Review: Uncanny X-Men #18

April 16, 2014 by X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

Uncanny X-Men #18The alternate title for this issue is ‘let’s see how much emotional trauma to Cyclops we can pack into a single issue’.

This issue jumps all over the place both with  the storyline and the art. We have a lot of pick up, filling in the missing moments from the past in-universe days. This is what happens when you have the same writer writing two titles so intricately tied together. He’s treating Uncanny X-Men and All-New X-Men like one title rather than two separate. So when there is an event that effects one title, instead of just touching the other title, it actually throws a wrench in it.

There are a few gem moments, like where Scott tells his younger self to swear off all women. But mostly it’s just a mess of stuff trying to get us to feel sorry for Cyclops…

or something…

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Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E18 “Providence”

April 16, 2014 by X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

shield-providence-11So I guess Ward really is a bad guy… awkward.

I applaud that they decided to actually make him a bad guy. At first I thought maybe he was a Hydra plant who turned once he saw things go down, but killing those guards and telling Garrett about the sub-level pretty much cinch the idea that Ward is straight up Hydra through and through. This is gonna make things really fun and interesting… just as long as we don’t suddenly get bogged down with ‘his love for Skye will turn him’ kind of  romantic tripe.

And can I also say I loved Coulson’s breakdown? I mean, that was full on ‘broken man’ syndrome going on there. It was perfectly characterized and you could really feel for him. As Skye put it, he literally died for S.H.I.E.L.D. and to learn that it was infested with Hydra and they were all branded terrorists and Fury is dead and… and… oh someone give that boy a hug!

There was also the Lady in the Flower Dress, you could see the disappointment in her eyes when she discovered The Clairvoyant wasn’t really a clairvoyant. The lady was a true believer… so I wonder how that is going to play into things in the future. What price will Garrett pay for tricking her? I mean, she seems friendly enough… for now…

As for Providence, I’m not entirely sure what that place was and I was not endeared to Patton Oswald at all… but that could just be me.

Now that AOS is under the restrictions of waiting for Cap 2 to come up… things are really starting to heat up…

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Review: Deadpool #24

April 11, 2014 by X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

Deadpool #24Deadpool just can’t catch a break…

Even when he’s about to get Preston out of his head and into a LMD, Gorman has to go muck things up and the whole operation goes south. Then it’s discovered that Deadpool can’t let her go. It’s not explicitly said, but it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t want to be alone again. He really just wants to be loved, platonic, romantic, doesn’t matter to him. But his extreme sense of self-loathing makes him push people away.

That man is such a wreck.

Then when he thinks Preston is dead, the transferred failed, he couldn’t stick around to face even more people he believe he failed.

Tell me again why Deadpool is ‘just a joke’?

But thankfully Preston does make it out alive-ish and into the LMD to be reunited with her family. Someone should tell Deadpool!

But Preston is still in Deadpool? An echo of herself? Or something in disguise? A part of himself did warn him about other parts of himself…

Like I said… can’t catch a break…

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Review: All-New X-Factor #4

April 11, 2014 by X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

All-New X-Factor #4Danger! Danger, Remy LeBeau!

Yeah, I say we just feed Nil to Danger before reprogramming her not to go all Terminator on everyone… but that’s just what I would do. To bad he has a thief’s honor and gets all noble long enough for Remy to defuse the situation… oh well.

But man, Remy, you kissed Danger… do you really think you’re that much of a damn fine hot sexy Cajun boy that you can just kiss people better?

Sounds legit.

Oh, and Polaris… your Magneto is showing…

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Review: Magneto #1

April 11, 2014 by X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

Magento #1To say that Magneto has issues… is a less-than-mild understatement.

Is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy? Was he right? Was he wrong? Has he changed? Was he always the same? A lot of his development over the years has been back-in-forth between the two extremes. He’s the ultimate sympathetic villain.

Does his past and core beliefs forgive all that he has done? That depends on the person reading his story and how much is too much for them.

Magneto is Draconian at its best… and worse.

And in keeping with his forever teetering on the brink, Magneto is both lost and with purpose in this new series. Xavier is gone. The X-Men are fighting themselves, let alone any real villains. And it’s not like he’s going to be having any family reunions any time soon (regardless if Wanda is alive or dead after Remender is through with her).

But at his core is the simple unequivocal thought: “Never Again… by any means necessary”.

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Review: Night of the Living Deadpool #3

April 10, 2014 by X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

Night of the Living Deadpool #3I really need to stop reading this… it’s really good, which is really bad for my horrible dislike of all things zombie…

In this issue we learn that the zombies were created by scientists doing science-y things and apparently having really lousy safety codes to ensure crap like this doesn’t happen or at least stays maintained. You think at least one of those working on the project was genre savvy?

But the real story here is Deadpool.

