1st Chance: When I was in middle school, it was Marvel or nothing. And as far as super heroes went, they didn't come any better than Spider-Man. I still enjoy a good Spider-Man yarn when I stumble across one, but lately my tastes have shifted to Frank Miller-era Daredevil stories and any Batman graphic novels I can get my hands on at the local library. I've recently dabbled in Captain America, and I've tried some old Chris Claremont Wolverine comics, but they are verrrrry hit or miss. And then, last week, I was visited by a random thought: "Hey, Matt, maybe it's time to give the X-Men a second chance. You have to admit you didn't give them a fair shake back in the day." Let me explain.The thought itself probably wasn't all that random, if I'm being honest. There is a new X-Men movie currently playing in theaters all over the country. However, I was never an X-Men fan. My best friend was. At the time--the Jim Lee-era, I'll call it--it seemed like everybody was, which is probably why I rebelled and threw my metaphorical hat into Spider-Man's ring. And, yes I realize how dumb that sounds considering Spider-Man is one of most beloved comic book super heroes in the world, second only to Batman probably. See, I have this thing in me that won't let me embrace something if everyone around me loves it. It's a dumb thing, but there it is. I usually come around, but I have to do so on my own terms. It's the reason I refused to watch Scrubs,* ignored the New Pornographers,** and preached the superiority of Cracked over MAD.*** I should've loved X-Men--all those cool, bizzaro mutants--but I shunned them, unfairly, much like the distrustful non-mutant characters on the pages of X-Men itself.
2nd Chance: The idea of an X-Men movie probably sent legions of neck-bearded mouth-breathers into nerdy hysterics in 2000. I would experience my own nerdgasm moment four years later with the release of Spider-Man 2 (I didn't care for 2002's Spider-Man, though upon a second viewing a few years later...well, perhaps that story is best left for a future post). When Bryan Singer's X-Men movie arrived though, I couldn't have cared less. I liked Wolverine (who didn't?) and I thought Gambit was pretty cool (though not so cool I felt the need to whine and shake my nerdy fists at the heavens when it was announced he would not make an appearance), but I wasn't counting down the days until its release or anything. I saw it. It was OK. I saw X2 three years later. It was fine. Couldn't tell you anything that happened, but it was fine. Saw The Last Stand three more years later. Thought it was all right. Didn't get why some people absolutely hated it. So, Brett Ratner directed. Weren't there more important things to worry about? Weren't we still searching for Bin Laden at this point? And swine flu? Was swine flu a thing then? Whatever. The X-Men movies were fine, summer distractions, but they did not ignite a desire within me to seek out the X-Men comics I had ignored as a boy. I still liked Wolverine and that was enough for me.
3rd Chance: So, last week I saw this X-Men: First Class movie. Here are the things I liked:
2nd Chance: The idea of an X-Men movie probably sent legions of neck-bearded mouth-breathers into nerdy hysterics in 2000. I would experience my own nerdgasm moment four years later with the release of Spider-Man 2 (I didn't care for 2002's Spider-Man, though upon a second viewing a few years later...well, perhaps that story is best left for a future post). When Bryan Singer's X-Men movie arrived though, I couldn't have cared less. I liked Wolverine (who didn't?) and I thought Gambit was pretty cool (though not so cool I felt the need to whine and shake my nerdy fists at the heavens when it was announced he would not make an appearance), but I wasn't counting down the days until its release or anything. I saw it. It was OK. I saw X2 three years later. It was fine. Couldn't tell you anything that happened, but it was fine. Saw The Last Stand three more years later. Thought it was all right. Didn't get why some people absolutely hated it. So, Brett Ratner directed. Weren't there more important things to worry about? Weren't we still searching for Bin Laden at this point? And swine flu? Was swine flu a thing then? Whatever. The X-Men movies were fine, summer distractions, but they did not ignite a desire within me to seek out the X-Men comics I had ignored as a boy. I still liked Wolverine and that was enough for me.
3rd Chance: So, last week I saw this X-Men: First Class movie. Here are the things I liked:1. I liked that it was set in the 1960's and that it incorporated an actual historic event, the Cuban Missile Crisis (Is that 'spoiler alert' worthy? Probably not. I think that's common knowledge going in.). I like things that take real events and inject them with the fantastical (i.e. Inglourious Basterds; Susanna Clark's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell).
2. I enjoyed James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as Professor X and Magneto respectively.
3. I'm a big fan of Matthew Vaughn's films Layer Cake and Kick-Ass. He's a good director. He did a nice job.
Here are a few things I didn't like so much:
1. I liked the sweeping nature of the story, but it sure took a long time to form anything resembling a story. I get it. It's a reboot, a do-over, we're gonna get the origin stories, but the first thirty minutes or so just sort of meandered. All that wandering around grew tiresome.
2. January Jones is awful. I've never seen Mad Men, so I don't know, but is that, like, what she does? Is that her thing? She just seemed kind of bored. And she's attractive and all, but Emma Frost always seemed so sexy and dangerous to me when I was a kid. January Jones is not sexy. Forgive me for sounding pervy outside of our popular Perving Out column, but she just didn't have the ass for the White Queen.
3. And, hey, X-Men: First Class writers, it's 2011. You're sure you want to kill off one of the black X-Men and then have the other one turn evil? That's really how you want to play it?
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed X-Men: First Class way more than Thor, but it didn't set my world on fire. What it did do though is finally push me to give the X-Men comics a chance. So far I've only read two compilations of something called The New X-Men, which I guess is a recent attempt to "hip up" the franchise or whatever, but it wasn't bad. I really want to get ahold of the older stuff, the stories that made my best friend in junior high such a fanboy. I'm finally ready to give these mutants a chance. Well, most of them. I don't care for this one called Maggot. He seems dumb and gross.
*I eventually watched Scrubs. I hated it.
**I bought their latest, but I haven't listened to it.
***They're actually both equally dumb.
