Actually, I could see a '70s set Blaxploitation style Blade movie being pretty good. I'd probably be more interested in that than if he was just another modern day monster hunter.
Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread
- Thread starter bbjeg
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The X-Men in the comics have a ton of other stories that deal with other things. That's the point. My point isn't to address the metaphor, just that the first movie doesn't have to start with them as a well-known substitute for oppressed minority groups. The comics developed it over decades. The movies have always felt that they had to start with that development already done.
Havok and Polaris had been X-Men three issues earlier (fun fact, Polaris wasn't Polaris until that issue). Honestly, the quote was from Trask (iirc) who probably didn't even know about the All-New, All-Different Team at this point.
Glad to hear that. I just wish they would announce some release dates.
Thank you. #94 (IIRC, that's the one when the new team was first introduced) was the only issue I didn't have until well into the Phoenix story. I remember #95, because that had the brilliant opening when they were falling towards the ground.
But surely Magneto wasn't an X-Man?!? Or had he been at some point before he broke with Charles?
Magneto wasn't an X-Man but I think he was de-aged to a baby at that point so I could see why he wasn't counted. The conversation was in the context of whether the government believed mutants to be a threat.
Except that this was not always a part of the X-Men. Originally, Stan Lee just invented the idea of a group of mutants so he didn't have to come up with origin stories for each of the different characters. The idea of mutants as discriminated minorities around the world is a later one.
I really like the metaphor and I think it is an important one; however, the X-Men can easily start out as a group without the concept of mutants with powers being known to the world at large. There could be an MCU event that activates mutant powers outside of the core group of characters, for example, and that event could serve to draw in the rest of the MCU characters.
Anti-mutant hysteria may not have been there right from the very first issue, but Hank and Bobby ran into their first mob of bigots in issue 8.
http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/uncanny_xmen_8.shtml
And the first sentinel story started in issue 14.
http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/uncanny_xmen_1416.shtml
So yeah, it's been there pretty much from the beginning if not the very, very beginning.
http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/uncanny_xmen_8.shtml
And the first sentinel story started in issue 14.
http://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/uncanny_xmen_1416.shtml
So yeah, it's been there pretty much from the beginning if not the very, very beginning.
Not to mention that it was still pretty early in the silver age when they started inventing the backstories for the individual characters before they were X-Men - backstories which included Iceman being literally attacked and nearly lynched (the local sheriff literally arrested him 'for his own protection') for using his powers to protect a girl from being attacked.
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Yeah, I had a reprint of that Sentinel issue somewhere. But my point being, as far as movies go, the X-Men can be introduced in a movie without dealing with the great mutant storyline, which has already been handled extensively in the movies. Somebody upthread discussed the solution: have the idea of mutants in the world be something that is just happening now with the X-Men being part of the first wave.
The Dark Phoenix Saga is probably the most "classic" X-Men story of all time, and it has pretty much nothing to do with the minority metaphor. The issue is how would a film distinguish the X-Men from any other superhero team if you don't go the allegory route, so that they don't come off as Avengers-lite. But even as I say that, I realize the obvious route would be the focus on the school aspect.
Wait, you think the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby run was one of the book's *worst* eras?
With the news that it'll include Kate Bishop, that's pretty much guaranteed. Though I wonder how they'd pull that off, considering how utterly different MCU and comic Hawkeyes are, both in personality and life situation.
Wait, you think the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby run was one of the book's *worst* eras?
With the news that it'll include Kate Bishop, that's pretty much guaranteed. Though I wonder how they'd pull that off, considering how utterly different MCU and comic Hawkeyes are, both in personality and life situation.
Yes. Since comics are serial fiction and the characters and worlds are made up as they go, it takes time for them to settle into what they're really, centrally about. Superman and Batman may have both been killers in their first year or two of existence, but by the early '40s they'd evolved into more ethical, emphatically non-lethal heroes, and that was the template they've followed for the rest of their histories. The Fantastic Four were based in "Central City" in their first issue, but were soon established as New Yorkers, and that's been an intrinsic part of who they've been ever since (plus they didn't start wearing costumes until issue 3). So it can take a year or two for embryonic comics characters/series to find themselves. The stuff in the earliest issues is just a rough draft.