He’s already his own form of ‘walking dead’ but to actually become a zombie? Kill all those people? Then finally his healing factor brings him back to the living to, pun sorta intended, live with what he was and what he did…

Heart-wrenching.

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Review: A+X #17

April 10, 2014 by X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

A+X #17Can we at least get a mini-series of Tony Stark and Broo?

I was skeptical about this pairing and when I started reading it I was little pissed at how douchey Tony was being… but then that’s Tony, he doesn’t work well with others. Broo, on the other hand, works well with everyone because he simply doesn’t have a douche bone in his body. Once Tony realizes that Broo is not some annoying kid, but a mind on his level, the two have a blast, the perfect blend of snark and naivety.

Together they show that even nerds don’t fit into a single definition. It’s an important lesson all too ignored.

As for the Cap/Cyclops/Skrull/Doom storyline going on… it’s all a bit random still.

Rogers stays with the good Skrull while the rest go off to destroy more of Doom’s stuff. Okay, sounds good, but why is Cyclops even helping him anymore? They’ve passed the Skrull threat, it’s all Doom now, so why doesn’t Cap arrest Scott and then send in the whole Avengers team? Maybe if I was more invested in this story then I might care…

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Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E17 “Turn, Turn, Turn”

April 10, 2014 by X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

aos_turnturnturnHail Hydra?

So May was a big understanding and Hand was not the bad guy, we all saw that coming, but at least it was dealt with in a fairly awesome way. When Hand gives her speech to Simmons I was actually a bit intense and I wasn’t sure how that was going to play out. Garrett wasn’t a terribly big surprise, figured it had to be someone we’d seen before and there wasn’t too many choices.

The big twist was Ward, the whole time he seems to be working perfectly for Coulson’s crew but in reality he’s Hydra? I’m not sure about that. The whole thing with Hand seemed a little too blocky, almost staged. Hand knows Garrett won’t talk under normal interrogation so why not get Ward in there undercover? But what does Garrett have to believe Ward is on his side because if Garrett ever mentioned Hydra to him then you’d think Ward would have said something? This really could go both ways as long as some logistics are ignored here and there, which happens a lot in these kinds of tv shows.

AOS is really coming into itself and it’s been pretty clear that trying to keep ‘in universe’ with the MCU has been the cause of many of its problems. It has a little choke hold on it which does it no favors. Maybe AOS can stretch its wings now that Cap 2 is out of the way and no new MCU movies are set to come out until Age of Ultron, which is still filming.

SHIELD is down and out, no one can be trusted… things are about to get interesting.

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Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E16 “End of the Beginning”

April 2, 2014 by X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

Agents-of-SHIELD-end-of-the-beginningDEPARTMENT H! Yeah, that’s all I got out of this episode…

Okay, so, yeah, it looks pretty bad for May, her being all sneaky and going to shoot Fitz with the Night-Nite gun cause he found her out. Sure, it looks even worse for Victoria Hand who apparently wants to kill everyone on Coulson’s team. But maybe I’ve watched too many tv shows because this all looks like classic Red Herring attempts and I’m not buying any of it. The show is getting down to the wire for the end of the season but there are still several episodes left to go. There is no way they would turn traitor a main character this far from the end nor would they pull the ‘barely a recurring character is the big bad’ this far back either.

Next episode is going to see our ducks put in a row and probably give us another random cliffhanger. I’m pretty sure they will milk this ‘something is rotten in DenmarkSHIELD’ schtick till the actual end of the season. So really, most of this episode was ‘trying to be angsty’ filler for the long con… which is rather annoying because of all the stuff that got shoved aside to make room for an obvious fake-out.

Like Deathlok… we got some great scenes with him, but it was few and between. We need an episode dedicated to him.

And Brad Dourif… how the hell do you get Brad Dourif and not freaking use him? (don’t be Arrow, don’t score great actors just to underuse them) Brad sitting there with his voice semi-computerized was so haunting… SO WHY KILL HIM?!? Keep him to play your villain! I really hope the guy Ward shot was some poor pawn with facial surgery so we can see Dourif again… man he is awesome.

But instead we get Over-Paranoid Coulson ( I mean, really, at this point I think he would suspect himself of being the Clairvoyant) and more lame Skye+Ward stuff (this is a text book on how not to do ‘will they/won’t they’).

This is a lot of greatness in this series, the core is solid, it just really needs to work on the bells and whistles.

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Reblog: 10 Things Worth Noticing in the New X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST Trailer

March 24, 2014 by X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

I haven’t had time to properly digest both the new trailer and the new set picks of Wanda and Pietro… so going to let some professionals do the heavy lifting.

via Newsarama

UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
Monday saw the release of another X-Men: Days of Future Past trailer. While there are some notable absences, like just a quick running glimpses of Bishop, a character who may be important in this time travel story, there are plenty of things you should be watching out for.From the obvious – like the official debut of the Sentinels (even future versions like on the left) – to the not so obvious interpersonal dynamics of Xaviers young and old, here are ten important things we noticed in the new X-Men: Days of Future Past trailer.

