No Comic Day, + New X-Movie
Nov. 19th, 2008 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6No comics today, which is becoming rather common. I think I may be down just to two books at the moment. Marvel and DC have really been doing great jobs at driving me away.
Work wasn't bad, showed up earliesh and wasn't too heavy, so, well, I'm done this early, that says it all, pretty much.
In other news, they've announced a movie tentatively titled "X-Men: First Class", dealing with younger mutants. Now, what it's about is unclear, and possibly even subject to change, but let's play the game and think about it, particularly with respect to the characters who may or may not be in it.
I've heard some reports that it's literally about the first class, younger versions of mutants we've already met.
The problem is, unless they plan to completely toss out the continuity and do a reboot (which I suppose they could), that idea doesn't work too well:
Young Jean, fine. Young Scott, fine (although probably boring to most). But you can't have Young Wolverine because he wasn't found until X1. Likewise, Iceman was _very_ young in X1, so you can't use him. Angel was first discovered in X3, so he's out. I suppose you could use Beast, but I got the impression that although he worked with X before he wasn't a member of the team and most of them were unfamiliar with him. So the 'original X-Men' can't actually be the Original X-Men. Who are you left with? Well, I suppose you could retrofit Storm, make her one of the first. Seems a reasonable choice, especially since Halle Berry won't be playing her. Colossus could be a maybe, but again I got the impression he was relatively new (and young) compared to the others. So who else is there? Well, you could use Banshee. Thunderbird maybe, if you wanted somebody to kill off. I don't think Emma was in any of the movies but I might have been blocking out some of X3. Anyway, you could switch things up and have her as an early student and do an Emma/Jean Rivalry plot (if they're trying to skew towards the crowd who likes things like gossip girl, which is not an unreasonable assumption considering they got one of the writers of it for the movie), maybe leading with her to go off on her own. I think she's in the upcoming Wolverine though so there'd have to be some coordination. Still, Jean, Scott, Storm and any of the combination of others (Banshee/Emma and let's even throw in Beast) feels kind of lame as a movie cast.
The other option is to have it be a new group of mutants, and maybe "First Class" referring to it being the first group of young students being solely in the responsibility of one of the older X-Men (obviously, the big box office draw would be Wolverine if they could get him). With this option you could theoretically set it any time between any of the movies with a little recasting, so you could have mutants who appeared in the other movies (like Kitty) as part of their first discovery, but most likely I think they'd set it as the next step, so you'd have to use _mostly_ new ones, maybe with a few who were in the other movie and are now older.
The obvious route here is to plumb the various "Younger X-Men" books. Since the X-Movies have _never_ followed anything approaching the timeline in the books, as regards to character appearances (and in fact I don't think any adaptations of it in cartoons have either), you can mix and match to your heart's content. But here's who I'd like to see, taking into account both the me-likey factor and the "can he be easily translated to film" issues (which leaves out Rockslide, for example). However, I'm sort of writing this 'as it occurs to me', so I might change my mind mid-stream.
Chamber: Because he's visually cool and always a personal fave. The team really needs one "can't pass" mutant, also, and he would be easy to do - he just needs a cool FX shot whenever he opens his bandages.
Pixie: As a maybe, to sort of contrast with Chamber. He's the darker, brooding one, and she's also obvious but light and overactive and happy. Her wings would be pretty easy to do and although some of her 'look' (like her eyes) might have to be ditched in a movie, it's not essential. She also brings in the newest 'era', and allows cross-promotion with the newest comics. (Armor would be another possibility for this)
Kitty Pryde: Also a maybe. For recognizability, mostly, she has wider 'outside-of-comics' from any of the other kid characters (except maybe Jubilee) because she's been in so many of the adaptations. The big problem? Youngish Kitty was in all the X movies and it might be stretching it a bit to still have her a teen (unless you set the movie very shortly after the last, in which case you'd probably have to include Bobby and Rogue.. that might well be the route the movie goes as they'll be more popular and recognizable, but it does not appeal so much to me considering Bobby and Rogue were all over the first three movies).
Monet: A good possibility. Because every teen-focused movie, even with super powers, needs the stuck up rich girl! Also her powers are relatively easy to portray. Super strength, telepathy, and even flight's getting easy to do now. Unfortunately I think as far as Gen-Xers go, to avoid making it an all GenX movie, it's either-or, her or Husk. (also because Husk's most likely used _movie_ ability will be to husk into a form with superstrength/durability, so there's power-crossover too) As much as I like Husk, I think Monet has better prospects in a movie (unless you put Husk and Cannonball and made some brother/sister connection part of the plot?). Or I suppose you could make Magma (as Allison) the 'rich bitch' of the team and Husk as the muscle, but then, well, too many blondes is a worry.
