“A man in an iron prison? A star for a brain? I kept thinking it was too obvious but still you missed it. There was no Feng Tu mutant prison in China Charles. I assembled it especially for the occasion. Xorn; have you any idea how much I’ve hated this pretense? His simpering homilies, his Zen diaries, his sickening New Age passivity???” Xorn, right before the big reveal…
Recently Grant Morrison shocked X-Men readers by revealing that the newest member of the X-Men, the Chinese Mutant Xorn, was all this time the villainous Master of Magnetism, Magneto. This was a total and complete shock to readers who long knew of Grant Morrison’s vow that so long as he was writing New X-Men, that Magneto was going to stay dead. Coupled into the equation, the big song and dance routine that Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada did several years back about how he was vowing to bring back the finality of death in the Marvel Universe by way of banning any and all resurrections, as well as Chuck Austen shooting down an item in an edition of Comic Book Resources’s rumor column “Lying in the Gutters” regarding Magneto being brought back, made the final panel of New X-Men#146 a shock to readers across the globe.
But was it really planned? Or is this a clear-cut sign of the much rumored strife that has popped up between Grant Morrison and Marvel over the creative direction of the X-Men. Creative strife that ultimately led Grant Morrison to flee back to the arms of DC Comics, who Morrison has almost exclusively written for during the last 15 years?
In this column we will look back to Grant Morrison’s run in New X-Men and look at Xorn’s history and point out the clues towards Xorn’s true identity. Here I will look at Xorn’s first appearance in New X-Men 2001 Annual up through New X-Men #126
New X-Men Annual 2001: Let’s take a look at the various things about Xorn’s first appearance:
1. The entire opening sequence was a literal show put on by Magneto and his Chinese accomplice, the mutant Ao Jun, for John Sublime. The idea of selling himself to the U-Men is an interesting idea since it would not only give him the perfect means to enter the X-Men’s ranks but also to use the X-Men themselves as surrogates to destroy the U-Men’s little organ harvesting scheme.
2. The key to Xorn’s prison. The key was a plant created explicitly for the X-Men to find so as to give them the backstory about Xorn. The key was created with the fake life story of Xorn encrypted inside of it so that when a telepath came into contact with it that they automatically trigger the flashback sequence. Note that Emma Frost stated before she touched the key that it would take several hours before she could be able to “read” the history of the key and gain information about it. The moment she touches the key, she automatically is consumed by flashback images which give the X-Men all of the information they need about Xorn, to not only find him but also information about his background. Very convenient if you ask me…
3. Xorn’s first words in the issue: “I could have built heaven on Earth if only they’d let me. I could have laid the foundation stones of paradise here on Earth.” Something that one might expect Magneto to say given Magneto’s personality, which has him not seeing himself as evil but instead as someone who only wants to make the world a better place for his fellow mutants.
4. The “black hole” could have simply have been a magnetic light show created by Magneto. Note that the only person there who established that Xorn was trying to kill himself via a black hole created via his powers was a U-Man who was an amateur astronomer, so we can easily explain away Xorn’s suicide attempt as being another step in Magneto’s plan. Note that the light show didn’t start until the X-Men attacked the prison compound.
The only real loose end is the last two pages, when Xorn takes off his helmet in front of the X-Men. Granted his face is obscured by the vast amount of energy pouring out of his head, but given the later importance of the helmet it makes no sense that he would remove the helmet in front of the X-Men.
A possible explanation would be that along with the visions of Xorn’s past, the key Emma psi-scanned contained a post-hypnotic suggestion to keep any telepath who triggers the key’s mental images to not attempt to scan Xorn when his helmet is off. As for the energy effect, Magneto could have generated the blue energy effect to obscure his face from the rest of the team (though it does make for some problems as towards why Wolverine didn’t smell Magneto)….
New X-Men #122: Xorn’s first appearance after the annual, Xorn is shown in a monastery where he is sought out by Cyclops to use his healing powers to save Xavier. There we see Xorn holding in his hands a bird which the monks claimed that was dead that Xorn took from them and resurrected. A simple explanation would be
1. The Monastery was another creation of Magneto and that bird was never dead at all
2. Magneto was simply magnetically manipulating the dead bird to make it appear to be alive.
New X-Men #123: Xorn makes a brief cameo, as he and Cyclops are knocked out by the Imperial Guard and taken prisoner.