EVEN MORE STORM
Despite conflicting reports of whether Storm’s role in Days of Future Past has been reduced, she sure has gotten a lot of screen time in both trailers so far. That suggests that either she is in fact a core character in the movie, or that her scene is pivotal or important.From the looks of it, Storm’s fate in the movie may be pretty similar to her fate in the Days of Future Past comic. If that’s the case, it would indeed be a major scene, allowing her to still play a big role in the film despite a lack of actual screen time.

MYSTIQUE: FREE AGENT?
We know that Mystique’s defection to Magneto will be a major sticking point between young Erik and Charles – Xavier specifically says as much – but where do her loyalties actually lie?From the looks of things, Jennifer Lawrence’s young Mystique could be the ‘x-factor’ (sorry) that sparks the Sentinel revolution. She certainly seems closer to her early comic portrayal as a more politically-minded agent of subterfuge in these trailers.

XAVIER IS WALKING?
In one scene, it looks as though James McAvoy’s young Xavier is up and about, rather than being confined to a wheelchair as was his fate at the end of the X-Men: First Class.We know Xavier has alternated between mobility and paralysis in the comics, and at least one character – the bouncing, blue-furred Beast – has already received an “out” for the fate that befell him in the last film.

Of course, the short clip of the young Xavier up and about in the long “X-Mansion” hallways turning on lights is directly followed by him in a wheelchair. It could be simply a scene inside Xavier’s mindscape – which would also explain the Xavier-meets-Xavier scene teased in the trailer

XAVIER IS FIGHTING!
On the other hand, it looks like Patrick Stewart is getting in on the action like never before. Several short moments in today’s trailer make it look like he’s going to go toe to toe with Sentinels at least once in the film.We’ve yet to see Xavier – especially old Xavier, at the height of his power – really cut loose in an X-Men film yet. While First Class saw him don the yellow and blue flight suit with the rest of his team, he still wasn’t exactly “hands on.”

THE POWER IS YOURS!
It looks like Xavier won’t be the only one getting his moment to shine, either. Several key scenes in the trailer show Iceman at what could finally be considered “full power,” even sliding on ice trails.On top of that, we’ve got scenes of Colossus, Blink, and Sunfire all cutting loose. It may be a matter of FX catching up to ideas, or it may just be a willingness to go bigger, but Days of Future Past will likely see some of the most dazzling mutant powers yet on screen.

PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF
This trailer is really all about Xavier; how his two incarnations team up, and how his dream has evolved from his early idealism. The interaction between McAvoy and Stewart has been central to the film’s promotion so far, and is even more on display here.The important thing to note is that it seems as though old Xavier is counseling young Xavier, offering him guidance and solace. The print X-Men are no stranger to time paradoxes, but are we seeing the birth of a time-loop, or something less complex.

DARKER, GRITTIER
One of the things that really stood out about Matthew Vaughan’s X-Men: First Classwas the brighter, more lighthearted tone, especially as compared to Bryan Singer’s first two films, and even Brett Ratner’s X3.But this trailer all but disavows those bright colors and campy moments for something much bigger, darker, and altogether more troubled. That said, there may be an interesting dichotomy at play between the scenes of the X-Men’s bright past and dark future, but the costume direction alone, even in the scenes of the past, is step back towards the much grittier take on the team.

IT’S CURTAINS!
Call it an opportunity to clean house, a chance to trim down the cast, or even just a shot at showing some big, shocking events that could theoretically come undone through the magic of time travel, but it sure looks like not everyone is walking away from Days of Future Past.Even major characters are in trouble in this trailer, and while in comics, nothing is permanent (especially when it comes to the X-Men), would the films go so far as to partially reboot? X-Men: First Class took some opportunities to contradict the much-maligned X3. Could Days of Future Past be looking to settle that score?

ACTION!
While the last trailer was all about tone and mood, this trailer takes a big leap into the action. We’ve got mutants. We’ve got Sentinels. We’ve got soldiers, guns, lasers, powers, a post-apocalyptic wasteland. This is widescreen, blockbuster stuff on display.Keeping that in mind, it will be very interesting to see the interplay between the deeper, emotional moments hinted at here, especially between the two versions of Erik and Xavier, and the major, edge-of-your-seat action sequences Days of Future Past promises to deliver.

SENTINELS
You wanted Sentinels? You got Sentinels.Thousands of Sentinels. This is the component of this film many fans have been waiting desperately to see. And while we only got a few brief glimpses at the small-scale battles between mutants and Sentinels, there’s plenty of eye candy flying around.From scenes of Xavier and Storm taking on the mutant-hunting robots, to Magneto seemingly taking control of their metal components, to scores of them pouring out of the sky, the Sentinels are absolutely central to this story, and that’s on full display in this trailer.

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