Days Future Past

This is an excellent jumping on point for anyone that wants to catch up on the first twenty years of X-Men,  The first issue of this graphic novel consists of explaining the history of the team including most major battles.  The next few issues explore the new X-Team members and their relationships with each other.

Fans of the 90's animated X-Men cartoon will be expecting something a little different than what they get out of this story.  Kitty Pride was hugely popular after Dark Phoenix and it is no surprise that the writers wanted to capitalize off of that popularity. Not all of the stories are Kitty centric, but most of them are, including Days Future Past.

The titular story is very good and very dark.  It was a place that marvel went to pretty often in this time period.  You get to see the graves of the biggest heroes in the marvel universe, and then you get to see some x-men breath their last.  It is obvious that they hadn't explored Wolverines powers or back story all that much as they have him aged consistently with the rest of the team in the future.  It is a well told story and a foray into sentinels and time travel that would be repeated for years to come.

The final story is all Kitty all the time.  We get to see her use everything she has been learning in the Xavier School in order to attempt to fight off a monster.  It is a Hanukkah story that should be brought out every year.

When they titled this collection they were going for the most recognized name and the story that still resonates with fans.  Most of the collection are the writers finding their way with the new team and without the leadership of Scott for the first time.  Their is a new dynamic and it hinders the storyline somewhat as you generally get individual tales that doesn't advance the story.  Because Days Future Past occurs in a possible future, the writers did not feel bound and were able to open up in a way that really tells a great story and implies how close the team is to become.

If you are an X-Men fan, this is a must read if you haven't already.  If you have never read the X-Men, this is a great place to hop on and start running with the new team (well, the first new team).  This was a comics code authority title and should be acceptable for anyone old enough to read it. 

Why Honoring Continuity is Important

Image via Wikipedia

I have a friend that loves comic book movies.  She doesn't read comics, and could care less about the source material.  She is also a big fan of Smallville.  We used to have long arguments on what they messed up in movies (I will not admit to ever watching smallville).  She made the point that characters are constantly getting retconned in the comics and it shouldn't matter if they do it for big screen. 

Retconning sucks!  Sure it is kind of exciting when Colossus comes back from the dead and hooks up with Kitty Pryde, but the opposite side has Scott and Jean having died and been brought back so many times it is really old.  It is actually laughable how death is a revolving door in a comic book.  No one stays dead.  Whether this works or not depends on the writing.  Phoenix Saga anyone?

Reboots happen in comics, but they generally are not well received.  Ultimates anyone?  I liked Spiderman 2099 and will actually blame it for getting me into comics, but that isn't even a true reboot.  Most fans have spent their adolescent lives learning the ins and outs of the history of the books they follow, so anytime anyone says that they are going to start over at square one it is upsetting. 

That said the best movies have been reboots.  They take the character and the rogues gallery and they hit certain points while making the rest up.  Movies start failing when they try incorporating storylines from the comics into the movies.  This is because they try and use the same formula.  They just want to take a character and situation(or many of these) and use it as a loose outline.  Fans want to see the actual storylines and are disappointed, because of the desire to include characters and storylines the plot itself doesn't make sense and then no one likes the movie. 

Continuity is important because the characters in the comics have demons and pasts that have shaped them as characters.  When you have Lady Deathstrike and Logan fighting and you don't achknowledge their past you may be able to pull off a psychically controlled fight scene, but a fight between exes would have been emotional.  The Dark Knight was awesome, but what if it focused soley on the Joker and we got a seperate Long Halloween. 

Comic writers are just as good as hollywood writers, there is no reason to really adapt what is in essence a giant storyboard.  Having seen movies cutting a 300 page novel to nothing to get it to fit in the 2hr limit for the screen, and TPB would have ample information for a movie.  Watchmen did it best but underestimated the audiences ability to accept a sea monster/alien and wanted a different ending.  All that work to make it match and pride takes over in the end.

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Comic Book Crushes

Although it isn't a guaranteed thing.  Most teenage boys that read comics are going to develop a crush on one of the female characters in the comic books.  Most people from the outside looking in will think that the crush will be on the more shapely characters such as Wonder Woman, the bad girls like Catwoman, or a mixture of the two like Vampirella.  While the teenage boy definitely appreciates the artistic renderings of these characters, these are not the ones that he will develop crushes on.