Amph X-Men Movies & TV - Discussion

Squirrel Girl is not an X-Men character, she is an Avenger.

 

She did hook up with Wolverine once though...

 

You've just explained why I haven't seen the last couple X-Men movies and why I'll never see another one.

 

People who can't get movie and comics are separate continuities? Yeah, they get on my nerves too, but they're a minority.

 

Who says he needs a gun? His name's Cable. He should shoot coax out his forearms.

 

And, IIRC, Cable's Summers-connection was never even hinted at during the 90's cartoon. So I guess they could get away with making whatever they want out of him. He could even be Cyclops' daddy this time around.

Yeah, I've come to accept that differences between continuities and who's supposed to be who. I may not like it, but, seriously, there's so many elements and characters from the comics that just can't (or shouldn't ever) be brought to the silver screen. Case in point, Apocalypse and Sinister, to name few.

 

Sinister would actually work quite well for an X-Men movie. Don't see why you're so against him. Make him Dr. Nathanial Essex, a geneticist trying to make a pure mutant bloodline. Give him a henchman or two, they kidnap a few mutants, run some experiments. Boom, X-Men save the day. Not that complicated.

As for Apocalypse, well my dream is an X-Men Age of Apocalypse trilogy where Apoc has taken over Earth by the end of the 2nd and the 3rd movie is spent half 10-20 years in the future where surviving X-Men send someone back in time and they interact with characters and events from the first film a la Back to the Future 2. It would never happen of course but I can dream...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7x79bY7E-Y&feature=player_detailpage#t=114s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7x79bY7E-Y&feature=player_detailpage#t=307s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3IJ9KM_hKY&feature=player_detailpage#t=14s

 

You're right: it'll never happen.

And yeah, you could introduce a Dr. Nathan Essex into the mix without his stupid supervillain name (I'm sorry, but "Mr. Sinister" is as punny and lame as supervillain names go). As for his look, first time I saw him I said "what's with this evil Colossus lookalike with the funny cape?". Again, certain comic book thingies we might take for granted simply don't work too well IRL.

 

To be fair, Sinister was created to be lame and over the top; he was initially supposed to be the product of a mutant child's imagination, his idea of what a "supervillain" is.

 

He was brilliant in the 90s animated series, and pretty much the best villain that show had. He looked evil, had cool powers, owned an island with lots of evil mutant henchmen and teamed up with Apocalypse at one time. No-one criticises Joker for looking stupid because he's a great villain, no reason why Sinister can't work either.

I'd prefer Apocalypse but it just isn't practical to have a nearly immortal super-being in a movie about humans with powers.

 

The Joker is a relatively simple concept: Madman with a penchant for showmanship that looks like a clown. That's oversimplifying the character but it appropriately summarizes why his look works - simplicity. Its also heavily based on a familiar real world concept of clowns, something a lot of people already find creepy.

Sinister is far less simple and attempts to boil it down to something simpler and make the character more credible (Ultimate X-Men) simply diminish the character's potency.

 

Catching up a little but please God never let Cable sully an X-Men movie.

 

Gee...thanks for reminding me how cringing goddam awful that series was.

Admittedly, I didn't see that particular episode (for the "awfulness" reason stated above). Regardless, the "hinting" in regards to any Summers-Grey connection with Cable is so vague in those scenes that only those with any insight into the whole sordid history are privy to it.

Anyhoo, Cable's history has so much "Terminator" or otherwise cliched-to-death-time-travel inspired crap that it'd ruin the tone the X-films -- and First Class in particular -- have set.

JoinTheSchwarz: Yes, I remember Claremont's intended origin for Sinister. In all honesty, I'm not sure that what we got instead was any better.

 

That 90s episode shows exactly why Apocalypse shouldn't feature in a movie, look how easily he defeats a whole bunch of mutants without even taking damage.

Personally I don't find Cable interesting, he's just a time-traveling guy with fancy weapons (as the Terminator reference stated). I prefer guys who have super-human abilities not action heroes with implants.




Never quite get the hate on the X-Men 90s series, sure the animation was crude but it had good stories and featured most of the best characters from the comics. Plus it had a great theme tune and opening credits. It's no Batman AS, but it's not bad.

 

'Cept for Kitty, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Iceman, Angel, Havok, Polaris, Psylocke, not to mention other teams like The New Mutants or Excalibur etc (No the brief one-off cameos don't count). The characters they did feature are either incredibly over-rated (Rogue, Gambit), obnoxiously adapted (Jubilee, Morph/Changeling) or pale comparisons of their comic counterpart (Storm). Even the remaining characters were remarkably one dimensional with rare instances of complexity ruined by terrible performances. The majority of stories were poorly told re-tellings of the original comic stories with shallow characterization, horrendous voice acting and the aforementioned shoddy animation. I've never understand why it garners so much praise among fanboys.

Not to say that it wasn't enjoyable at times, and I wouldn't go so far as to call it entirely terrible, but I really don't think its as good as people remember it being.

 

I can attest to this point with firsthand experience. I was introduced to the X-Men by the televised series, and remember seeing this episode (and all the others featuring Cable) before I had even seen a comic book in real life before. I never took the slightest hint that those scenes were supposed to hint at Cable being related to any of the current X-Men. Even in retrospect, those scenes have rationalizations that work well outside that context. It was very much a dog whistle sort of moment.

 

Wow.

