The Wolverine- Spoiler free movie review

Hugh Jackman brought the Wolverine to the screen this weekend with his 5th film playing the character. I guess you could say 6th if you count his cameo in First Class. This take was much better than the last outing, X-Men origins: Wolverine. I know, how could it get worse? The good news is that the trailer is right; this is the Wolverine movie that fans have been waiting for. It isn't as light as Avengers and it isn't as dark as Dark Knight. It falls somewhere in the middle where I think it should. I can say that it was a more entertaining film than Man of Steel. Acting: Jackman was able to make the character seem somewhat fresh. After all these outings, that is fairly remarkable. The Japanese cast were very good as well. I thought the portrayal of viper was a bit over the top, but everything about that character was over the top. It was a contrast to the more human wolverine and not a different mutant every scene. The story borrows heavily from The Ronin storyline from the 80s, this is not a bad thing. It isn't 100% faithful, no where near, but you can tell they were trying and it was closer than anything else the Fox/X-Men franchise has put out. They even had the iconic image from the comics of Logan filled with arrows. The smaller scale fits the Wolverine character as a man that heals well and has claws can't really be expected to save the universe by his lonesome. Thankfully, this one isn't a cameo filled extravaganza where you have to try and figure out how Emma Frost is Silver Fox's little sister that somehow is deaged from the first class movie. It did manage to surprise me in a few spots. The movie was a lot of fun and you should stay for the stinger.

Mutants Vs. Vampires NCCW

I picked up Mutants Vs Vampires thinking that  one of my favorite characters and her recent vampire transformation (Jubilee) would be in it.  She wasn't.  Major disappointment.  This is actually a bunch of one offs that surround the whole mutant vs vampire storyline. 

There were a couple of stories that were okay, but most were just filler.  The only thing that really made this story worth reading was a joke in the Rogue story with a vampire joking about how much she looked like Sooki from True Blood.  I love that it went there.  Art is all over the place as it is a bunch of one offs with a whole lot of different artists working on it. 

Overall, you can take this one or leave it.  None of the stories have any reall imput to the overall story.  There is no Jubilee so don't pick it up hoping to see her. 

Avengers Assemble-NCCW

This is going to be a surprise to a lot of people, but I don't really care about the Avengers.  I mean the new movie coming out looks cool but I never really got behind the comics.  I am pretty sure that the plan was to do a marvel version of the JLA and, for the most part, that is what they accomplished.  While both titles have had some great stories, a vast majority of their history has been bogged down with sub par teams filled with cast offs from other series.  I think the Avengers are more guilty of this than the JLA.  Another issue, is that when the team is good, it is filled with a bunch of heroes that have their own titles.  Of course I have not read every Avengers book and some of the second string lineups they had probably were able to produce some pretty good stories.  I am sure with a consistant writer that cares about the team, the book is just as good as any other.  I guess I just don't like rotating cast books.  I enjoy the X-Men and it always makes me mad when a new writer comes on board and shakes up the teams.  I don't know.  Fill me in on what I am missing.  Send me .CBRs of the important stories that will make me a fan.  Tell me why I should care about Luke Cage, Iron Fist, or the Wasp. 

Hisako/Armor - NCCW

X-Men Schism

It isn’t every Wednesday that I can tell you that you should be reading an X-men comic.  This one is pretty good and if you haven’t picked up an issue of X-Men in a few years, it is a great place to catch up.  These are professor x-less X-men.  I think ole chuck is off on his honeymoon/retirement in the Shi’ar or something, but he hasn’t been running the show for a while.  Running the show would be Emma(white queen) via Scott(Cyclops).  Scott thinks he is in charge though. 

With around 200 mutants left on Earth, Scott sees Mutants on the verge of extinction and feels the need to protect mutant interest.  This sets the framework for Schism.  Wolverine starts getting all mentory on new girl and doesn’t like how Scott is running things.  When the new girl is very nonchalant about taking a life at 14 years old, Wolverine snaps and decides that kids should be allowed to be kids. 

