Tagged: Professor X

John Ostrander: Lost Vision

I don’t always get around to seeing movies that I want to see while they’re in the theaters. I prefer seeing movies first in the theater and preferably in IMAX. I love the big screen and I think that’s how they were meant to be seen. I don’t mind seeing it later on the small screen, especially if I still have the memory of seeing the large-scale version.

Sometimes, for one reason or another, I just don’t get around to getting to the movie theater in time to catch the feature. Logan was one of those films.

As you already probably know, Logan is the last film that Hugh Jackman will make playing Wolverine. It’s a part that made him a star and that he basically owns. This time it’s set in the not too distant future of 2029 and things have not gone well for the mutant population. (Spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen the film and want to, best stop reading now or you may learn more than you want to.) By inference, we learn that there are almost no mutants left and none have been born in the past 25 years. There was some kind of unspecified disaster around the school in Westchester NY several years back.

Logan is now keeping it on the down low near the Mexican border as a driver/bodyguard. He drinks a lot and he’s sick; his mutant healing factor is fading and the adamantium that laces his bones (and claws) is poisoning him. He’s also taking care of Professor X, Charles Xavier (played once again by Patrick Stewart, who has said this is also his last go-round with the X-Men), who is also ailing. The man with the most powerful brain in the world is losing control of it; every once in a while, he has seizures that wreak havoc on everyone near him.

Into Logan’s and Professor X’s life comes an 11-year-old girl named Laura who is a mutant, who may have been created in a lab where she was dubbed X-23. She also has retractable claws, rage issues, and a violent nature. Sound like anyone we know? She is Logan’s “daughter” in that his DNA was used to create her.

The movie is a road picture, one in which Logan, Laura, and Professor X are chased as they try to find their way to a possible haven. The film is very violent (having earned an R rating) and bleak. Very bleak.

Professor X founded the X-Men in the belief, the hope, that mutants and normal humans could find a way to live together. His frenemy, Magneto, didn’t think they could and his path was more violent. He saw humans and mutants as being at war.

Evidently, Magneto was right. That appears to be the premise of Logan – very few mutants are left and the ones that exist are being hunted. Xavier was wrong.

That’s also been the premise of more than a few X-Men comics that touch on the future. I don’t recall seeing one such future where Professor X’s vision came true. I will admit, I find that a bit depressing. It seems to me to undercut some of the basic premise of the X-Men – that there is hope that all these different types of people can live together. The X-Men have been stand-ins for so many different persecuted minorities. Xavier’s dream, his vision, has always held out hope to me that our differences can be overcome, however tough the battle.

That’s not what Logan seems to say.

I don’t know if I have the right to gripe. My career seems to be about anti-heroes and bleak characters and bad times; it’s how I make my living. I can certainly see the allure in taking that attitude in Logan; it feels closer to life as we see it these days. More and more so all the time. But maybe that’s why we need a little more hope.

This is not to say that Logan is a badly made film; far from it. It’s not simply violent; it’s intelligent and well written and has wonderful performances. In the blu-ray pack that I bought, I had a chance to experience it in black and white. They call it Logan Noir and it has the feel of noir films of old. I was very impressed.

I was also a little saddened. It’s hard to watch a dream die, especially one that was meant to give us hope. These days, I think we need all the hope we can get.

John Ostrander: My Secret Origin Story

Tomorrow I’m supposed to have what is called a nuclear stress test – checking on the old ticker – during which they introduce a nuclear particle into my blood stream and then will track it. According to comic book physics, this should result in my gaining a super-power or two. So I’ve been considering what power(s) I might get or want.

There’s a spectrum of possibilities. Spider-Man got his powers through radioactivity, as did the Hulk. The Fantastic Four got their powers through a form of radiation. In the back of my mind, I wonder if the radioactive particle might activate some recessive mutant gene or possibly Terrigen mists like the Inhumans to which I may have been unwittingly exposed.

Daredevil got hit by a truck and some radioactive isotope/bar clonked him on the head which obviously gave him his radar sense. The Atom got his powers from White Dwarf Star radiation. Superman’s powers come from the rays (radiation) of a yellow sun, but he loses them under a red sun.