Hellion: Another 'kind of jerky' type, and they've had experience portraying TK.
X-23: This isn't so much a 'want', but if they don't have Wolverine, I think they'd find some reason to put her in there. If not, definitely Wolfsbane would be a good choice - got the whole 'feral' thing going, plus she's a member of the NuMus, which we don't really have yet.
As much as I like them, there is a slight problem with the NuMus - I can't really see most of them in movies, at least not the classics. Cannonball's too hard to do right in live action. Sunspot can be done, but 'super strength' is better encapsulated in other characters. Moonstar's doable, but potentially too much teepage. Still, she's certainly a potential.
I'm sure Cypher, if he appeared at all would only be a background character at best, because Languages aren't Sexy. But I'd like to see him.
Magma and Wolfsbane are doable. Karma maybe if you limit Possession to one other person rather than the mass possession she does in the comics. Magik's story is too complicated (if they reduced her to just a teleporter she could appear but wouldn't be nearly so interesting). Later characters like Rictor, Boom-Boom, Skids, or Rusty could each work but with the exception of Boom-Boom none really interest me. So in my ideal choice, I'd have Wolfsbane (and no X-23) but probably none of the others.
Hmmm... maybe I'd make my ideal list:
Chamber, Magma (as the rich girl), Synch (power copying always helpful), Husk, Wolfsbane, Hellion, Pixie, Kitty if I could, Cypher (as the more human type and maybe as super-hacker that he figures out he can be halfway through the movie).
I'm still iffy on Magma, considering replacing her with Monet. But with Magma we have 3 from each 'era' of teen books (plus Kitty, kinda the first X-Teen sidekick). On the other hand, Magma is fire-based, and although Chamber's powers are different, from a _movie_ perspective, they'd probably come off about the same. So if we're going to have functional-powerset-crossover anyway, I think I'd rather do it with Monet. She can also better play the "I'm not only rich and beautiful but I've also got more/better powers than you" game. Yeah, what the hell, screw symmetry, give me Monet instead of Magma.
Work wasn't bad, showed up earliesh and wasn't too heavy, so, well, I'm done this early, that says it all, pretty much.
In other news, they've announced a movie tentatively titled "X-Men: First Class", dealing with younger mutants. Now, what it's about is unclear, and possibly even subject to change, but let's play the game and think about it, particularly with respect to the characters who may or may not be in it.
I've heard some reports that it's literally about the first class, younger versions of mutants we've already met.
The problem is, unless they plan to completely toss out the continuity and do a reboot (which I suppose they could), that idea doesn't work too well:
Young Jean, fine. Young Scott, fine (although probably boring to most). But you can't have Young Wolverine because he wasn't found until X1. Likewise, Iceman was _very_ young in X1, so you can't use him. Angel was first discovered in X3, so he's out. I suppose you could use Beast, but I got the impression that although he worked with X before he wasn't a member of the team and most of them were unfamiliar with him. So the 'original X-Men' can't actually be the Original X-Men. Who are you left with? Well, I suppose you could retrofit Storm, make her one of the first. Seems a reasonable choice, especially since Halle Berry won't be playing her. Colossus could be a maybe, but again I got the impression he was relatively new (and young) compared to the others. So who else is there? Well, you could use Banshee. Thunderbird maybe, if you wanted somebody to kill off. I don't think Emma was in any of the movies but I might have been blocking out some of X3. Anyway, you could switch things up and have her as an early student and do an Emma/Jean Rivalry plot (if they're trying to skew towards the crowd who likes things like gossip girl, which is not an unreasonable assumption considering they got one of the writers of it for the movie), maybe leading with her to go off on her own. I think she's in the upcoming Wolverine though so there'd have to be some coordination. Still, Jean, Scott, Storm and any of the combination of others (Banshee/Emma and let's even throw in Beast) feels kind of lame as a movie cast.
The other option is to have it be a new group of mutants, and maybe "First Class" referring to it being the first group of young students being solely in the responsibility of one of the older X-Men (obviously, the big box office draw would be Wolverine if they could get him). With this option you could theoretically set it any time between any of the movies with a little recasting, so you could have mutants who appeared in the other movies (like Kitty) as part of their first discovery, but most likely I think they'd set it as the next step, so you'd have to use _mostly_ new ones, maybe with a few who were in the other movie and are now older.
