New Mutants Trailer Breakdown

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One of the curious things about film success in the 2020s is that “quiet victories” have become more and more prevalent.  That’s more the result of Geek Media spending a lot of time talking up the loud victories than anything else.  For instance, the X-Men franchise is a great example of something quietly successful.  Outwardly the franchise is considered mostly past its prime and running on goodwill and fumes.  

However, a lot of that is simply because the main film series doesn’t draw a lot of interest in the online circles, meanwhile, the spin-off material like Deadpool, Logan, and Legion have been making big waves and spawning imitators left and right.  A lot of that is that Fox seems more willing to experiment on the job with the X-Men peripherals, probably because they assume they aren’t going to be successful anyway so might as well get weird with it.  That certainly seems like the attitude at play with the latest X-Men spin-off flick The New Mutants whose trailer has revealed it to be…a teen horror flick? 

Week of Review - Mutant X

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A key evolution of the modern age of superhero blockbusters is that more and more the story of a film has become the story of the film’s behind the scenes drama.  Whether it’s the corporate mismanagement of the Amazing Spider-Man films, Josh Trank’s prima donna antics on Fant4stic, or the family tragedy & directorial scarpering of Justice League the behind the scenes stories are now the stories of those films.  

The oldest and largest looming example of this is the Fox/Marvel feud, a war between companies that’s raged for well over a decade.  The two absolutely loathe each other, to the point Marvel has canceled publishing Fantastic Four comics because Fox owns the movie rights and Fox, in turn, was willing to waste everyone’s time and money with Fant4stic.  But where did all this animosity come from, what’s the origin of their feud?  Well, it all goes back to a little show from 2001 called Mutant X- let’s dive in. 

Tom Hardy Cast as Venom

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The age of franchising and shared universe has been one of severe disappointment and frustration among all the good stuff.  As much as I love Marvel Studios, the CW shared superhero universe, or the emerging Kaiju-verse of Godzilla and King Kong those make up the occasional rarities.  For every one of them, it feels like we’re buried in terrible DCEU installments, ill-conceived horror universe, and yet more incompetent misfires from the people at Sony.  

There has truly been no one more knee-capped by the demand for cinematic universes than Sony, mainly because they only have 1 brand under their belt that could be turned into a bigger universe and now that brand is co-owned by Marvel and Disney. 

Obviously, I’m talking about Spider-Man- the franchise that started the modern superhero fixation at the turn of the millennium.  Sony still remembers those days when Spider-Man made them enough money to buy the Rock of Gibraltar and have been trying to recapture that moment ever since, without realizing it’s their corporate meddling that drove the brand into the ground from #3 onwards.  

However, now that Sony has to share the profits of its new Spider-Man film with the folks at Marvel Sony is trying to branch out with unofficial spin-offs.  So far these have all languished in development hell, but now they’ve finally started to get their act together with the first such project: Venom, starring Tom Hardy. 

Judge Dredd Show Coming to TV

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It’s an odd time for British nerd exports.  America and the UK have always had an awkward relationship in terms of our nerdy cultural exchange, with a lot of Britain’s genre creations never making it to our shores.  This is mainly the result of “nerdy media” existing on the fringes of popular consumption for 50 years or so.  Certainly, things opened up a bit more thanks to the Internet, but even then, America has long held the premium on exporting nerd culture. 

As such, it’s taken a long time for British genre creations to ever make inroads to American audiences, but all that changed in the early 2010s.  I mainly point to 2012 and 2013, when James Bond and Doctor Who both enjoyed significant anniversaries and found mass popularity here in the states.  Since then, even as the popularity around those two has died down we’ve continued to import UK creations like Taboo or Sherlock. 

However, the one UK staple that has never truly found his way into American hearts is Judge Dredd.  Despite a Stallone film and a movie of his own in the 2012-2013 boom Judge Dredd just can’t find that sweet spot for American audiences like Bond, Sherlock, or The Doctor.  However, it looks like everyone’s favorite Justice will get a third chance to arrest our hearts with an upcoming TV show: Judge Dredd: Mega City One. 

Static Thoughts - 8 Characters Who Should Appear in Legion S2

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So, this Wednesday brings us the season finale of FX’s Legion, a quasi-superhero show revolving around the son of Charles Xavier AKA Legion.  The show itself is pretty standard fair for FX at this point, especially so given that it’s, technically speaking, a period piece.  

Like most of FX’s period pieces, the show is putting a lot more effort into the production and costume design than anything else, with a loose story that leans heavy on the good actors to carry things.  The main advantage Legion has is that it’s a show about reality warping, surreal mutant powers, and mental illness, so the plot has a more genuine reason to be vestigial than the likes of American Horror Story or Taboo. 

However, I’m not here today to review Legion aside from that brief review I just gave.  Instead, let us look forward to the already announced Season 2 and dwell on the question of upcoming cameos, easter eggs, and supporting characters.  Legion season 1 has made great use of surprise characters in the name of twists, with the ultimate reveal of Shadow King’s identity as a real fan favorite and the last minute appearance of Patrick Stewart’s Professor X a great stakes-raising element.  In that spirit, I’ve come up with 8 new heroes, villains, and others from the X-Men mythos who should make the jump to live action in Legion season 2.