So – what powers would I want? Flight is always a great one but there are problems. For example, why doesn’t Superman have bugs in his teeth? You drive a car down a highway and you’re going to wind up with bugs in the grill and bugs on the windshield. And big airplanes are often having collisions with birds; does Supes do that or does he dodge them? So flying is not as simple or cool as one might imagine.

Enhanced strength? I’d be the perennial bull in the china shop. How much would I destroy by accident? I’d have to get used to it and learn how to modulate it; shaking someone’s hand could cause them major bodily harm.

I’ve always had the theory that super-powers in some way should have a psychological component; the power somebody manifests should be tied in to who they are. So what powers would work for me?

I tend to be more cerebral than physical, so I think I would tilt more to the Professor X end of the scale. Mind powers. Or like Deadman, I’d have the ability to inhabit other people and take over their bodies and live their lives for a while. It’s sort of what I do as a writer; I go into other lives.

Eh, then you also have Dr. Sam Beckett on Quantum Leap. I thought he was kind of creepy. He’d “jump” into other people’s lives and be them for a while and then, when he leapt out, the real person would come back, aware that they had been possessed and dispossessed at the same time and they’d be stuck living with the changes Sam Beckett had made in their lives.

Green Lantern would be up my alley; manifesting whatever I can imagine through sheer force of will. That, too, is what I do as a writer. But that falls outside the parameters of the concept – it’s not radioactivity that gives GL his powers but the ring. Same thing with Batman; no radioactivity involved in his creation. Unless we want to suggest Bruce was bitten by a radioactive bat when he first fell into the bat cave as a boy. Hmmmmm.

Of course, I could also wind up with less useful powers such as being able to sniff out chocolate within a mile. Or with a gesture make meatballs and sauce fly out of my fingers. With my luck, that would be more likely.

Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. If I get something, I’ll let you know next week. Unless, of course, I need to preserve my secret identity. If you hear nothing further from me on the subject, you’ll know why.

As the creator of so many great super-heroes would say – Excelsior!

Box Office Democracy: Logan

It’s kind of funny that the inferiority complex that has plagued comic books for decades has migrated on to comic book movies.  Every time you read an article with the headline “Bam! Pow! Comics aren’t just for kids anymore” you get this kind of desperate need for some of the less secure in the industry to justify their life’s work when they really don’t need to.  Good work is good work regardless of who reads it, and most importantly regardless what people who don’t read it think of it.  Comic book movies are getting to the same place with this death spiral race to the bottom to make the movies more and more gritty to prove that they’re more and more adult.  It made me nervous when I heard the final Wolverine movie was going to be rated R; that we would get a joyless slog of a movie more focused with blood and body counts than with making a good movie.  Logan is a great movie, a violent movie to be sure but also a thoughtful one, it’s a movie that gives you time to think— and while it is bleak, it has joy and it has hope.

Logan has a thin story, but I mean that in the most flattering way.  The whole movie is essentially a road trip where Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) takes an aging Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and a young clone (Dafne Keen) , that the film only refers to as X-23 once but we all know is X-23, looking for a mutant sanctuary in the North Dakota wilderness.  The good guys are being chased by some awfully nebulous bad guys who never get much more motivation than wanting to mess with the heroes.  I’m also not 100% sure that the emotional center of the entire X-Men franchise has been the relationship between Wolverine and Professor X, but it doesn’t matter.  Jackman and Stewart have the chemistry and the sheer magnetism to drive the whole movie as long as you don’t stop and fixate on what happened in any of the previous films.  Keen is a star in the making, she has a quiet intensity and seems great at ripping bad guys to shreds.