New X-Men #124: Most of this issue has Magneto prisoner alongside of Cyclops and basically playing the roll of helpless rookie who watches hopelessly as Cyclops gets spat upon by a mind-controlled Empress Lilandra. Note that Xorn doesn’t do anything to free the two until the Shi’ar are about to kill them, when one of the Imperial Guard (G-Type) has an unknown gravitational force starts to tear apart G-Type’s innards, freeing the two. Again this is assumed to be Xorn’s doing, especially given his attempt to create a black hole in the 2001 Annual makes such an attack make sense. And given his rookie status, it would make sense that it would take him a little bit to pull off said trick. But looking back now, we can assume that Magneto could have freed himself at any time but purposely waited until the last moment possible to break free. Reasons for this?
1. To find out more information about Cassandra Nova and what she was up to
2. To make Cyclops suffer some and to let him sweat it out before he frees the two
New X-Men #125: Xorn uses his powers to suck out G-Type’s energy form from its container suit (something Magneto should be able to do with his power) and saves Lilandra from falling to her death. For the record, at this point in time Xorn’s powers are still and would pretty much remain very loosely defined in reguards to what he can and can not do. So his defeat of G-Type was not looked at suspiciously by anyone. His decision to save Lilandra makes sense for Magneto, as Lilandra is another victim of Cassandra Nova plus there is the fact that saving her would further make Cyclops and the rest of the X-Men trust him more as an ally.
But most important is the line where Xorn claims to be able to “hear” the ship’s electro-magnetic alarms go off as a result of the ship committing suicide. Again, Magneto would definitely be able to “hear” electro-magnetic alarms though again Xorn’s powers were being established as deux de machina-like so again, no one would notice such a line as being a hint of Xorn being Magneto.
New X-Men #126: Big issue with tons of stuff. First off, the opening sequence has Magneto playing the roll of wide-eyed innocent on his first mission involving aliens and space ships. So it makes sense that Magneto was hamming it up in the opening rush to escape the ship as it explodes. When they escape back to the mansion, the fun begins as Xorn is brought to the Cerebra chamber to do some healing.
Xorn turns down the concept of healing Cassandra Nova’s body because “it is already dead” and instead heals the X-Men. At this point, we can only assume that Scott has told him about Cassandra switching bodies with Charles. But it is clearly shown that Xorn doesn’t know about the Nano-Sentinels until that issue. So using his powers, Magneto kills/turns off the Nano-Sentinels inside the X-Men and “heals” them. By what was Xorn (who couldn’t heal people) doing standing over Cassandra’s corpse? Simple: removing the remaining nano-sentinels from the body and holding them into his body and keeping them offline.
Why? So that when he finally confronts Cassandra (who’s inside of Xavier’s body) he removes the Nano-Sentinels from his body and inserts them into Xavier’s body, healing his spine so that he can walk. So when Cassandra has been defeated and Xavier regains control over his body, the Nano-Sentinels literally glue Xavier’s shattered spine so that he could walk again.
This issue would be the first of a running theme with Xorn and his so-called “healing powers” as he refuses to heal someone on demand and instead heals someone else in an equally vague manner
New X-Men #127: Like the Annual, this one makes some problems for the “Xorn is Magneto” revelation while at the same time explains the biggest logic gap with the revelations: Why couldn’t Jean, Xavier, or Emma sense that Xorn was really Magneto?
The simple explanation (and one that makes this issue make sense in the grand scheme of things) is that Xorn’s power made him immune to telepathy. In reality, it’s most likely the helmet that makes Xorn immune to psychic probes, something that has been played up in recent years as many writers have gone out of their way to state that Magneto’s helmet shielded him from telepathic probes.
Anyway, the issue is revealed towards the end to be a letter written by Xorn for the Professor to give him insight into Xorn’s mind. As a result, the issue’s main storyline can be treated as either a total fabrication on Magneto’s part or something that actually happened with the end part (where Xorn finally meets up with his friend) being a fabrication Magneto came up with. The story itself makes sense from Magneto’s perspective as he would try to help a fellow mutant whose mom had tried to kill her son. The “he was going to morph out of his hideous monster form and into a uniquely beautiful form” cries from Xorn throughout the issue’s climax can be taken as Magneto over-dramatising things for the sake of his cover, especially given the fact that Xorn is supposed to be a New Age nut who thinks that the best will happen and that all life is beautiful and special.
The next instalment (coming soon) will cover “Riot At Xavier’s” and “Murder At the Mansion” as well as offering possible theories as to what goings on Magneto has his finger in and which ones he’s totally innocent of having any involvement in.
