Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: Rescue and Emergency: Here Comes Tomorrow Conclusion
Written by: Grant Morrison
Penciled by: Mark Silvestri
Inked by: Joe Weems
Colored by: Steve Firchow w/Beth Sotelo, John Starr, and Brian Buccellatto
Lettered by: Russ Wooton
Editor: Mike Marts
Publisher: Marvel Comics
SPOILERS AHEAD
The end has come to Grant Morrison’s landmark run on the X-Men as we enter the final issue. The final arc, which features artwork from X-Men artist alumni Mark Silvestri has Morrison resolving his loose ends and in typical Morrison fashion, his grand finale leaves more questions unanswered than it does answered.
The future X-Men launching a suicide run against the Beast, who has gained the power of the Phoenix Force. While Cassandra “Ernst” Nova frees the resurrected Jean Grey from Beast’s thrall, the rest of the X-men must stop Beast from wiping out every living thing on the planet with his newfound Phoenix Force abilities. And even if Jean can free Beast from the evil that has consumed her, she still must make a decision of epic proportions in order to prevent the future that has been revealed to us in this arc from ever coming to be…
Vivisection
To start, let’s review what we learn in this issue:
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John Sublime is really “That Which Endures,†a psychic entity that has existed since the dawn of life on Earth that first appeared in “Avengers West Coast #47-49”. We learn that Beast has been possessed by Sublime, who can possess people through the drug “Kick” which is in reality “That Which Endures” in his raw form and that at some point in the future, Beast will take “Kick” and become the new host body for John Sublime.
No-Girl was a figment of the imagination of Martha, the brain in the bubble.
The Stepford Cuckoos are in truth Weapon 14 and more than likely the spies that were mentioned at the end of “Assault on Weapon Plus”.
Apollyon, the white body-condom wearing masked henchman of Beast/Sublime is Fantomex, who has had his mind broken and turned into a groveling servant of his creator.
And finally, Grant Morrison reasserts Kurt Busiek’s retcon that Phoenix and Jean Grey are two separate figures by introducing an entire planet of Phoenixes, including one that looks an awful lot like Kid Omega.
Anyway, the crux of this issue is the fact that the entire future scenario of “Here Comes Tomorrow” was the direct result of Cyclops not getting together with Emma. Without Scott around, Emma also left and the school ended up being rebuilt with Beast in charge. But the strain from his inability to save humanity from the extinction gene (which he lied to the President about in New X-Men #150) led him to use the drug Kick and end up becoming Sublime/That Which Endures’ thrall. So, Jean has to make a decision, as to the only way to prevent the nightmare scenario she woke up to, is to make the ultimate sacrifice and give Scott over to Emma.
Morrison leaves us with a vision of a world filled with Phoenixes and Jean (in the white Phoenix uniform she wore when she met Death in “Classic X-Men #43”) as the White Phoenix of the Crown, who the rest of the Phoenixes treat as their superior. The scene, where Jean realizes that Emma and Scott must be together if the future is to be saved, is poorly written with the surprise appearance of Quentin being it’s only saving grace. And speaking of Kid Omega, we get no real conclusion to his arc nor do we get any answers.
As a whole, “Here Comes Tomorrow” is definitely the weakest arc of Morrison’s entire run. I would have loved to have seen Morrison include more than his little circle of characters (like say Nocturne instead of Tito and perhaps Shard as one of Logan’s inner circle alongside Cassandra and the Cuckoos). Also Silvestri’s art was horribly bad, as the main appeal of his original UXM run was the fact that it was dirty and filled with dark and dangerous use of dark colors and heavy-metal-esque flavor. His art in this issue is WAY too shiny and polished and looks like Michael Turner drew the issue instead of Silvestri.