I’m thrilled that Logan is a superhero movie that doesn’t feel compelled to tell me that the world is ending or a city is in peril.  The central conflict of the film is one with a very small footprint.  That’s not to suggest I’m somehow okay with the corporate exploitation and then extermination of children— but there’s no ticking time bomb, no cosmic threat.  I’m honestly not sure the wider world would have noticed if the good guys had failed in this one; everyone who seemed to know what was going on was either directly involved or dead by the end.  This is just a character arc for Wolverine (and to a lesser extent X-23) and everything in the movie is just in service to that.  It shouldn’t be every superhero movie (or even most; I bet this would get old very quickly) but it’s refreshing to see a movie that could be wall-to-wall action stop for a second and appreciate the quiet moments.

I know I literally just finished praising Logan for being willing to linger on quiet moments, but this movie is also just too damn long.  I want small character moments, but I don’t need quite so many of them to be just another way of reinforcing the notion that Logan drinks too much, I got that pretty quickly.  I also think a harsher editing eye could have been taken to some of the action sequences.  I know the rule is an action beat every ten pages, but so much of the middle of the movie is different variations on Wolverine with or without X-23 just crazy murdering a bunch of evil redshirts, and what does that really accomplish the fifth time that we didn’t get on the third?  There is nothing like seeing Wolverine go nuts on people, even more so now that we got an R-rated version of it, and the first few times seeing X-23 go at it is a delight— but at a point it’s just blood and falling bodies and isn’t revealing anything about character or pushing the story forward, it just seems to be there because that’s what a studio executive thinks good pacing is.

Logan is the end of an era— it’s supposedly the last time we’ll see Jackman play Wolverine or Stewart play Professor X.  Stewart was the best casting decision in the 2000 X-Men film, and while they’ve been transitioning to James McAvoy for a while now it’s sad to see the actual curtain call.  Jackman has been the bedrock for the entire X-Men franchise up until this point, and while it’s sad to see him go I’m sure he’ll appreciate being able to gain 15 pounds without it being a complete life-altering disaster.  I firmly believe at some point someone will wonder why they’re giving up all the money they could be making by having Wolverine in movies and the part will be recast… and I’m both scared and excited by that prospect.  Scared because Jackman leaves huge shoes to fill, but excited because I want to see more of these roles turn over as a matter of course.  Actors should be able to leave these roles without needing giant continuity resets that tire out the audience.  We should accept a new Wolverine or Iron Man the same way we accept a new James Bond or a new John Connor.  The actors are important but the roles need to be timeless.  There’s an exciting opportunity here, and I hope Fox does as good a job with it as they did in making a movie as brave as Logan.

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Emily S. Whitten’s Grand San Diego Adventure, part one

The San Diego Comic Con can be completely overwhelming. With panels, “experiences” (as they tend to call the activities set up outside of the Convention Center), pilot screenings, performances, and parties, it’s hard to know what to see first. And one of the craziest places to start is the floor of the Exhibit Hall. With wall-to-wall exclusives, freebies, announcements, signings, trailers, comics creators, scavenger hunts, merchandise, and maybe even a celebrity or two in disguise, it’s pretty much impossible to see everything, unless maybe that’s all you do for the entire con. And without fail, it’s also always a seething, writhing mass of other people who want to see or buy all of the same things you do.

I still love it, though. From accidentally walking through the same booth so many times you start to feel like it’s your second home until you realize you’ve actually never seen the part of it you’re standing in right now, to winding up in the completely wrong aisle from where you meant to be and discovering an awesome bit of merch, to running into a friend you totally never expected to see in the middle of the crowd, to seeing an amazingly clever cosplay, to taking silly pictures with booth displays (one of my favorite things to do), it’s just fun. And while I certainly didn’t see everything, here are some of the coolest things I experienced this year.

