Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men revitalised a set of characters who had stagnated over the previous decade due to endless crossover events, a larger cast of characters than a long-running soap opera, and for becoming the absolute nadir of comic book deaths. Morrison, with artists Frank Quitely, Chris Bachalo, Phil Jimenez, Marc Silvestri and Ethan Van Sciver, brought the mutants kicking and screaming into the 20th century with cool new biker-inspired outfits, a slimmed-down cast list and some real heightened stakes. It also revelled in the series' history in the way that Grant Morrison loves to (evidenced by his later take on Batman), bringing in old elements like the Shi'ar Empire from the title's Claremont/Byrne heyday. So when it turned out that Xorn - whose brain is a star, and was convinced not to take off his helmet and destroy the world by the X-Men, who then took him on board as a member of the main squad - was actually their Magneto in disguise, it wasn't that surprising. Erik Lehnsherr has been the team's arch enemy since the beginning, so it figures he'd show up eventually. Now, Magneto-as-Xorn isn't the stupid twist here, no no. The stupid twist is what happened after that. Morrison wrapped his run up with the Planet X storyline, which involved Magneto revealing his deception, killing Jean Grey, and being decapitated in turn by Wolverine. Chuck Austen had other ideas, though. People liked this Xorn guy, and so both he and Magneto returned, this time as distinct characters. It turns out this Xorn - first name Shen - is the twin brother of the original Xorn, who was actually just pretending to be Magneto, which explains why Erik's not really dead either. Which not only makes no sense, but also undoes a previous, much better twist. UGH.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