So? Something doesn't have to be the exclusive focus of every single storyline in order to be an important part of the series overall. There are a number of Superman stories that don't involve Lois Lane, but it would be absurd to argue that Lois is therefore a nonessential part of the story.
That doesn't sound like a surprising opinion to me. It's generally agreed that the original run of X-Men was not one of Lee & Kirby's greatest accomplishments, that it was just kind of an also-ran book, and that it didn't achieve greatness until the relaunch under Wein, Claremont, Cockrum, Byrne, etc.
I'm not particularly rooting for an X-Men film without that element. In fact, my dream would be a film that really leans into the more radical Scott Summers-as-Che-Guevara stuff that was being done around 2010. I'm just exploring the thought experiment of a film that doesn't play up the metaphor, and how one would handle that.
He was talking about the F4, not the X-Men.
I think any concerns about mutants fitting into the MCU are overblown. Remember how the Homecoming film established that the Avengers film was eight years earlier, which makes absolutely no sense, but ultimately no one was too bothered by that because who cares? If Marvel can get away with that, it knows damn well it can get away with "mutants have been around for a while now, but they just never came up."
It had important and iconic moments and characters, but its writing is garbage. Good stories, bad writing of the stories basically. The character writing was atrocious, Stan Lee always wrote some of the worst, most stereotypical 60s women in Marvel comics and it is painful in FF to read stuff involving Sue and Sue/Reed together. I think this was when Stan had more of a hand in directly writing it, but trying to read the FF or the original X-Men when Lee was involved with them is basically an exercise in the worst 60s attitudes towards women, among other 60s tropes like evil communists, etc. He grew a bit less terrible at that as time went by, and its not as noticeable in stuff like Spider-Man so I think some of it must have been Kirby, but the 60s as a time period were not a great time for the FF.
Also, when 60s FF isn't making me cringe, its rather boring from a writing perspective. The ideas are generally really good, but its just not usually interesting to read. That's just my opinion, though. As important as Stan Lee is, outside of Spider-Man I always find comics with his name on it to be a mixed bag. Great ideas, but the actual quality of the books varies wildly, with some comics holding up and some aging terribly.
If you ask a lot of the writers currently on X-Books, one of the things they point to is found family. The Avengers are co-workers, the X-Men are family. But, unlike the Fantastic Four, it's a family of people not related to each other who become family because of something they have in common.
Honestly, my suggestion for an X-Men movie is to make it Cyclops focused. Start with the plane crash, him in an orphanage, etc. and make Mr. Sinister the villain. Genetics and mutation would obviously be key but the metaphor doesn't have to be the biggest focus. Obviously, Scott is treated differently because he shoots uncontrollable concussive blasts out of his eyes, but we can table any proposals for a Mutant Registration Act until after the characters have been established.
I suppose my thoughts are mostly in reaction to those that think the X-Men can't work unless they have some kind of interdimensional universe colliding story that alters reality so the X-Men have always been there or just keep the X-Men entirely separate and not part of the MCU.
They've announced two new non-fiction Marvel series coming to Disney+.
Marvel Hero Project focuses on young people who are bringing about positive change in their communities.
The other series is using the working title Marvel 616, and will deal with how the comics relate to things going on in the real world.
Not sure about Hero Project, but 616 sounds like it could be really interesting.
Marvel Hero Project focuses on young people who are bringing about positive change in their communities.
The other series is using the working title Marvel 616, and will deal with how the comics relate to things going on in the real world.
Not sure about Hero Project, but 616 sounds like it could be really interesting.
Peggy Carter is back! The What If? series will launch with "What If Peggy Carter became a super soldier?"
http://themarvelreport.com/2019/04/...ZUsIsYonF05PepKQ3YhG9G85x-KFZP5_u2-J1LV41Uy0I
http://themarvelreport.com/2019/04/...ZUsIsYonF05PepKQ3YhG9G85x-KFZP5_u2-J1LV41Uy0I
Isn't that also a story in Exiles too?