  • The trailer and announcement for the Disney Infinity Games Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy play set. I just happened to be wandering by the Marvel booth on preview night in time to catch this, and it really does look awesome. From the trailer, the one I’m most looking forward to playing is Groot, but Rocket Raccoon and the others look fun too. (You can watch the trailer here.)  I also was on the spot at the right moment to get a free Star-Lord design poster and Groot mask signed by artist Jon Diesta, which was pretty sweet (I guess I was the first person to ask him to sign the foam mask. We discovered it wasn’t easy). I’m glad I happened on that when I did, because every other time I walked by the Marvel booth over the weekend it was such a madhouse that I couldn’t even step into the booth area! Oh, except that I did see the most epic Marvel battle scene that has ever been, in toy format. Whoever set this up is clearly a well-versed Marvel nerd who thought of every detail, from Professor X’s chair hanging in the air to Deadpool just chillin’ while chaos ensued around him. I luff you, Marvel nerd. Also I want to play with this.
  • The Hasbro booth, including the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic photo op, simply because I love taking silly pictures and this may be my favorite silly picture of the weekend. They had several scenes and speech bubbles to choose from, for maximum silliness. Well played, Hasbro. I also got a cute free MLP poster and coveted their Spider-Man toys. (That mask is cool.)
  • Sideshow Collectibles!! I barely even know where to start with this booth. Every single thing was awesome, from the Back to the Future set to the gigantic Doctor Doom that so needs to be the first thing to greet people  in my foyer if I ever have one, to the Captain America movie figures and the life-sized Han Solo in Carbonite that you could win. But the most important thing to me was the Deadpool (!!!!!). Because you guys, they are making a Sixth Scale Deadpool, and he looks amazing. :D :D :D :D :D (Seriously, I can’t express my level of joy at this without emoticons. I’m that speechlessly happy. Also I need this immediately. When does it come out??)
  • The excellent cosplays. There were many, many cool costumes on the floor. A few of my favorites were this cute classic Harley Quinn (with smiley purse!); this Skipper from Penguins of Madagascar (he actually looks like he could be an official one? I don’t know. Either way, nice!); this picture-perfect New 52 Wonder Woman (she looked adorable with the Tonner Doll Company Wonder Woman, and made the entire thing, from leather to metalwork!); this clever Hamburglar (Hee!); this pair of Jay Garrick Flashes; this Discworldian Moist von Lipwig (someone said, “Is that a Snitch?” but I recognized him immediately. Yay, Discworld fans!); and this cute Little Mermaid family (that Ursula is boss).
  • San Diego GirlsThe DC Comics booth, celebrating 75 years of Batman with neat displays and a variety of custom-designed cowls like this Harley Quinn one. They also had several of the DC Bombshells statuettes on display. Even though I totally recognize the cheesecake-y sexism of pin-up girls and part of me wants to be peeved about these, I can’t help but think they are a really well-done homage to a time gone by, and kind of adorable (and hey, compared to all of the blatant and tasteless attempts to sell comics through sex and female exploitation or dehumanization these days, these feel positively classy). They also had a great depressed Batman statue in the middle, àla the new Ben Affleck Batman, which allowed for some more statue pose picture silliness. You can’t keep me down, emo Batman!
  • The Darth Vader Hot Wheels car. Who thought of this? Who did?? You get a prize. Also? I want one. To drive. And I will park it right next to the life-sized Funko Pop! Rocket Raccoon I plan to install on my lawn.
  • This thing. No, I don’t know what it is or what it is from or why there is a little floating demon joystick-driving its brain. It is just adorable and creepy and I love it. It can hang out with my Rocket Raccoon. They can be life-sized lawn gnome best buddies, and maybe have cute but disturbing adventures at night when no one is looking.
  • Life-sized Star Wars Rebels! I like Hera. She looks sassy. Like she will pwn you and not put up with your nonsense. I hope this is the case. Also she is voiced by Vanessa Marshall. Sweet!
  • Con exclusive merch! Like this Deadpool Mr. Potato Head, this glow-in-the-dark White Lantern Flash, this Harley Quinn purse (with bells!), this Firefly Leaf on the Wind keychain/necklace, this too-adorable-for-words Catbug plush, this ghost Yoda bank, and this fiercely adorable Final Battle Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon 2.

Aaaaaand, that’s all, folks! Well, all of the stuff I can remember from the con floor. (Full photo set here) But I have plenty more to report on from SDCC, including fun panels, parties, and press interviews. So stay tuned for more, and until next time, Servo Lectio!

Part Two of Emily’s Grand Adventure will appear right here at ComicMix.com this Thursday!

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