schmevil: (she-hulk (smash?))
1. I'm writing something and I need make sure I've got some details correct:

In movieverse, how old is Tony Stark when his parents are killed? Are they killed in a car or plane crash? Also, he graduates MIT at 17 and takes over as CEO at 21, yes?

2. Can anyone rec me some good Emma/Charles XMFC fic?

3. I think Carol/Tasha Stark is more plausible than Carol/Tony. Thoughts?

hmm.

Nov. 29th, 2011 02:37 pm
schmevil: (jean)
Years ago I was writing a story where Tony finally decided to get some therapy. Unfortunately for Tony, the whole universe was a Skrull-induced hallucination. I backburned the story and then never got back to it, but he was supposed to be alerted to this fact by Wolverine jumping out the window of Avengers Tower, or at least, jumping out of the window was involved in the big revelatory scene. Anyway.

Now I want to harvest the core idea--Tony getting therapy--to write a movieverse story where Fury demands an evaluation (because of reasons) and rather than be analyzed by the SHIELD docs, Tony pushes for his semi-bro Charles Xavier (because of reasons). And then Charles somehow gets Tony to agree to actual therapy, and Tony is like, "But... how did that happen?" And then there's psychic therapy, and outings, and chess, and various X-Men side-eying the whole thing, and robot pets, and finally Tony upgrading Cerebro. idk, if I had more time.

Also: there should be fic where Tony creates an entire ark's worth of robot animals. Maybe I will write this fic.
schmevil: (ruby)
I'm catching up on blog and school work, and so I'm spamming the shit out of everyone on my various accounts. Sorry about that, really. Anyway!

A thing I forgot to bring up previously: Gosh, that Castiel. He sure does die a lot. You know who else dies and comes back a lot? Jean Grey. That's right, host of the Phoenix Force. Ate a planet, beat the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. So Castiel. MAYBE HE IS ACTUALLY A PHOENIX HOST!?

Someone needs to do art of this. Manip, sketch, something. I NEED IT IN MY LIFE. Although, I'm not sure why. Regardless.


We can declare this my LJ birthday, if that will help. (I just checked, there's no way to tell what the creation date of my old journal was). That would make me ten years LJ-old, if you were at all curious.
schmevil: (Default)
As an Xavier fan, should I seek out those early issues of X-Men Legacy?

Keeping in mind that Joss Whedon's take on the character kind of infuriates me. Hell, I prefer Bendis' Xavier. I have Opinions and Feelings about this character.
schmevil: (Default)
Because I'm a terrible person, naturally. But from what I've read, it seems like something was lost with the ejection of Charles' pre-Magneto travels, such as serving in the Korean War, and fighting the Shadow King. Is XMFC an AU where Charles is just inherently less adventurous, and far more complacent?
schmevil: (rosa)
I had a thought. Indulge me.

Mark Millar has a new project coming soon in Wolverine. It's called Old Man Logan. It's a future tale, about what Logan looks like, in a post-superhero world. Millar says that he was initially inspired by the superlative Unforgiven. At first that got me crazy excited, because Unforgiven is one of my all-time favourite Westerns. I thought I might be reading a Wolverine comic for the first time in years.

Then I read on. cut for spoilers, though I'm sure most of you don't care )

Now, I'm not one to call for fewer mutated freaks in my superhero comics, particularly in my X-comics, but let's face it, this can only end in tears. All criticisms of Millar aside, he's got too many disparate ideas in there to explore in the short time he's alotted - he's too ambitious, and when compressed into a short story arc, it's going to be complete and utter crack. And probably not the good kind.

Still, the idea of doing Logan's Unforgiven is imho fantastic, and it's what I want to talk about today. Unforgiven is an old story. Like A History of Violence, it tracks a criminal who's gone straight, found a family and a normal life. All is well, until some outside force invades their little slice of paradise, and starts to tear it all down. In A History of Violence, it's a chance encounter with two criminals on the run. In Unforgiven it's nature itself - the farm is failing, the children are sick, and when an offer of one last job comes along, it's too necessary (not too good) to refuse. Both movies are about how you can't outrun your past, and you can't outwit fate.

There's also the non-criminal version of the story, which you can find in 3:10 To Yuma and so many other movies. Really, it's one of THE Western stories. It's a story about masculinity, humanity, duty and loss. And if you hadn't guessed, it's a story I'll never get tired of.

Now imagine a many years post-superhero world. Logan has turned his swords into ploughshares and for a time he's happy, until something goes wrong. Something forces him back into the world he chose to leave behind, too tired, too exhausted morally, spiritually and physically to keep on saving the day.

Break him down, and what Logan is, is a cowboy. He's a character type that's very much at home in Westerns.

Logan's abilities, both natural and acquired, are all of the body, they're all very human - the character is the antithesis of everything technological. So many of his stories have him outwitting technological solutions to the special problem he poses, or having his enhanced senses turn out to be superior to some new gadget. His eternal dilemma is controlling those pesky berserker rages he's plagued with - the monkey on his back is his own animal nature, which constantly threatens to overtake his human reason.

And then there's his character - his affinity for dying traditional cultures, particularly that of Japan; his contradictory needs for solitude, and then human society, just to keep him sane; his personal code of honor, that he's willing to overlook, if the need is great enough; his love of the simple pleasures; his willingness to be talked into sacrificing it all for the greater good, even when he doubts the existence of a greater good.

He's nostalgia, pure and simple. *** Everything about the character recalls to us a bygone era that never was. A time when men were men, and life was nasty, brutish and short. But sometimes, if only briefly, beautiful.

