on his side, and it wouldn't be seemingly incompetent SHIELD agents for once. Whoo!

Laying Tacks On The Road To Respectability

I mentioned on Thursday that I was a little disappointed in Wade's mission in this week's Deadpool and Co. On the one hand, it was good to see Wade put aside his extreme distaste for T-Ray and help the goof come back to life, on the other hand, it was to save the universe, so you wonder how much internal conflict that creates. Granted, this is Deadpool, and he has an unusual perspective on things, so there may have been a strong part of him that felt the universe's end was a small price to pay to keep T-Ray from annoying him. But it still felt somewhat lopsided.

I think Fabian Nicieza has Wade trying to reform, live up to the faith Cable showed in him, and just generally change his life, his way of doing things. It's reminiscent of Claremont making Magneto Headmaster of Xavier's school, though Magneto was a more serious threat than Deadpool. What I remember about that, and Dave "Dave's Long Box" Campbell brought this up when he reviewed New Mutants #40 (it's part of his "Earth Mightiest Guest Stars Week") was how Magneto kept getting placed in situations where he wanted to do the right thing, but it was hard for him, usually because of his past.

In New Mutants #40, he wants to rescue the New Mutants from Emma Frost's school, but she knows he's coming, calls the cops, the cops call the Avengers, and Mags is fighting the Avengers now. And they aren't going to believe what he says because he's Magneto, and why would you believe Magneto? Magneto really wants to rescue those students, because Xavier left them in his care, and he feels he let them down by sending them to Frost's school. But he has to get through the Avengers to do it, and that's hard when he holds himself in check, because as he puts it to Captain America he 'learned a better way'. Even though it might come back to bite him in the butt, he actually saves their lives when Warlock tries to defend him, because it's still what he figures Xavier would do, and he's trying to justify Chuck's faith in him.

To a certain extent, Wade is dealing with those issues, because most of the heroes act as though they can barely tolerate his presence, and that's probably at least partially because of the fact he's a mercenary who's maimed and killed people, and that makes them squeamish. Of course, it's also partially because Wade probably gets a bit annoying after awhile, and they just want him to go somewhere else, but still I think his past deeds aren't doing him any favors, besides helping him get a job and a home base of sorts at Agency X, but that's a different matter.

I think it would be interesting to see Deadpool, trying to do the right thing, but he's set against some of the more established heroes, at least initially. He really is trying to do some good, but they either don't buy it, or can't see what he's trying to achieve. So far, he's been helping them out, such as this week with Dr. Strange, or they've been helping him, such as Cyclops warning Deadpool that Wolverine was going to attack the HYDRA base Weasel was at. I don't have any sort of good story suggestion for how to accomplish that, but I'm sure there's some way it could work.

Fixing The X-Mess

Yesterday was very nice, thanks for asking. On the way to my friends' house I crested a hill, and there's just this beautiful view, with the trees beginning to change color, and a few open fields here and there to break things up. A rare moment when I wished I owned a camera. Ah well.

So, a couple of weeks back, I'm in Marvels and Legends, talking comics with Len and Jack. Somehow we wound up on Ultimate Spider-Man #100, and Len commented that this is a prime example of what Bendis likes to do: Take a story that was a complete mess before, and "fix" it, which he can obviously do, because he is Brian Michael Bendis, after all. Len brought up "The Collective" story in New Avengers as another example, in this case Bendis trying to fix the Xorn/Magneto mess.

Of course, he only seems to have confused the issue further, which doesn't bode well for his chances of "fixing" the Clone Saga. Either way, it left the three of us trying to come up with a plausible way to explain the whole damn thing (clearly, things were kind of slow).

So here's what we came up with, you can tell me if it makes sense.

There are two Xorn brothers, both mutants, both from China (jibes with what Quesada has said). Magneto assumed the identity of the Xorn with the star in his head - as opposed to the one with a black hole in his head (what the hell?) - and infiltrated the X-teams, culminating in a huge smackdown with them, and his death (jibes with Morrison's stuff). Here's where we veered off.

See, Len felt that this Magneto had two problems. One, he was using drugs (to amp up his powers, right?). Two, well honestly, he was too evil. Solution? It wasn't Magneto. It was, in fact, a clone. I know, you're groaning and rolling your eyes, but there is precedence.

In the '90s, post-"Xavier wipes Mags' mind for ripping out Logan's Adamantium", pre-Onslaught, a fellow called "Joseph" arrives on the scene. Looks like Magneto, has the same powers, but nicer, doesn't really remember who he is, ends up being part of the X-Men for awhile. Eventually, Magneto reappears, and we learn Joseph was a clone, but obviously not a perfect duplicate, as he lacked the Holocaust-induced emotional trauma that Magneto has. As the people behind the cloning weren't planning on stopping with one, it's reasonable to assume they tried again. This time, they may have induced some emotional trauma, to try and get a Magneto that's a bit more dangerous, more vicious, and possibly willing to turn to drugs.

In this way, it's no big surprise Xavier finds Magneto not dead after everyone thought he died, because he was still in Genosha (maybe trying to put the pieces back together covertly) the whole time. He can still dramatically show up to take his crazy daughter off the Avengers' hands, get depowered right along with his son, and as for his being repowered? Hmm, let's say his will is so strong, he subconsciously beckoned Michael to him, and their proximity somehow restarted his powers, removed whatever sort of block Wanda had put on them. It makes as much sense as the explanation for Iceman.

If you want a more simple explanation for the whole thing, then let's say that after Doctor Polaris' death in Infinite Crisis, he crossed dimensional realms, found himself in the Marvel Universe a few years earlier, and once he realized where he was, decided to mess with Magneto's rep.

Then he died again. Whoops.

Stuff I Think About - #1

Okay, now Magneto had four children (Pietro, Wanda, Lorna Dane, and Anya, who's dead). That's a lot of kids for someone who looks as old as Magneto. And we know that Magneto can control the flow of iron in the blood as it goes to different regions of the body. So here's the thing that's on my mind: Did Magneto ever use his powers as "natural male enhancement"?

I swear I don't know how that thought entered my mind, but I think it had something to do with Diamondrock's posts about Doctor Polaris.