2016 - X-Men: Days of Future Past

What I think is really unique about the X-Men series is how they've opened up the world, and technically done a reboot, but all the while still being able to use it with what they've done before.  This film is the ultimate bridging of everything we've seen in X-Men up to this point and it starts to put other pieces together.  Having Striker be part of the mix was great fun, as was seeing pretty much everyone from this world together in one film.  The story was strong - it was a little heavy on over-the-top action towards the end - but it also featured one of the best sequences of the entire series with Quicksilver set to Jim Croce's Time in a Bottle.  I won't ruin it for you - it's fantastic.  The film is full of fun references, including one to JFK being a mutant himself - which got a laugh (in a bad way) from the packed audience I was in.
What I most love about this instalment is that it used a classic X-Men story to find a clever way of fixing the sins made by X3 and anything else they want to tidy up.  They're now able to move forward pretty much however they want - which is really quite refreshing.  Could be the best film of the series, actually.  I dug it a lot.

1741 - X-Men: First Class

I was pretty late to this one, so I'm not sure how much more I can add to the conversation.  I love the idea of an X-Men film that takes place in the 60's. Lots of fun - and throwing it right into the Cold War was a really strong and clever move.  I thought that the re-introduction of characters were really strong.  I loved the nods the films already existing in the series, and I thought some of the re-boot ideas were really well done - the strongest being the relationship between Xavier and Raven (Mystique), and also her and Hank (Beast). 
January Jones is a constant surprise to me.  She just feels like such an flat and un-unteresting choice for this role.  She manages to become suddenly unattractive in this role.  Kevin Bacon was impressive in the opening scene but then he just kind of fell into a cliche jerk role for the remainder. 
For an origin story this works well and I quite enjoyed it.  It'll be interesting to see how the franchise continues.

Dazzler

So I'm particularly proud of this blog entry. I've recently befriended a very talented artist named Kalman Andrasofszky, who does a lot of comic art, including stuff for Marvel, such as this Dazzler one-off. Today it came out and he has a signing at The Beguiling, so I went to get my autographed copy. Knowing little to nothing of the character, I was still entertained by the story, but for the first time ever I bought it for the art. There's some seriously wonderful stuff going on with it. The cover alone (above) is just brilliant. It's like a cracked out Britney Spears - there's just layers of awesome going on up there. I'm planning to go out for drinks with Mr. Kalman at some point in the near future, maybe figure out something we could work on together. Trick him into slumming it with me ;-)

Astonishing X-Men #4: Unstoppable

So as you can see I clearly blasted through this series. I never would have imagined I'd be this into X-Men. If you're familiar with this particular series you'll know that the image above isn't from this volume, but an earlier one, however if you're familiar with this volume - you'll know why I picked it.
Colossus and Kitty Pride are the heart of this entire series, particularly in the end. There's some really moving and interesting stuff going on in their storyline, even till the end. It's definitely changed the way I look at the big Marvel stories - I suppose that there's a reason they're so popular.
So I don't want to go into any detail except to say that this is a really spectacular final thrust in this storyline (which would have made a far more interesting third film, if done closer to what they've got here...) Alas. I'm not sure it'll make me want to pick up other X-Men books, but if anyone can recommend some at this level - I might just be up for it.

Astonishing X-Men #3 - Torn

This series continues to get more and more interesting. Of my limited knowledge of this world I knew absolutely nothing of Emma Frost or the Hellfire club, so I feel looking into that might have made this a richer read. Other than that it continues to be a really entertaining series. They had a lot of fun in this trade with messing with the X-Men's minds, seeing Wolverine reduced to the state of an English Schoolboy was quite a delight. And the relationship between Kitty and Peter is quite lovely. There's a really great moment where she loses control of her power mid-coitus.
There's one more book left in this series, and then I think I'm going to take a short break from reading comics, mostly just because I owe several people notes on scripts, so I need to focus on that for a little bit. I've got Sandman lined up, which is one of my major gaps when it comes to classic comic series.

Astonishing X-Men #2: Dangerous

Again, I should state clearly for the record that I'm not a huge X-Men geek, I've got limited knowledge at best based on pop culture, the movies, and a few of the comic series I've read over the years. I was given another X-Men series to read recently and I couldn't get through it - so it's a pretty big achievement to have me finishing my second trade, and promptly starting the third. What Joss appears to be doing with this series is playing "What If?" with the X-Men a little bit. The first "Gifted" posed the question, 'What if someone developed a 'cure' for the mutations?'. And this one seems to be, 'What if the Danger Room came alive?'. It's like he's testing the premise, and there's a lot of fun stuff inside of it.
The writing here is playful, and the twists and turns are sharp and well calculated. I look forward to the final two books of Joss' run.

Astonishing X-Men #1: Gifted

The X-Men have never been terribly exciting to me. I enjoyed the first two films A LOT, and like the rest of the world just shook my head at the third - but outside of that I've had very little exposure to the X-Men world. And I was given another series to read of them (sorry, can't remember which) and I couldn't get through it. But this one I liked quite a bit, and I'll continue reading along with it. I don't know what the difference was. I suppose that this one felt like a slightly easier entry point for me. I mean there's still a lot of back-story that I've been looking up while reading this, but they do a pretty good job of handling the exposition.
So this is the storyline that inspired the movie mentioned above, and it's a shame that they didn't follow it a little closer 'cause it's damn fine. The issues brought up here are far more interesting than what they did in the film and I'm curious to read further into this series to see if the idea continues along, or if they just move on from it.
So I've been converted. I'm not officially an X-Men comic reader (for this series anyway...)

1307 - Wolverine

For some reason I remember this film getting quite the flack when it first came out. I'm not sure why. I mean, it's nothing amazing or brilliant, but it's nowhere near the shitfest that was the last X-Men film. There's some logistics that I'm not sure add up, but I'm not going to be super-picky when it comes to popcorn flicks. The biggest problem with films like this that are prequels is that it loses any real sense of danger in that you know some characters are going to make it out just fine. Other than that it's a completely watchable film. Not sure it warrents a sequel - but I'm fairly curious about the Deadpool film that's currently in development - having known nothing of that character prior to watching this.