I have always liked Logan and mostly always hated Scott.  I think I am in the majority with that sentiment.  Scott is just too type A for me, and for a guy that uncontrollably shoots a force beam out of his eyes, the writers and Scott himself seem to think of Scott as all powerful and God’s gift to mutantdom.  Wolverine, who they have pretty much made all powerful, is a lot more grounded.  Must be the age difference. 

Anyway, Schism was a pretty good story and had really good artwork.  As much as I love to hate Emma, I love to see her drawn well.  It was fairly well paced and the story had real implications and touched on philosophical ideals.  In other words it wasn’t just mindless battle scenes and Scott and Logan didn’t just shake and make up at the end.  This is the title that ended the Uncanny run(Uncanny was the longest running monthly title until that point, a distinction it held for exactly one month). Not to worry I am sure all the Marvel and DC numbering will revert back in due time. 

If you have been away from the x-books for a while, you should probably pick up Schism and check out what is going on.   

X-Men: First Class (2011)

So, I watched X-Men:  First Class.  I guess technically, as a movie, removed from the comic, it was a good enough movie.  But, I am unable to separate the years of comic book reading from the movie.  I did have problems with the plot as well so on to the review.

Plot-I have no doubt that there are people that exist that would love to see the world burn.  I don't doubt this.  But to have Sabastian Shaw, a very wealthy womanizer, be the person that wants to see the world burn doesn't make sense.  For whatever reason, he thinks all mutants will survive nuclear annihilation and start a new world. Even if they were able to survive the nuclear blasts and fallout, they would inherit a dead world.  They also has a character named Darwin that has the ability to adapt to conditions around him to survive.  In order to establish Shaw's power we get to see how Darwin can't adapt to everything regardless of the fact that it was established that he could.  He was also the one black guy in the movie.  Yes, the black man dies.

Acting-  I can't fault the movie here.  The acting was pretty good.  Well, I didn't care for the constipated Professor X, but everyone else was pretty good and I would like to see them in a real X-Men movie.

Characterization-  The X-Men are almost 50 years old.  They have a 50, oft times convoluted, history, but they have a history.  The comics have epic story arcs that are critically acclaimed.  I understand that they wanted to do something original and I am not opposed to someone doing that, but why mess with the characters.  I mean, they put characters in the wrong place in time lines.  Alex Summers is the brother of Cyclops.  Having him as a 20 something in the 60s means he is 40 years older than his older brother.  That is just one small example.  They took 50 years of characterization and continuity and crapped all over it.

Some people will say that the first X-Men movie did the same.  To a degree, it did.  But that was a different time and I think folks were just excited to see the X-Men  on the big screen.

Overall, it was an okay movie if you separate it from comics.  As a comics fan, I just felt cheated.  I wanted to take a shower after watching the movie.

X-Men Forever-NCCW

Have you ever wondered what would have happened had Chris Claremont not left the X-Men when he did?  Claremont is arguably the most awesome X-Men writer on one of the best runs of the comic, with some of the greatest story lines.  I am talking Phoenix, Dark Phoenix, and Days Future Past here.  This guy shaped the X-Men.  So what happens if he picks up the book where he left off?  The answer to that is kind of  X-Men Forever.

I say kind of because Claremont's tale is obviously influenced by the twenty years of story line that came after.  Not that he is following the same story, but that he is reacting to what other writers did with the characters.  It is a pretty big challenge if you think about it.  He had to reinvent the team that he had already reinvented and then left for twenty years.  In the meantime, they had been reinvented about twice every year and had writers that did great things and writers that messed stuff up (Grant Morrison).  I mean there were retcons on retcons.  The X Universe is a hot mess.  X-Men Forever was not a retcon but an alternate timeline, so it gets to ignore all that crap, but has to be different from it.

The story in Vol. 1 was okay with a very surprising death.  It is hard to make sense of what you are reading and rewind and start again at the fall of Asteroid M.  It seems like he wanted  to tie in all of his story lines as we have references to the Phoenix and the Morlocks.  I will probably check out Vol. 2 in the future.  

Never Say Never

How is this a cover, who is
editing at Marvel that lets this
slip by. 

