Genosha Triangles

That's more like it. Last night's new X-Men'97 was a rich and fulfilling piece of pulp, chock full of soap opera, sex, and violence. Nor did it skimp on the campy dialogue and cheesy fake accents.

We take a trip to Genosha, the mutant nation which sure reads like an allegorical Israel, especially given Magneto's past, which is alluded to in this episode. Magneto, Rogue, and Gambit are the ones we follow and they're one of two love triangles at play.

The other one is Cyclops, Jean, and Madelyne--with Wolverine as a possible fourth wheel. They're sure using Wolverine sparingly so far. After all these years of Hugh Jackman in the spotlight, it's kind of funny seeing the little man who always talks like a pirate.

Scott freaks out in the middle of an interview, showing he is feeling some unchecked trauma from the recent loss of his child. Which makes sense. The two Jeans are taking it a bit better (if they were sad, I suppose I could call them blue Jeans).

For some reason the music of Genosha is sort of samba-ish with lots of steel drums. All right. It was cool seeing the various mutants cavorting in any case and, of course, it was great to see Nightcrawler whose teleportation power is very nicely rendered by the animators.

But the heart of the episode is Rogue and the two men orbiting her. The drama of their triangle blended perfectly with the cataclysmic climax. Rogue looks a hell of a lot better than she did on the old series. I guess I could say that about most of the characters, though.

X-Men'97 is available on Disney+.

Half the X

Last night's new X-Men'97 wasn't exactly bad but felt like fragments and was altogether unsatisfying after what felt like a full meal last week.

"Motendo/Lifedeath - Part 1" is two stories, a short one about Jubilee and Roberto getting sucked into a video game followed by the first part of an adaptation of Storm's relationship with Forge from the late '80s comics.

The video game story just seemed like a mess. I'm not sure if it contains many references to actual video games. I could sort of see Marvel vs. Capcom in there, minus, of course, the Capcom and other Marvel characters. If Disney had actually made a deal with Capcom to have their characters appear--as they did for Wreck-It Ralph!--the episode might have been really interesting. Maybe that was the original intention but for whatever reason the deal didn't happen and they decided to cobble together what they had for half an episode. It's never clear what the stakes are or the mechanics of how things function in the game world, if Jubilee has to do anything different to what she usually does in order to survive, so it all kind of turns into noise.

Storm remains one of my favourite Marvel characters though mainly for the comics from the late '70s and early '80s. I tend to hate stories about superheroes losing their powers and Storm getting to rock and roll is a rare enough event without this. The episode cuts off at an awkward point and really feels like the story should've been given a whole episode to breathe. It always seems like Storm's getting table scraps to me.

X-Men'97 is available on Disney+.

X Sonnet #1831

Not ev'ry dame behind a flame's Brunhild.
The cards so hard to stack aren't worth a bean.
For grass to pass for rain's a roof to build.
The souls we sold were waxing pale and lean.
Accounts of rain recall diluted suns.
Exploding trees were hid behind her eyes.
But who, you ask, would have sufficient funds?
The girl, I say, who baked the silver pies.
Container paint was worse than prison bars.
Revulsion told on luckless babes abroad.
A lot of coffee changed the bikes to cars.
The garden's czar returned the seeds to sod.
The final book would look a fright on shelves.
In darkling woods the hoods concealed the elves.

Attack of the Haunted Clone

The animation seemed to be even better in the new, third episode of X-Men '97 than it'd been in the first two. I have to hand it to South Korea's Studio Mir. The story was also exciting with many shining moments, though many critics, quite rightly, are complaining about how rushed it felt.

Why did they feel the need to wrap up the peculiar love triangle so fast, a story that percolated over a much longer period of time in the comics? I was particularly frustrated by the abruptness of the ending, with Scott seemingly making no effort to console the mother of his child, nor did he seem to have qualms about her walking away from him. I suppose it's somewhat true to life considering the divorce rate among parents who've lost their child. It would've been nice if they'd explored that over a few episodes instead of cramming everything into one.

