The difference in my mind is that he can pretty much do what he wants with his creator owned stuff. If I don't like it, I just won't buy it. It bothers me more when a writer takes long-established characters and starts "adjusting" everything that was put into place over decades by Lee, Kirby, Claremont, Byrne, etc. etc. or whoever was involved in making a particular title succesful in the long term.

 Just to be clear, I'm not specifically pointing at Morrison with that previous paragraph. That applies to anyone who works on established characters. JMS can do what he pleases with Babylon 5. That's his business. He created the thing. Pissing on Spider-Man is another matter entirely.

Morrison's JLA was quite good. Not perfect, not all the time but in general it was very interesting. His recent JLA Classified though, was pretty bad for me. Even so, I don't think he is incapable of writing good superhero stories. He just loses his restrain most of the time and aims for the really weird.

I do not wish Grant Morrison would stay away from superheroes any more that I would the same for JB.

**********

So what has JB done to make anyone want him to stay away from superheroes? Kind of comparing apples and oranges. Morrison pokes fun at and tears down almost everything he does. Name one instance where JB has done anything even close.

<<2. banishes costumes and outright mocks them.

That one doesn't need context. Unlike other instances that are bandied about with willful ignorance, in this case Morrison did do exactly that.>>

Well, at least you acknowledge that much.  And it is someone like Logan serving as a mouthpiece for Grant Morrison's view on the costumes, not something Logan,
in character, would say.  He's worn a costume, of his own volition, for far too long for this to be the case.

<<4. writes Cyclops and Jean as having marital problems that didn't exist before just because it fitted his plans (and ego), forsakening decades long stories involving those two.

That's true, but again one of the reason Cyclops asked Emma advice was to handle his already mentioned possession. And of course the part about the storyline being because of Morrison's ego is just mindreading.>>

No more mindreading than you were guilty of with your take on Cyclops and Ugly John.  The page was posted here.  Is anyone here seriously going to try to tell me that Scott's dialogue there sounds anything like Apocalypse?

As was mentioned, none of the other characters comment on it being out of character.  We never see Scott talk about it in a manner that indicated that he was troubled by it.

I'm surprised that Thanos didn't bring up the Return to Weapon Plus story.  Scott is an accomplice in murder.  That's the plan.  Fantomax, Logan and Scott go up to the Weapon Plus spaceship planning to blow the place up.  Logan finds out about his past and blows the place up before he gets off.

Point stands, though.  Scott didn't detonate the explosives, but he was definitely in on the plan and we saw no protest.  Again, the ship is in outer space.
It's definitely going to kill people.

Fret not, though.  Scott tells Logan to remove his X Men jacket because Xavier wouldn't want to be associated with this sort of stuff.  Afterall, it's not like the school went public or anything.  It's not like Scott and Logan are publically known as representatives of the school.  As long as they're not wearing those stupid ass jackets, noone woud associate Xavier with what they did.  Rolls eyes.

Thanos' point about the marriage is correct.  Whether you like it or not, Scott and Jean were happily married for 6 years(our time).  It's not arguable on panel.

Morrison, rather than being satisfied with simply having Scott come back and say I'm different, thus we don't work anymore, retroactively diminishes the marraige, and everything between them since 1986, to going through the motions.  The drinking issue has Scott basically calling it an overblown teenage crush.

Read Morrison's interviews and he says basically the same things he has Scott say.  Again, the characters are a mouthpiece for his beliefs rather than acting how they've always acted.

I think it's very telling that Morrison never mentions Apocalypse in any interviews where he talks about Cyclops.  He thought Scott was plenty screwed up on his own sans Apocalypse.

I just read Comic Creators on the X Men.  Morrison talks about Scott and Scott/Jean quite a bit.  No mention of Apocalypse whatsoever. 

Apocalypse is just a vehicle for him to do what he wants with Scott.  For instance, Morrison thought Scott needed to grow up despite the fact that he'd already done it, a long time ago.

It's sort of like an epiphany.  The experience with Apocalypse opened his eyes to things that
have been there all along and he either didn't want to or was unable to see them before.

I'll grant that it reads different ways at different times during the actual books.  I'm also taking his interviews into account.  The drinking issue never mentions Apocalpyse.  It reads more as Scott going through a midlife crisis.

After all is said and done, was Scott turned into a radically different person?  I mean other than the fact that he'd now rather be with Emma Frost than the woman he's loved since about Uncanny 8.

Even Morrison can't seem to make up his mind.
Which is he?  The badass Scott who fired full blast at Magneto's head from about 5 feet?  Or is he the Scott who is apologizing for hurting him after he did?     

<<5. kills Magneto and Jean in the same issue.

He did, and pretty badly I hated that story because it turned Magneto into a joke.>>

Exactly.  He not only killed Magneto, he mocked him.
It's also stretching credibility that he could kill Jean with EMP energy after the stunts she had pulled to save herself and Logan and get them back to earth so quickly.

<<7. has Cyclops drinking and getting drank.