A few months ago, I said I had sworn off Grant Morrison.  It seems at the man has his fingers into everything, especially in the DC universe for the past 5-10 years.

My first foray was something that I actually enjoyed for the most part.  All Star Superman.  It just felt fun and light and had absolutely no bearing on continuity.  Then I picked up Batman and Robin and the first two volumes were not bad.  I saw his New X-Men at the library and picked it up and I am not sure what I liked worse, his writing or Frank Quietly's art.  How is it possible that these two also did All Star Superman.  I call shenanigans.  Morrison's goal must have been to completely destroy the x-men franchise.  Usually I see where he is going with his ideas and just think that he fails to execute.  Not with x-men, there was no redeamable factor.  Now this is based soley on volume 1.  I don't expect to read volume 2. 
Because I didn't hate the first two volumes of Batman and Robin, I thought I should pick up volume 3 and here comes Grant Morrison.  Volume three was disjointed and had to be studied to figure out exactly what was going on.  The gaps in that comic are so wide you could write entire TPBs to fill them in.  It is like the man writes a plot outline and then instead of writing the story just adds some dialogue to the outline.  I know some people like the fact that he allows them to fill in the blanks themselves, but I am not one of those people.  When I pay for a comic, I want the writer to have actually written a story.  I will start filling in the blanks when I start getting paid to do so.  On that note, I hate self checkouts.  The checker's pay is already added into the price of your products.  When you use self check out you should save money.  Hey, since Morrison is only writing half the story, shouldn't the comic be half price?
I can't swear the man off though.  He is just too omnipresent in DC comics.  For some reason that I am unable to fathom, he is very popular, but Leifeld was very popular in the 90s, so who knows. 
I also read We3 which was okay with really pretty art and lots of gaps.  Morrison kills a bunny in it though. 

X-Men First Class, Why I am Leary



Fake First Class

 No, it isn't because the last two installments of the X-universe have been sub par and the first two only really par, trying to force more movie into the movie than they could possibly hold.  No, I am leary because the story isn't cannon.  I have heard the arguement that comics discard cannon at will and that no one really knows what is cannon anymore.  While that is somewhat true it is also a lie. 

Origin stories are generally well established and not ignored or rewritten (unless there Crisis is in the title somewhere).  People who read comics that tell an alternate universe version or retelling of a story, usually understand what is being undone and sometimes they even get why.  Movie audiences who, by the number of comics marvel sells every month, are not buying comics, may not know the "real" or "going" history of the characters.  The movie then becomes the established origin and the comics, in order to sell to the newly interested movie goers, have to change so that the new readers won't get confused.  We saw it when the original X-Men came out and all of a sudden Wolverine's claws started popping out at a different spot and all the costumes got changed (that happened to be one of the times that I threw down comics vowing never to read them again).

real first class

The Wolverine movie was an especially hard slap in the face.  Marvel had done the Wolverine Origin specifically so it wouldn't be done in movie form first.  The Origins story was excellent and lead into a history of both Wolverine and Sabretooth.  Then the Wolverine movie comes out and covers this awesome work, poorly, with a 5 minute montage.  The name of the movie by the way was X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  It could have been excused if the movie would have just been the origin of how he joined the X-Men, but that was done in the first movie and this was just a vehicle to introduce about a million additional mutants.

Let me put it to you this way.  Say they remade Superman (I know, a stretch).  In this remake they decided that Lex Luthor was also from Krypton and that no one knew Lana Lang so they made Lois his high school sweet heart.   It completely changes the story. 

Well, X-Men: First Class doesn't involve the first class as was written.  Although 20 some odd years younger than Superman, the X-Men origin is firmly grounded in the psyche of the comic reader.  Why do screen writers think that they need to rewrite this.  If you are going to rewrite the origin, why would you do it with seemingly random characters from all over the X-Men continuity.  Why not just make up mutants specifically for the movie.  Why not tell the classic stories in a way that does them honor. 

