X-Men

With the new film X-men First Class doing quite well for itself in the Cinema I just want to mention something.

Now over the years I've tried to get into X-men, one version or another. The comics, the 90s cartoon, the films and I have one thing to point out. It's incredibly dull. Sorry to all the Marvel fans out there who think its the best thing since sliced bread, but it's not.

The whole thing is a one trick pony. Mutants as a metaphor for those rejected by society. Congratulations Stan Lee that was slightly witty, and very risky for the time (1960's) what next? Urm? You have a vast cast of characters with a variety of social and personal disorders staring in what basically boils down to a Soap Opera.

Now I give the original concept a thumbs up, even if I can't get behind the science (and when I can legitimately question Comic book science, worry deeply) but a concept can only last so long. Sooner or later you have to develop it, fertilize it, let it grow. Where has the Concept gone? Sure the Characters have changed (then been reset, changed again and reset again, repeat as needed) but where has the single witty part of the story gone. Have Mutants been more or less accepted, has the hatred increased or wained? Nothing and that's my biggest problem with the whole stinking Marvel Universe.

Here, let me expand on that point. It's an established fact (sorry to say) that the people in the Marvel Universe are rock stupid, arrogant, bigoted, ignorant, fools. That is, if I was being kind to them. The only reasonable people seem to be the mutants. It's a very us verses them mentality, especially when most comic and science fiction fans feel alienated by certain members of society. Just once I would like to see someone form New York that supports, or is even on the fence, with Spiderman. seeing the good he does and point out that he's just a person. He can make mistakes. Or someone from the public argue that mutants can't help being born that way and just because they've got fantastic night vision doesn't mean they are the spawn of satan.

It's this very one sided and bias view that Marvel seems to have (and X-Men spearheads) that puts me off the whole idea. It's so predictable, whenever someone does eventually speak up for the minorities (that always seem to be around every corner and under every rock) they turn out to be a closet Mutant (read homosexual, dyslexic, jew or whatever). The whole attitude is incredibly dated. Just to make things worse, much like the horrendous One More Day debacle, there seems to be a status quo in the Marvel universe. While DC likes to reboot the whole franchise every few years (long story) to shake things up a bit (thats the short version) Marvel always hits the reset button, that or spawn a whole new universe hoping to draw people into reading.

So in summation I dislike Marvel, mostly because of X-Men and find the new movie pointless. Most importantly it seems that the X-men franchise is taking place outside of the Marvel movie universe. Meaning that other than a few references it doesn't look like Joss Whedon's going to be playing in that sand box in the upcoming Avengers movie (thank God).