After a few very heavy weeks, I'm practically getting a week off.  Of course, that's largely because nobody in their right mind wanted the first issue of their new title hitting American shelves on 11 September 2002.  And that's probably why, this week, the X-office offers us a story about ghosts in Genosha, a story about the possible ghost of Colossus on the anniversary of his death, and a post-disaster story in Madripoor involving near-death experiences and the ghosts of Storm's parents.  A wide-ranging selection of stories indeed.

To start, New X-Men #132 - and yes, it's only been a week since the last issue.  Of course, Morrison writes months ahead, and this issue has a different artist, so a bit of catching up becomes possible.  This week's guest artist is Phil Jimenez, who worked with Morrison before on Invisibles, and takes us back into clean, attractive superhero art.  In fact, since this issue's cast is largely composed of guest stars whose costumes have yet to be overhauled in line with the design sense of the core X-books, the book is looking a bit more spandex than usual this time round.

The story sees the X-Men - or more accurately, Xavier, Jean and a bunch of X-Men associates - returning to Genosha in order to look into stories of something in the wreckage.  The issue is fairly light on plot, though.  It's mainly a device to get characters to Genosha so that they can talk about it.  It might legitimately be argued that the time to do a follow-up to Genosha's annihilation was a little nearer the original story, given that it's pretty much dropped off the book's plot agenda in the intervening months, and this hasn't exactly helped to sell it as a world changing event.  Nonetheless, here we are.

The selection of guest stars for this story is a little odd.  Quicksilver is fair enough, for the obvious reasons.  Storm and Thunderbird turn up in a fairly generic role, probably to make up the numbers and take the opportunity to throw in a connection to X-Treme X-Men.  Israeli superhero Sabra is a very odd choice, unless we're supposed to be subconsciously reminded of the Holocaust parallels.  More likely, Morrison is just looking to work her into the cast for reasons which will become apparent later on.  She still seems a bit out of place here.

The upshot is that there's two sets of people in the wreckage.  First off, there's a bunch of minor X-Men supervillains building a monument to Magneto, which is a nice idea.  It is, admittedly, mildly irritating to see Unus the Untouchable turn up alive and well, some fifteen years after he was killed off, without anyone finding this worthy of comment.  It's not like there aren't a ton of other minor supervillains out there to play the role of "former Magneto henchman."  It's a nice take on the character, though, utterly petrified by the fact that the local ghosts could get though his force field.

By the way, one thing I find vastly entertaining about the Morrison run on this book is how willing some people are to attribute qualities to it that it spectacularly lacks, simply because it fits their personal agenda.  One recent column - you may know it - seemed to be applauding Morrison for his refusal to use minor, much-loved characters and play off obscure storylines.  This issue features two Magneto henchmen from the 1960s, a brief appearance by the Shocker (who appeared with Magneto in precisely one issue, and that was a Captain America Annual from the 1970s), a reference to the "Polaris is Magneto's daughter" plot which ended in 1968...

Anyhow, the big finish is that Polaris is hanging around gathering magnetic ghosts which were in some vaguely explained manner recorded by Magneto in the dying moments of Genosha.  Morrison appears to be under the impression that Polaris is Magneto's daughter, which suggests a certain lack of research on somebody's part, given that that was retconned away thirty-four years ago.  Or it could be misdirection of some sort, I suppose.  At best, it just serves to confuse matters.  Something tells me that Polaris is going to end up in Chuck Austen's book along with Havok, though, so he'll get to sort it all out.

I have a little trouble with the whole magnetic ghosts premise.  I can see what it's aiming for.  Magneto and his people may have been destroyed physically, but they live on in spirit as a cultural influence - a typical Morrison theme but one screwed that's screwed here by the fact that the Genoshans have already had their cultural influence before any of these voices were found.  The recordings don't mean anything because the impact has happened without them.  This whole plot is backwards, and while it makes for a convenient anniversary date, it's not helping the story.

Plus, if you want to be nitpicky - and I'm in the mood -  I have real trouble with the idea that Magneto couldn't beat up a load of metal attackers, and yet was able to do something extremely complicated and difficult with his powers in his dying moments.  It's all a little too convenient.

Pretty, and I suppose timely, with some stronger moments in the characters' reaction to the ground zero location.  But the magnetic fields plot is a bit of a mess.

Rating: B

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