Yes, I am sceptical of first class.  It is getting positive reviews, but I don't know that these reviewers read comics.  It being a good movie is completely different than it being a good comic book movie based on a franchise that I grew up with and love.  I am not asking for a recreation of the source material, I only want it shown respect.  Stop irresponsibly milking my youth for money. 

Ghost Box

Ghost Box is collects Astonishing X-Men 25-30 and is written by Warren Ellis. 

At first I though I had skipped a trade.  I didn't remember anything about the X-Men moving to San Fran and changing up their image.  I still don't remember it, but maybe I just took too long in between volumes, but I am pretty sure that there was no lead in, it was just something that happened off panel and we have to deal with. 

The story itself isn't a bad one.  The team has to track down a new type of mutant that murdered a third type of mutant.  In the process they discover that the events of M-Day has made Earth 616 look like easy pray for other dimensions. 

The story flows pretty well until the very end when it closes in a rush.  There is a climax but very little resolution, so the arc feels incomplete.  It could have sustained another issue, easily.  Ellis does a decent job, but it does feel different than the Whedon Run. 

The team does suffer from being written as dark and edgy but at the same time, it makes sense based on what all they have been through.  A whole team of wolverines just isn't as fun as just having the one.  The portrayal of Beast was the one that felt the most odd.  Cyclops strangely worked as it came off as him just posing as being tougher and edgier.  Armor might have been the strongest (no pun intended) character in this arc.  She is funny and a bit naive. 

Overall, it wasn't a bad few issues and I look forward to checking out volume 6. 

Friday Quiz-The X-Men

Image via Wikipedia

All answers must be in the form of a question, answer in the comments, and no cheating. First person with all the correct answers or the most correct answers by Monday will get a coveted SciFi Media "no prize" button to display on their website.

This weeks theme will be the X-Men

1. He is credited as the creator of the X-Men along with several other super hero titles. 

2.  This X-Man is German and very religious despite his appearance. 

3.  Before Jean Grey was the Phoenix, she had this childish nick name.

4.  These are the giant robots programmed to capture or kill all mutants. 

5.  Cain Marko, Xavier's half brother, finds the Gem of Cyttorak and transforms into this unstoppable force. 

Bonus:  Cain finds the Gem of Cyttorak in this Asian country.

Really Hard Bonus:  This is the address of Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. 

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. 

15 Science Fiction/Fantasy/Comic movies that are must sees in 2011

Charlie Jane over at io9 has listed 55 genre movies for 2011.  I don't know about you but that sounds like an awful lot.  Looking through the list, there is a bunch of junk in it like Twilight and Beastly (although it doesn't look to bad).  I will attempt to cut this list down to the 15 must see genre movies.

March 11th:  Battle Los Angeles-  I don't know, the production values look good and I am a fan of aliens taking over the world and humanity finding a way to fight back type stories. 

March 11th:  Mars Needs Moms-  I loves this book and so do my girls, this one is a no brainer, but I am interested to see how they fill out more than 30 minutes.

March 25th:  Sucker Punch-  This is my must see movie of the year.  If you like hot girls, mechs, sword play, fighting, and dragons all put together in a really pretty picture, this movie is probably right up your alley as well. 

April 1st: Super-  Dwight as a superhero, need I say more. 

April 8th: Your Highness-  If it weren't for Natalie Portman, this movie wouldn't even be on my radar.  Looks funny enough, but I hate Zooey's acting.

May 5th: Thor- This looks to be the early winner in the comic book movie onslought of 2011.  Can there be a black Asgardian?  Ask the people who complained about a blonde Bond. 

May 13th: Priest-  The preview I saw for this looked really interesting.  I like post apocolyptic worlds were humanity is fighting for its survival.

June 3rd:  X-Men First Class-  Based off of X3 and Wolverine, this movie shouldn't be here.  I am a sucker for mutants though.

June 17th:  Green Lantern-  I was really excited about this movie, until I saw the trailer.  It is DC taking movie making seriously outside of their two bread winners and I want to see the result. 

July 22nd:  Captain America-Nothing I have seen has me excited about this movie yet, and I want to be excited about it.  It is here because it has the potential to win the comic movie wars. 