Filmland - Future of the X-Men Series

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Something odd is happening with the X-Men franchise recently.  Ever since X2: X-Men United the X-Men franchise has been defined by obligation more than anything else.  Sure, there have been good films amid that set-up like First Class or well-liked films like Days of Future Past, but none of these movies seem to exist out of genuine excitement and push for the material from anyone at the studio level.  That’s all sort of changed now with a triple barrel punch from Deadpool, Logan, and Legion, a trilogy of X-Men adaptations that are easily the most creator-driven projects we’ve seen since First Class. 

If there is a sense of obligation to these adaptations it’s hiding itself very well and, as one might suspect, audiences are strongly responding to the newfound sense of enthusiasm and vigor.  Deadpool and Logan have become near instant beloved classics and pop culture staples in stark contrast to the underperforming and mostly forgotten X-Men: Apocalypse.  With the success of these projects and the main X-Men films stalling at the box office and losing their primary director it raises the question: what’s next for the X-Men?

Panel Vision - Guide to the X-Men Multiverse

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One of the interesting things about the X-Men franchise at this moment in time is how much it’s ended up eschewing the shared universe format promoted by Marvel.  Instead, X-Men has adopted a sort of multi-continuity approach, in a manner that’s only growing more extreme.  Both Deadpool and the upcoming Logan take place in no other continuity than their own and, so far, it seems the TV show Legion is a unique continuity all its own as well.  

This is actually fairly common for the X-Men comics as the X-Men are major players in the realm of altered timelines and parallel universes.  So far only a couple have filtered into the movies but, given everything we’ve seen, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if things like Mojoworld or Age of X were on the horizon for the X-franchise.  So, if you don’t know what either of those things are here’s your guide to the X-Men multiverse. 

Panel Vision - Legion Quest

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Let’s talk about Legion.  Before he got his own TV show as the first ever live action X-Men show to reach full series, he was a comic book character.  Legion, real name David, is the son of Charles Xavier.  His mutant power is the ability to absorb other people’s psyches into himself and gaining their powers when he gives their mind lease.  

This basically makes him crazy, as he’s got a whole head full of absorbed personalities all vying for control of his body.   Though he first premiered in 1985 in an issue of X-Force, he didn’t really come into his own in the X-Men mythos till a decade later, in a story entitled Legion Quest. 

That’s what I’m looking at today, the story that put Legion on the X-map, for better and worse.  It’s a curious beast, a crossover from 3 of the major X-men comics of the time that set off one the biggest crossover events in Marvel history.  In fact, the only way the series has ever been collected is in relation to the event it spawned, Age of Apocalypse, which I reviewed last year.  

That gives it a direct link to one of the biggest blunders in Marvel history, the comic series that helped bring about Marvel’s bankruptcy in 1996 and believe me it shows- there is no better single example of bad 1990s comics than Legion Quest. 

Cover Story - Top 15 Legion Covers

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Next week marks a pretty major occasion, despite the downplaying, it’s had so far; the first time a live-action X-Men show will be attempted.  There have been vague attempts before such as a couple of TV movies in the ‘90s and a quasi-X-Men show in the 2000s called Mutant X, but that’s about it.  Next week’s Legion will be the first full series adapted from the Marvel comics we’ve yet seen, revolving around the mentally unstable son of Charles Xavier, David Haller AKA Legion. 

David’s been around since the mid-'80s ad played a prominent role in the lead up to the 1995 mega-event Age of Apocalypse, which I covered last year.  However, in the early 2010s, as part of the Marvel NOW branding initiative, David got his own comic for the first time under the title X-Men Legacy.  We’ll see if I end up reviewing it somewhere down the line, but for now, I plan to indulge my clinical need for topicality by diving head first into the top 15 Legion comic book covers. 

Comic Rainbow - X-Men Villains

So, the first trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse is here.  I already gave my thoughts on it but in case you missed that I was less than thrilled.  I’ve never really been on board with the X-Men films and, truth be told, the X-Men comics have always been kind of hit or miss for me as well.  There are runs I like but by and large a lot of it is really mixed, especially when it comes to villains.  

Sure there are great villains but even the good ones can often fall prey to insane and convoluted continuity.  That’s what brings us here today, a look at the various villains of the X-Men, the bad guys often sited as the best Marvel has ever made.  So, let’s get the full spectrum on the foes of the X-Men in all their shades, shames, and successes. 

Fox Launches 2 X-Men TV Shows

Edited by Robert Beach

After months of hearing nothing from either camp, it seems some agreement has been reached between Marvel and Fox to allow Fox to make X-Men TV shows…kind of.  Rather than making a TV Show out of anyone attending Xavier’s school or its sundry collection of graduates, these new shows will focus on some of the quasi-villains and supporting characters of the X-Men mythos. 

The two announced shows coming soon to TV are Hellfire, a show about the eponymous Hellfire Club last seen in X-Men: First Class, and Legion, revolving around the mentally unstable yet extremely powerful son of Charles Xavier. One thing is for sure: this is a major milestone in the Fox/Marvel beef that has everyone speculating, especially in the wake of early rumors that Fox had deferred the Fantastic Four rights back to Marvel.