As someone who grew up with this show and Batman, I greatly enjoyed both. Sure the animation wasn't perfect. Though frankly, I enjoyed it more than their attempts to fix it in the final season. And sure some of the voice actors REALLY overdid it. But I suppose growing up with those voices, I never had such a huge issue. Kitty did never show and I'm not sure why that was. But Colossus and Nightcrawler appeared twice. Iceman once along with Havok and Polaris (as you mentioned). Angel had about a half dozen episodes by my count (the angel to archangel stuff was about 3 episodes. He had one where he tried to take down Apocalypse's ship. He appeared in the big stop Apocalypse from destroying time arc)

But I have all the dvds. And the first season had crude animation it's true. And the dialogue could be over the top. Storm loved to monologue (I always enjoyed Rogue's "Lighten up on the speeches sugah" remark). Wolverine was good. I enjoyed Rogue's weird southern phrases. Beast was always spouting a famous poem or literary piece which was always interesting. But the stories were good at their core. And as the show progressed, the stories got even better (even if the voice acting didn't). This was really one of the first animated superhero shows to take on a lot of the more "out there" things like space and aliens. We didn't have Superman or Justice League until much later. Fantastic Four and Iron Man season 1 were far worse than X-Men. Spider-Man was ok but did have some convoluted stories. Batman's animation and voice acting weren't always perfect either. That show got much better with time and tightened up it's animation later on as well. Batman also benefited from a better budget and the popularity of a movie. For its time, the 90s X-Men accomplished a lot.

That said, Cal Dodd remains Wolverine for me.

 

I didn't say characters like Nightcrawler and Colossus didn't appear, but that wasn't my point. Of those that appeared, they quite often received only token episodes, they were caricatures at best (especially Colossus) and when their episodes were finished, most were gone and forgotten. They were never continuous members of the team. So no I wouldn't say that the most best characters were on the team. The absence of Kitty altogether is just sad.

I will grant that Angel probably had the best story of all the characters, but once again he was more of a recurring cameo than a member of the team itself.

 

I don't think that's necessarily a good measure of the show's quality, though. How many film adaptations have we seen suffer from the "include everyone" dictate (see also: any fighting game movie ever)? The absence of Kitty specifically is regrettable and didn't make a lot of sense, I'll grant you. But X-Men has a dizzying number of characters in its cast. What matters is whether they told decent stories with the characters they chose to use.

They were retreads of earlier stories, yes. But that's a pretty common feature among adaptations. They also made some fairly bold choices for a children's action cartoon. In particular, Beast's decision to trust the American legal system, or Nightcrawler's portrayal as a member of a religious order. I'll admit that their work was often ham-fisted, overwrought, or shallow. But they made serious attempts to address substantive topics in ways that no one save Dini's better-funded Batman was doing at the time, and which still is not the norm even today.

 

The only thing I see wrong with the X-Men cartoon is that now that I am not 8 years old, everything seems like its moving in slow motion.

 

Why does Shadowcat have to feature? Personally I don't much rate her as a character, she's generally annoying and despite her cool power doesn't offer much. Plus given how much the cartoon hammed up some stuff, it would've been worse with Lockheed added in.
She's either a bratty kid or a teenager with a crush on a bunch of older guys and that would only add dull stuff into an action story that wasn't needed.


She wasn't very good in the X-Men movies either

 

I am not dismissing some of the bolder choices they made, nor am I saying the show is without merit. My statements about the characters weren't really meant as a commentary on the quality of the show, but rather a counter-argument that the show featured the best characters in the roster as Richie suggests. IMO most of the best characters were either brief in their appearance, pale comparisons of their comic counterparts or missing altogether. I am also not asking for every character ever, just that certain characters (particularly those that helped define the franchise and make it popular) are appropriately treated.

EDIT: Richie, your understanding of the character seems limited to only the first few years of her appearances, not the full scope of the character's growth.

Kitty is perhaps one of the most fascinating characters on the team whose growth from scared child dealing with her changing body, to an intelligent, capable and confident adult is the very essence of what makes X-Men such a powerful and interesting franchise. She's become an almost indispensable member of the team overcoming a powerset that almost lacks any offensive capabilities. Not to mention her relationship to certain key members of the team plays a huge role in very human interactions of the team that make them so fascinating and interesting to read.

Her diminished role in the films is a testament to how under-appreciated she is, yet she stands as one of the few worthwhile parts of X-Men the Last Stand.

 

The 90s cartoon will always be a guilty pleasure to me and a large part of the reason I started reading Marvel comics; I liked the Batman series better, but X-Men hinted to a larger universe beyond the series. When I was 14 I adored the absurdly complex time travel episodes (and the Bishop and Cable two-parter predicted/inspired the future Messiah Complex event), the social undertones, and the character of Magneto. Sure I hate how Jubilee was given the role and personality of Kitty Pryde, but they were trying to cash on the popularity of the Jim Lee design so I can accept this.

The animation quality went downhill in just a couple of episodes, though.

 

Unless I'm wrong the remnants of The New Mutants had already become X-Force at the time the show first aired. IIRC, the government version of X-Factor (with Havok and Polaris) also appeared once, but I can't recall if the Summers bros. had any major interaction there.

Regardless, the above sums up pretty nicely my feelings on that particular kiddie show. It doesn't help that at the time I was pretty ingrained in the goings on of the comic X-mutant universe and the show was pretty damn subpar as far as the depiction of the characters or major classic stories was concerned. But again, it was a show meant for a younger audience and, unfortunately, its nature meant that quality and fidelity to the source material would suffer heavily.

Edit: Richie: Do NOT diss the ShadowCat. Kitty Pryde is, quite frankly, one of the best X-Men to ever don the uniform and the most human member of the team. Why she wasn't a part of the series? I guess it's quite simple: she simply wasn't a mmaber of the core X-Men times at the time the series was out, while at the time the most juvenile member of the X-Men was Ms. Jubilation Lee, for better or worse.