I loved the nightmare horror tone the show took on with animation that seemed influenced by Kon Satoshi. I loved the Goblin Queen though I wish they'd kept her sexy costume from the comics. Still, she was pretty sexy and the fight between her and Magneto was about as kinky as a show can get while still being acceptable viewing for children. Theoretically.

I'm really digging the intro. Something about the unobtrusive way miniature Rogue and Storm creep into the image like ants is pleasantly creepy, sort of reminding me of the little elderly couple in Mulholland Drive or tiny stop motion creatures in a Tool video.

X-Men'97 is available on Disney+.

All My Xs Live in X's Manor

I didn't even like the old X-Men animated series so I was surprised to find I really enjoyed the first two episodes of its revival, X-Men'97. I'm hardly the first to hand it accolades, it has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, the first Marvel production to get that kind of love in a long time.

The show picks up where the old series ended in 1997--it started in 1992, when I was in junior high school. I remember Saturday mornings when it would come on I would sometimes suffer through it to get to something I liked, like the latest Ghostbusters series, Ninja Turtles, or Darkwing Duck. Duckwing Duck was an afternoon show, wasn't it? Ah, it was also on Saturday mornings, I see from this helpful schedule. Looks like Ghostbusters stopped airing before X-Men premiered. It's funny, I could've sworn there was a Ghostbusters series when I was in high school.

Anyway, looks like, early on, I'd have had to have chosen between X-Men, Back to the Future, and Land of the Lost while waiting for Darkwing Duck to come on, and X-Men was certainly the best choice of those three, even though I hated the awkward animation and the corny dialogue. And I was an X-Men fan before that! Storm was one of my favourite comic characters growing up. I read the comics from the late '80s and I gleaned a lot from other kids who'd read more of the comics than I had. Also, there was an X-Men game at the local arcade I played a lot, so I knew a lot of lore and backstory. It formed an impression of X-Men that told me it was a story that deserved better than the lousy animated series. But it must have been my first exposure to a lot of the classic plotlines I didn't read the original comic versions of until years later.

The first two episodes of the revival have fixed a lot of the problems with the old series. The animation, now courtesy of computers, is much smoother, and the opening sequence no longer repeats the same pull-out from close-ups over and over. The dialogue is still incredibly corny but probably self-consciously so. The most important thing is, when I was watching, I got caught up in the story. I wanted to know what Magneto (who now looks oddly like Richard Lynch) is up to. I want to see if Rogue is going to get her heart broken. I want to know if Jean is really pregnant. So screenwriter Beau DeMayo did his job. Too bad he's apparently been cancelled to oblivion. No-one even knows what he did but he wasn't just fired, his social media accounts were deleted. The guy doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry, despite having worked on both Moon Knight and Witcher. It's like he went into witness protection. I read one article that floated a rumour that it's because he was difficult to work with. Hardly seems sufficient explanation for his social media being deleted.

Anyway, we have two full seasons of his work to enjoy, whatever purgatory he may now be consigned to.

X-Men '97 is available on Disney+.

X Sonnet #1827

A rusty oven swells with soggy toast.
A summer dream oppressed the coming spring.
Piano wire cut the dancing ghost.
The acid ant disrupts the bitter ring.
Repeated ripples scar the simple pool.
A peaceful place became a broken hull.
Another coat was made from golden wool.
A secret song was sung by someone's skull.
A data leak was traced to rabbit ears.
Concoctions ranked revealed a banger gin.
A time dispersed before the woman's tears.
To travel back would mean she'd not begin.
Nostalgic Martian strings return the heart.
Ideas were blank before the dream of art.

How to Bring X's Together

Last night I watched 2003's X2 again, Bryan Singer's sequel to the first X-Men movie, still considered by many to be the best X-Men film. I think that's probably true, though I haven't seen all of them. I still haven't watched the third one because I hate Brett Ratner so much and I remember what a betrayal it was when Fox fired Bryan Singer. I remember listening to the DVD commentary and hearing Singer talk about how enthusiastic he was to make the next film after X2's cliffhanger ending, which was inspired by Star Trek II. Oh, what might have been.