Read more... )
schmevil: (xander)
Found this via [livejournal.com profile] majingojira at SD. Animated ASX #1. It's actually pretty good, though the voice acting is a bit flat.

sticking it behind a cut because it's gigantic )

Continuing from my anti-Joss screed - it's not that I hate Joss Whedon. He's one of my fav creators and I enjoy the vast majority of his work. It's that I hate what he did with the X-Men, and a lot of it starts right there in ASX #1, with his characterization of Kitty. "Everything's the same. Nothing's changed." That's basically Joss' mantra in regards to X-Men.

It doesn't help that imo, he gets Kitty wrong, right from the start. He's writing 80's Kitty. New Mutants Kitty. She shouldn't be surprised at being asked to join the main X-team or the school's teaching staff and she definitely shouldn't question her status as 'a fighter'. She's not a junior X-person. She's lead her own team. She's paid her dues. On that team she's second only to Logan in fighting ability, and Hank in smarts. Kitty is not cute, youthful, comic relief.

To be fair, I appreciated that he picked up on her previous relationship with Emma, and had Kitty remain doubtful about her hero-ness. That's as it should be. Kitty should carry a lot of resentment about Emma's usurpation of Jean and Ororo's place in the X mansion. That's natural. It started to grate on me when I realized that the only one who was really going to question Emma, was Kitty. A little too cat-fight-y for my tastes.

In general, the feel of ASX was right. I liked the jokes, the pacing in terms of issues (though not in terms of arcs), and the sense of history he imbued everything with. Joss gets that the X world is rich one, and he does a good job of exploiting some of it. And I have to admit that Agent Brand gave me endless entertainment.

If there's one other thing that really put me off of ASX, aside from it just not working for me, it's Danger. I'm not a member of the Church of Saint Xavier of Westchester, but that arc didn't work for me at all. I found Danger herself to be thinly characterized and Xavier's motives insufficiently explored. It's not enough for me to just say he did it for his students. The whole Vulcan/Krakoa hoohaw I've heard about, but not yet read, has the same problem - if you're going to tell me that Xavier will commit crimes against sentience? You have to do more than say it was for his students.

ymmv but my Xavier isn't evil.

Anyway, here's the thing - I think that Joss is wrong for the main X-team. According to the sales figures, this is an unusual opinion. *g* But I think he's at his strongest writing youths and outcasts. What Morrison left behind was not a situation that played to Joss' strengths.

What drives it home for me, is how often he used Kitty as his focal character. And how often his plots involved the X-Men being out of their depth.

***

Now, on a related topic, I certainly didn't mean to personally offend anyone with yesterday's post. (Except Joss, who will probably be put off, should he happen to read it. Sorry dude, I love you but Kitty - what the HELL man?) Although rereading it, I can sort of see how it might, possibly, ok probably annoy someone who really liked ASX.

Mea maxima culpa - I didn't mean to harsh anyone's squee by getting my hate on.
schmevil: (zatana)
Packing for the Crash (The Black Brothers Variation), a remix of Salt the Earth
Harry Potter, Gen, Regulus Black
If he lives through this, maybe Sirius will be happy to see him.

I went and reread Salt the Earth, after the reading the remix. I wrote it four years ago, so you have to forgive me for not remembering the exact details. *g* Holy zombie Jesus - I'm making it my project for the summer to edit my old fics for typos. Yikes.

So the remix is fab. My remixer shifter the pov to Regulus, and took a look at his own leave taking from Grimmauld Place. I like how it works as a remix - it's both a sequel, and another take on the original story. And it's just a nice read. S/he's got a great Regulus voice, and has their relationship down.

I've only just started reading the stories, but so far I've liked:

Goldfish Bowl (Glass Houses remix)
X-Men Movieverse, Bobby/Rogue
It's hard being normal in the goldfish bowl.

Sweet, with good Bobby characterization.

Weasleys Wizard Wheezes: The Ministry Disapproved Edition (The Liability Remix)
Harry Potter, Gen, Percy
From the Desk of Percival Ignatius Weasley, Concerning the twins' latest product line.

Ok, seriously - hilarious. Percy takes a look at his brothers' catalog.

Double Act (The Straight Man Stand-In Remix)
House, Adult, House/Foreman
Whatever it was, it wasn't with Wilson.

Understated, despite how these two can bring the drama. And hot.


I completely forget everything else I was going to write about. Huh.
schmevil: (domino (skull))
So I just spreed through Grant Morrison's New X-Men and I'm left with an overwhelming feeling of... huh. His ideas, while interesting and fun, often work against the X-Men mythos, to the point where his run is destructive of the brand. It's easy to see why they decided to retcon and overwrite quite a lot of his Big Ideas, and chose Joss Whedon as his successor. I'm just starting Whedon's run but it's far more in line with the X brand than is Morrison's - it's
very much what the company needed, in order to keep the the property viable.

* And I say this knowing that he brought in new readers. I question whether they were the kind of readers Marvel could milk for 20 years though.

The problem with Morrison's run is that it tried to change the world of the X-Men in a way that was incompatible with the shared Marvel Universe, and that severely limited the kind of day-to-day superheroics that keep a franchise plugging along, decade after decade. Morrison's run was a reinvention, and really freakin' cool reinvention at that, but I quite often got the impression that he didn't really like the X-Men.

Characterization was painfully thin at times, sacrificed in favour of plot, and the run is largely devoid of quiet, team moments. And it's those quiet moments that really make a teambook work - this is a team that can barely stand to be in the same room together for any period of time. Which is fine, in and of itself, but I'm not even talking about the tension between Jean and Emma - Morrison is really focused on one-to-one dynamics, and hardly interested in the group.

yay and nay )

July 2012

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