NEW X-MEN #121

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Saturday, January 19, 2002

After Hank regains consciousness and informs the team that Xavier is trapped within the mind of Cassandra Nova, Jean and Emma work together to attempt a psychic rescue. But the mental landscape of the old woman's mind is fraught with dangers, and Emma isn't being quite the help that Jean hoped she would be. The worst is yet to come, though, as Jean discovers a secret that Xavier has kept from them all.

I'm sure everyone's gotten tired of how often I've said that these "'Nuff Said" stories can only work properly if the artist and writer are in perfect sync as to the story they want to tell, and only if the story itself is clear enough that it needs no dialogue or exposition. Hell, I'm tired of saying it. December?s big experiment has seen some major failures and a few outstanding successes. NEW X-MEN #121 falls into the latter category-though not because it's instantly comprehensible at first glance.

Morrison's work on this series continues to blow me away, and this issue is no exception. It doesn't take a look at the (incomplete) script in the back of the book to know that this is incredible storytelling, and it takes real cohones to opt for such a surreal story as a silent issue. That may be the only real drawback of this entire issue-some of the visual cues that Morrison chooses to communicate certain elements of the story don't work as well as they might, and those are the only things that truly require looking at the script.

Otherwise, artist Frank Quitely takes Morrison's lucid and energetic script and creates something truly special. The entire book has a beautifully Dali-esque look, especially those scenes in which Jean confronts the trapped Xavier inside Cassandra Nova's mind. The standout sequence here, however, is the big revelation scene. I so desperately do not want to give away the secret, so it's impossible to say exactly why Quitely's work here is so amazing. But if all the "'Nuff Said" issues had been done with this much care, then the experiment would've been an unqualified success.


There are only two points at which Morrison and Quitely use dialogue in this issue. It's a slight breaking of the rules, but it's one which works beautifully in this context, and far better than the use by other artistic teams of computer captions or what-have-you to cheat. Here, it's not a cheat-it's a natural progression for a story which is told without dialogue, not to fulfill some ridiculous directive from on high but because the story requires a lack of dialogue. In this respect, NEW X-MEN #121 is one of only two "'Nuff Said" issues that makes perfect sense. In any other context, having no dialogue is a curiosity at best, a disastrous idea at worst. In this context-and with this creative team-it's downright essential.

NEW X-MEN

Grade: A-

Issue: No. 121

Author(s): Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely

Publisher: Marvel

Price: $2.25