X2 is at least one of the best superhero team movies for how it manages to achieve a good balance of various characters using their powers, each of whom is interesting in their own right. Alan Cumming's take on Nightcrawler feels different from any other portrayal of the character I've seen but he's very good. It's an unusually solemn take for the character but that makes sense given his backstory. The way his teleportation powers are portrayed influenced teleportation action scenes in many film and TV series afterwards.

And Storm gets plenty to do this time and actually comes off as a leader more than she did in the first film. I still think Halle Berry was miscast but at least she'd dropped the phony accent. Storm was my favourite X-Men character when I was a kid, She was one of those characters I'd often practice drawing when I was teaching myself how to draw comic characters. X2 is maybe her best live action portrayal though I hold out some hope that one day there'll be a better one, something closer to how she appeared in Chris Clairemont's classic run. I mean, those are the comics that they should be adapting anyway.

I think my favourite scene in X2, though, remains Magneto's escape from his prison. When he pulls the iron out of that guy's blood and gets away with just a couple of floating spheres he can fling like bullets, or use as floating platforms, you get a very good impression of just how powerful this guy is.

X2 is available on Disney+.

The X-Movie

It'd been a while, so I decided to watch the first X-Men film from 2000. I was surprised to find I enjoy it more now than I used to. Maybe it's the very fact that it feels dated, it's actually kind of refreshing.

You can see it's from a time when superhero movies weren't popular and there are all kinds of indications of that. From the constant, neurotic need to justify the code names with convoluted explanations and irony, to all the ways the film imitates non-superhero movies from the time. The fight scene between Wolverine and Sabretooth at the end feels a bit Matrix-ish. I've never bought Wolverine swinging around that part of the statue's crown on his claw.

I'd forgotten how dark the cinematography is on this first film. I think maybe it's because the Michael Keaton Batman movies had been the most recent popular superhero movies. And maybe it's there to hide cheap sets, too. Tonally, it's a mismatch with the X-Men. A colourful ensemble demands a colourful palette.

One thing's for sure, the casting remains almost impeccable. It's no wonder Kevin Feige's dragging his feet re-casting the X-Men for the MCU. Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, James Marsden, Anna Paquin--every one of them so perfectly inhabited the characters, bringing to life the comic book character or, where they do diverge, offering an interesting interpretation. The exception is Halle Berry who is a terrible Storm.

Like a lot of people, I feel Halle Berry is generally an overrated actress, but her Storm is a letdown for more reasons than that. She was my favourite character in the comics and to see this goddess reduced to an unremarkable young woman in a t-shirt is so sad. When she is finally reincarnated, I hope they do it right. Storm's gotta be big--big hair, decadent costume, voluptuous physical assets. I always though Beyonce was physically right for the part. If they could find someone with that body-type with decent acting chops, it would be perfect.

X-Men is available on Disney+.

The Alluring Fires of Rebirth

What if, all alone, you were able to feel a sense of fulfilment and pleasure that far surpassed anything that could be gained through human relationships? This is essentially what changes Jean Grey from Phoenix to Dark Phoenix in The Dark Phoenix Saga, the celebrated 1980 series of Uncanny X-Men comics by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. The simplicity of the premise is part of the reason it works so well but it also contains plenty of ambiguities; where does Jean Grey end and Dark Phoenix begin? How much responsibility does she bear for her actions?

According to Wikipedia, Chris Claremont has said himself he was never sure when he was writing the project whether Jean was possessed or if her actions were entirely her own, which I think is perfect. The uncertainty is part of the torment for her and her friends. When the Phoenix persona is introduced there's already something inherently narcissistic about it--Jean's rebirth after saving the X-Men when their craft falls into the sea after encountering a solar flare comes with unexpected fanfare as her boosted psionic powers manifest in the massive, fiery image of a bird. What better way to say, "Happy Birthday to me"? Certainly there's a lot to celebrate--when Phoenix uses her power subsequently throughout the series, Claremont frequently describes her as beautiful and awesome and John Byrne's art certainly supports the text.