July 29th:  Cowboys and Aliens-  I mean, how can you argue with a title like that.  Cowboys and Aliens, the only choosing you have to do is which side you want to win.  Should be a lot of fun. 

August 19th: Conan-  What is good in life?  This movie could be the next Conan, Momoa has some big muscles to fill.

August 19th: Fright Night-  I like people who play Doctor Who, and I like the original fright night.  It should be like peanut butter and chocolate, right?

September 30th: Now-  You have never heard of this movie have you?  That is okay; neither had I.  Take Logan's run and add the ability to by youth.  Sound cool to me. 

October 7th:  Real Steel-  Fighting and giant robots , of course I will like it.  Robot Jocks for the 21st century.

Did I miss your must see, let me know in the comments. 

Comics Quiz

Cover of Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile

Quiz time again.  This week, we have a comics quiz.  This is the comic book form of comics and not the flesh and blood joke tellers.  Rules are simple, answer in the comments and no cheating.

1.  This character is the kid sister of X-men's Colosus.
2.  This is the secret identity of a version of Supergirl that wasn't superman's cousin.
3.  Bone was a comic illustrated and written by him.
4.  This "angelic" character was introduced in Spawn before she got her own limited series. 
5.  Although he penned Jeremiah and Babylon 5, this writer started out in comics.
6.  This is the creative team behind Fables.

Winner gets a SciFi Media "no prize" in their inbox. 

Blogfest top 10 TV shows

Image via Wikipedia

Alex J. Cavanaugh is hosting a blogfest today on top 10 TV shows.  As this is a Science Fiction website my list will consist solely of Science Fiction shows.  These are all my opinion and I will try to give reasons why I feel that way.  Feel free to disagree.  Let me know if I missed something completely obvious.

10.  My Secret Identity-  This little known gem starred Jerry O'Connell as a teen that was given superpowers in a lab experiment gone wrong.
9.   Spaced- It wasn't technically Scifi, but it is referenced enough that it counts in my book. 
8.   X-Men-  Yes, the 90's cartoon.  It kept the spirit of the comics and hit on some major story lines.  This show got me into comics.
7.   The BSG remake-  Or at least the first three seasons.  The last two, not so much.  No matter how it ended, it started really well. 
6.   The new Doctor Who- The only show on the list that is currently in production.  I prefer the 10th Doctor.
5.   Firefly-  This show might not be on this list had it run for years, but it didn't and what we got was great and left us hungry for more.
4.   Star Trek TNG-  Star Trek has to be on here somewhere.  I loved this show growing up.  I wanted to be Geordi LaForge, he was the coolest.  Maybe I should have taken engineering classes instead of English.
3.   Farscape-  Muppets in space.  No really, Jim Henson's muppet factory designed a few of the aliens in this very clever and witty series. 
2.   Babylon 5- It had a well thought out arc and was written extremely well. The cast was likable and the characters grew. 
1.   The Twilight Zone-  Where would SciFi be on TV today without Rod Sterling.  The show continually makes you think. 

I have not watched every scifi show ever, so I probably missed your favorite.  Let me know what I should be watching.

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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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5 year old X-Men

Ever since we watched the X-Men Cartoon the girls have been on superhero overdrive.  They even started drawing them.  I got them some books from the library on drawing and have been trying to help them.  Ally is only 5 and here are her X-Men.  The one without a name is Beast.  Notice the card in gambits hand.  Jubilee has glasses on her head and apparently has a new mutation that takes off her arms and gives her a giraffe neck.  She even designed new matching uniforms for the team.  Look out Marvel.  The future is coming from my house.

X-Men the animated series

I believe I was in 9th grade when this show came on originally. I loved it. I can say with certainty that this show started me collecting comics. It was awesome. All of my friends watched it and we couldn’t wait to meet up and talk about the show later that Saturday. I remember being at a boy scout derby car race one Saturday morning and that none of the kids wanted to be there because they were going to miss X-Men. The elk lodge or VFW had a TV though and we all gathered around to watch Professor X and his protégé defend a world that hated and feared them against evil. It was awesome.