X Men First Class

This is a rare film that can please both the film viewer and the comic nerd at the same time. This is a well told tale with exciting characters that intergrate our history with superheroes. It is also a tale that keeps the general character arcs intact from the comic books but reimagines them in a new way.

The story is how a young Professor X and Magneto first met. They are brought together because another mutant, Sebastian Shaw, is behind the Cuban Missile Crisis and it's hoped that other mutants can stop him. They gather a team of young mutants and train them and try to help them put aside their personal problems before going to war. The story itself is fast, but never sloppy. It plays almost like an early James Bond film but with mutants.

Since the eighties we've known that Magneto was a concentration camp survivor. This gives him a very different point of view from Professor X who was raised in the lap of luxury. Magneto, aka Eric, feels that mutants have to strike first before the new camps are created. It gives his villainy a certain justification. While we naturally tend to be on the side of Professor X "Let's all hold hands and sing Kumbaya" I think I'm not the only viewer who didn't exactly trust the Professor. His intentions were obviously good, but he seemed very shallow. For example, he takes care of Mystique which is of course nice rising her like a step sister but he is just very condenscending to her and her concerns over her natural shape. It's only at the very end to we realize just what he is willing to do for his dream.

Sabastian Shaw is a great villain specially as played by Kevin Bacon. He's smart, he's rich, and he's very powerful. There's a scene where he and his mutants take out a CIA facility that is just awesome. I have to admit it's also awesome to see Kevin Bacon speaking German. I really can't find too much fault with this film. The only thing I can think of off hand is that I like neither Emma Frost's diamond form or the look of the Beast here. For some reason both seem a little off to me. But that's a very small criticism of a very good film.

XXXenophile

Phil Foglio isn't a household name though I think he should be.  He's an artist and a writer and just plain funny.  I first saw his work in Dragon magazine where he gleefully lampooned the world of Dungeons & Dragons.  The long running gag of strip was that they were always interrupted from doing their "Sex and D&D strip" by some absurd crisis.  Well a few years later when on his own he did do his version of "Sex and D&D" among other strange things with his magazing "XXXenophile."

Now I'm not prudish by nature, but neither am I too interested in Porn.  What I have seen I generally found boring.  There is more sexual tension and heat in some burger commercials than most porn.  "XXXenophile" though was a horse of a different color.  It was actually funny, and often as not oddly sweet.  It played more like a cross between cheers and the twilight zone with a whole lot of T&A.  The playful spirit is best scene in the cover where a lady is reclined in bed with little paper buildings all over her body and the fellow next to the bed is zipping up a godzilla suit.

If you are of age and in good humor it wouldn't hurt to look up a back issue of XXXenophile.  If you like Phil's humor (he's as funny in real life I can tell you that) you should definitely check out the tamer "Genius Girl."

Blackest Night

I finally got a collected edition of the first bit of the "Blackest Night" story line. Of course with the Green Lantern movie coming out the folks at DC decide to change everything. Makes perfect sense to me. Now there isn't just green rings, but there are rings of color of the rainbow including black which isn't a color unless you are goth or a comic book writer.

The idea of blackest night is fairly simple. It's marvel zombies with power rings. A bunch of stiffs are given black rings and can come back to terrorize the living. The collection I have has Batman and Robin being terrorized by undead parents and the Teen Titans being terrorized by zombies of past friends, lovers, and villains.

Ok, the idea has some appeal, but as I noted marvel zombies has already trampled this bit of unreal estate. Also, it just doesn't hang well with the past. Why do the black rings now? It just seems rather scatter shot overall.

Hercules Secret Invasion

The Spiderman musical might be the final nail on the coffin of super heroes in mass media, but it won't be the first.  There have always been troubles in adapting comic book properties to the screen.  One problem, is that comic books have gone on even as most people grew up and stopped reading them.  Most people would be surprised to know for example that batman was considered dead for a bit and has a son.  Trying to reconcile the present with the nostalgia most people have for comics is always a challenge.

Another challenge are the "Big" events.  Comic book publishers have long ago discovered that their base is very suggestible (dare I say gullible?) and with a little prompting they can be counted on buying issues of magazines they don't usually buy.  Hence, huge events that occur through out that comic "universe" and you wind up having to buy ten different titles to follow the story.

Which brings us to Hercules:  Secret Invasion.  In the Marvel Universe, Hercules is super strong generally fun loving and less smart than Thor but smarter the Hulk.  He's a walking frat party in a leather dress who can crush a tank on his forehead.  As fascinating as this might sound he's never been on Marvel's A list but has bounced around for years. 

The Secret Invasion was a big event in which the skrulls, shape shifting aliens with a bad case of finger chin, seriously try to conquer the earth.  The big draw was that skrulls have been infiltrating the earth in the shape of various characters that the heroes of the earth call friend and family.  So you read it to see who was going to betray who.  Is Aunt May a skrull?   You better buy amazing spiderman #346 to find out.

These two things, a Greek geek god and a sf invasion, don't seem to work together.  The writers of Hercules though came up with a rather fun idea.  The basic plot is Athena gathers the Earthly Gods (who aren't God Gods, but more like super power prod nosers that can't resist meddling and property damage) to do their bit to stop the invasion.  Athena's plan is to gather a "god Squad" and go to where the Skrull Gods and kill them.
Hercules is in charge, followed by his mortal friend who is supposed very smart, Snowbird a Canadian Goddess Hero, Ajak who is a loser of a loser from the old Eternals comic, the Japanese god of darkness, and the God Eater. 

As you might imagine having Hercules lead this crew might not be the wisest of things and at no time whatsoever they get lost and have to go to Nightmare for directions.  Things get worse from there.  It's all a good excuse for a series of beat downs of godly proportions.  Some of the ideas are good, and some bits of dialog are choice.  Overall though, it doesn't hang together.