[The Le] comics-to-film reviews

[Darth Shoju]

I see the correlation in Cyclops and Aragorn.

I'm still not seeing it beyond them both being leaders.

 

[Darth Shoju]

Just to chime in about Scott Summers.

I first began reading Xbooks when X-FACTOR came out. Louise and Walter Simonson put alot of focus on Scott, and I was absolutely thrilled. He felt very human to me and was trying to balance his failed marriage, return of Jean Grey, successful/failed leadership, and his role as an Xavier minion.

All that translated into a very humanistic side of a character that people often blow off as "tightass". There is a lot of brooding there, but there is a lot going on in there.

Really Scott is a heck of a lot more than a mindless leader, and it shows quite a bit in the current Astonishing X-men run.

Wolverine, on the other hand, is a pretty boring character if you think about it. He's a man's man who drinks beer, smokes cigarettes, has claws, and doesn't have a care in the world because he has a healing factor. Sure he fights his Berserker Rage once in a while, but overall he is an incredibly 2-dimensional character. When you write about him, you are always writing about "Wolverine". I mean geez, why is he in every X-book and the Avengers book? Really, is he all that interesting? Not really. Take away the claws and you have a really uninteresting character.

However, when you write about Cyclops, you are really writing about "Scott Summers". With or without the optic blast power, he constantly struggles with his personal demons, and is still a leader to be reckoned with.

That is really the beauty of Scott Summers - he is a far more realistic and interesting than the overrated and overused "Hey Bub, I got claws" mutant that is popping up everywhere.


~LE

Well they're both stereotypes as far as I'm concerned: Cyclops is the Straight-Man while Wolverine is the Loose Cannon. Colossus is the Strong Guy, Shadowcat is the Naive Kid, Nightcrawler the Dashing Rogue, Beast is the Smart Guy, Professor X is the Wise Mentor, Angel the Cool Wealthy Guy, Ice Man the "Hot" Shot, etc.

It's tough to avoid stereotyping (particularly in comics), but the trick is in approaching the stereotype with a twist and making the character as layered as possible. Wolverine takes the Loose Cannon stereotype and adds Mysterious/Troubled Past, Lone Wolf, Tough Attitude and Cool Weapon to become a fan-favourite along the lines of Boba Fett and Drizzt. Like them, he is a decent (if shallow) character that got over-exposed due to popular demand. Frankly he's never really been my favourite character (although I don't join in with the iconoclastic hate of him either).

Other X-men characters change up their stereotypes a bit by adding interesting elements: Colossus was a gentle giant and patriotic to his native Russia; Beast was the cultured Smart Guy but was also the team's early muscle who's ability mutated to make him more tragic; Nightcrawler was a womanizing rogue but also had his religious angle as a contrast (although I didn't like how much they played that up in the movie); Storm was the brooding powerful one but had her phobia and petty criminal past to add to her character.

Now, it's great that the Simonsons gave Cyclops some extra dimensions, but he's still most often portrayed as the stick-up-the-ass leader character. In comics you need your characters to grab the attention of the casual fan that is skimming the book trying to decide if they want to buy it. I guess nothing about Cyclops has ever provoked that reaction in me. Perhaps my opinion will change when I get around to finishing off the Claremont/Byrne era of the X-men (and perhaps the work of the Simonsons since it sounds decent - I definitely loved Walt's work on Thor), but for now, he's stuck in my mind as one of the least interesting of the X-men.

But frankly, this is all just opinion. There's nothing wrong with liking Scott Summers (and ribbing aside, I hope I haven't implied otherwise).

 

[TheLe]

Now, it's great that the Simonsons gave Cyclops some extra dimensions, but he's still most often portrayed as the stick-up-the-ass leader character. In comics you need your characters to grab the attention of the casual fan that is skimming the book trying to decide if they want to buy it. I guess nothing about Cyclops has ever provoked that reaction in me. Perhaps my opinion will change when I get around to finishing off the Claremont/Byrne era of the X-men (and perhaps the work of the Simonsons since it sounds decent - I definitely loved Walt's work on Thor), but for now, he's stuck in my mind as one of the least interesting of the X-men.

But frankly, this is all just opinion. There's nothing wrong with liking Scott Summers (and ribbing aside, I hope I haven't implied otherwise).

A fair assessment of the comic characters. I'll buy that.

I highly recommend the Walt+Louise Simonson run of X-factor. Unfortunately Scott comes off as a bit whiny, but it all plays well into Louise's plan (and Cameron Hodge's). I do wish they would have kept BEAST human though -- Louise said that the first thing she wanted to do was to make him blue and fury; however, the good news is that she took her sweet old time doing it, with the awesome "beast gets stronger but dumber" storyline. This is also the the creative team that turned Warren Worthington into "Archangel" with sharp gnashing metal wings.

Dang, I am getting all excited now. I think its time to pull out my old books again to read...

`Le