It's no wonder anyone would want to see Jean and Phoenix as distinct entities, though, particularly Cyclops, her lover, who, in trying to snap her out of it, describes her as "love" itself. A person so defined by her selflessness and compassion that her personality is unrecognisable when devoid of these traits. But compassion requires effort and Phoenix is a telepath who has the same problem experienced by so many super-powerful telepaths in fantasy fiction--she can't always shut it off so she perceives thoughts she doesn't want to. There's a scene, after she becomes Dark Phoenix, when she visits her parents and is able to perceive the fundamental dread they feel for her and who knows what else. At this point, there'd already been some disturbing rumination on perverted family dynamics as the story preceding Jean's transformation into Dark Phoenix is the first to feature the villain Proteus. In the last portion of that story, Proteus, who took over the bodies and personalities of other people to prolong his life, eventually took over his father's body and kidnapped his mother.

So not only does Jean have the incredible ecstasy of power she experiences through Phoenix, her old sources of happiness have become strange and terrifying, her increased awareness making the essential fabric of human social bonding seem a convenient illusion for managing civilisation. Every relationship would have to constantly be reevaluated or carefully controlled, no wonder she prefers the beauty and simplicity of consuming stars.

I love how understated and yet essential Wolverine's presence is in the series. Jean is of course aware that he's in love with her but she barely acknowledges it, I'm not sure Cyclops is ever aware of it. Byrne made some incredible illustrations of Wolverine for the series, particularly the scenes where he's alone trying to save the other X-Men from the Hellfire club. I love that Jean becomes Dark Phoenix after an attempt by the villain Mastermind to make her into an evil dominatrix. The premise of a woman being psychologically manipulated by a man into adopting a superficially domineering but essentially subservient role becomes a sort of prelude illusory layer for Phoenix to cast off. Mastermind abuses the traditional, socially constructed means of allocating human affection and when Jean discovers the truth it's even more plausible that she'd want to set fire to the whole game.

Again, Wolverine acts as a subtle counterpoint; as a creature of instinct who seems to consider suffering a natural and welcome part of his existence, he's a focus for so much of the story yet he never seems to distinguish himself in Jean's perception as anything more than another of her friends. There's an almost zen-like quality in his acceptance of reality's ambiguities. Before the climactic fight, in which the Shi'ar, Kree, and Skrulls have decided to allow the X-Men to defend Jean for her crimes in a trial by combat, he says, "I ain't scared of dyin'--never have been. It'll happen to me one day, whether I want it to or not. So why waste time worryin' about it." Which says something about the contrasting burden of limitless power. Wolverine doesn't have to consider endless possibilities, infinite implications. This must be part of his intrinsic appeal to readers. It certainly isn't his power--over the course of the forty three issues I read, Wolverine seems to get his ass handed to him more than any other X-Man. He's short, hairy, and not especially attractive and yet he grants a kind of wish fulfilment for readers. Oddly his limitations seem to make him more free than Jean Grey. But of course he represents one interpretation of life.

Twitter Sonnet #1217

An endless light creates a hairy comb.
In twisting signs the tale became a head.
Engravings wrought a tin and copper Rome.
At last the gods may stumble off to bed.
The yellow bird was red in certain lights.
The hand was eyes when nails were painted green.
It's ev'ry bitter end was passed through bights.
At last the legend's foot was clearly seen.
The arrow's shadow stretched across the sand.
Magnetic shades distort the stone for grit.
An absent bell was heard on ev'ry band.
The talking cookies stopped an oven mitt.
A summer rain connects to road to school.
A sugar water fills the winter pool.