True. But then again, Cyclops had the aforementioned marital troubles and usually when guys have that kind of problems they get wasted. Also, it was a great character interaction between Logan and Scott.>>

It was a horrible depiction of Scott.  For me, moreso for what he's saying than that he was drinking.  I suppose it was a nice touch to see how much Logan respected Scott(although I don't think he would after he cheated on Jean).  There is also that great bathroom scene where Logan and Sabreooth are checking out each others' manhood.

Sheer brilliance, not.

<<8. has Cyclops cheat on his wife with a mortal enemy whom he apparently trusts enough to take her advice on his marital problems.

He never actually had any physical encounter with Emma, but yes>>

He had psychic sex in the Marvel Universe with a world class telepath.  It's semantics.  Charles Xaver was crippled, the second time, from a fight on the astral plane.  Hell, even the Comic Creators book has Morrison admitting that it was adultery.

I do think that Morrison may have been trying to explore the ambiguities of what is cheating, but it doesn't work for Scott and Jean.  She is a telepath and they had a psychic rapport.  You do this story with a couple where neither is the telepath and then introduce one as the third party.  But, as usual, Morrison twisted the characters to fit his plots rather than plot to fit the characters estabished personalities.

Still, Morrison clearly wanted to distinguish between the two.  That's why, when Jean catches Scott and Emma in the act, that issue flashes back to Hong Kong so that we can see that Scott didn't physically cheat.
Then Scott can storm out like he's the injured party when he was caught cheating on his wife.  I'm thinking, Grant, at this point I don't much care what happened in Hong Kong.  You've already destroyed Scott's character.    


<<9. Jean tortures Emma.

Jean used the Phoenix Force to show Emma his past and forced to confront her. In essence she was holding a telepathic mirror to her, if that constitutes torture then I guess, yeah, she did.>>

She mindraped Emma.  She violated her.  She barged her way into Emma's most private and guarded thoughts without Emma's consent.  Actually, at one point, Emma is pleading with her not to do this.  Jean's behavior is deplorable here.

I wouldn't say she tortured Emma.  She threatened to, though.  She said that if Emma didn't tell her what happened in Hong Kong that she would make her relive the deaths of her students over and over.

Depends on how you see Jean Grey, I suppose.  My version doesn't do this.  She doesn't initiate kisses with Logan like Morrison's did.  She doesn't make the U Men crap their pants and puke their brains out like Morrison's did.  

<<13. has Cyclops kiss Emma over Jean's grave!

This was part of a time travel storyline. As it originally happened, Scott left Emma and the Institute for good, without his guidance and strenght, this brings about a hellish and horrible future. A resurrected Phoenix in the future basically 'amputates' that alternate timeline by going back to the moment when Scott made his choice, and gave him a little 'nudge' to help him see past her death, and resume living alongside Emma and as head of the Institute.

So, yes, he did kiss Emma over Jean's grave. With Jean's full permission and approval.>>

No, Jean said "live Scott".  She did not say, kiss your mistress at my gravesite.  That exercise in hideously poor taste falls squarely on Scott and Emma's shoulders. 

The panel was disgusting, but I suppose an appropriate way for the Morrison run to end.


<<Also I forgot that while Apocalypse's possession was Scott's reason for having marital troubles, Jean's was that she was hosting (again, or for the first time, depending on who you ask) the Phoenix Force.>>

I don't think Jean's fallen out of love with Scott.
I think the reverse is true. Jean is just evolving into a goddess, something beyond the team and Scott. Several of the later issues read like she realizes that she won't be around much longer.

Morrison essentially undid the 86 retcon without flat out saying it.  The characters just start referring to Jean like she's the character in UXM 101-137.  HCT has Jean being reborn from  giant egg .  To me, that was a nod to FF 286.  Jean dies and is reborn that way.

Morrison makes a mess of the Phoenix concept just like he did with Weapon X becoming Weapon 10.

I thought he had Siryn, Sam and Jaime wrong when he used them.  He treated Sage's mind like a literal computer instead of a figurative one.  Trish Tilby
breaks up with Hank because he looks like a cat, as opposed to looking like an ape. 

How many characters does this guy have to get wrong
before we criticize him?  For me, it's the characters first.  Screw them up badly enough and I don't care about the quality of the stories.

Who here has read Morrison's somewhat controversial take on the FF family dynamics?  Sue wants to fuck her brother
I had read that before his NXM so I was not surprised by anything he did.

All that said, I like his All Star Superman.  I'm not overwhelmed with it, like some are, but I enjoy it.  

I also think it's a bit disingenuous to act like it's only the older readers who dislike Morrison unless you've got anything other than anecdotal evidence to support this.

I know X Men readers who started with the 70, 80s and 90s who hated what Morrison did.  I also know readers from those periods who love what he did.

Of course, the loudest protests come from those who know the characters.  Who are the biggest detractors of Sins Past, Avengers Disassembled and Civil War?
Who are the people screaming longest and loudest?
The people who know the characters.