Categories
Movies

X-Men: First Class

X-Men First ClassAs a huge X-Men fan growing up, I had to make sure that I saw X-Men: First Class. I did enjoy the first two X-Men films (the third and Wolverine were complete poop), and was hoping that they could get that franchise back on track.

Having read up on the lineup and basic story online I knew that the movei wouldn’t be following the comics too closely. Since I had known this going in, it didn’t trouble me too much. Yes, I’m that comic book geek know knows when they change things up in movies (why do they have to always do that?)

If you can get past the inaccuracies it was a really good movie. I’m really glad to see another good comic book movie. The story, and characters were great. Taking place during the Cuban missile crisis was a great idea. They were able to work in the good and evil sides forming as well as the hatred that humans would have towards mutants regardless of which side they choose.

Young Magneto and Xavier were really well done. It was great to see their different paths and ideology as well as how they would get to each. My favorite part was Azazel wearing a captains hat while hijacking the Soviet ship. I’m not sure if that was done for humor, but I don’t know why he would need to dress up as a captain aboard a ship of dead people. Excellent movie, go see it.

Categories
Books

X-Men: Second Coming

X-Men: Second ComingI had a 40% off coupon on Borders that I was on a mission to use up. Since I’ve read pretty much every tech book out, I figured I’d attempt to go way back to my roots and try some comics or a graphic novel. I hadn’t really read an X-Men crossover since probably high school, but had heard good things about Second Coming and it was all shiny and hardbound and seemed the perfect candidate for my coupon’s use.

It was a collection of the following issues:

  • Chapter 1: X-Men: Second Coming #1
  • Chapter 2: Uncanny X-Men #523
  • Chapter 3: New Mutants #12
  • Chapter 4: X-Men: Legacy #235
  • Chapter 5: X-Force #26
  • Chapter 6: Uncanny X-Men #524
  • Chapter 7: New Mutants #13
  • Chapter 8: X-Men: Legacy #236
  • Chapter 9: X-Force #27
  • Chapter 10: Uncanny X-Men #525
  • Chapter 11: New Mutants #14
  • Chapter 12: X-Men: Legacy #237
  • Chapter 13: X-Force #28
  • Chapter 14: X-Men: Second Coming #2

There’s plenty of summaries regarding the story, but there were a few moments that really stuck out for me.

Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner) died! He’s been one of my favorite characters since as long as I could remember, and was really bummed when he died. Granted he did die a most noble death that was right in line with his character, it was very sad nonetheless.

I also thought it was really cool when a severely weakened Magneto crawled out of the sick bay to defend the few mutants remaining. He’s always been one of if not my favorite villains, and to see him put the preservation of his species before his own health was pretty awesome. Also even though the Sentinels registered his health around 30% he was still able to rip thru them.

This was one of the darkest stories I’ve read in a while, with a crazy amount of casualties. Extremely good stuff, it really reminded me of why I did enjoy reading comics so very long ago.