The obvious route here is to plumb the various "Younger X-Men" books. Since the X-Movies have _never_ followed anything approaching the timeline in the books, as regards to character appearances (and in fact I don't think any adaptations of it in cartoons have either), you can mix and match to your heart's content. But here's who I'd like to see, taking into account both the me-likey factor and the "can he be easily translated to film" issues (which leaves out Rockslide, for example). However, I'm sort of writing this 'as it occurs to me', so I might change my mind mid-stream.
Chamber: Because he's visually cool and always a personal fave. The team really needs one "can't pass" mutant, also, and he would be easy to do - he just needs a cool FX shot whenever he opens his bandages.
Pixie: As a maybe, to sort of contrast with Chamber. He's the darker, brooding one, and she's also obvious but light and overactive and happy. Her wings would be pretty easy to do and although some of her 'look' (like her eyes) might have to be ditched in a movie, it's not essential. She also brings in the newest 'era', and allows cross-promotion with the newest comics. (Armor would be another possibility for this)
Kitty Pryde: Also a maybe. For recognizability, mostly, she has wider 'outside-of-comics' from any of the other kid characters (except maybe Jubilee) because she's been in so many of the adaptations. The big problem? Youngish Kitty was in all the X movies and it might be stretching it a bit to still have her a teen (unless you set the movie very shortly after the last, in which case you'd probably have to include Bobby and Rogue.. that might well be the route the movie goes as they'll be more popular and recognizable, but it does not appeal so much to me considering Bobby and Rogue were all over the first three movies).
Monet: A good possibility. Because every teen-focused movie, even with super powers, needs the stuck up rich girl! Also her powers are relatively easy to portray. Super strength, telepathy, and even flight's getting easy to do now. Unfortunately I think as far as Gen-Xers go, to avoid making it an all GenX movie, it's either-or, her or Husk. (also because Husk's most likely used _movie_ ability will be to husk into a form with superstrength/durability, so there's power-crossover too) As much as I like Husk, I think Monet has better prospects in a movie (unless you put Husk and Cannonball and made some brother/sister connection part of the plot?). Or I suppose you could make Magma (as Allison) the 'rich bitch' of the team and Husk as the muscle, but then, well, too many blondes is a worry.
Hellion: Another 'kind of jerky' type, and they've had experience portraying TK.
X-23: This isn't so much a 'want', but if they don't have Wolverine, I think they'd find some reason to put her in there. If not, definitely Wolfsbane would be a good choice - got the whole 'feral' thing going, plus she's a member of the NuMus, which we don't really have yet.
As much as I like them, there is a slight problem with the NuMus - I can't really see most of them in movies, at least not the classics. Cannonball's too hard to do right in live action. Sunspot can be done, but 'super strength' is better encapsulated in other characters. Moonstar's doable, but potentially too much teepage. Still, she's certainly a potential.
I'm sure Cypher, if he appeared at all would only be a background character at best, because Languages aren't Sexy. But I'd like to see him.
Magma and Wolfsbane are doable. Karma maybe if you limit Possession to one other person rather than the mass possession she does in the comics. Magik's story is too complicated (if they reduced her to just a teleporter she could appear but wouldn't be nearly so interesting). Later characters like Rictor, Boom-Boom, Skids, or Rusty could each work but with the exception of Boom-Boom none really interest me. So in my ideal choice, I'd have Wolfsbane (and no X-23) but probably none of the others.
Hmmm... maybe I'd make my ideal list:
Chamber, Magma (as the rich girl), Synch (power copying always helpful), Husk, Wolfsbane, Hellion, Pixie, Kitty if I could, Cypher (as the more human type and maybe as super-hacker that he figures out he can be halfway through the movie).
I'm still iffy on Magma, considering replacing her with Monet. But with Magma we have 3 from each 'era' of teen books (plus Kitty, kinda the first X-Teen sidekick). On the other hand, Magma is fire-based, and although Chamber's powers are different, from a _movie_ perspective, they'd probably come off about the same. So if we're going to have functional-powerset-crossover anyway, I think I'd rather do it with Monet. She can also better play the "I'm not only rich and beautiful but I've also got more/better powers than you" game. Yeah, what the hell, screw symmetry, give me Monet instead of Magma.