Mutants Working Together

I've finally gone back and started reading some classic X-Men comics. I figured I'd read through from the introduction of the "new" X-Men in 1975 through the Dark Phoenix Saga because those are the comics I happened to have had sitting on my shelf for fifteen years. In 2004 I saw Barnes and Noble had released a "Masterworks" series of Marvel Comics collections. I thought this was great--finally, all those hard to track down back issues collected in an easy to find, affordable package. Only $12.95 for eight issues. I grabbed the first few volumes of Spider-Man and X-Men. I tore through Spider-Man pretty quick but for some reason never got around to X-Men. Partly I think it was because I found Chris Claremont's dialogue abysmally bad. I'd make it through Giant Size X-Men #1 and X-Men #94 and then I'd lose interest. I think I had four false starts. Well, now I'm all the way up to Uncanny X-Men #122 and am loving it. Once Claremont got into a flow his dialogue seems to have gotten less noticeably bad, at least in my opinion, and Dave Cockrum's excellent art gave way to John Byrne's even better art.

The best part, for me, is getting Storm's original introduction. She was my favourite comic book character in the late 80s and early 90s and I only knew her piecemeal from what random issues I got at the time, the animated series, the video games, and what I heard from people who'd read the older comics or who'd talked to people who'd read the older comics. It's that kind of thing that really makes me think comic book characters are like modern mythological figures, the way stories about them reach people in such a patchwork variety of ways. Of course, the important difference is that I never thought Storm was a real person.

Anyway, when I was teaching myself how to draw as a kid I used to copy the works of other artists and I remember carefully reproducing a big full page image of Storm by Jim Lee in one of the issues I had. Jim Lee's art is suited to being studied in isolation. Byrne's is much better suited to storytelling.

There's so much more expression in it, both in faces and body gestures, though Lee's certainly has a lot of intricate detail.

I was surprised how prominent Storm is in the issues I've been reading. In all the adaptations she's a relatively minor character but of the new X-Men introduced in Giant Size #1 she seems to quickly become the most important until Wolverine gradually takes centre stage. Her backstory is certainly the most complicated--she's introduced in Giant Size #1 with art by Dave Cockrum--I love all his complicated configurations of curves--as a living African goddess.

Then we find out she was a pick pocket in Cairo, trained by a master thief and an expert at lock picking, something that comes in handy in #113. In a really bizarre predicament, Magneto has most of the X-Men handcuffed to chairs and being treated like babies by a robotic nanny, apparently a revenge for Magneto having been physically changed into an infant. These two backstories seem mismatched yet they somehow work as intriguing instead of incongruous. What led this streetwise kid to depart for the wilderness upon discovering her powers? And what powers. I'm noticing that Clarement and Byrne frequently have to give reasons as to why Storm isn't able to use her powers--I guess being able to summon a hurricane at a moment's notice makes it hard to explain why she can't overcome certain foes. So they gave her intense claustrophobia, effectively shutting her down whenever she's in tight confines and adding yet another layer of backstory to explain it in the process. And there are several instances of explanations for individual problems, like her being tired from a previous battle, there being a competing enemy mutant controlling the weather, etc.

The only other character receiving half this much attention so far is Jean Grey. Wolverine seems a surprisingly minor character until John Byrne takes over as regular artist--the first several issues of the new X-Men seem to put more focus on characters that end up not sticking around for very long, Sunfire and Thunderbird. Good grief, I feel bad for any fans of Thunderbird, a somewhat stereotypical Native American X-Man who ends his run by doing something kind of embarrassingly stupid.

Nightcrawler is a delightful supporting character and I loved an arc set in Ireland where he meets a civilisation of leprechauns living in Banshee's ancestral castle. It's been a real pleasure finally reading these stories.

Twitter Sonnet #1212

Convenient pockets hold a cheesy pen.
In paper tables figures dance to clip.
The boot within the stocking's staying in.
The Ruffle kingdom falls within the dip.
A plume of dust betokens hidden hats.
Collected heaps of swords await a day.
A rumour spread among the sleepless bats.
The mice had found a tiny secret way.
A line of letters fell in pathless books.
The time became a band for broken arms.
In ev'ry seat the cushions make the looks.
For ev'ry gem a rock can have its charms.
Beneath a set of cups were perfect shells.
Beneath a cracking dome were paper bells.